Summary of the below: I'm not sure how much the Lua provided by a mod can do. Is it possible for Lua scripts to modify the game database? Or is that only something you can do via SQL and XML?
My wife and I enjoy playing a heavily modded multiplayer Civ V under Linux; to do this, we use MPMPM under Windows to create a modpack and then transfer the modpack to our Linux machines. The process of creating the modpacks is slow (as the Civ 5 menu for mod selection has serious performance problems when you have hundreds of mods in the list) and error-prone (now and then, one of the hundreds of mods won't work correctly and will cause crashes only after it is used in a modpack). MPMPM has been an excellent tool for us, but I'm hoping to be able to experiment with modpacks without so much manual effort.
So I'd like to create a Linux CLI tool that will create modpacks for me without the intervention of Windows or Civ V. The source for Gedemon's MPMPM is easily available (https://github.com/Gedemon/Civ5-MultiPlayer-ModsPack-Maker/blob/master/MPMP_Maker.lua), which helps a great deal.
To do this, I have to load in all of the game's base definitions to create some SQL database out of them; that should be easy. Then, I'd need to do whatever it is that Civ V does when you activate a mod. Finally, I'd take the step that MPMPM does: serialize the database into a collection of XML files that can override every definition in the game and use that as a fake DLC.
The second step above is, of course, the hardest; I have to faithfully execute on the database every operation that Civ V would execute for every mod. I'm hoping that someone tells me that Lua scripts can only read the SQL database and so my program would only have to apply the SQL and XML files from the mod during this phase. I have a creeping feeling, though, that there might be some way in which a Lua file could make database modifications.
It's hard to get any certainty on something like this by reading the existing documentation, since there could always be some tiny detail I missed. So I thought I'd bow at the feet of the community's knowledge: can Civ V mod Lua files alter the Civ V SQL database?
Thank you!
My wife and I enjoy playing a heavily modded multiplayer Civ V under Linux; to do this, we use MPMPM under Windows to create a modpack and then transfer the modpack to our Linux machines. The process of creating the modpacks is slow (as the Civ 5 menu for mod selection has serious performance problems when you have hundreds of mods in the list) and error-prone (now and then, one of the hundreds of mods won't work correctly and will cause crashes only after it is used in a modpack). MPMPM has been an excellent tool for us, but I'm hoping to be able to experiment with modpacks without so much manual effort.
So I'd like to create a Linux CLI tool that will create modpacks for me without the intervention of Windows or Civ V. The source for Gedemon's MPMPM is easily available (https://github.com/Gedemon/Civ5-MultiPlayer-ModsPack-Maker/blob/master/MPMP_Maker.lua), which helps a great deal.
To do this, I have to load in all of the game's base definitions to create some SQL database out of them; that should be easy. Then, I'd need to do whatever it is that Civ V does when you activate a mod. Finally, I'd take the step that MPMPM does: serialize the database into a collection of XML files that can override every definition in the game and use that as a fake DLC.
The second step above is, of course, the hardest; I have to faithfully execute on the database every operation that Civ V would execute for every mod. I'm hoping that someone tells me that Lua scripts can only read the SQL database and so my program would only have to apply the SQL and XML files from the mod during this phase. I have a creeping feeling, though, that there might be some way in which a Lua file could make database modifications.
It's hard to get any certainty on something like this by reading the existing documentation, since there could always be some tiny detail I missed. So I thought I'd bow at the feet of the community's knowledge: can Civ V mod Lua files alter the Civ V SQL database?
Thank you!
