CBP Compatible (And scaled) New Civs

Hey all, I'm new to the Civilisation V Modding scene and want to post here to see what the general desire would be for a project I want to start.

Basically, I've noticed that when playing on the CBP, a lot of custom Civs from the steam workshop or around the internet are either non-compatible, or very under-powered in comparison to the buffed up Original 43 civs. So, I thought it could be a cool idea to have some new civilisations added to the game via modding that are made specifically for use with the CBP. Obviously, as the CBP is ever-changing, these mods would have to be updated and scaled with it as things balance out. I want to keep these new civilisations competitive but not overpowered in regards to the other buffed civs already included in the CBP.

So the first question I have: Has this already been done? I don't want to start up a new series of civilisations for the CBP if there is already someone or a group working on it.

Second, I want to know whether or not there is even a desire for these civilisations to be made. Does the CBP community want new civs added such as the Inuit, Afganistan, or everybody's favourite, another European civ?


Third, if this starts to become a thing, is there anyone who would want to pitch in? If I do this, I would like to start threads for brainstorming ideas on civs as a way to get the entire cbp community's opinion before I make each one, but if anyone wants to help specifically (like working on the art for example) then say you're interested or send me a message. I have a bunch of ideas for a variety of civs, but I'm not going to finalise anything the community as a whole disagrees with.

Anyway, that's all I really wanted to ask. I'm looking forward to spending time here, whether it be as a creator or a user!

This have been brought up before (by me, among others), and I don't think anything came up from it. I think the big problem is that CBP just isn't big enough to create that heavy separate content for. I mean custom civs are a lot of work, art, models, ideas, balancing, theme, walls of text. If you skimp out on any of it people are going to think you're lazy.
Honestly, even if you put down a ton of work into it and make it awesome in every way, people are probably still going to complain about lack of voice-over or non-animated leader-screens.

Another issue is that the one starting the project pretty much have to be able to do everything by himself to show that he is serious enough before anyone would put time into helping him out.


All that being said, if you need someone to bounce ideas off, I usually don't have anything better to do.

You could take some of the existing Civ packs and make them compatible?
Colonial Legacies was one I looked at quite some time ago, sadly things have moved on quite a pace since I last looked at that, so I have no idea how they stand now.

ExpiredReign said:

You could take some of the existing Civ packs and make them compatible?
Colonial Legacies was one I looked at quite some time ago, sadly things have moved on quite a pace since I last looked at that, so I have no idea how they stand now.

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I think that would be a bit untoward.

@ExpiredReign and JFD: Yeah, I thought about reworking some old mods but it didn't feel right. Even if the original authors were totally okay with it, I'm not sure I'd want to change someone else's project.

@Funak: do you mean the community isn't big enough or the actual patch itself? I think the CBP itself is very strong and changes/improves a lot of cool things in Civ. As for the community, well, I guess I kind of assumed it was fairly large given that the product itself changed so much about the base game.

I'm personally prepared to do pretty much anything to make these mods, I'm decent with programming and I've been working with digital art for a while now. I have a lot of history major friends who I bounce ideas off of as it is for leader intro speeches and the like. But if nobody wants them, then I guess it doesnt matter haha.

Funak said:

This have been brought up before (by me, among others), and I don't think anything came up from it. I think the big problem is that CBP just isn't big enough to create that heavy separate content for. I mean custom civs are a lot of work, art, models, ideas, balancing, theme, walls of text. If you skimp out on any of it people are going to think you're lazy.
Honestly, even if you put down a ton of work into it and make it awesome in every way, people are probably still going to complain about lack of voice-over or non-animated leader-screens.

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15k downloads of the current official version beg to differ.

G

Gazebo said:

15k downloads of the current official version beg to differ.

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What I meant was that no matter how many users you have here, there are more people who play without CBP, so if you're going to design a civ and make sure the maximum number of people play it, you should probably aim at non-CBP.

Also, those 15k also includes people only using just CP, doesn't it?

Funak said:

What I meant was that no matter how many users you have here, there are more people who play without CBP, so if you're going to design a civ and make sure the maximum number of people play it, you should probably aim at non-CBP.

Also, those 15k also includes people only using just CP, doesn't it?

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Yep, full auto installer downloads, so actual CP/CBP playtime figures are obscured. Still, custom civs for the CBP should probably be BNW compatible as well (if you make the civ based on the CP - i.e. so you can use new functionality from the CP - that'd still give you a large market).

G

Gazebo said:

Yep, full auto installer downloads, so actual CP/CBP playtime figures are obscured. Still, custom civs for the CBP should probably be BNW compatible as well (if you make the civ based on the CP - i.e. so you can use new functionality from the CP - that'd still give you a large market).

G

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Hmm, it shouldn't be too hard to make them compatible with CP + BNW after making them for CBP. You would just have to modify the tech requirements and obsoletes, as well as change any uniques that replace CBP new stuff to replacing something from the base units/buildings at the right tech. And then balancing would make UA's a bit different but still doable.

Gazebo said:

Yep, full auto installer downloads, so actual CP/CBP playtime figures are obscured. Still, custom civs for the CBP should probably be BNW compatible as well (if you make the civ based on the CP - i.e. so you can use new functionality from the CP - that'd still give you a large market).

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That gives you the exact same problem as when importing custom civs to CBP, CBP civs are generally more powerful and uses more weird mechanics than vanilla civ5. Not to mention that it would pretty much automatically disqualify any uniques using cbp specific units/buildings, which is pretty boring.

All that being said I want to make it clear that I'm not opposed to this at all (and even if I was, I hardly matter ), I wish I had a bunch of ideas loaded up for you, but I'm still struggling with the Ottoman and the Egyptians here. Then again I've got a ton of rejected designs just lying spread around the leader balance subforum if you feel like going on a scavenging hunt.

JFD said:

I think that would be a bit untoward.

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Sorry, I didn't mean takeover an existing mod and repackage it as "CBP compatible", I was thinking of providing just the changed files to make it compatible. Similar to the EUI compatibility files. That way the existing mod still needs to be installed and those authors will still get all the credit they deserve. BTW from my meagre dealings with the Colonial Legacies guys, I got the impression they were willing to help. That was some time ago though.

Funak said:

That gives you the exact same problem as when importing custom civs to CBP, CBP civs are generally more powerful and uses more weird mechanics than vanilla civ5. Not to mention that it would pretty much automatically disqualify any uniques using cbp specific units/buildings, which is pretty boring.

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I was thinking that for any unique that involved mechanics or units or buildings that are introduced in the CBP could be switched to the closet BNW equivalent. So like if I made a Grocer replacement I could change it to like a special market/granary etc. It obviously wouldn't be perfect, but it would allow people to play it without CBP.

ExpiredReign said:

Sorry, I didn't mean takeover an existing mod and repackage it as "CBP compatible", I was thinking of providing just the changed files to make it compatible. Similar to the EUI compatibility files. That way the existing mod still needs to be installed and those authors will still get all the credit they deserve. BTW from my meagre dealings with the Colonial Legacies guys, I got the impression they were willing to help. That was some time ago though.

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IIRC, CL - Neirai, at least - has stated that they won't be supporting CBP themselves.

Of course, there's always my civs, which I intend to keep as compatible with the CBP. And if there are completely different designs for when using the CBP, then I'd be up for that as well.

JFD said:

IIRC, CL - Neirai, at least - has stated that they won't be supporting CBP themselves.

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That's a shame, but understandable. Any idea why?

G

To quote the CL government:

Neirai said:

Honest answer: my copy of CivV has... quirks. It's different than the one my wife has and I have no idea why. But as part of that, certain mods refuse to work (although CBP being in beta may explain why it didn't work) and I have no way to test against them.

No testing == no support.

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TPangolin said:

The CBP changes an absolutely extreme amount of things that making them compatible would be a nightmare, especially since we have little to no experience with the CBP in general.

We aim to support the Community Patch at the very least, but it might be worth asking the creators of the CBP how to make things compatible as opposed to the other way around

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CBP support requires some SQL tricks that puts most off adding it to their civs. And for the More Civs Republic, which still uses the heretical XML, I wager it's unimaginable

Truthfully speaking @JFD's civs are all anyone needs, IMO.
Shame about the CL mods, which then makes my initial suggestion all the more pertinent, someone here can make compatibility patches if they so desire.

JFD said:

To quote the CL government:






CBP support requires some SQL tricks that puts most off adding it to their civs. And for the More Civs Republic, which still uses the heretical XML, I wager it's unimaginable

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Makes sense. The CL guys/gals should know that they can always reach out to me if they need something.

A big task of mine (in coming weeks) is to convert all CBP XML to SQL, re-organize and sanitize it a bit, and improve my in-mod documentation. Part of this will be improved 3rd party (4th party? ) mod compatibility. When I get to this point, I may call in a favor with you and improve the CBP's ability to handle custom civs (using your own experience thus far as a boost).

G

Gazebo said:

Makes sense. The CL guys/gals should know that they can always reach out to me if they need something.

A big task of mine (in coming weeks) is to convert all CBP XML to SQL, re-organize and sanitize it a bit, and improve my in-mod documentation. Part of this will be improved 3rd party (4th party? ) mod compatibility. When I get to this point, I may call in a favor with you and improve the CBP's ability to handle custom civs (using your own experience thus far as a boost).

G

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I'll be at your service as needed, your Codeliness.

Ah, JFD, are all of your civilisations made to be compatible with CBP?? I wasn't trying to steal your thunder!

Yeah, that's what I thought. I believe JFD's civs are all compatible with CBP.