Is DLL access still on the roadmap?

[Saucetenuto]

It's been months since I paid attention to civ 5 modding, but it sounds like we still can't edit the DLL as we could in Civ 4. Is that right? Do we know if that's ever going to happen, and if so when?

 

[Gedemon]

It will happen, "when" is the problem.

 

[whoward69]

From the latest ModBuddy beta (for patch/build 674) - so it must be a lot closer than before!

 

[hairrorist]

Has there been any news or activity at all about giving modders DLL access? I bought Civ5 fully expecting a broken, unbalanced boredom simulator, which is exactly what I got. I didn't buy it for the base game... I bought it anticipating a new wave of the kind of creativity we've seen from the Civ4 community, but the game didn't capture the imaginations of the most ambitious modders, and that is directly because of the lack of DLL access. I've tried looking around the net, but most discussion about it is from 2010. Is it dead?

 

[markusbeutel]

Has there been any news or activity at all about giving modders DLL access? I bought Civ5 fully expecting a broken, unbalanced boredom simulator, which is exactly what I got. I didn't buy it for the base game... I bought it anticipating a new wave of the kind of creativity we've seen from the Civ4 community, but the game didn't capture the imaginations of the most ambitious modders, and that is directly because of the lack of DLL access. I've tried looking around the net, but most discussion about it is from 2010. Is it dead?

This is the last we've heard of it...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10678832&postcount=687

Aside from the lack of DLL access, I think there's a lot of reasons why modders have stuck with CIV IV.

I'll just go ahead and say it: the base vanilla version of CIV V is horribly dumbed down compared to CIV IV, and you can see Firaxis backtracking on countless design decisions in an attempt to bring some depth back into the game (religions/espionage/leader text hints/opinions of you).

All of these things were explicitly kept out of CIV V as core design decisions - at least according to numerous interviews and official podcasts leading up to CIV V's release. I also think there was just too much change for the sake of change, with little to no thought put in regarding overall game balance, (I'm looking at you global happiness and leader traits). An over-emphasis on graphics also really constricts what modders can do, (for example, you'll never see custom leader animations like you did in CIV IV).

Also, since the game is Steam exclusive, patches were frequent, and pretty much broke most mods as soon as they were released. With CIV IV you could patch your game whenever you wanted - and that's just not an option with CIV V - and it makes for a frustrating modding experience.

But IMO, the main thing that's held CIV V back in regards to modding, is the abysmal multiplayer and the complete lack of multiplayer mod support - and while people may completely disagree with my views on the core game being horribly dumbed down, (I'm fine with that - I didn't spend thousands of hours modding Nights because I thought vanilla CIV V was great, I put in the time in order to have a playable version of CIV V that matched my expectations for it out of the box), I don't think anyone can disagree that the lack of multiplayer support, now almost 2 years after release, is appalling - especially when you consider that CIV IV was first designed for multiplayer, with single-player developed afterwards.

I don't mean for this to come across as a rant, just an honest opinion as a modder of CIV V.

 

[Gedemon]

I've almost the same opinion than Markusbeutel on the subject. I may place the "dumped down" civ in first position, and add the lack of easy graphical (3D) editing tools to the mix.

RFC can be done in Lua, completly new mechanisms could be added, old mechanisms could be re-added, the DLL will be a welcome (and in some case, yes, needed) addition, but there is a lot of things that can be done already.

 

[PawelS]

Here comes the "dumbed down" argument again. But at least one thing is much more complex in Civ5 - the combat (but this complexity also causes problems for the AI). The Civ4 stack of doom combat is utterly stupid, it's one of the main reasons why I'm playing and modding Civ5 instead of Civ4. And generally I don't see any significant drop in complexity between Civ4 and Civ5.

But there were some things in regards to modding that I really liked in Civ4 compared to Civ5, like the ability to run the game with a commandline option that pre-loads a mod at startup. And I agree about the lack of multiplayer support, at least they should make mods playable in hotseat. Also it would be really helpful if converting unit models from Civ4 was easier, lack of unit models is one of the main obstacles in Civ5 modding IMO, and there are lots of them available for Civ4.

I'm waiting for the DLL mainly because I prefer to code in C++ than in LUA, so many things will be easier for me to do. I will never make such a LUA-heavy mod that adds entirely new features and controls the AI behavior as Pazyryk is making, but when the DLL comes out, I'm going to make some significant changes to add some features that I need.

 

[Gedemon]

Well, what I can say is that I would have released a working version of my dynamic history mod since some months if I hadn't have to integrate new mechanism to prevent the emptiness feeling of the game as it is now.

 

[Pazyryk]

I believe this is the last "official" mention of dll by 2KGreg. Since they were clearly far into G&K at the time (but hadn't announced it yet) I always assumed that the two were connected.

On the modding side, I could never ever go back to Civ4. I'm just spoiled by the Fire Tuner, by the accessible Database system, by complete access to UI (without dll), by the ability for a variable to actually hold a value from one turn to the next (a pretty basic feature of a variable that you couldn't do in Civ4 Python modding). On the other hand, the three things that have totally stunted the Civ5 mod community: 1) The absurd difficulty in adding 3D units (what's a fantasy mod without fantasy units? It's just a bunch of useless code) and impossibility to add other 3D assets; 2) Lack of dll; 3) Lack of multiplayer. We could argue about order. I ordered these by how many Civ4 mods couldn't exist and the number of mod players affected given the particular Civ5 deficiency.

It's kind of a mixed bag for me on the play side. There were brilliant ideas to increase complexity (like removing to slider to make science and gold noninterchangeable) that were then completely negated (adding RAs to make science and gold completely interchangeable).


Edit: just noticed that there was another thread on this only a week ago. whoward69's discovery there is pretty encouraging.

 

[Pazyryk]

Perhaps these two threads should be merged.

From the latest ModBuddy beta (for patch/build 674) - so it must be a lot closer than before!

I just wanted to comment on whoward69's post above. This means:

1. The intention is still there (i.e., some corporate suit didn't pull the plug and tell the devs to stay mum about it).
2. Someone has been actively working on it very recently.

We now have evidence for these two points (which could not have been said for the last 20 months).

 

[The_J]

Edit: just noticed that there was another thread on this only a week ago. whoward69's discovery there is pretty encouraging.

Perhaps these two threads should be merged.

Moderator Action: Threads merged.
Thanks for the notification .

 

[whoward69]

And from the 674 patch notes over on the 2k forums

"•DLL swapping is now possible in-game."

 

[Gedemon]

And from the 674 patch notes over on the 2k forums

"•DLL swapping is now possible in-game."

That's one of the reasons of the patch, they had stated here that they need this feature (DLL swapping) to prepare G&K inclusion in Civ5.

They also stated at the time that the DLL SDK was still planned but not a part of the patch itself.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

RE-volution in modding has just begun... we will actually be able to create as many expansion like features as we can design.
Patience paid up, i hope for the many talented minds that had to experiment with restricted access for nearly two years.
Superb news, Firaxis staff.

 

[Pazyryk]

I just count the last two years as warm-up, since I haven't actually produced a playable Civ5 mod yet. (I hope folks have found my tools and tutorials useful though.)

 

[Nefliqus]

RE-volution in modding has just begun... we will actually be able to create as many expansion like features as we can design.
Patience paid up, i hope for the many talented minds that had to experiment with restricted access for nearly two years.
Superb news, Firaxis staff.

But how do you want to prepare new DLL if you don't have source code of base DLL? What does this DLL swapping really mean?

 

[Gedemon]

But how do you want to prepare new DLL if you don't have source code of base DLL? What does this DLL swapping really mean?

I suppose that G&K will be technically a DLC containing a new DLL, but no exe, and you will be able to swap between Civ5 vanilla and G&K ingame.

edit : and that will be available to mods too, *when* the DLL SDK is released.

 

[thadian]

If they don't release the DLL, they can avoid modders making a better game than they have. Imagine if the DLL were released 6 months ago and G+K announced.

A modder would then be able to create the entire G+K as a mod, and that is why we don't have it yet. They don't want to "compete" with modders.

 

[hairrorist]

Yeah, Civ V was disappointing as a base game, but so was Civ IV. Am I the only one that remembers the howling outrage at C-IV? At launch, it literally did not work--not just as a game, but as a program--for a huge number of 0-day purchasers. When it did run, it was a pretty mediocre playing experience. It had some neat new mechanics but it was largely derided by the community, and for good reason. That's the state Civ V was in shortly after launch, and that was fine by me, because I didn't buy Civ V as a game, but as a modding platform. With subsequent expansions, Civ IV even as a vanilla game experience went on to become the best iteration of Civ to date, but what made it one of the greatest games of all time was the deep level of access given to modders. Given the same level of access to Civ V, we would have mods that force fun and interesting mechanics, strategic choice, etc, into the cold dead husk of the base game, and a multitude of mods that essentially function as completely new games with new themes, that do not play anything like the base game.

But that never happened, and it doesn't look like it will. It seems more like the carrot they dangle to keep stringing along the old timers while releasing an endless piss-stream of DLC for us to lap up. Even the expansion doesn't look like it will change the game as fundamentally as the Civ IV expansions did. It doesn't really seem like it adds much at all. Religions sound neat, but should have been in at release, and were only ever a subtle part of civ strategy or even gameplay.

-edit-
Sorry, last time I read this thread was before it had been merged... people with a better understanding of brevity made my points for me!

 

[The_J]

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Moderator Action: This is a modding thread, not a rant thread.
Use the rant thread in General Discussion if you want to rant, and not this thread.