Has anyone considered adding BE content to CIV V as a mod?

[XK9Wolfe]

I own both CIV V and BE, and I've been curious about this for a while. I thought to try importing content over myself, but I'm a novice, and I would like to know whether this idea is totally misconceived before I begin.

I can't be the only person here who's had the thought, can I? I would much rather have BE as an extension at the end of Civ V than just "Future Tech." I wouldn't mind keeping the linear tech-tree if it meant adding in all that extra content, and the models, animations, and coding is all right there ready to be tampered with! So, why has no one done this yet?

I would assume that this would require extensive modding, but if it's even possible, I'd do it (hell yeah I'd do it!).

 

[crossclayton]

i would very much like to see this happen.

Although I am having fun with BERT and its new systems, I still feel its like an "arcade" version of the civilisation franchise, more concerned with scores and points.

I realise that all the civ games run on numbers but they are more or less hidden in the back ground, where is BERT has them right in your face and it all feels a little artificial. With a lot of dialogue options replaced with automatic responses that it feels i have lost a lot of choice and come to rely on signing agreements and then waiting to see which traits the AI chooses, which in turn relate to arbitrary things like how many cities i have, my health level etc.

Seems a little silly to me that someone would declare sanctions on me and inevitably war simply because my science out put is low, or my lack of trade routes or my lack of orbital coverage etc.

But i love the content and theme, units and techs and the eventual splitting of human evolution paths in the form of affinities.

I also prefer the linear tech as you end up just choosing a best fit pathway through the BERT tech web anyway.

 

[AriochIV]

So, why has no one done this yet?

I can think of two reasons: first, if you have Civ V and BE, why do you need to mod Civ V to look like BE?

Second, if you did mod Civ V to look like BE, then people would have no need buy BE, and I think Firaxis' legal department would like to have some words with you.

BE is essentially a mod of Civ V, that took quite a bit of time and money to create. Why would anyone want to duplicate this effort, which would almost certainly get them in legal trouble?

 

[crossclayton]

I can think of two reasons: first, if you have Civ V and BE, why do you need to mod Civ V to look like BE?

Second, if you did mod Civ V to look like BE, then people would have no need buy BE, and I think Firaxis' legal department would like to have some words with you.

BE is essentially a mod of Civ V, that took quite a bit of time and money to create. Why would anyone want to duplicate this effort, which would almost certainly get them in legal trouble?

It would not be exactly like BE, it would be a mod that continues into the far future using assets from BE, such as units, techs etc.

That way you could play a civ v game that seamlessly moves into a fleshed out future era. The assets are all there from BE to accomplish this.

Why try to quash another's dream.

 

[MadDjinn]

Because it's illegal.

 

[crossclayton]

Because it's illegal.

As i am not very knowledgeable in the legality around mods, could you please explain why it would be illegal to create a future era mod for Civ V based on beyond earth?

 

[AriochIV]

As i am not very knowledgeable in the legality around mods, could you please explain why it would be illegal to create a future era mod for Civ V based on beyond earth?

Because in order to do it, you'd have to extract the assets from BE and put them into Civ V, which would make them available to Civ V players who have not yet purchased BE. You're taking content that they expect people to pay for and giving it away for free. That's almost certainly going to get you into trouble.

 

[crossclayton]

Because in order to do it, you'd have to extract the assets from BE and put them into Civ V, which would make them available to Civ V players who have not yet purchased BE. You're taking content that they expect people to pay for and giving it away for free. That's almost certainly going to get you into trouble.

i see,

so would that apply to if i wanted to create a scenario based on earth before the seeding began, using BE factions and creating a map to resemble what earth would have been like in the BE back story?

As i would need to use factions/leaders from BE

 

[x2Madda]

I started too but converting health into happiness was problematic.
I also ran into issues trying to lift the graphics and place them into Civ 5 in a 1:1 fashion.
I considered alternatives such as simply ignoring adding health into happiness but not being able to import the graphics was too much since that is important to the 'feel' of beyond earth and I am no artist so drawing new assets just wasn't going to happen.

There was also the issue of importing the science web. It's easy enough to slap it onto the end of the science tree but in what order and fashion? Games of Civ are supposed to be over before you start researching 'future tech' so do I replace the tree completely or intertwine the two?
If I lifted BE direct into Civ5 then you may as well just buy BE at that point and that would also pronouce my inability to make health = happiness.

The reason I struggled with that by the way is because it is not a tile yield. I tried copying the xml format for natural wonders but that didn't work out and even if it did, may have broken the game since if every biowell became a natural wonder they may also become unpassable (all land NW in civ5 are tiles you must navigate around, not through)

It wasn't enough to just transplant Civ:be into Civ5, it needed to fit in a natural way and it also needed to end too. Players might play for longer to enjoy the civ:be features but it would only be once or twice because the science tree would be too rediculously long.

There is also Affinity to transplant but honestly I was going to leave that out. Looking at LUA for making that fit in correctly and I am a complete novice with that side of things. I suspect it would have helped with happiness yields too.

Due to the mod friendly nature of Civ games, if you can import the graphics then transferring the XML data and making it 'work' in Civ5 is a breeze! Which I was able to do. Using existing Civ5 graphical assets just doesn't look or feel right.

BE is essentially a mod of Civ V, that took quite a bit of time and money to create. Why would anyone want to duplicate this effort?

While I would argue Civ:be "is just a mod" having looked under the hood, I would agree with the statement it took a lot of time and effort and was the work of a team. Asking a lone modder to recreate all or even a fraction of that, is asking a lot! There is a reason we didn't see an influx of 'civ4' mods, when civ5 first came out (and was bad).

 

[crossclayton]

I started too but converting health into happiness was problematic.
I also ran into issues trying to lift the graphics and place them into Civ 5 in a 1:1 fashion.
I considered alternatives such as simply ignoring adding health into happiness but not being able to import the graphics was too much since that is important to the 'feel' of beyond earth and I am no artist so drawing new assets just wasn't going to happen.

There was also the issue of importing the science web. It's easy enough to slap it onto the end of the science tree but in what order and fashion? Games of Civ are supposed to be over before you start researching 'future tech' so do I replace the tree completely or intertwine the two?
If I lifted BE direct into Civ5 then you may as well just buy BE at that point and that would also pronouce my inability to make health = happiness.

The reason I struggled with that by the way is because it is not a tile yield. I tried copying the xml format for natural wonders but that didn't work out and even if it did, may have broken the game since if every biowell became a natural wonder they may also become unpassable (all land NW in civ5 are tiles you must navigate around, not through)

It wasn't enough to just transplant Civ:be into Civ5, it needed to fit in a natural way and it also needed to end too. Players might play for longer to enjoy the civ:be features but it would only be once or twice because the science tree would be too rediculously long.

There is also Affinity to transplant but honestly I was going to leave that out. Looking at LUA for making that fit in correctly and I am a complete novice with that side of things. I suspect it would have helped with happiness yields too.

Due to the mod friendly nature of Civ games, if you can import the graphics then transferring the XML data and making it 'work' in Civ5 is a breeze! Which I was able to do. Using existing Civ5 graphical assets just doesn't look or feel right.



While I would argue Civ:be "is just a mod" having looked under the hood, I would agree with the statement it took a lot of time and effort and was the work of a team. Asking a lone modder to recreate all or even a fraction of that, is asking a lot! There is a reason we didn't see an influx of 'civ4' mods, when civ5 first came out (and was bad).

i was thinking more along the lines of an expanded future era on earth that uses the unit graghics from BE for future units and using some techs from the BE web to flesh out a future era tech tree.

I was not actually thinking along the lines of trying to shoe horn the entire BE experinece onto the back end of Civ V, new resources and all.

 

[stanfiem]

I have just created this mod!

Step 1: Open CIV BE/RT
Step 2: Open CIV V
Step 3: Beat Civ v via a science victory
Step 4: close your eyes
Step 5: alt tab to civ BE/RT
Step 6: Open your eyes
Step 7: play civ BE/RT

you are welcome

 

[kaltorak]

I have just created this mod!

Step 1: Open CIV BE/RT
Step 2: Open CIV V
Step 3: Beat Civ v via a science victory
Step 4: close your eyes
Step 5: alt tab to civ BE/RT
Step 6: Open your eyes
Step 7: play civ BE/RT

you are welcome

And why are all this civs which I left in the industrial era following me just a few turns later!???

 

[Ryika]

Because in order to do it, you'd have to extract the assets from BE and put them into Civ V, which would make them available to Civ V players who have not yet purchased BE. You're taking content that they expect people to pay for and giving it away for free. That's almost certainly going to get you into trouble.

Well, a lot of effort has gone into porting Civ 4 Assets into CiV, nobody had a problem with that. Of course it's a bit different here, because people would be backporting stuff, but I don't think Firaxis would have too much of a problem with that as long as people don't try to recreate Beyond Earth but instead use the assets to create something new. After all, it would probably promote BE for a few CiV players.

Obviously I'm not saying people should just "go for it", but I think if someone were interested in creating a "future mod" for CiV and contacted Firaxis to ask for permission he'd probably get an answer that is something like "We won't give official permission, but we tolerate it as long as you keep it within certain perimeters."

 

[poom3619]

And why are all this civs which I left in the industrial era following me just a few turns later!???

I regret to inform you that we "reconsider" our term of friendship. Now, where are all of the station?​

I have just created this mod!

Step 1: Open CIV BE/RT
Step 2: Open CIV V
Step 3: Beat Civ v via a science victory
Step 4: close your eyes
Step 5: alt tab to civ BE/RT
Step 6: Open your eyes
Step 7: play civ BE/RT

you are welcome

It didn't work, No space Gandhi after step 6.

 

[XK9Wolfe]

I can think of two reasons: first, if you have Civ V and BE, why do you need to mod Civ V to look like BE?

Second, if you did mod Civ V to look like BE, then people would have no need buy BE, and I think Firaxis' legal department would like to have some words with you.

BE is essentially a mod of Civ V, that took quite a bit of time and money to create. Why would anyone want to duplicate this effort, which would almost certainly get them in legal trouble?

I gather that the Civfantaics users aren't keen on people doing illegal things with Firaxis' products, but I own Civ V and BE; I'd be willing to bet that there are ways of adding BE to Civ V without doing anything illegal. For instance, isn't it possible to share the scripts without giving people the real meat of BE (models, textures, sounds, etc.)? If I had the scripts ready, it could just be a requirement to own BE and add in that content once you have the necessary scripts.

 

[poom3619]

If you ask me, You should ask Firaxis how much is illegal. I don't want to learn that later in court somewhere, and even get my invested time and effort being taken down due to legal reasons.

 

[Ryoga]

Because it's illegal.

That might be true, but if modders were really stopped by that or if the prohibition was even remotely enforced, more than half of the mods that are currently available on steam workshop for both Civ BE and Civ V wouldn't exist.

As a matter of facts the Steam Workshop agreement specifically states that you can't upload anything that is copyrighted by someone else. And yet you've got Mass Effect mods, Game of Thrones mods, Warhammer mods, Warcraft mods, Alpha Centauri mods, and so on, which are often using art from copyrighted works without the copyright holders' consent.

 

[MadDjinn]

That might be true, but if modders were really stopped by that or if the prohibition was even remotely enforced, more than half of the mods that are currently available on steam workshop for both Civ BE and Civ V wouldn't exist.

As a matter of facts the Steam Workshop agreement specifically states that you can't upload anything that is copyrighted by someone else. And yet you've got Mass Effect mods, Game of Thrones mods, Warhammer mods, Warcraft mods, Alpha Centauri mods, and so on, which are often using art from copyrighted works without the copyright holders' consent.

sure, but most of those are 'light' mods -- basically jsut taking the images from the other game and moving it over. Some companies "don't care" because it lets their fan base move their brand into new markets. (still falls under copyright issues, but they care less).

What was suggested was not 'just' the art, but the whole gameplay side. That's far beyond what a company would look past.

whether or not modders would 'care' doesn't actually matter.

 

[Ryoga]

sure, but most of those are 'light' mods -- basically jsut taking the images from the other game and moving it over. Some companies "don't care" because it lets their fan base move their brand into new markets. (still falls under copyright issues, but they care less).

What was suggested was not 'just' the art, but the whole gameplay side. That's far beyond what a company would look past.

whether or not modders would 'care' doesn't actually matter.

Yes that's pretty much that. What I wanted to point out is that's not really the legal part the issue, but how much you are likely to tick a company off so that they'll decide to actually take legal actions against you.

That apart, of course, a total conversion of Civ V to Civ BE certainly wouldn't be overlooked.

 

[XK9Wolfe]

... What I wanted to point out is that's not really the legal part [that's] the issue, but how much you are likely to tick a company off so that they'll decide to actually take legal actions against you.

That apart, of course, a total conversion of Civ V to Civ BE certainly wouldn't be overlooked.

"Total conversion" may be an overstatement? All I'm considering is importing tech and units as an expanded era. Legal issues aside, I haven't heard much in the way that it can't happen. In fact, I read someone else say in effect that BE is essentially a total conversion of Civ V (my sentiments exactly), so technically the only thing holding something like this back would be fear of suit. And as far as I'm concerned it's enough for me to start something. Who knows? I'll keep people posted.