[BTS] "I'm only planning on bugfixes from here on" - f1rpo. The resulting mod-mods discussion.

[arcvoodal]

Since advanced civ is being kept pure, our ideas for changes/additions are going to be made as mod-mods for AdvCiv. I figured we should take advantage of the module-system in civ4 modding so that we can "take home" the changes/additions we want and build them into our own mod-mods. Consider this scenario with John, Jack, and Jill who are unaware of each other:


John wants to expand on AdvCiv diplomacy; revert AdvCiv changes to civics; and keep AdvCiv changes to espionage as it is.

Jack wants to overhaul AdvCiv espionage; expand AdvCiv diplomacy; and leave AdvCiv changes to civics as it is.

Jill wants to overhaul AdvCiv espionage; revert AdvCiv changes to civics; and leave AdvCiv diplomacy as it is.

John, Jack, and Jill each build their own mod-mod from scratch and each publish them on CivFanatics. Each mod-mod is incompatible, uncustomizable, and in a monolithic take-it-or-leave-it package.


Rather than each of us duplicating work like this and every mod-mod being full of interconnected immutable changes/additions, why don't we release our minor changes/additions as modules first and share them with eachother? We can "take home" the modules we want and combine them to make our own mod-mods, while also making it possible for others to remove the parts they didn't want and add new parts as they see fit.
I can make a module for rebalancing units, and another module for rebalancing buildings. Now everyone has access to separate balance changes and can choose if they want one or both, then simply pop it into their own big mod-mod they are working on.

 

[DeepWell]

Well, isn't that timely? I'm just about to release a modmod (built on my previous modmods) which has revisited cultural unit and citystyles. In addition I have added unique units / buildings 1-3 per civ (some of them are shared). The changes I have made to those are not dramatic because I didn't want them to affect the AI in any way but I believe that it gives a bit more culture specific feel to the game. If that sounds something you could work on then I'm available for collaboration.

 

[arcvoodal]

Well, isn't that timely? I'm just about to release a modmod (built on my previous modmods) which has revisited cultural unit and citystyles. In addition I have added unique units / buildings 1-3 per civ (some of them are shared). The changes I have made to those are not dramatic because I didn't want them to affect the AI in any way but I believe that it gives a bit more culture specific feel to the game. If that sounds something you could work on then I'm available for collaboration.

If you want to check balance for units there is this (long) video. Unit Tier List . Buildings need tons of balancing. Castles become obsolete super quick, custom house costs tons of etc. Now that AdvCiv has made some balance changes too, I would like to hear from some experts what balancing would synergies with AdvCiv.

For new civs its possible to make a module for each new civ, rather than cram them all in together as a single module. This guide shows how to do it for new civs.

P.S
Thanks a ton for the ethnic unit art style addition to AdvCiv!!!

 

[arcvoodal]

Alright, like I said, I don't think the modules system is used enough for civ4 mods. I have made an example of us using modules for the AdvCiv mod. I have made a mod that removes resource requirements for unique units. A civ will no longer be locked out of their own unique unit because of unlucky spawns.

With this mod structure there is no need to overwrite AdvCiv UnitInfos.xml file and conflict with other mods. I also made each individual unit as its own module so that someone changing one unit doesn't destroy this entire mod, it only affects that single unit of this mod.

Anyone can also now just copy-paste this module to make it part of their own mod.

Hopefully doing mod-mods it this way from the beginning avoids tons of headaches and losing out on merging features.

 

[arcvoodal]

For DeepWell's ethnic units and buildings mod-mod, which was created with the help of many other members on civfanatics, I have modularized some of the units and civilizations aspect by stripping out each item to its own directory. I created the module with the folder structure I think adheres to modularity. I cannot currently achieve the same with buildings and city tile sets since the Civ4CityLSystem.xml and Civ4PlotLSystem.xml has far too much to strip in a reasonable amount of time, it is exactly the kind of behemoth files I would like us all to avoid creating (especially since it even replaces the original xml files in advciv's xml folder).

I attached the module to this comment, but this isn't functional yet since I cannot find a more efficient way to completing the rest. Some of the unit files for generics might not be named perfectly. I would like for some help stripping and modularizing the rest of the files into the current folder structure so that this can be converted to a modular mod-mod. I also include the script I wrote for extracting the unit xml into their own separate files. Writing a similar script for city tiles and buildings would probably take longer than doing it all by hand.
An example of the benefits doing it this way is easily creating new city tile sets which only apply to a specific civ which previously was assigned to a general ethnic art group (and reverse the change effortlessly), and of course do so without changing multiple xml files shared across the entire mod (including the entire advciv mod itself).

With each civ in its own folder a modder which wants to add additional unique units etc to certain civs could put it in this folder.