HOW TO: Design a Mod

[rebakan]

How can I change a civ trait? what file work with that?

 

[Kael]

Ok Umm Could U Tell Me How To Create A Mod & Not All That Guidance Crap N The Beginning Just Tell Me Step By Step How To Make One

The focus of this article is the non-technical aspects of making a mod. There are many other articles here that focus on the technical aspects, though you will probably need to be more specific in your question (as in what you want the mod to do). Unfortunatly there is no editor with Civ4 and you need to do different things.

I would recommend starting with a few of the easier things you want the mod to do and then posting in the "Civ4 - Creation & Customization" forum asking for help on how to do them.

 

[dh_epic]

Hehe, sentence number one of post number one in this thread:

This article will focus on the design aspects of making a mod, not the technical challenges. The goal is that readers will gain some insight into common pitfalls, how to avoid them and that our mods will be improved by it.

 

[rebakan]

Where do I find "the techncal challenges" of making a mod, How can I merge multiple mods to put all of them together in just one mod?
Can anybody explain step-by-step how to do it for me?
if this is the wrong thread, I do apologise please, I'm not good in modding, but I really would like to do this.I'm very sorry to bother.Thanks in advance.

 

[rebakan]

Is there any software I can see a civ4 leader with all its animation movements (settings), the whole animation file?

 

[porto_alegre_xP]

Probably this is fantastic. "probably" because I can't read so much big texts in english... x.x

i need someone to translate this to portuguese.

PS: How I translate something in civilization IV? I wanna translate my game to portuguese!

 

[rebakan]

@porto_alegre_xp: eu acho que vai ser muito dificil conseguir tudo em portugues, meu filho tem o jogo no Brasil, mas e todo em ingles, parece que o Firaxis nao incluiu o portugues neste jogo, se vc precisar de ajuda, posso lhe ajudar, em algumas coisas. No Brasil eu era professora de ingles.
Tambem tem o site: http://www.babylon.com/affiliates/l...88&WT.srch=1&gclid=CKb4oODdqo0CFQufbgodihW81Q
eles traduzem qualquer coisa (textos e frases) em qualquer lingua e ainda dao dicionarios gratuitos para baixar em quase todos os idiomas. Espero ter ajudado vc.

 

[Plotinus]

I only just saw this - really interesting tutorial, especially the quotes from professional designers which are very helpful. The discussion has many valuable points too.

I made a tutorial some time ago on how to design scenarios for Civ 3. There's some technical stuff in there peculiar to that game, but I was also aiming to focus on the design aspect rather than just the technical how-to, so it might be of interest from a Civ 4 point of view too.

 

[jlpurvis2001]

Forgive me for being such a newb, but I am extremely interested in Modding, and am slowly teaching myself a Python and XML. I would like to know what programs are recommended for creating the GameCore and the DLL. What basic programs should be used for editing the SDK and for creating animations and graphics. I like to use fireworks, and I am slowly learning 3ds Max, but I would like to know if there is more I should need. What is a good DLL editor and compiler?

 

[Kael]

Forgive me for being such a newb, but I am extremely interested in Modding, and am slowly teaching myself a Python and XML. I would like to know what programs are recommended for creating the GameCore and the DLL. What basic programs should be used for editing the SDK and for creating animations and graphics. I like to use fireworks, and I am slowly learning 3ds Max, but I would like to know if there is more I should need. What is a good DLL editor and compiler?

There is a decent guide here to setup a C++ editor for the SDK.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166933

 

[lord_graywolfe]

ok my question is with BTS now out how do i change my mod for warlords over to BTS. ive noticed they have changed the unit layout in the XML files somewhat but when i transfer an old unit into the new mod it causes all kinds of errors. even after ive gone through and tried to rearange to text lines to match the new format. im hoping i can find a way to just do a transfer rather than rewrite everingthing from scratch.

 

[Deon]

You picked the right problem for me... I'm a "veteran" gamer, I like the game not because of it's new or have cool graphics, but because it's interesting, complicated and has other attributes which I like by myself.
Some games are good enough for me, but after playing for a while I want to add something by myself or find a new content made by others.
Now it's time to talk about the civilization. Civ1,2,3,4 and SMAC were my favourite games. But the day comes when you've played with your units, techs and civics for too long time and you want something new.
The help came in the face of Warlords and BTS later. Even better, with additional mods. After that, I found this forum and a lot of work made by others. I loved the FFH2 and the TAM, and some other mods which are still in a development, but the time passes and I started to look in the game deeper.
And what do I see? The man who studied C++ in uni (well some time passed so I only remember "how to think to code", so this way I'm learning the python fast) and likes to play with modding finds that the game has the open source!
So, I already removed all the techs from the techtree and played with the custom spells in the FFH.
Now comes the question - what to do with my "clean" tech tree? The ideas are swarming, I already made some "ancient era techs" for the techtree and began to write the pedia description.
And if not for this article, I would waste a lot of time which I could spend with my wife, son and university =).
After I read your writings and followed the link to the article of the leading MAGIC designer (by the way, I love to play MTG too ) and about restrictions which help the creativity, I began to think and understood a lot.
Thank you sincerely, Kael!

But now I'm like a man standing in the middle of the desert... I know that I can do a lot of things. I know some of them can be creative, and some of them can be unnoticed at all by others.
The question is what to do... Too many choices for a man who wants to make the world better.
Ancient romans said: "Non omnia omnes possunt" (Rough translation - "Even all can't do everything").

 

[Mylon]

If you're going to do a large scale mod, first pick a theme, an idea that your mod is going to center around. For something relatively center, you could design your mod around an alternate history. Maybe the wheel isn't one of the first techs. Maybe man discovers medicine and drama first. Or, you could take an alternate route on Kael's mod, but using it as a base. Maybe rather than good/evil/netural, you have a map generator that spawns cities all over the map for each of the civs and you put some kind of catalyst for war that makes them all start duking it out.

 

[Deon]

Your ideas are helpful in fact that they are good ideas, but the problem is here still - I have too many things I want to do. From making leaderheads and unit models to digging the SDK. I think I'll spend some time doing "everything" just to make sure which part attracts me more than other =).
Because the interest in your own work is the main thing needed to complete the work from a scratch to the release date.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Deon, Kael will say first come the design phase.
I add that, secondly, as you are skilled with C++, you must get all your code change required by your designed mod. After that, it must be a cycle between Art, xml and python.

 

[korny77]

can anyone tell me what files i need tor work on to add 1 or a couple of ERAS to a mod?

and also to customize the the picture that shows up when u start the era

thanx

 

[lord_graywolfe]

ok my current question is now that they have put out a new patch, 3.17, my mod wont work with it anymore. this is due to the change in the gamecore dll file. so what do i have to change/upgrade in my mod to make it accept the new game core file?

 

[Kael]

ok my current question is now that they have put out a new patch, 3.17, my mod wont work with it anymore. this is due to the change in the gamecore dll file. so what do i have to change/upgrade in my mod to make it accept the new game core file?

I would post this request in the main Creation & Customization forum. This thread is about the design aspects of modding, not the technical aspects.

 

[cIV_khanh93]

good article. Wrong title. (love FFH btw)

 

[Tholish]

This thread got me interested in trying my hand at modding again, made me think about things I did wrong before.