ModCast Episode 62: "Buttering Up"

DanQ

Owner, Civilized Communication
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Oct 24, 2000
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Pass the salt. The Season 8 premiere and sixty-second episode of ModCast is now netcasting. Entitled "Buttering Up" with a runtime of 49m34s, features regular co-hosts Rob "Rob (R8XFT)" Riley, Jett "TPangolin", Jan "Janboruta" Boruta and Scott "AlphaShard" Dirk with first-time guest co-host William "whoward69".

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 02m41s | Modding Spotlight
Everything but the kitchen sink of Civilization V modding is possible through "Pick'N'Mix Mods".
- 16m56s | Cartography Room
Food, culture and the open seas all feature in the Malaysian civilization as a latest addition to the "Colonialist Legacies" series.
- 19m16s | Miscellaneous
How the modding experience of Civilization V and Civilization: Beyond Earth has, and still is, informing perceptions about what to reasonably expect come a would-be Civilization VI.
- 33m44s | Mailbag
Highlights and responses to the 2015 ModCast Listener Feedback Survey.

ModCast is the first spin-off of the Civ strategy-centric PolyCast; fellow sibling TurnCast focuses on Civ multiplay.
 
GASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!PPpP1pPP!P!PPP!P!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ERMAGERSH
ITS WHOWARD
WHOWARD
WHOWARD
WHOWARD
WHOWARD
WHOWARD


Now JFD must eat his words :D
unless Whoward enters into a war against Firaxis, he's not going to provide his voice to us mere mortals.

Unfortunately, I don't have headphones with me, and I'm sure no one around me particularly wants to hear an hour of the God of Modding's speech, so I can scarcely make any useful comments for the moment. :p
Nevermind! Borrowed some earbuds from someone. Giving it a listen now!
 
<HoursLater>0.8621111111111111111111111111111111111111111111</HoursLater>
(For those of you wondering, that's 49m34s/60m.)

Well, I don't know what I imagined whoward would sound like, but it wasn't that. :p

But TIL that you can change UI offset values in FireTuner... I feel silly for having not thought of that before. :blush: Will do forever from now on.

BTW, I support the following changes to WAtM:
Add Moderators as a civ, give them a UA called "Moderator Action" and make it whoward's current UA. Keep whoward's UA as Pick'n'Mix, but make the new effect, "choose 2 UA effects from a pool of effects compiled from all other active civilizations' UAs. This compound UA may be changed at any time."
Would be unbelievably cool. :D

Also, what's this about cats and British accents?
 
"I think that if ever a mortal heard the word of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day modding forum on a Sunday morning."

Unfortunately getting a 'error opening file' message. Perhaps I am unworthy?

But TIL that you can change UI offset values in FireTuner... I feel silly for having not thought of that before. :blush: Will do forever from now on.

You haven't been doing: change UI in ModBuddy/Notepad++, build Project, load Game, find one 1 pixel off, Quit, change UI, in ModBuddy/Notepad++, build Project, loading Game, find one 1 pixel off,, etc. all this time? :eek:
 
Unfortunately getting a 'error opening file' message. Perhaps I am unworthy?
The DLL-God doesn't approve of his cult having only the status of Imperial co-state religion, equal with SQLism. You must purge the Empire of the heathen newfangled database faith.
You haven't been doing: change UI in ModBuddy/Notepad++, build Project, load Game, find one 1 pixel off, Quit, change UI, in ModBuddy/Notepad++, build Project, loading Game, find one 1 pixel off,, etc. all this time? :eek:
In my case, it's more like: make UI, build project, load game, find everything stacked on top of each other in top-left corner of my screen, text keys all wrong and the main grid being a lovely stark white box, quit, + or -100 pixels to everything plus change a few anchors, reload game, suddenly there's an iguana, ragequit, put the project on hiatus for 2 months. :p
When I release my next civ, remind me to post the picture I have of UI difficulties.
 
<HoursLater>0.8621111111111111111111111111111111111111111111</HoursLater>
(For those of you wondering, that's 49m34s/60m.)
Nerdom approved.

:D

Also, what's this about cats and British accents?
It's a reference to an earlier attempt in January to record this episode but did not come about.

because you made SQLism an official religion alongside the Cult of the DLL God; the Way of Dan is the way to win
:lol:

So long as it doesn't interfere with Condorism, you are fine. (This is a reference to an 80s cartoon.)

Unfortunately getting a 'error opening file' message. Perhaps I am unworthy?
Try repeating your steps to listen again; if the problem is persisting, let me know in follow-up what you clicked on and where in your attempt to listen.
 
Oops, I transposed a digit. :p
According to this script:
Spoiler :
Code:
function cts(h,m,s)
return ((3600*h) + (60*m) + s)
end

print(cts(0,49,34)/cts(1,0,0))
"cts" stands for "convert to seconds"

It should be <HoursLater>0.82611111111111</HoursLater>, not <HoursLater>0.86211111111111</HoursLater>

Anyway, that's a digression.

As for the episode, what can I say... I honestly just liked listening to whoward and the dry British humor. The rest of it, I think, was just kind of... eh. For all we speculate about Civ6 modding, 1) it doesn't even exist yet, and 2) do we have any real clue as to how it will work? I suspect not. We might go into it thinking we'll just port all our civ5 civs into civ6 format, but I suspect, with Firaxis' track record of "moddability" being what it is, that that will end up being much less doable than we hope. Consequently, I would have to start from scratch, which I have no desire to do.

While I don't know the real reason why Civ6 modding discussion doesn't interest me, that's my best guess.
 
I can change my avatar again now ;)

[Edit: It was a minion wearing a headset]
 
Unfortunately getting a 'error opening file' message. Perhaps I am unworthy?
I was afraid it was me because I have been having troubles with my computer lately. Glad (if that's the correct word, JFD) it is not just me.

[off the rails -- I'm sure Dan just loves these:]
Spoiler :
I found when playing along with W.Howard's UI tutorials that if you change the code within the 'context' xml the game applies the alterations instantaneously, without having to reload in any way. At least it did for the simple stuff in tutorial 1 and 2.

Dan, I'll have another go and see if I get the same result again.

W.Howard (our modding friend, mentor, teacher, coach, font-of-info, bailer-out-from-code-troubles-when-it-just-doesn't-work-:cry: ) being on the modcast was long overdue, I think. I guess it just took a long time for Rob to con William into doing it :)

[edit for more info for Dan:]Yeah, I am following the same procedure in IE11 and getting the same error message as JFD notes in post #10
 
I was afraid it was me because I have been having troubles with my computer lately. Glad (if that's the correct word, JFD) it is not just me.

I managed to listen here. Don't remember how I got there, though :p

@DanQ Attempting to listen from the right-panel here still results in an error - the track goes to buffer, but responds "Error opening file" and simply stops. Issue persists on IE as well (I use Firefox).

Great and interesting modcast! A great start to the new season :D

And I have learnt much about the sin of Coveting Achievements and of the mantra known as 'P.I.C.N.I.C.' I hope that the Gazeboan sect of Whowardism also feature these precepts. Praises!
 
I managed to listen here. Don't remember how I got there, though :p

@DanQ Attempting to listen from the right-panel here still results in an error - the track goes to buffer, but responds "Error opening file" and simply stops. Issue persists on IE as well (I use Firefox).
Ah. I was able to replicate that error, identify its source and correct it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Great and interesting modcast! A great start to the new season :D
:king:
 
What I found most interesting was William's commentary on how he got started modding 5 (paraphrased of course):
  1. I was playing along, and X happened, and I thought: "Well, that is just fifteen kinds of stupid!"
  2. Later, I was thinking, and I said to myself: "Self, I bet we could mod that!"
Seems pretty consistent with my own XP, though I had played around in 2,3, and 4 with altering the "Rules.txt" file, the x.bic files, and the x.xml files respectively. And of course I left out step #3 of the process (which William touched upon): "Insanity Ensues".
 
As for the episode, what can I say... I honestly just liked listening to whoward and the dry British humor.
:)

The rest of it, I think, was just kind of... eh. For all we speculate about Civ6 modding, 1) it doesn't even exist yet, and 2) do we have any real clue as to how it will work? I suspect not. We might go into it thinking we'll just port all our civ5 civs into civ6 format, but I suspect, with Firaxis' track record of "moddability" being what it is, that that will end up being much less doable than we hope. Consequently, I would have to start from scratch, which I have no desire to do.

While I don't know the real reason why Civ6 modding discussion doesn't interest me, that's my best guess.
I can appreciate why speculation about CivVI modding, or CivVI anything, would either be of interest -- or not of interest -- to any listener. Speculation anything rooted in any topic is one that either engages or disengages in my opinion and experience. That said, as much as it was about speculation on this episode it was also about persuasion; as in, trying to persuade Civ publisher 2K and developer Firaxis to take into account the input of franchise modders today as to what is and what is not working with it in their view.
 
With the way they're handling mods for xcom 2 (at least from what I'm hearing about it), hopefully it's a good sign for what's to come for the modding scene of civ 6 when it comes around
 
As a fan of ModCast, who has very, very little knowledge of modding, I found myself wondering while listening to this episode: If Civ6 does indeed make use of 64-bits, will this have any effect on modding? If so, will it be harder or easier? For the record, I don't even know what 32-bit and 64-bit mean, only that the latter is better.

PS- AW, please forgive me for speculating on Civ 6

PPS- WHoward, I had no idea you despised "who-ward" so much. I shall henceforth endeavor to mentally pronounce your username as "W-Howard" when I'm reading the forums (fori?). Although I can't guarantee my brain will listen to me :(
 
There is an oblique reference to an interview I did for David Hinkle of 2kGames in the modcast. There have been three of these to date - ryika, machiavelli and me

A word of warning though ... the last two have pictures of us ... perhaps that's why there's not been a fourth!
 
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