Featuring Mods in the Downloads Database

[Quintillus]

One of the challenges new players can run into with mods is answering the age-old question of, "which mods should I download?" The Steam Workshop doesn't do a great job of helping with this, as it tends to favor the newest content. Our Downloads Database defaults to that as well, though it also offers a "Most Download" option, like Steam's more nebulous option for most-popular-over-certain-time periods.

But neither necessarily gives the best answers as to where to start. The most popular mods may be the most popular because they've been around the longer, and the most innovative or friendly-to-new-players ones may not be either the newest or the most popular.

We have a way around that though - curating the Downloads Database by featuring resources. I've been doing that for Civ III, based on historical community contests of, for example, "Map of the Year". We have a smaller selection of featured items for Civ I, Civ II, and Civ IV. But none yet for V or VI.

For example, for Civ III Interface Graphics, it looks like this (with rotation between all featured resources):

We'd like to have some featured resources for the latest version of the game as well - I personally would have benefitted from this once I started adding mods to my installation.

Open to suggestions, but my current thinking is:

• Items can be in any category
• Items must be in our Downloads Database, or available via a CivFanatics thread. We're not going to poach resources from Apolyton or other Civ sites.
  • Download link must be working
  • Image preview preferred but not required for resources that aren't graphics, and may be added to the database if one is available in the forums
• At maximum, 10% of a category should be featured (exceptions may occur for small categories)

As for how to select items... my proposal is that you nominate a resource (with a link to the resource, and its category if the link isn't to the Downloads Database), and if it reaches five "likes", I'll feature it. If we get too many successful nominations in a category, we can have a voting contest for that category. Or if this proves to be a popular idea well beyond expectations, we can vote for each category.

If it's successful here, I'll look at expanding this to Civ V, Beyond Earth, and beyond.