Modding ciV

Lead designer of Civ4 Soren Johnson and Derek Paxton from FFH2 talks about modding strategy games on Three Moves Ahead episode 76

At least semi-related to Civ5 modding

 

That is the most elitist thing I've read in weeks. Some of the simplest mods are the best. Also remember that a big mod is made up of what? Many simple mods. It's the simple mods that form the building blocks of the complex mods.

 

I'll ignore your bait.

Really? Which ones? I don't know any simple mods that are very rewarding. BUG? That has at least 20k lines of code in it; not simple by any standard. FFH? BAT? DCM? All complex. Name 3 simple mods that are interesting and fun, in their own rite.

Wrong. A big mod is usually a massive overhaul of the game, like FFH. I see very very few features in FFH that Kael didn't write himself. Your talking about a "compilation" mod, which is a whole different beast.

FTFY.

 

I'm really looking forward to someone modding a new map generator, similar to NewWorld, Planet Generator and the Erebus maps of FFH. Looking at the strategic view we've seen so far, the mountain placement doesn't convince me. Didn't find any mountain ranges, choke points etc. I really hope for mountain ranges which encompass more than 3 tiles.

 

i agree.
as for me, i will not be upset if there is no way to add new civs. anyway most of additional leaderheads for civ4 look pretty low grade and they are just original leaders with different textures but same animations and proportions. it feels like a schizophrenia to see say Alexander wearing different costumes to rule different nations.

 

Number of downloads is the least interesting part of mods.


I've mentioned this before but you seem to intentionally skim over the points that muddy your argument:

1. Smaller mods (e.g. a single civ) are rarely what the end user downloads directly. This does not mean they are not wanted. If they are included within a larger mod (if you want to call it a compilation mod, that's ok) then they would not be downloaded separately.
Take the example of Legends of Revolution. It includes new civs/leaders. The distribution of those would not be reflected in their download pages in the database.

2. Mods that undergo frequent revisions or updates will have substantially more downloads than there are people playing it. Not that it happens often, but a mod that is released in a final state would receive fewer downloads for its relative popularity.

The authors of BUG have indeed written a huge amount of new code themselves so I don't wish to discount that, but there are in fact lots of smaller mods that got included in BUG. The unaltered gameplay mods started out that way. Remember jray's UGH mod? (link. It probably wasn't the first, but it's the one that I best remember as being one of the first)

ACO is included in BUG. It really was DanF, myself, phungus and EF who wrote that. I made some changes so it could be included more easily in BUG, but please don't pretend that everything in the BUG Mod was written in isolation for that mod. To be fair though, the past year and a bit has seen the BUG team doing more work on their own.

BAT also consists of lots of smaller graphics mods.

 

From what I forebode, as the Civilization Franchise advances, the modding community will have less of an ability to be involved in all the future games of the series by nature. PS3 games are not as easily hackable as NES games, after all. The thing is that Civilizations I to IV were easy to mod because of their simple gaming engine -- the games focused more on the gameplay than the graphics or any other extra features. However, now that the Civilization Franchise is adopting the more advanced graphics engine and voices for the leaders, regular modders won't be able as easily to mod the games anymore, unless they become a specialist in gaming technology. In that case, however, just like lawyers are specialists in law, because the law has become too complex for the common people to study without special devotion, I just can't see modders continuing to provide their services to the gaming community without prices or compensation for their work coming up.

 

If it's the least interesting part; then pray tell me... why spend 3 paragraphs discussing it!?

I don't disagree explicitly with anything you stated; I just fail to see your point. You think that there is a lot of demand for custom Civ's, not because they show a lot of downloads, but because they get included in a lot of mods. But you've fallen to a logical trap; the chicken or the egg... Tell me; which came first, the mods, or the custom Civilizations? Do mods drive demand of custom civilizations, or Do custom civilizations drive demand of mods?

Modding will always remain free, due in part to the legal ramifications. Technically, Firaxis states in the EULA, that they own all Civ4 Mods. And they do. When you bought BTS, some of the features you PAYED for were user-created mods.

Instead, when the curve is increased for modding, the quality of the content will remain roughly the same, but the quantity will decrease. It will be harder for people w/o programming backgrounds to mod, but existing programmers, like Kael, Dale, EmperorFool, Jdog5000, etc, will continue modding as if nothing had changed.

 

lol I talk about a lot of things that aren't interesting. At uni, pretty much everything I have to write about can be summed up that way.

I don't see the need for such bizarre questions. Why can't you just accept that there is a demand for custom civs? You come to this thread saying "Who cares" like you know somehow that no one cares. Of course mods like BUG are going to be extremely popular when you compare them to much smaller scale changes like adding custom civs. You may as well ask if people want an apple or a hundred bananas. Of course, there's lots of people who want the hundred bananas. Lots of people would like apples enough they'd also want the apple. There might even be a few people who'd prefer the apple over the hundred bananas.

I think more generally it's your subtle reinforcing that modding is somehow a competition that I don't agree with. My nature is that I'm usually a fairly competitive person, but I don't think it should be relevant to any modding I do. After all we're not doing it for money. But it's the topic for another discussion I suppose.

I think your agenda here is much more obvious after reading this. I agree with you the people you have mentioned are among the most highly regarded of civ modders (too modest to mention yourself, I note). Even the best, though, can take inspiration from everyone else. Making modding more accessible is IMO in principle something to get behind. The best mods will always stand out anyway, even if it requires pointing out number of downloads as you like to do.
I'd assume that any experienced modder from today had to at some point start with something simple. Some of them might have even been inspired to learn more about programming after their initial experience.

 

I wasn't baiting you. I was stating a fact.

1. Changing the number of Civs accessible to the engine. It's not even a line of code, it's a number change. Can't get more simpler, and this particular modification has provided heaps of fun for nearly everyone who's played a mod.
2. The Dragon. Released on it's own. You saying no one ever had fun with that unit?
3. Maps. Simple mods which give players a lot of fun.

Any big mod is made up of a number of smaller modifications. Each of those smaller mods are able to be removed from the environment they're in and operate. Such as a single unit. An "overhaul" mod as you call it, is just another form of compilation mod. There's heaps of singular Civs, singular units, etc. Technically even each concept coded in is it's own mod. Take DCM (since I know it well). It may seem like a complex mod, but technically it's a just a compilation of ranged combat, air missions, stacked combat, etc. Each a mod in their own right.

If you don't understand that, then you don't truly understand how mods operate.

 

Only a minority of people care. Look at Civ5, for example. How many people (or rather, how few) are willing to pay $10 for Babylon. That speaks volumes for the demand...

Agenda? I was merely giving my opinion as to what happens when the curve is raised. I did not say whether that was a good thing or bad thing. I think it's your "agenda" to debate anything and everything I post.

I'd only agree with 1. The Dragon is an extremely complex unit; which took a lot of time to create, since there was nothing to base it off of. Likewise, good maps or even mapscripts take many many hours. Regardless, you're missing the point.

You said:

How does your comment even begin to address mine? How are they even related? I'm talking about new civilizations, you're on some tangent about building blocks.

Your condescension is always appreciated.

 

About as much as your continuous elitism mate.

 

One thing that will have to be clarified re: modding is how much the DLC/exclusive stuff will effect the modding community. Obviously it is clear that such content cannot generally be used in a mod, since you have to pay for it (which is reasonable). Does this mean that no modpack can have Babylon as a civ, even with difference traits, etc. What if they include new wonders as DLC....guess modders can tweak the name/traits to get around it...

This could suck a bit if more things start getting offered as DLC as opposed to a full expansion like in Civ 4. Imagine if Warlords and Corporations were included as DLC instead of the Warlords/ BTS expansion. Could very well have meant no mods could have used either of those components!!. Imagine if Final Frontier was DLC. Would certainly make the FF Plus mod a no go. This is my greatest concern about offering content in this manner. It's fine for something like Fallout 3, but for a game thats meant to be moddable the prospect of being locked out of utilizing many elements because they were all introduced as DLC and thus non-transferable
is undesirable to the community for obvious reasons.

I know some people didn't care to buy the 3 separate expansions, but didnt think of the potential consquences if this stuff started getting offered as DLC instead.

I personally won't be buy CiV for now, mainly do to system requirements. Many some day when i upgrade my comp I will think about it.

 

So does that mean we can no longer mod using simple XML files?

 

We still can use XML but LUA seems to have taken the place of python as a scripting language.