Continuing to Mod Civ IV

[Tholish]

Will Civ V be the end of modding Civ IV? Of course not. People still mod Civ III and it was far less moddable than Civ IV. People still paint pictures by hand, with paints and brush, even though there are airbrush and computer tools.

Many of the most skilled modders will move on as soon as possible, because they are at a level where what they do is borderline professional, and they attract the biggest audience that way. Those leading modders have created a great stock of material that will be the pinnacle of Civ IV modding for a long time, a foundation.

However, I believe Civ IV can eventually go beyond its current peak, in time. Its full potential is yet to be realized. Of course this future will not benefit either Firaxis or a large audience.

So, why do it? Why continue to mod Civ IV after Civ V comes out?

1. To take advantage of the large stock of material that has been created.

2. To gain experience by practicing in a known medium instead of building up a new foundation of basic skills. For example, I will learn more about programming by doing ever more difficult things with the known Civ IV DLL than by trying to start learning the Civ V one.

3. To do things that can only be done once this maturity is reached. That is, to make the mods that Civ V modders will not be able to make for some time to come. For example, if the FfH team stayed with Civ IV we could have some incredible FfH III while those who move on to Civ V will be doing the Civ V equivalent of FfH I. Or to contrast more sharply, it would be like a difference between a DuneWars II and Song of the Moon.

4. Because Civ IV is a different game from what Civ V looks to be, and will be a different mediuim as oils differ from water colors. Not to disparage Civ V, I'll probably get it and play it and eventually maybe mod it, but my main modding efforts will stay in this known but obsolete mediuim at this point in my development, saying things I know how to say with the colors I know how to use.

I see many of the the best Civ IV modders are either abandoning projects (Blood and Iron) or trying to finish them up before Civ V (Revolution MP). Many of those just now learning to mod Civ IV will probably switch to just starting to mod Civ V. So, who is sticking with Civ IV and why? And who is switching to Civ V ASAP, and why?

 

[Androrc the Orc]

I'm not sure if the Civ5 dll will be available at release; the question is - would Firaxis be willing to show their source code on launch?

 

[Ajidica]

I doubt it, IIRC it took them about 6 months to release the dll for civ 4. Regardless, there is plenty one can accomplish in just XML or python equivilant. I'll definitly be staying with Civ4 for my main mod (The Peacekeeper Wars) but I'll definitly make at least a few medieval mods for Civ5.

 

[orlanth]

I'd recommend anyone thinking of starting a mod to consider modding Civ4 Colonization. Its unique gameplay mechanics are underexplored from a modding perspective, the vanilla version could be improved a lot by modders and it won't be reproduced or replaced by Civ5 to the extent Civ4 is. Also the lack of time-consuming elements like a techtree make basic modding go a lot faster, my Col mod's first version got done within about 2 weeks. One drawback is that fewer people currently own it, but Firaxis will likely make it more widely available or cheaper soon as a promotion, and after CivV comes out there may be proportionately more of the fanbase continuing to play Civ4Col than Civ4.

 

[The_J]

I fully agree with Tholish .

But man, you forgot the obvious things for the list:
Will further mod Civ4, because
- I can't afford a new computer
- I hate the (still to be confirmed) DRM

I'm not sure if the Civ5 dll will be available at release; the question is - would Firaxis be willing to show their source code on launch?

I guess not.
If you will not do 1 thing right before the launch of the program, then it's re-structuring code for better readability or adding comments to it.
I guess, if they had released the civ4 sourcecode at the start, it would have been horrible to read.

 

[The Capo]

I will, most likely, continue to mod Civ IV. But we'll see.

 

[Thomas SG]

I'm not sure if I will even buy Civ V. But if I do and if I should really start modding Civ V (and I've made mods for Civ II, Civ III and Civ IV) it is to make it more like Civ IV with hexfields I fear. I don't like what I see in Civ V.

But for the moment I will go on with Civ IV...

 

[Xyth]

I'll be modding Civ4 for some time to come yet. My reasons:

- We Mac users only got BTS late last year so it's still pretty fresh and new to us
- We're also very unlikely to see a Mac version of Civ5 until well into next year
- 18 civs just doesn't feel like enough
- It will take quite some time for the leaderhead makers to adapt to the much more challenging new format
- Yet to hear anything about availability of multiple leaders per civ which worries me
- I love the hexes but nothing else announced has excited me much yet, unlike Civ4
- Sounds like some of my favourite features of Civ4 won't even be in Civ5 :/
- I still have much to learn and do modding Civ4

I couldn't make the leap from Civ3 to Civ4 until Warlords was out and I imagine it'll be similar for Civ5. It will all depend on the timeliness and quality of the eventual Mac version. I predict I'll be happily tinkering away at Civ4 for at least another year, probably longer.

 

[topsecret]

@All

Civ4 is Great!
I am in alpha of a new Mod (No Name! )
if you want to help PM me!

 

[Afforess]

I'm going to immediately shift to Civ5. My Reasons:

• Multicore support
• Speed Boosts
• Better AI
• Better Diplomacy
• Better Graphics
• Clean Slate
• New Mod Aggregation Service from Firaxis
• Lots of Oppertunities

I've pretty much modded the Civ4 engine to the extreme, I can't keep telling my users to upgrade their hardware for an outdated 2004 engine, just because they want to use a decent size map. No matter how many SDK rewrites I do, the game will always be slower than it should, and has some stupid limitations built in. A clean slate, a new start with Civ5 will be awesome. I can't wait. There's a brand new world ahead of us. The future looks bright.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

and has some stupid limitations built in.

What are those?

 

[Afforess]

What are those?

Try and add over 100 resources to your mod. You can't, there is a limitation in the engine, when it goes over 100, the symbols break. RoM and Rife both have that issue.

What about the graphical representation of yields? You can only display 3 yield graphics per tile, any extra will not be visible.

The python interpreter used in Civ is a piece of Sh!t and is built into the EXE. Same with 99% of all the interface, you can manage how the interface looks from python, but not what it really is. I can't create a new table design and add it to civ.

Lack of support for m4a files.

There are bunches more, but those are off the top of my head.

 

[Tholish]

@ Afforess. Good luck, I'll check it out.

Meanwhile I'm going to see how many yields I can add : a second food (power) allowing a whole second kind of population (machinery) and a total of three kinds of production (worked silicate, worked polymer, and worked metal) with units and buildings (just those two?) requiring different amounts of them. Maybe a second commerce to divide up public and private sectors. All of which will have massive implications for civics and stuff. And that should be demanding enough that when I'm done I'll be able to take a shot at creating battle screens and two kinds of turns and time scales. And who knows, maybe eventuallly find a way to do real multiple planets, though by then I'll be running up across the same speed issues to which Afforess aludes.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

Try and add over 100 resources to your mod. You can't, there is a limitation in the engine, when it goes over 100, the symbols break. RoM and Rife both have that issue.

What about the graphical representation of yields? You can only display 3 yield graphics per tile, any extra will not be visible.

The python interpreter used in Civ is a piece of Sh!t and is built into the EXE. Same with 99% of all the interface, you can manage how the interface looks from python, but not what it really is. I can't create a new table design and add it to civ.

Lack of support for m4a files.

There are bunches more, but those are off the top of my head.

Thanks.

Btw, do you think Civ5 will have more modability?

 

[Afforess]

Thanks.

Btw, do you think Civ5 will have more modability?

It will have the SDK & XML again, we know that much; I'd wager that we will get at least the same amount of modability as Civ4.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

• Multicore support
• Speed Boosts

#2 is merely the result of #1

• Better Graphics

If your hardware can handle it. I played Civ2 a lot and Civ4 is already very nice imo. From the screenshots I saw, the improvement isn't really that great.

• Better AI
• Better Diplomacy

seeing > believing.
They can promise a lot, let's see if they can keep it.

• Clean Slate
• New Mod Aggregation Service from Firaxis
• Lots of Opportunities

What those mean remains to be seen too.

Limitations might be there but it's within reasonable limits.100 resources is a lot already, and Civ always had 3 yield types. mp3 is good enough.
I have to agree about the python part though.


Having discovered Civ4 very late and liking it very much I'll be sticking to it for much longer than Civ5 release date. Plus from the looks of it, 5 will be a very different game, so I guess in civ terms it won't obsolete Civ4.
Though of course I'm not much of a modder.

 

[Afforess]

#2 is merely the result of #1

No. There are a lot of other things they could have done to speed things up, other than multicore. The CAR mod comes to mind.

If your hardware can handle it. I played Civ2 a lot and Civ4 is already very nice imo. From the screenshots I saw, the improvement isn't really that great.

The graphics so far are just filler graphics, they haven't even gone gold yet. Wait and see.

Limitations might be there but it's within reasonable limits.100 resources is a lot already, and Civ always had 3 yield types. mp3 is good enough.

That kind of thinking is what ruins our society. Would Free Speech be acceptable if it was just "mostly" free speech, except you couldn't say certain "bad" words?

Having discovered Civ4 very late and liking it very much I'll be sticking to it for much longer than Civ5 release date. Plus from the looks of it, 5 will be a very different game, so I guess in civ terms it won't obsolete Civ4.
Though of course I'm not much of a modder.

I only started modding last summer, right after the 3.19 patch, so I'm right with you there. Modding is awesome, and I love Civ4 tons, and will miss my mod, but I can't wait for the new opportunities that await us. My final words for Civ4:

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it...

 

[General Tso]

I plan on buying Civ5 as soon as it comes out, just to play it. I'll probably stick to modding Civ4 until Civ5 becomes stable (1 or 2 patches and the release of the dll). I also have a Civ4 mod that I've spent hundreds of hours on and it's only about 70% done. I'm at the point of seeing if anybody is interested in helping with it or it may never be released or at least not until after Civ5 comes out.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

It will have the SDK & XML again, we know that much; I'd wager that we will get at least the same amount of modability as Civ4.

So they actually announced that there will be SDK editing?

 

[Afforess]

Yeah. Not announced, but strongly implied. I trust Shafer not to lie anyway.