my modding concerns

[TheDS]

I'm not exactly known for modding, but I have a couple concerns about Civ5's modability. Will us regular folks (non-programmers, non-professional artists) be able to do anything at all, and will mods be compatible with each other?

Regular folks
Civ3 had a tool that allowed me to make adjustments to a great many things about the game. I couldn't create new units, but I could adjust some of the rules and adjust some of the unit and terrain values. Sure, I could have figured out how to do it in Civ4, but it was a lot more effort and wasn't worth it.

Compatible mods
Who here hasn't wanted to try more than one mod and been afraid of the work necessary to get them all to play nice? Anyone?

When you start a "Custom Game", you're given a lot of options, which could themselves be considered mods that were integrated. Having no espionage, having no random events, having always peace or always war, and so on.

I would like to be able to see the ability to stack mods together, or know which ones won't play nicely with each other. I don't think there's any inherent incompatibility between BTS, NextWar, BUG, the Revolutions mod I've just recently heard about, and maybe one or two more extra-units or extra-leaderheads mods, is there? Putting them all together is enough of a hassle that unless there's a great clamoring for it, or someone capable of doing it wants it done, it's not possible for me to get whatever specific combination of mods I want stacked together.

So I'd like that to change.

I'd like to be able to install my favorite 50 mods, some of which might not be compatible with some others, and use them in an a la carte fashion, picking and choosing what I want to have together in a specific game. If certain mods aren't compatible, say maybe they both adjust the values of regular units to values inconsistent with each other, then choosing one greys out the other(s) with a tooltip explaining why. Frex, Always Peace and Always War are mutually incompatible - choosing one prevents choosing the other.

 

[Yakk]

I don't think there's any inherent incompatibility between BTS, NextWar, BUG, the Revolutions mod I've just recently heard about

There are inherit incompatibilities between BTS, NextWar, BUG and Revolutions mods.

People have worked to iron out the inherit incompatibilities between them.

Sure, I could have figured out how to do it in Civ4, but it was a lot more effort and wasn't worth it.

You mean, editing a text file where the unit has a value of "iCombat", changing that, and noticing that the unit now has a different combat strength, is a lot more effort and wouldn't be worth it?

What Civ4 was missing, ease-of-modding wise, was:
1> A GUI editor for unit, building, etc stats.
2> A tool that would set up a custom mod for you.

Much of the "mod ability" of civ4 was actually opening up the ability for non-Firaxis people to edit the very files that Firaxis people where using. It was more akin to open-source ing part of the Civ4 engine (and I include the parts before they literally open-sourced a bunch of the engine) than making it easy to mod.

I'd like to be able to install my favorite 50 mods, some of which might not be compatible with some others, and use them in an a la carte fashion, picking and choosing what I want to have together in a specific game. If certain mods aren't compatible, say maybe they both adjust the values of regular units to values inconsistent with each other, then choosing one greys out the other(s) with a tooltip explaining why. Frex, Always Peace and Always War are mutually incompatible - choosing one prevents choosing the other.

The downside of this is that it means that any modification to the gameplay must be in an area that the engine itself has to have full awareness of all of the implications of the change.

This massively restricts what kinds of mods you can do, and/or massively increases the effort it takes to support modding.

Civ4 started with some of this -- the XML config files now support "piecemeal" addition of new units, unit modification, etc. I'm guessing they won't throw that code base out, and Civ5 will continue allowing "delta" based modding.

Even then, the answer for any two significant mods will be "not compatible", unless they do a herculean task in changing how modding works, or they massively restrict what kind of modding can be done.

As an example, where do you "store" the fact that Assembly Line allows you to build Infantry?

When someone invents a new unit that they want to require Assembly line, is this a change to Assembly line, or a property of the new unit?

What if someone adds in new technologies that break down Assembly Line into multiple techs -- then someone else modifies Assembly line.

Figuring out what the modders "meant" becomes exceedingly difficult. And that, fundamentally, is what you are asking the "auto-merge" tool to do -- read the modders mind!