8 Civs. Is that enough? More to come?

[jaldaen]

Other than for fancy affinity-related leader animations, modding and adding factions and leaders with varied personalities & preferences should be pretty routine for our fine community of Civ modders? It was in Civ V and I assume it will be for BE too.

Am I right or over-simplifying what it would entail?

Having done a couple mods for Civ V, the xml coding for civs is straightforward and relatively easy to put together (although it's restrictive in what you can do since it depends upon what Firaxis has allowed in the xml code).

It's the art, voice over, animation stuff that's more time consuming.

For quicker mods, you simply use pictures instead of animations for leader portraits. Forgo voice overs by either not having any or by "borrowing" the VO of another faction.

On the bright side, there aren't any unique buildings/units for the Sponsors so you don't have make art resources for those in BE.

The downside is there are more animations for each Sponsor due to affinity-based modifications.

If I do a Civ:BE mod, I'd probably just go the fast route and ignore animations in favor of a picture for leaders and just borrow the VO from another Sponsor (or perhaps Civ depending on how much overlap in VO there is between the two for diplomacy purposes).

 

[gunnergoz]

Having done a couple mods for Civ V, the xml coding for civs is straightforward and relatively easy to put together (although it's restrictive in what you can do since it depends upon what Firaxis has allowed in the xml code).

It's the art, voice over, animation stuff that's more time consuming.

For quicker mods, you simply use pictures instead of animations for leader portraits. Forgo voice overs by either not having any or by "borrowing" the VO of another faction.

On the bright side, there aren't any unique buildings/units for the Sponsors so you don't have make art resources for those in BE.

The downside is there are more animations for each Sponsor due to affinity-based modifications.

If I do a Civ:BE mod, I'd probably just go the fast route and ignore animations in favor of a picture for leaders and just borrow the VO from another Sponsor (or perhaps Civ depending on how much overlap in VO there is between the two for diplomacy purposes).

I know of your programming skills because I've played with your mods in Civ V, so thanks for the insight.

I would be perfectly OK with graphic stills and no voice over since this is about gameplay anyway: I turned off the leader animations in Civ V after the first few games playing a new faction, though don't tell Firaxis that!

 

[swordoflight86]

For the initial release, 8 civs is plenty. It will take at least a few months to run through all the sponsors and affinities, and figure out how they interact.

From what I have heard, affinity actually does have a bearing on how the sponsors behave and interact. Kozlov is expansionist, or so I hear, but if both you and he are Harmony, he will interact differently than if you were Harmony and he were Supremacy. Imagine the difference in a game where Kozlov and Fielding are both Supremacy and you are Purity, and then try it where you are also Supremacy.

 

[AriochIV]

There is plenty in terms of gameplay options, but there are still only 8 faces to look at (and they really don't change much due to Affinity), so more variety would eventually be nice.

 

[gunnergoz]

David McDonough in the Yogscast segment just completed said that the leader personalities will note the seeding choices they have been given in the game and adapt their game behavior accordingly. This may be welcome news to those fearing the leaders/factions will quickly become stale and repetitive.

 

[AriochIV]

David McDonough in the Yogscast segment just completed said that the leader personalities will note the seeding choices they have been given in the game and adapt their game behavior accordingly. This may be welcome news to those fearing the leaders/factions will quickly become stale and repetitive.

And yet the personalities appear to be consistent -- Kozlov expands recklessly, Fielding is ruthlessly aggressive, etc.

 

[gunnergoz]

And yet the personalities appear to be consistent -- Kozlov expands recklessly, Fielding is ruthlessly aggressive, etc.

Hey, I'm just passing on what the man said. The leaders are affected by the seeding values. It may simply be a matter of degrees, but that's what was said by one of the designers.