How do YOU think about the lack of modding capabilities in Civ5?

After shelving Civ5 for a few months (I've been playing Civ4 mods instead, heh) I started checking out Civ5 mods again a couple of days ago, and I find there's not much happening on that front.
There are numerous ambitious projects, but at the time being, they can go nowhere, because there are so many roadbumps when it comes to modding.
Nobody expects an epic mod like FfH to be out after only a few months, but as it stands, there's SO many simple things you just cannot do, from using your own sounds to using your own 3D model for a building, to many supposedly simple things like map changes (terrain type, minor/AI player behavior etc.) ... the list goes on and on.

A number of patches for the game has been released, but the modding capabilities remain unchanged - Nexus still has not been patched to fix the import/export issues, so one can only come to the conclusion that it's been broken intentionally.

Before the game, Civ5's modding capabilities have been cheered up and compared to that of StarCraft 2, where people go about and make platformers or shooters out of the RTS game. Say what you want, but compared to SC2, Civ5 modding is in a pretty sorry state.

Question is, how do YOU feel about the lack of modding capabilities?
I'm pretty p*ssed - I didn't expect an SDK release straight away, but I fully expected basic stuff like using custom models, leaderheads etc. and a lot of the scripting stuff that doesn't actually work to be usable ootb.

What's your take? How does this situation affect Civ5?

Sure, there are limitations for the more complicated items, and I suppose stacked against something like SC2, it looses.

For people who aren't programmers though, Civ5 is easily the most accessible game for modding that I have played.

For the programmers, it is only a matter of time for the dll. Of course I hope it drops sometime in the next few months. Until then, I will keep pumping out content in anticipation of it.

They have added GameEvents for behaviour modding, which look pretty powerful, but the nearest thing we have to documentation for them so far is the scenario in the Spain/Inca DLC... if the events used in that scenario represent the range and scale of all the events available, and they all have a similar range of arguments (and return values, which is cool), then it should be very powerful. It should be possible to get a list of all of the events defined in GameEvents, but that doesn't help much with the semantics, and certainly not the arguments and returns.

ho, I should check that scenario then, they were also some interestings examples in the mongol DLC...

And so far, I agree, it's more the documentation on available functions that bother me, the modding capability is already good (but still far from perfect, more because of broken features than lack of them...), and I'm sure we may see some great mods out before the full SDK

To add one more thing, you CAN edit terrain type. It works just fine, in terms of gameplay; the only headache is that the graphics won't update until the next time you enter the game. In my mod I've got terraforming that raises and lowers hills, changes deserts/tundras into plains/grassland, and so on. If I really care about seeing the new terrain I'll just save and reload.

I'm not saying I wouldn't be happy to see some new functions (like a map refresh!), but even without the full DLL access there's still a lot we can do.

I think the points you mention would be easily fixed by allowing mods a full "reload game data", which is, coincidentally, necessary to load a DLL.

Why this has not been built into the game from the ground up for something that is harped on about as a "tribute to modders" and such in videos is beyond my comprehension, mind.

Hopefully my voice means something here still -

I know a lot of people are expecting the SDK release to fix the real modding issues, but I have doubts. The artwork and graphic engines will remain proprietary and Firaxis will never let modders anywhere it so I can't see modders fixing the issues adding new building art or audio.

Those limitations will make Civilization 5 ultimately worth very little for modding.

Firaxis certainly has a lot to answer for.

Afforess said:

Hopefully my voice means something here still -

I know a lot of people are expecting the SDK release to fix the real modding issues, but I have doubts. The artwork and graphic engines will remain proprietary and Firaxis will never let modders anywhere it so I can't see modders fixing the issues adding new building art or audio.

Those limitations will make Civilization 5 ultimately worth very little for modding.

Firaxis certainly has a lot to answer for.

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Are they using proprietary file formats or is it simply a matter of not being able to load them?

Both!

I have no doubt some modders will eventually find tricky workarounds for much of the remaining issues - otherwise, it's either a Firaxis call for eventual release of the essential tools or their loss.

But i have to agree, they trumpeted a Title with great possibilities to Modding... and, we're still waiting for the most basic core features. DLL & 3D modeling comes to mind.

For what it's worth, I never got anywhere with modding in Civ4.

For whatever reason, be it funding, layoffs, business model, or just plain bad executive decisions, I think Civ5 would be about dead already were it not for its preexisting following. That would be tragic because the way I see it, we're staring at a real diamond in the rough.

The community has made a lot of progress lately. We can save complex data across saved games, share data across concurrent mods, build modular and compatible game screens, and have at least discussed many of the remaining issues.

Perhaps at some point we'll reach a critical mass. Still got a pulse anyway.

I find that modding in Civ 4 was easier, but that's because I use only XML and can do nothing with Lua.
And bugs where easier to find in Civ 4 with the error messages while loading the game (or there is a tool in Civ 5 and I didn't find it!).


What disturbs me is more what we have lost since Civ 4 (religion , spies, corporations, pollution from buildings,...) than the limitations in modding.

Those limitations are disturbing because whithout them some big projects could be finished (Procylon's call to Power, D.U.C.K.S. ...) and that would make Civ 5 as good as Civ 4.

After 5 years one can think Nr.5 would be as big as Nr. 4 + addons and some new feature. But we are far from this !

My fear is that Firaxis is restraining the modding possibilities because they don't want the community to add some feature that they have planned to sell.

Best example is Spain : how is it to explain that this Civ was not in the vanilla package when it played a major role in history?

Either is Firaxis lazy and sell unfinished games or they plan to make some money with DLCs!

Hulfgar, it's a new game, with some fundamentally changed mechanics; there's good and bad sides to this that can be argued over, but it does mean that they can't just copy concepts, much less code, over from the last game. Games aren't usually like productivity apps; the codebase of consecutive versions of an office program will be significantly connected, but this isn't usually the case with games. The usual term for such connections in games nowadays seems to be "standalone expansion", which is a weird term, but what the hell...

I think that the disproportionately low ammount of "Dealbreaker" votes is on account of the fact that the people who hated the Civ5 SDK are still modding Civ4 (Myself included). I'm just visiting.

Either is Firaxis lazy and sell unfinished games or they plan to make some money with DLCs!

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Hmmm... I started thinking that too. Good riddance, John Shafer!

Firaxis certainly has a lot to answer for.

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Couldn't agree more.

note: Affortress! So that's where you went! You are sorely missed in Civ4 C&C.

@Whys

I'm not quite as optimistic as you. I was a lurker back when Civ4 vanilla was out, and you could use new 3-d graphics for leaders, units, and buildings right of out the gate. Python scripting worked 100% (and allowed I/O operations - the same can not be said of the watered down version of Lua in Civ5). Most of the simple Civ4 python mods that came out right away were a lot better than the Lua mods we've seen so far.

Civ5 is dying on the operating table, and Firaxis is still outside smoking on the porch.

Voyhkah said:

note: Afforess! So that's where you went! You are sorely missed in Civ4 C&C.

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I moved over to Minecraft Server modifications, and became a big hit over there. C++ experience translates pretty well into Java. I still have a special place in my heart for Civ4 though. Civ4 modding pretty much changed my life.

Afforess said:

@Whys

I'm not quite as optimistic as you. I was a lurker back when Civ4 vanilla was out, and you could use new 3-d graphics for leaders, units, and buildings right of out the gate.

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well, remembering the time it as taken to see the firt units models for Civ4, then we're still "right of out the gate" for civ5.

What's really frustrating is that we have the tools to do a lot more than what we can now, but they are broken or not documented enough to be usefull.

I totally agree when you say that's not the full SDK access that will allow us to fix the graphic tools issues, but at least it could help to fix the gameplay issues.

And IMO we can already do really interesting mods, even without full SDK, so I'm confident we'll have great mods before a few months.

Finally, as I see it, if there's in your opinion a relative lack of interesting civ5 mods yet, maybe it's because of the game itself, not the modding capabilities... For example in civ4, you did't have to think on how to give the "on more turn" feel to your mod, it was already in the vanilla game, and the existing gameplay mechanism was a godd base to work on... For civ5, well, ...

Afforess said:

@Whys

I'm not quite as optimistic as you. I was a lurker back when Civ4 vanilla was out, and you could use new 3-d graphics for leaders, units, and buildings right of out the gate. Python scripting worked 100% (and allowed I/O operations - the same can not be said of the watered down version of Lua in Civ5). Most of the simple Civ4 python mods that came out right away were a lot better than the Lua mods we've seen so far.

Civ5 is dying on the operating table, and Firaxis is still outside smoking on the porch.



I moved over to Minecraft Server modifications, and became a big hit over there. C++ experience translates pretty well into Java. I still have a special place in my heart for Civ4 though. Civ4 modding pretty much changed my life.

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I hear you Afforess, and I'm no optimist. I think your Op table makes a great example. But I am committed to making Civ5 work. The developers could completely drop it at this point without ever releasing the DLLs, and though I would be horribly disappointed, and likely a lonely modder in a lonely community, I'd still be here, shovel in hand.

I love Java, BTW. I once wrote a multi threaded java server that could be run thru a web page, synchronize all clients, and be used as both server and client simultaneously. I never actually used it for anything. Just wrote it for the love of the language.

Java is incredibly strict, making bad code hard to write. I really like that.

edit: oh and to be fair, I wouldn't say they are smoking on the porch. But the ScriptData fiasco would seem to suggest they don't know a helping hand when they see one.

I have not, and will not buy the game simply because of this issue.

I agree with Whys on a lot of this. I see Civ V as a game with POTENTIAL. I've focused most of my modding efforts thus far on helping ease compatibility issues and help with building community standards. The problem in many ways is the graphics issues. People want to SEE the changes in their games. It comes as not surprise to me that the Call to Power Project is far and away the most popular mod, given its scope and scale of new goodies. Given that we lack a sweet city screen ala Civ III and terrain and landmarks not being loadable at current time, it really hurts. Still, in this environment, some beautiful modding has come out, and as pathetic it is to say it, the future of the game rests primarily within the hands of the modders, given the pace Firaxis is currently on in dealing with vanilla.

Civ V for me has been a bit of a let down. i was expecting so much more to the game. i do like some of the changes they made from Civ IV. taking out religion, espionage and the corporations for starters. over all the game experience is flat though, just seeming to lack depth and substance. there have been some good mods come out already though which gives me hope, if they ever really let the modders in then this could be a really awesome game.

I have been avoiding cracking open the game and looking at the code, i did that in civ III and IV and am not ready to start up again just yet. i enjoyed working with xml before though i hated the python, maybe lua will be more forgiving

You know it's funny, the reason some people really love python, tends to be the same reason some people really hate it. Mostly it's too cookie cutter. Indentation as code? That might not sound like such a big deal, until you've programmed in 3 or 4 different languages. Then it becomes an aggravating bit of well intentioned none sense.

I spend a lot of time working in PHP these days. Definitely one of the more fluid scripting languages. And telling me how to indent my code is like getting an "enhanced" pat down. Don't touch my whitespace!

Lua, on the third hand, is psychedelic fluid, with a whole heap of syntactical sugar on top. I'm honestly hesitant. I like structure; I need structure; my first class was a structure! Go too deep, might get lost in all the scopes, and then it stops being fun. Suddenly you find yourself rocking catatonically in a corner of the room, while whimpers of "I just want my Java" pass thru quivering lips.

Or is that just me?