1. What subjects have you studied in the past or are studying now that help you in creating the worlds/scenarios you are interested in?
Hi. I'm no longer there very often, but I could answer.
1. Mostly history and geography. I have some special interest for the Napoleonic era period, and with WWII (my old time playing Advanced Squad Leader for that), but when I worked on my CivIII mod, I studied all the time period, and all the geographical area (Africa, Asia, America, Europe). With focus on uniforms/armies (not surprising since I used to paint figurines), but also succession of states and monarchs (for an "evolutive" civilization, like Gauls --> Franks --> French).
Programming too (C# for me), to be able to create my editor to help with modding.
Beside this, Excel, Notepad or FrontPage. These could be seen as mere tools, but I think the important concept behind is : "learning to get Organized". When you make a very large overhaul mod, you need to be very Organized, design in advance what you plan to do, keep track of what you did / had done, and also design some work methodology that is efficient. For example, with experience I so that editing the PediaIcons with copy/past in notepad was for me much faster than using any of the editors available, providing I reorganized stuff to get things grouped as I needed
Now, I no longer mod CivIII, but mod Napoleon Total War. Here again history studies are importants. I already had a strong background, but I had to go in much more details for the uniforms/army organization of all the small factions. And finding information for some countries like Sweden is difficult. Or Sardinia!
Beside History, I had to studies Gimp and textures editing. And later mesh editing, and sound editing (for voices).
I didn't make any complex program (just a small one to help check references). But here again, I'd like to stress the importance of being very organized, with the use of many Excel files (NTW is much more complex to mod than CivIII) and the need of t design methodology.
2. What subjects do you feel you don't know enough about that would make creating the kind of worlds/scenarios you are interested in easier or more rewarding?
In my time with CivIII, definitely how to create models and animate them. I never finished my mod and more or less quite for two reasons:
- Firaxis "brutal" refusal to go forwared with my idea of source transfer, after an initial positive start, with no explanation. I think it was a strong hit on moral.
- Some "gaps" in the unit lines. May I was too ambitious, trying to make detailed evolutive civilizations, and all the civilizaitons. But it means some civ had big holes in their unit lines. I was dependant on other modders to release the units I missed, and since some never came, I suppose I got demotivated at some points.
Lack of time due to start of NTW modding is also an issue. But maybe if I have been able to make my own units to fill the gaps, I may have finished the mod. And maybe still be modding it. And for sure, if tomorrow Firaxis contacts me and says "here is the source code", I'd be back immediately.
As for NTW modding, I started with a partner in crime who did the texture editing. But I learnt how to do that quickly, and now I'm alone on the mod, and so I can do everything alone (table editing, but also the graphics). If there is something missing, it would be to go into "reverse engineering" and be able to decipher some of the file formats the game is using (like the map), so I could go further and propose a new map for exemple. But I don't have time to go down this road.
I'd say what is really missing is not personnal skills, it's more a good colaboration with the game editor. And that's unfortunately something you cannot learn.
