Civilization V DLL Source Code coming with Fall Patch

[2K Greg]

Hey guys,

I announced this over in the General Discussion forum, but I figured I would toss a thread up here for modders and mod users specifically:

The "Fall Patch" of Civilization V will also mark the release of the DLL source code, allowing modders to compile their own DLLs for use in their mods.

[3335d]

This is excellent news for modders! Can't wait until the Fall Patch.

[S3rgeus]

YEEEEES!!! Ahem, I mean, thank you very much!

[FiresForever]

Great news!!!

[Gedemon]

Ok, time to read some C++ tutorial

[Craig_Sutter]

I hope the results will be mod friendly (ie. I won't have to replace core files to play mods, but may use modules of some sort.)

I'm supremely ignorant about this type of thing, btw.

[trystero49]

This is awesome. Thanks to 2K/Firaxis.

[Androrc the Orc]

Awesome

Originally Posted by Craig_Sutter

I hope the results will be mod friendly (ie. I won't have to replace core files to play mods, but may use modules of some sort.)

They made it possible for mods to have their own DLLs in the last patch. What we lacked so far was access to the DLL source code in order to actually modify it.

[Pazyryk]

Thank you!

[Dunkah]

Trying to figure out exactly what this means for modders. I do a bit of programming but have never done any modding. But follow the modding community regularly.

Does this allow the actual changing of the underlying rules?
Will this allow the upgrading of the AI's behavior?

[PawelS]

Originally Posted by Dunkah

Does this allow the actual changing of the underlying rules?
Will this allow the upgrading of the AI's behavior?

Yes, it will allow any changes to the gameplay rules. It's not the source code of the entire game, but it should contain all the code that affects gameplay.

[Farsight]

Are we finally going to be able to add diplomacy music with this?

[deanej]

Maybe. Depends on how much of the audio system is included in the DLL.

[DonQuiche]

@2k Greg
Thank you for coming by and spreading the news.
No need to say it is a very exciting announcement.

Originally Posted by Dunkah

Trying to figure out exactly what this means for modders. I do a bit of programming but have never done any modding. But follow the modding community regularly.

Does this allow the actual changing of the underlying rules?
Will this allow the upgrading of the AI's behavior?

In essence, yes, it will allow mods to perform deeper modifications, such as the one related to gameplay and AI. Actually it gives mods the ability to rewrite a part of the civ5 engine (half of it roughly, and the most interesting half from a modder's pov, the other one being the rendering engine and such).

Now there is a big catch: this is not modular, so if two mods each bundle their modified version of the dll, you can only use one of them (although you can have both installed). Also, those mods will likely not be available from the Steam workshop since they escape the little sandbox we used to be confined in.

For those reasons and for the example, while IGE could benefit of it to fix a couple of bugs and allow more features, I may not use this freedom so that you can still use it with other mods that really need that power. Or maybe I will submit a patch that dll creators may or may not apply to their own versions and let IGE detect whether the dll includes my patch or not, so that IGE can take advantage of my modifications when available.

[DonQuiche]

Originally Posted by deanej

Maybe. Depends on how much of the audio system is included in the DLL.

The audio system is typically not something implemented in the game core dll. However it is very likely that the audio system exposes an API to the game core dll. So, yes, I guess we will now be able to play whatever sound we want and whenever we want.

[DonQuiche]

Remainder for a very worthwhile suggestion made some time ago: call for a central git repository for collaborations on the dll

[Putmalk]

With the release of the DLL, what are some things we'll be able to do that we won't be able to do before?

Besides modify the AI behavior, of course.

[DonQuiche]

Originally Posted by Putmalk

With the release of the DLL, what are some things we'll be able to do that we won't be able to do before?

Besides modify the AI behavior, of course.

We do not know exactly what the dll contains and even if we did no one could provide a good list: what can you do with screws, wires and steel plates?
And we are not even sure that the AI is defined in the dll.

[Putmalk]

Originally Posted by DonQuiche

We do not know exactly what the dll contains and even if we did no one could provide an exhaustive list: what can you do with screws, wires and steel plates?
And we are not even sure that the AI is defined in the dll.

Mhmm. Okay.

What did the Civ 4 DLL source contain?

[Androrc the Orc]

Originally Posted by Putmalk

With the release of the DLL, what are some things we'll be able to do that we won't be able to do before?

Besides modify the AI behavior, of course.

If the Civ4 DLL is to go by, then there is little that can't be done, as long as you want the game to remain a TBS game. The issue, of course, is that more complicated DLL modifications take a large degree of work.