Afforess
The White Wizard
All the XML is up. I plan on doing the lua folders in a bit.
Modding Speculation
- Thread starter Afforess
- Start date
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
Thanks again for the update.
I'm quite interested as to why all the leaders have their separate file. I wonder now what you'd have to do if you want to make a new civ...
I'm quite interested as to why all the leaders have their separate file. I wonder now what you'd have to do if you want to make a new civ...
Afforess
The White Wizard
I'd bet it's quite involved, and much more difficult than in Civ4. I mean, the animations and audio probably make up a significant amount of work. It's quite possible that static leaders are impossible due to the new game engine, which would complicate things further.
Of course it's all speculation at this point, but that's my guess. At any rate, Graphic modders are going to have a field day with all they can do in Civ5.
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
I think I'll have to agree with you on that one. They wouldn't separate the leaders if it was just a few lines of xml code.
Speaking of art, I don't see an art file, meaning you either forgot to put it in the OP or it doesn't exist. Assuming the latter, this might make xml work a bit more interesting...
Speaking of art, I don't see an art file, meaning you either forgot to put it in the OP or it doesn't exist. Assuming the latter, this might make xml work a bit more interesting...
Kruelgor
Emperor
The game devs claim that Civ 5 puts a strong emphasis on helping the mod community, so I would think and hope that modding leaders won't be terribly difficult.
Afforess
The White Wizard
No Art XML that I can see. Possibly, it's directly inside of the requisite files. Eg, building art is inside of Civ5BuildingInfos.
Afforess
The White Wizard
They might have sacrificed leader modability for other things, like a lot more modability with the UI, and the new Lua coding language. While the game might be more moddable, that doesn't directly translate into every component of the game being more moddable. Also, what I said doesn't preclude the possibility of adding new leaders, it just makes it a lot more effort. I believe I read somewhere that you will need more programming experience to mod Civ5 than you did for Civ4. I'll see if I can find that quote...
Oh, I found the art FPK's. They are in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\resource\Common"
Kruelgor
Emperor
To be honest, I'm not expecting any of it to be easy. I'm sure there will be lots of trial and error and the utilization of special software to create a true masterpiece of a mod. I'm just hoping that whatever special software needed will have free trial versions available.
EmperorFool
Deity
Sure, but that doesn't make them required. I didn't say they weren't recommended, only that a) they aren't mandatory and b) not as useful without a tool that enforces them.
This is why I said that they are less useful when you have full examples. By that I mean a CIV5UnitInfos.xml that has all fields specified in whatever order the parser requires. Maybe they wrote better parsing code for Civ5 that handles elements in any order and allows any element to be omitted. If so, all we need to know is the type of each field and what it does. Documentation would be preferable to a schema file, though both would be better.
With Civ4 we got schemas and full examples without any documentation, and there was no shortage of questions about the XML files on the forums.
I wish they had left the XML and Lua files unencrypted for the preload so we could dig in now. It's not like we'd be able to play.
Did you test if you can unpack it via PakBuild?
And i'm fairly sure that i didn't see any art references in the leaderhead files, but didn't have that much time.
But there was another screenshot, which i found exciting for modding. Will see, if i can find it later.
Afforess
The White Wizard
Can't, everything is encrypted. Opening even simple text files yields a swath of hexadecimal code.
EmperorFool
Deity
My guess is that they separated the XML (and art) for all leaders to make it easier to package single leaders and civilizations up into mini-mods. Sure, creating the model, skin, and animation for a new leader will probably be more involved, installing it into Civ5 once it's complete should be easier for the end-user and the built-in tool.
Notice that there's a separate UI folder which contains Art, XML, Lua, cursors, fonts (a .ggxml file, WTH??), Text, etc. It's like a mini CustomAssets folder in itself. I don't think it will make too much of a difference, but it may make it easier to merge a UI mod such as BUG with a graphics and gameplay mod such as RevDCM.
In looking through the Lua folder it looks like every screen and popup is moddable and has its own file. This is great if it's true as it will make total conversions possible.
Notice that there's a separate UI folder which contains Art, XML, Lua, cursors, fonts (a .ggxml file, WTH??), Text, etc. It's like a mini CustomAssets folder in itself. I don't think it will make too much of a difference, but it may make it easier to merge a UI mod such as BUG with a graphics and gameplay mod such as RevDCM.
In looking through the Lua folder it looks like every screen and popup is moddable and has its own file. This is great if it's true as it will make total conversions possible.
bjbrains
Man of U-235
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Yea, they've already said that the entire UI is moddable, no more hardcoded screens like Civ 4's diplomacy screen. I'm going to be really interested in what people can do with the tools available (once the SDK is released especially).
Kruelgor
Emperor
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Its premature to be talking about mods, when as of now we don't have any idea what will and won't be moddable, these threads as such have derailed quickly if this happens with this one it will be clossed like the others.
bjbrains
Man of U-235
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I disagree with this statement. We have a very good idea on what will be moddable, especially now that we have the file structuring, and many statements from 2K on stuff that *is* moddable (Like every part of the UI, and obviously all the XML and LUA code on top of the SDK they're releasing). If this was some kind of argument over that, then sure. But this is just talking about actual evidence, not baseless speculation.
SJSerio
Centurion
Thanks for posting this!
I'm quite interested in what the Civ5Regions.xml is. Does anyone have any ideas?
I am thinking that it relates to the tilesets (Europe, Asia, Africa, America)
They are listed under GameInfos...
I would say that they are for modding scenarios. Probably won't change the tiles like winter, but just for time tracking. They were in CIV IV as well.
SJSerio
Centurion
Well, it is awards, not rewards, so I would think that maybe it has something to do with achievements?!? Maybe not Steam achievements, but small in-game achievements.
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