Modding Wish List

[Voyhkah]

I want to hear what my fellow modders want from the modding system in Civ V. What I want:

• The ability to add more than one leader per civ.
• Something very similar to civ IV XML
• Less information is whatever is equivelent to UnitClassInfos (So that a UU could have a different build limit)
• Unique Unit Adding Abilities
• Diplomacy and Music controls are better organized (No stupidly organized DiplomacyInfos and all the music in Leaderheadinfos insted of being in a LeaderMusicInfos or something)
• Please, don't make the LeaderHead buttons to complecated.

 

[deanej]

My only wish is that they get rid of GameFont.tga. A Civ4FontInfos.xml file would have covered its functionality so much better.

Also: how about releasing the SDK from the start? I have no idea why we had to wait until 1.61 with civ4, given that the code was separate from the start. What's so hard about sticking the source files on the CD? Also, more documentation would be nice.

Other than that, overall stay the course.

 

[Schubes]

A leaderhead editor. Cities XL has an inbuilt utility for editing your 3D avatar. You can make almost anyone with it, but can't export, sadly. Something similar for making CIv leaders would be fantastic.

 

[mythusmage]

1. No hard coding. Let people change whatever they want about the game.

2. Release Civ5 under a Creative Commons license. Basically formalizing what Firaxis allows now.

 

[Dale]

A leaderhead editor. Cities XL has an inbuilt utility for editing your 3D avatar. You can make almost anyone with it, but can't export, sadly. Something similar for making CIv leaders would be fantastic.

Only part of CitiesXL that works.

 

[cyther]

My only wish is that they get rid of GameFont.tga. A Civ4FontInfos.xml file would have covered its functionality so much better.

Also: how about releasing the SDK from the start? I have no idea why we had to wait until 1.61 with civ4, given that the code was separate from the start. What's so hard about sticking the source files on the CD? Also, more documentation would be nice.

Other than that, overall stay the course.

I'd second those two. I've wasted so many hours of my life that I will never get back on that terrible Gamefont file.

 

[Schubes]

Only part of CitiesXL that works.

True, true. It is an excellent tool though. It allows a lot of detail in changing facial features. It seems a lot of effort went into designing it, considering how little use the avatar gets. If only they could be exported.

The ability to import Civ IV and Civ III leaders (and possibly even units) would be useful, too. Default values could be used for missing XML tags (There's no technical reason why this can't be done. There's no need for missing tags to break a game). The art may be smaller than normal for leaders, but using less of the screen for leader art is still better than a full-size leader that's such an obvious reskin. As for units, this may present more technical challenges. If it can be done, it would allow more options for those wanting customised or diverse unit art. This would be particularly good for early adopters, before the good artists on these fora have had the time to design any great number of units (same with leader art).

 

[Abaddon]

I want tinkering with the graphics to be easy.

 

[Schubes]

I want tinkering with the graphics to be easy.

I agree. I think allowing the importation of Civ IV or Civ III graphics would allow some flexibility for those of us that are not artists to add additional leaders or units. The graphics may be imperfect for the game (ie: leaderheads would'nt take up the whole screen, Civ IV units show 3 soldiers whilst Civ V may show more), but it provides more options, especially for early adopters. Besides, a good quality Ataturk from Civ IV on the side of the screen is always going to be better than a hastily done full-screen Kublai Khan re-skin dressed in a suit.

Anything to make the artists and programmers jobs easier though, will hasten the proliferation of mods available on these fora for download. A ' default' graphic used in place of missing/ill-defined graphics would be a life-saver. Crashes to desktop due to missing art is unnecessary. It would need only be one of each type. Eg: a 'default' leaderhead wearing a "Missing Art" T-shirt, A "clown car" with comical cloud of smoke to use in place of any missing unit art, a bitumen terrain graphic that replaces all missing terrain art, a pic of a scarecrow (or a sign that says "fix me") for missing improvements, a "question mark" button etc. They may look silly, but they would allow you to keep playing (they wouldn't affect the text, which would still work as normal) and would stand out like a sore toe to graphic designers testing their work (or for downloaders who could easily file an accurate bug report).

Missing XML could be similarly fixed in some cases. Having default values would be better than crashes. An example at work would be a default terrain type to use when XML points to something that isn't defined elsewhere. So if a mod tries to call TERRAIN_PEAT_BOG, but haven't defined it in XML, then TERRAIN_DEFAULT would be used, which might be the 'bitumen' mentioned earlier, using the default yield, and allowing only the 'default' improvement (eg: scarecrow - with its own default yield, and which would also be used in place of any ill-defined improvements a mod calls).

 

[deanej]

Your idea for fixing missing XML is already in. When a mod tries to call something that doesn't exist, the game assumes NONE for that entry. It's only when the XML doesn't match the schema that things get iffy (and even then, it simply results in the file not being loaded).

I believe vanilla have an exclamation mark for missing buttons, not clear on why Warlords/BtS don't. Most missing art simply becomes pink/red blobs, and I'm not sure why it crashes sometimes but not others.

Imported unit graphics from civ4 would display with whatever amout of guys are used in civ5; it's an XML property. Imported leaders would be more tricky; if it works like civ4, the diplo screen's size will be hardcoded in python. I don't know if a size difference would be needed, though - it would depend on the amount of detail and the size of the graphic in civ5 (we have no confirmation that I know of that they will be full screen).

 

[Schubes]

(we have no confirmation that I know of that they will be full screen).

The screenshots they posted seem to suggest this. Thunderfall (admin) posted a Bismarck and Washington. They appeared to be full screen.
Here's the link.

 

[awesome]

i probably won't do much modding if any, but one thing i'd like is to see city-states be able to build wonders, especially in scenarios. for example, in an rfc-like scenario, let's say that the rapa nui city state builds the maoi statues or the pisa city-state builds the leaning tower.

 

[deanej]

The screenshots they posted seem to suggest this. Thunderfall (admin) posted a Bismarck and Washington. They appeared to be full screen.
Here's the link.

They might also be cropped. No way to know for sure right now.

 

[Abremms]

the latest gamespot preview confirms fullscreen leaders.

 

[Shiggs713]

My only wish is that they get rid of GameFont.tga. A Civ4FontInfos.xml file would have covered its functionality so much better.

Also: how about releasing the SDK from the start? I have no idea why we had to wait until 1.61 with civ4, given that the code was separate from the start. What's so hard about sticking the source files on the CD? Also, more documentation would be nice.

Other than that, overall stay the course.

this,

A leaderhead editor. Cities XL has an inbuilt utility for editing your 3D avatar. You can make almost anyone with it, but can't export, sadly. Something similar for making CIv leaders would be fantastic.

and this. Would be really awesome. We already know we have XML, and custom DLL capabilities, and an improved worldbuilder. A LH/Unit editor would be fantastic, but thats probably a pipe dream. However there's no reason we can't do away with the dreaded gamefont.tga's and have our SDK right from the start.

 

[Shrinking_12]

More Civs per Map! 25 could be good...

 

[cyther]

More Civs per Map! 25 could be good...

Some civ4 mods hit 50 . Of course, the maps themselves had to be modified.