Changing existing civ's UAs

[Chewie]

Hi,

I'm trying to create a mod that removes all UBs and UUs from the game, and gives drastic abilities (with positives and negatives) to each civ instead. For example one civ:
- increased science rate
- can't generate any faith
- cities less likely to adopt religion
- more prone to espionage

Yes it is inspired from Alpha Centauri. There are about 14 civs I have ideas for atm. I want to completely keep all existing names/text/artwork - it's only UAs and leader flavours I want to set.

Questions: Are these kind of abilities possible just through XML? And, can I edit an existing civ (if so, how) - or would I have to create all brand new civs? If I use brand new civs, how can I use the existing text/artwork etc?

Thanks for any help - this is my first mod (I've got the Modbuilder and creating a basic mod working).

Moderator Action: Moved to C&C.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Questions: Are these kind of abilities possible just through XML?

Generally, no.

If you don't see an explicit table/schema for something in the existing database, then you're out of luck. The Civ5 developers implemented almost nothing that wasn't being used for their existing civs/units/buildings/etc., so if your ideas are all the sorts of things that other civs already have, then you can make it work, but if there are no existing civs that are more prone to espionage, then you're not going to find XML to do that for your own civ.

A lot more things are possible through Lua, but that has many limitations of its own, most notably the inability of an AI to adapt to the alteration.

 

[Chewie]

Generally, no.

If you don't see an explicit table/schema for something in the existing database, then you're out of luck. The Civ5 developers implemented almost nothing that wasn't being used for their existing civs/units/buildings/etc., so if your ideas are all the sorts of things that other civs already have, then you can make it work, but if there are no existing civs that are more prone to espionage, then you're not going to find XML to do that for your own civ.

A lot more things are possible through Lua, but that has many limitations of its own, most notably the inability of an AI to adapt to the alteration.

Nuts I thought that might be the case. I'm not too afraid of Lua though, being a .net developer by day. My thought was by adjusting the leader flavour settings that it would somewhat compensate for the above, i.e. in this case I would get them to focus more on science to make use of their strength, and more on espionage to increase their spy defense.

 

[Chewie]

To add to the original post - where would I get the art files for expansion civs? i.e. for the science civ case I would like to use Sweden from G&K

 

[Putmalk]

A lot more things are possible through Lua, but that has many limitations of its own, most notably the inability of an AI to adapt to the alteration.

Does the AI even recognize it's trait to begin with? Or do they play the game normally with that as a bonus? Even if it did recognize the trait - it would change it's playstyle to compensate. Hence LUA coding for traits is safe.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Even if it did recognize the trait - it would change it's playstyle to compensate. Hence LUA coding for traits is safe.

True, the Lua difficulty is more apparent when dealing with more "reactive" bits like units, since most core Traits are very simple, often global effects. But the point still holds with Traits, because you CAN make them very complex in Lua if you wanted to. For instance, take the suggested trait: he wants to add culture to your capital whenever you raze something. This wouldn't require any alteration to AI behavior, because you're already giving it a raze-happy behavior for its other bonus (handled through Flavor entries and stuff), although it should, in theory, change the preference for culture buildings in your capital to some extent. Likewise, simpler trait changes can be handled through alteration in Flavor values; as long as the suggested change is a universal effect, the AI won't need to think deeply about behaviors.

But you could use Lua to make a trait that gave a more complex effect, and my comment was dealing with a worst-case scenario. For instance, let's say you make the amount of culture given depend on whether it was a former capital, how many wonders the razed city holds, whether it follows a different religion than the rest of your empire, and so on. A human player would now know that certain cities are much better to raze than others, but there's no way to teach the AI to re-prioritize around that sort of rule change.

In general, the AI's behavior is a simple one-dimensional thing; if something is a good idea in one situation, the AI will think it's a good idea in all situations where the choice is possible. As long as your changes are structured along that line (and most Trait suggestions are), Flavor values can be used to alter the AI's actions in the right ways. But if you're taking full advantage of the added flexibility of Lua, then there are issues.

 

[Putmalk]

True, the Lua difficulty is more apparent when dealing with more "reactive" bits like units, since most core Traits are very simple, often global effects. But the point still holds with Traits, because you CAN make them very complex in Lua if you wanted to. For instance, take the suggested trait: he wants to add culture to your capital whenever you raze something. This wouldn't require any alteration to AI behavior, because you're already giving it a raze-happy behavior for its other bonus (handled through Flavor entries and stuff), although it should, in theory, change the preference for culture buildings in your capital to some extent. Likewise, simpler trait changes can be handled through alteration in Flavor values; as long as the suggested change is a universal effect, the AI won't need to think deeply about behaviors.

But you could use Lua to make a trait that gave a more complex effect, and my comment was dealing with a worst-case scenario. For instance, let's say you make the amount of culture given depend on whether it was a former capital, how many wonders the razed city holds, whether it follows a different religion than the rest of your empire, and so on. A human player would now know that certain cities are much better to raze than others, but there's no way to teach the AI to re-prioritize around that sort of rule change.

In general, the AI's behavior is a simple one-dimensional thing; if something is a good idea in one situation, the AI will think it's a good idea in all situations where the choice is possible. As long as your changes are structured along that line (and most Trait suggestions are), Flavor values can be used to alter the AI's actions in the right ways. But if you're taking full advantage of the added flexibility of Lua, then there are issues.

I meant to say "wouldn't" change it's playstyle, pardon the correction.

But yeah, I agree with you.