Any non-coding way to make small mods?

[furtigan]

Are there any visual-interface utilities along the lines of Civ 3's Game Editor to do modding? Doing code is beyond my skillset, and I don't have the time to learn, but I would like to fool around with some minor tweaks -- e.g. making the sheep resource no longer appear in the desert, making it take longer to cut down forests, that kind of thing.

Is there any way to make those kinds of small changes without having to work directly with code?

 

[Spatzimaus]

No.

But you're overstating the difficulty of "working with code". XML modding is basic database editing and is very straightforward to learn; for instance, let's say you want to make it take longer to chop down forests. (Changing sheep to not spawn on deserts can't be done in XML; that's a Lua change and is MUCH more complex. Resource distribution in general is a pain to alter.)

Here's the entirety of what you'd have to mod:

<GameData>
  <BuildFeatures>
    <Set Time="200"/>
    <Where BuildType="BUILD_REMOVE_FOREST"/>
  </BuildFeatures>
</GameData>

That makes the standard Remove Forest action for the Worker take 2 turns, instead of the normal 4. It won't, however, change the time needed for the auto-chop done when you try to place a Farm on a Forest, for instance. A more general version would be:

<GameData>
  <BuildFeatures>
    <Set Time="200"/>
    <Where FeatureType="FEATURE_FOREST" Time="400"/>
  </BuildFeatures>
</GameData>

The implicit "AND" in the Where command is necessary there, because the chop done when sacrificing a Great Person to place, say, an Academy on a forest the action needs to stay at Time=0. The above basically says "any build action that can only be done on a forest and normally takes four turns should be changed to only take two turns".

Once you do that small change, there's a tiny bit of overhead involved in configuring a mod to work. Go read Kael's modding guide, stickied at the top of the Reference forum, for a more detailed explanation, but the things to look for are the phrases "OnModActivated" and "UpdateDatabase".

--------------------

There are no visual tools for modding Civ5; while a few visual interfaces have been made by various people for specific parts (such as the tech tree editing), nothing general like you describe is or likely ever will be available, because the added flexibility due to using real programming languages comes at a cost of complexity. And if the above code just seems too complex for you to ever get the hang of, then you should just forget about modding at all, because it's just not going to get any simpler than that. (I'm not saying that you wouldn't have a learning curve; it DOES take a little practice. But it really doesn't take long to pick up once you get started.)

 

[SJSerio]

Unfortunately, furtigan, it is apparently taboo around here to even suggest such a thing. Those of us who do not have the time to invest into learning how to code or edit XML are just regulated to the sidelines and have to beg the more experienced modders to make mods for us (which they are unlikely to do because they are... perhaps, understandably... too busy on their own projects and mods). You see, there is a myth floating around that a graphical editor will somehow remove the ability for the advanced modders to do complex things.

 

[Gedemon]

the problem is that those who could program such a tool don't need it.

not counting that programming it would take much longer than making any currently available ciV mods. (first will need to document the values used by the game that could be tweaked, and even that simple step is not done...)

 

[SJSerio]

the problem is that those who could program such a tool don't need it.

not counting that programming it would take much longer than making any currently available ciV mods. (first will need to document the values used by the game that could be tweaked, and even that simple step is not done...)

Don't get me wrong, I agree and understand about the modder's not having the resources, time, or motivation to create such tools. I saw such attempts with Civ IV which were noble attempts, but fell short (especially after updates). My problem is that the developers seem to think that only those skilled with programming are the only ones who should mod. When I got into computer games (inluding Civ III and Heroes of M&M), I enjoyed using the editors to tweak the games to my taste and creating my own scenarios, etc. That has been robbed from me with the move to coding and XML while dropping the GUI editors. Not to mention that that (with this version of Civ especially) what can be done with XML can easily be done with a GUI editor. I am positive that I could use Access to create a form based editor... however, I don't have the programming skills necessary to tie it to the data nor the inclination to deal with updates due to patches/expansions, etc. It would be much better for the developers to support such a tool.

 

[SamBC]

The devs have only so much time. They can either produce a modding infrastructure particularly given to easy-to-use tools, or one that's powerful and flexible. The things that make it powerful and flexible make it harder to have easy-to-use tools for. Thus, the basic infrastructure has to be one or the other. You can build an easy editor onto a powerful and flexible system, but it takes a lot of work, and has to be maintained.

 

[Putmalk]

Spatz, I do believe you left out the <Update> </Update> tags surrounding the Set/Where

 

[Spatzimaus]

Whoops, you're right. My bad.