Modding Keywords and Abbreviations

I'm making this thread as a reference for people so they will know what words and abbreviations to use while describing their mod, and to keep it as uniform as ever.
At first, we should be using this thread to discuss and agree on what common keywords, phrases and abbreviations should be used. Then hopefully by the time of release we can agree and this thread can become a more permanent reference for new modders.

As most people will know, the original Civ5 modding abbreviations were
UA, UB, UI, UU, and UNW.
Unique Ability, Unique Building, Unique Improvement, Unique Unit and Unique National Wonder.

With a new game comes new features, and everyone is inventing their own ways of remembering them. For example, i have see the new Leader Abilities being called
LUA (which is very confusing) and LA (Which makes a bit more sense). I have also seen the civilization's ability referred to as National Ability, which i quite like.

Here are two of my ideas, please discuss below.

• UA - Unique Ability. The CIVILIZATION ability.
  
• UU - Unique Unit. The CIVILIZATION unit.
  
• UD - Unique District. The CIVILIZATION district.
  
• UI - Unique Improvement. The CIVILIZATION improvement.
  
• UB - Unique Building. The CIVILIZATION building.
  
• LA - Leader Ability. The LEADER'S ability.
  
• Agenda - Can't think of a suitable abbreviation. The LEADER'S unique diplomacy traits.

• LU - Leader Unique. Encompasses all the abilities, units and maybe buildings unique to the leader.
  
• LA - Leader Agenda. The unique diplomacy traits of the leader.
  
• UA - Unique Ability.
  
• UI - Unique Infastructure. Encompasses all the unique buildings, improvements and districts into one. This is what Firaxis has called it.
  
• UU - Unique Unit.

Another option for the civilization uniques is to replace Unique with C for "Civilization" or N for "National".


I hope we can come to some conclusion and make modding just that bit more organised. If you have any ideas on what other keywords and abbreviations we should start using to help keep Civ6 modding organised, do say.

 

Great, so now UI is Unique Improvement, Unique Infrastructure, or User Interface.

Also, for what it's worth*, I like ULA for Unique Leader Ability and LA for Leader Agenda.

*not much since I'm not actually a modder. Just a mod user and forum frequenter.

 

Don't see how using LUA for "Leader Unique Ability" would be more confusing than using using "UI" for Unique Infrastructure. LUA is at least written in all caps, while Lua should never be written that way - clear distinction.

Overall I think Abbreviations should evolve naturally and then a reference-chart should be made to represent how they're used, not the other way around. Even if we'd get a very organized system here, everywhere else people would still be using what "flows" naturally from Language, and of course newbies would have an even harder time what those letters are supposed to mean if they're not representative of what we say when we don't shorten stuff.

That would be double the confusion to prevent some confusion that is most of the time clear in context anyway.

 

You could also take the extra half-second to type the whole word out and not use confusing acronyms all the time.

 

All that really matters is that people don't use the same abbreviation for 2 different things. For example, UI should continue to mean "Unique Improvement" so that people who aren't in on this plan will continue to use it correctly. Nobody should be using it for "Unique Infrastructure", and context should make it obvious if its referring to "User Interface".

So LUA/ULA/LA are interchangeable. I doubt anyone needs to use LA for "Leader Agenda", since its really just an Agenda. Most people will write the coding language as Lua afaik.

Basically, I would use your first suggestion.