Civ6 Modding Evaluation

[Knasp]

Here's a version of Tar Valon on a single tile (I think the Modern road makes the bridges look white):

Spoiler Tar Valon :

Also I modified Toman head after looking up the descriptions in The Great Hunt (no walls).

Spoiler Toman head :

 

[S3rgeus]

That's awesome work, Knasp! Seriously well done! The scale of the map and all of the cities and countries is looking a lot more accurate than I expected CiVI to look!

Thanks again for posting, it makes a big difference to know folks are still enthusiastic!

Having specific scenarios for certain parts of history is definitely something we want to do longer term with the mod, once the core general structure of the generated games is in place. (Similar to the scenarios in CiVI itself and how they relate to the games you generate by setting them up with map types etc.)


Now to reach back into history, with the posts I've been intending to reply to for weeks:

I have been passively observing things from the sideline (stopped playing civ6 about 1 month in since release) and feel that modding in general has kinda seized up for this iteration of the game. I was hoping that there would at least be a broader range of graphics and mods by now, but looking through the sub-forums and DB, it feels very lite in content.

Do you think the release of the source code would help get things going again, or does your gut feeling tell you that this iteration is a bit of a lost cause modding wise?

I don't buy much of the doom and gloom about CiVI modding. The capabilities we have now are better than what we had at an equivalent time in CiV. There are holes, but as Gedemon pointed out, several of them are being closed. Every new game is decried as the end of modding, but they've all found their niches by the time they've matured.

I am conscious specifically for the WoTMod project that source access is needed for the kinds of sweeping changes that we want to make. Since it's completely up to Firaxis whether they release the source or not, it's difficult to invest in working on CiVI until we know it'll be possible to actually make the mod we want.

Edit: Also, has the DLC spam possibly contributed to the lack of 'better' modding capability?

I doubt it, a lot of the DLC effectively uses modding systems. Some of them are great examples, I used some of their structure and data as a template during the evaluation earlier in this thread. The main difference between the DLC and mods (from a feature perspective) is that if the DLC developers find they're missing a feature, they can walk down the hall and ask someone to add it in. That makes the DLCs feel very unique, but also means the more unique DLC features there are, the more variant mod features we can probably make.

ah! Well, truly, this has been the busiest I've ever been in my life, so write around when NaNoWriMo started I was in no position to get back to modding, anyways.

Faced with the prospect of doing it blindly... it still scares me. I'm willing to start, but I think it might be hard to justify getting much past the "big picture", or to justify putting in tons of time - maybe a slightly slower posting pace than we've done at our peak.

Ugh, darn you, Firaxis. What ww2commander says above scares me even more...

I've gone in and out of playing CiVI. Put in a few games, but not tons. I feel mostly comfortable with it, but the previously noted complexity-without-connection-to-other systems makes it hard to really "get."

Yeah, as my extremely delayed reply probably suggests, it's difficult to pull together time to work on something like this while it's still so nebulous!

I've not actually played that much CiVI yet (still only 39 hours), I'm hoping Rise & Fall will rekindle it for me. I've been playing a lot of Stellaris in its place.

Overall I feel like going in blind isn't gonna be good for us, it'll be slow and demoralizing. We'll need to make a lot of decisions without enough information and have to come back and re-evaluate them anyway. I'm leaning towards just waiting until source access is provided. Once it is, I can do some serious digging about how it all fits together and then we can start converting all of our design work from CiV to CiVI.

What do you think?

 

[counterpoint]

OK, so apparently they stopped sending me notifications when there was a new post....

I doubt it, a lot of the DLC effectively uses modding systems. Some of them are great examples, I used some of their structure and data as a template during the evaluation earlier in this thread. The main difference between the DLC and mods (from a feature perspective) is that if the DLC developers find they're missing a feature, they can walk down the hall and ask someone to add it in. That makes the DLCs feel very unique, but also means the more unique DLC features there are, the more variant mod features we can probably make.

right, hopefully it all stays feeling cohesive, though...

Yeah, as my extremely delayed reply probably suggests, it's difficult to pull together time to work on something like this while it's still so nebulous!

I've not actually played that much CiVI yet (still only 39 hours), I'm hoping Rise & Fall will rekindle it for me. I've been playing a lot of Stellaris in its place.

Yeah, I've hardly been playing at all. I am at 134 hours into it, though.. It's been a game here and there, with weeks or more between, so I haven't really mastered anything though.

So, this expansion, thing. First of all, clearly Firaxis follows the old CiV thread of ours and totally stole the Governors idea. It does indeed feel very similar. It'll make our ideas easier to implement.. though less unique, of course.

I think the Emergencies thing has a chance to help us along with the Trolloc Wars and other game events. We'll see.

I'm definitely interested in the Dark/Golden/Heroic Age thing. The Loyalty thing sounds interesting, too, as the fundamental core behind that idea... but I'm considered that it's yet another yield onto a game that's already perhaps overly complex.

Still no diplo victory. also noteworthy.

Overall I feel like going in blind isn't gonna be good for us, it'll be slow and demoralizing. We'll need to make a lot of decisions without enough information and have to come back and re-evaluate them anyway. I'm leaning towards just waiting until source access is provided. Once it is, I can do some serious digging about how it all fits together and then we can start converting all of our design work from CiV to CiVI.

What do you think?

I agree. I hate that this is true, though. Just feels so lame. We were "close" - far from done obviously, but almost on "implementation," which was exciting.

On the other hand, I'm pretty busy, so this is wise in any case..

I'm fine with all of this as long as we still are able to strike within the "normal life" of CiVI. If what happened to us with CiV happens again (i.e., there's CiVII).... The one main benefit to plowing ahead into the great unknown was that we were likely to end up one of the first total conversion mods, which would have perhaps boosted interest a bit... but that ain't worth 500 hours of work "on spec"...

 

[counterpoint]

Have you played rise and fall? I haven't yet

Also, saw this article with an informal survey on whether you still play V or have switched to VI. https://www.pcgamer.com/why-is-civilization-5-still-more-popular-than-civilization-6/

 

[S3rgeus]

Have you played rise and fall? I haven't yet

I haven't played it yet either! I'd quite like to try it - I like the look of it, but I'm finding that I'm genuinely more compelled to play Stellaris than Civ when craving strategy.

Also, saw this article with an informal survey on whether you still play V or have switched to VI. https://www.pcgamer.com/why-is-civilization-5-still-more-popular-than-civilization-6/

This was a very interesting read! Meshes well with what I'm feeling about CiVI - that it's a more solid foundation and going the right way, but still needs more work before it can surpass the "completed" CiV. Also good to see mod support cropping up in that survey, though it clearly isn't a majority thing (not that that would be expected). Fingers still crossed that we see a source release some time soon! We're approaching the timeline for CiV, where the source was released a few months after G&K.

 

[counterpoint]

I'm guessing nothing has been announced about this...?

 

[S3rgeus]

I'm guessing nothing has been announced about this...?

Nope, nothing I've seen

 

[counterpoint]

ugh... scary to ask, but are we sunk?

 

[S3rgeus]

ugh... scary to ask, but are we sunk?

Scary question, but a good one to ask! I wouldn't say I'm putting this project down to never pick it up again - I'm still a huge Wheel of Time fan and there is no game out there that does the series justice. Reflecting CiV's timeline, a source release would be around now, possibly even earlier (though hasn't happened yet). And there's always the option to swing back and go for CiV instead of CiVI. I don't know if we'd consider that knowing the art limitations we'd face, even if we do all of the mechanical work we've already decided. It's also not something I can pick up right now.

I am happy to backburner this though, rather than say it's a sunk project. I've left and come back to this mod before (pre CiV source release, as you found some time ago!) and would probably do so again.

 

[counterpoint]

Yeah, it's possible the ship has sailed on doing it for CiV.... the hiatus has simply been too long. I'd be up for it, in theory, but I also think, realistically, the wind may have been taken out of those sails due to lost momentum. even doing CiVI, it's a bummer because it's been long enough I'm worried we'd have to re-make a whole bunch of decisions due to enough separation from the project. Then again, I'm guessing it would come back to us relatively quickly.

That said, we have to be actually familiar with the game.... put any time into the new expansion? I played through one game of it a few months back.

 

[S3rgeus]

Yeah, it's possible the ship has sailed on doing it for CiV.... the hiatus has simply been too long. I'd be up for it, in theory, but I also think, realistically, the wind may have been taken out of those sails due to lost momentum. even doing CiVI, it's a bummer because it's been long enough I'm worried we'd have to re-make a whole bunch of decisions due to enough separation from the project. Then again, I'm guessing it would come back to us relatively quickly.

Yeah, I think if we were to pick it up then it would all come back fairly quickly! We'd need to purposefully go through a refresh, but it shouldn't take too long.

That said, we have to be actually familiar with the game.... put any time into the new expansion? I played through one game of it a few months back.

I have not! In fact, I'm a terrible person and don't even own the new expansion yet! I'll definitely pick it up the next time I go to play some CiVI, but that hasn't happened yet!

What did you think from the game you played? It looks like it'll be a step in the right direction. Does our Governors design hold up now that Firaxis implemented it?

 

[counterpoint]

curious if you've heard any updates now that the Gathering Storm came out (and what a relevant title it is!)

 

[S3rgeus]

It is a very precipitous title! Just in the last couple of days Firaxis have released the art assets for Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm, (though not for some of the interim DLCs yet). No word on dll access! I'm loving the game though, have played several matches with it and there's no contest about playing CiV anymore for me, CiVI finally has that breadth that keeps me coming back for more games!

 

[counterpoint]

Oooh, glad to hear the new one is awesome. I've only played Rise and Fall - I played it for a second campaign a week ago, and found I did enjoy the governor system quite much. What did you enjoy best about GS? If it's surpassed CiV finally.... that's pretty huge.

So how big a deal is the art assets without the DLL? It seems like this project is likely dead in the water, sadly...