Custom Civ Option

[Arent11]

I honestly don't know why all the additional DLCs for civ 6 included all kinds of stuff - dozens of civs, vampires, zombies - but never the possibility to comfortably edit/create your own civ

Thoughts, opinions, flame wars?

 

[pokiehl]

I don’t see the need for this. This is just modding. If you want to make your own civ, make a mod. It’s easy to reuse any abilities and assets from other civs.

Btw, there’s nothing out of the ordinary for civ to have vampires or zombies as optional content. Strange fantasy or unrealistic stuff has been in the games since at least Civ 2.

 

[Arent11]

I don’t see the need for this. This is just modding. If you want to make your own civ, make a mod. It’s easy to reuse any abilities and assets from other civs.

Playing around with custom races in Master of Orion was huge fun. Such an option, even only as DLC/optional content, would definitely have an audience. Not everyone is a good programmer or wants to invest lots of free time, many people are just casual players.

When I was ~14, I would certainly have agreed with you. But nowadays I simply don't have the free time to go to the lengths to mod a game. I just pay more for the content I want or play another game.

Btw, there’s nothing out of the ordinary for civ to have vampires or zombies as optional content. Strange fantasy or unrealistic stuff has been in the games since at least Civ 2.

I didn't say that?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I don’t see the need for this. This is just modding. If you want to make your own civ, make a mod. It’s easy to reuse any abilities and assets from other civs.

The need is that it would easily allow players to create their own civ without needing to do a mod. Most civ players are not modders, nor should they be. We should not have to learn coding skills and take time to mod a game just to get something obvious like custom civs.

 

[pokiehl]

The need is that it would easily allow players to create their own civ without needing to do a mod. Most civ players are not modders, nor should they be. We should not have to learn coding skills and take time to mod a game just to get something obvious like custom civs.

I don’t think it’s necessarily an “obvious” choice, and the fact that it’s not a part of the series reaffirms that. There are surely reasons they’ve not done it.

Modding Civ doesn’t require coding knowledge. Anyone can pick up how to mod in an afternoon, especially something like mixing and matching civ abilities.

I’d rather development time be spent towards things that actually improve the core game versus a custom civ option.

 

[Josephias]

While I think Civ Model works best with pre-defined civs I was slightly annoyed by the fact Civilization VI did not allow even to customize leaders' name. In Civ IV and V I would play Ghandi, e.g., as Josephandi I, Josephandi II ... depending on the game I started. This allowed me to feel more like the leader of the faction, and was also useful to differentiate savegames (automatic naming) and game runs in the scoreboard (VI missed scoreboard, nevertheless). A little customization is not bad, and also as SupremacyKing said, it should be an option to not resort to mods for people not familiar with them.

 

[Arent11]

I don’t think it’s necessarily an “obvious” choice, and the fact that it’s not a part of the series reaffirms that. There are surely reasons they’ve not done it.

Modding Civ doesn’t require coding knowledge. Anyone can pick up how to mod in an afternoon, especially something like mixing and matching civ abilities.

Civ 1 + 2 didn't have civilization traits. Imagine someone back then had said: "Oh, civ 1+2 didn't have civ traits, there's surely a reason they didn't do that." Then we would now have civs that only differ in flag & name.

Creating a character or race is standard in RPGs & strategy games. Of course the various civilization "abilities" in Civ exist exactly to scratch that itch. And of course they only came with civilization 3.

 

[pokiehl]

Civ 1 + 2 didn't have civilization traits. Imagine someone back then had said: "Oh, civ 1+2 didn't have civ traits, there's surely a reason they didn't do that." Then we would now have civs that only differ in flag & name.

I don’t think that’s a good comparison. I’m talking about a customization option that hasn’t appeared in the entire series. You’re talking about core gameplay changes from 30+ years ago.

 

[Arent11]

I don’t think that’s a good comparison. I’m talking about a customization option that hasn’t appeared in the entire series. You’re talking about core gameplay changes from 30+ years ago.

I think we can agree that the statement "it hasn't been done until now" is not an argument.

A better argument would be: "There's more important stuff to do" or "Civ addresses historical factions, not fantasy factions". I would of course counter that vampires & zombies are quite fantastic.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I don’t think that’s a good comparison. I’m talking about a customization option that hasn’t appeared in the entire series. You’re talking about core gameplay changes from 30+ years ago.

Didn’t the Civ3 Editor have the ability to do this? I know you could edit or create units, buildings and terrain types amd other stuff

 

[Smellincoffee]

Didn’t the Civ3 Editor have the ability to do this? I know you could edit or create units, buildings and terrain types amd other stuff

Only by overwriting an existing civ, because there was a hard cap of 32, I think. When Conquests was released people who wanted to play as Austria had to replace an existing civ -- everything down to the .flcs for the leaderheads. What I often did in Civ 3 was start the game as a civ that matches my "fictional" one, and then just use the custom leader/custom city names to flesh it out a bit. For instance, once I played as America, but I gave myself the name Governor Bibb, and all of my cities were named after Alabama cities.

 

[pokiehl]

Didn’t the Civ3 Editor have the ability to do this? I know you could edit or create units, buildings and terrain types amd other stuff

Civ 3 Edit was their version of a modding tool; it wasn't "Custom Civ Mode". So I think that’d stay akin to my suggestion to keep this idea for modding. It was certainly more user friendly because it was a simple interface with drop-down menus.

I think it'd be great if they could make the modding software more user friendly like that, but I'm not sure I'd expect simple drop-down menus again due to the added complexity of the game and engine.

Would I appreciate that sort of GUI? Absolutely. The more straightforward modding is the better.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I WANT BLANK CIVS FOR MULTIPLAYER !!!

 

[Arent11]

I WANT BLANK CIVS FOR MULTIPLAYER !!!

You mean no traits at all?

In Master of Orion 2, if you didn't choose any traits you got 200% score. If you chose -10 negative traits even 300%.

It was a possibility to make the game even more difficult than "impossible"

 

[Naokaukodem]

You mean no traits at all?

Yeah, no uniques, no bad surprises, no time wasted. (but for multiplayer, eventhough I'm not a great fan of uniques in single either, especially how they are done in Civ6)

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Modding Civ doesn’t require coding knowledge. Anyone can pick up how to mod in an afternoon, especially something like mixing and matching civ abilities.

Genuinely curious, where would one find resources as such? Have any recommendations?

Some guides I’ve found around here are extremely comprehensive- which is great!- but pretty intimidating too.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

civ6blitz

Ask and you shall receive. It only allows you to create civs with exiting, or modified existing, abilities. But it's close to a custom civ makers.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I don't see the point in this. both Humankind and MIllenia did it and it's not a good feature, I think playing as a historical civ from 4000BC is just a staple, I can't imagine the game without it. Sure, in some cases, customizating and pick and mixing would be fun but... I just don't think Civ is the place for that.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Civ 3 Edit was their version of a modding tool; it wasn't "Custom Civ Mode". So I think that’d stay akin to my suggestion to keep this idea for modding. It was certainly more user friendly because it was a simple interface with drop-down menus.

I think it'd be great if they could make the modding software more user friendly like that, but I'm not sure I'd expect simple drop-down menus again due to the added complexity of the game and engine.

Would I appreciate that sort of GUI? Absolutely. The more straightforward modding is the better.

Honestly there is no reason they couldn’t have had the equivelant for Civ6, since so much of basic modding amounts to “edit this data table”.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Easy Mod capabilities would be nice, or even just the ability to easily swap out Uniques in a custom Civ, but I have a much simpler request for Civ VII.

Allow me to rename, for the purpose of the game I'm playing, my Civ and/or Leader.

After all, I virtually never see my own Leader, never have to listen to his/her whining or inane comments, so why can't I have a Custom Leader Name, in the sense of naming my Viking Leader Red Orm or Ivar the Boneless instead of Harald? Or my favorite Roman Leader, Odius Asparagus? Or, of course, Asterix to lead the Gauls?
Or renaming my Scotland civilization Pictland and manually replacing the given Scottish city names with names from my Pict list (starting with Edinburgh becoming Dun Eid, for instance).

This is a dirt simple change, but it allows just a hint of customization to the player without blowing the development budget on Real Custom Civs.