New Editor

[illphil]

sorry did not know how to correctly title this so I went with a general title.

The problem I want this change to get rid of is having to repeatedly add your custom items like buuildings and governments. Currently if you create A government in one map it must be reformed if you want to use it again. You can use the same civpedia entry and stuff like that, but you must re-enter all the info on the custom rules page for the government.

What I want is the editor to keep track of all governments that come with the game and that you add yourself in a large database. Then when you make a new map you just go through a list of the available governments and select the ones you want to be available (Just like you select what civs can build certain units.)

This option should be available for all items that you can add to the game (Govs, Civs, Units, Resources, Techs, buildings, etc) To make it easier the default setting for a new map would be the options that come standard.)


Okay I hope that this is clear enough if someone needs more explaining ill be happy to explain more.

 

[Evie]

More to the point, have an *integrated* editor.

IE, if changing leader art for a civ, you have an integrated interface allowing you to switch the art files rather than having to deal with the unnecessarily complex browsing through pediaicons.txt (and changing about 12 separate lines of codes for each civ, each of them being error-easy).

Same goes with units and so forth - all the non-graphic-creation work should be something that can be done within the editor, without resorting to modifying .ini files.

 

[Zurai]

Originally posted by Oda Nobunaga
More to the point, have an *integrated* editor.

IE, if changing leader art for a civ, you have an integrated interface allowing you to switch the art files rather than having to deal with the unnecessarily complex browsing through pediaicons.txt (and changing about 12 separate lines of codes for each civ, each of them being error-easy).

Same goes with units and so forth - all the non-graphic-creation work should be something that can be done within the editor, without resorting to modifying .ini files.

Definately. It's NOT hard at all to integrate a "Text..." button on the unit's page which opens a seperate dialog box/subscreen when pressed. Said subscreen should have a box/field for the PRTO_ info and another for the DESC_PRTO_ info, and would automatically be added to the civilopedia_units.txt file. In the same vein, it should be relatively easy to do the same thing with the leaderheads as with unit/building/resource icons - just have a dropdown list of all .flc files in the appropriate directory and display the first frame of the selected one in a preview window. Obviously it's not quite the same thing, since all the previews aren't gathered together in a single file, but it still shouldn't be a serious programming problem.

 

[Anndra]

All your ideas are very good. Another problem is the icon graphic. Why we need four icon for one object (units, buildings, etc). annot the game use only one picture for all?
I think, moreover, that the entire editor must be more flexible: why we must have fixed bonus like the 50% Tax, or the without-value Reduce Pollution? Free value, like unit attack, defense and so on, are best.

 

[illphil]

Yeah.
Another thing that should be included is a VERY large amount of images for all things, Units, buildings, resources, etc.
Not all should be standard but they shuld all be included so that you dont need to go out and get tons of downloads to use them. There are so many mods and downloads out there that are not copyrighted they should be able to amass all of those units and add them to the editor, maybe have different groupings so you dont have to search through all of them.

 

[Shyrramar]

@illphil: I must disagree with your last post. I think that the modding should be left to modders and the game-designers should concentrate of designing the game. Making tons of images of everything blindly so that they could possibly be used by someone would take too much time from the real process of making the game itself enjoyable. I agree on other ideas, though, but I just think one shouldn't get too carried away...

 

[illphil]

oh, i didn't think that would take too long, but it is definitely lower priority than mkaing an enjkoyable game. I just hoped it would be something they could bundle in at the end. I dont want them to spend time making new icons, just have modders send the mods to them to package with the game.
But I guess i can just go to the work of searching online for stuff i want to use.

 

[MattII]

A more flexible editor would be very welcome including some add & delete buttons on world sizes, worker jobs, terrain, flavours. Also some of these menus need to be changed drastically.