New to Civilization 5, questions about modding.

[Eukaryote]

Hey, I'm new to civilization 5. Before I had only played civilization 3. I must say, huge improvement. I have some questions though:

-Can I mod civilizations or make my own?
-Can I mod the difficulty levels?
-Can I mod the personalities of civilizations?
-Where do I start?

Moderator Action: Moved to the modding area.

 

[FeiLing]

-Yes.
-I think so.
-Yes.
-Here or here.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Start by reading Kael's modding guide. Once you've done that, then you'll know how to do these things. All three of the things you mention can be done; only the custom civilization takes any real work, because you'll want to add new art assets.

 

[The Little One]

Start by reading Kael's modding guide. Once you've done that, then you'll know how to do these things. All three of the things you mention can be done; only the custom civilization takes any real work, because you'll want to add new art assets.

Doesn't modding difficulty levels require LUA coding? (Which I would say is definitely more work than XML)

 

[Spatzimaus]

Doesn't modding difficulty levels require LUA coding? (Which I would say is definitely more work than XML)

No. The HandicapInfos table is purely XML, and determines how many bonuses the AI gets when you play on higher difficulties. There's no difference in AI behavior between "difficulty" levels, it's solely about these bonuses; on higher difficulties the AI might only take 80% as many beakers to get a new tech, 60% as much unhappiness from population, and so on.

If you wanted the AI to actually be more intelligent on higher difficulties, then you'd need to modify the DLL.

 

[Pazyryk]

If you wanted the AI to actually be more intelligent on higher difficulties, then you'd need to modify the DLL.

For tactical AI, yes. With Lua it is possible to have 100% control of AI policy/tech progression. I've already done this in my mod and it was only ~500 lines of Lua code and three extra tables added by SQL .

 

[Gedemon]

For tactical AI, yes. With Lua it is possible to have 100% control of AI policy/tech progression. I've already done this in my mod and it was only ~500 lines of Lua code and three extra tables added by SQL .

I was going to gave the opposite answer

you can take control of units for a better tactical use, but it's limited (and it apply to strategic AI too) by the fact that you can't get feedback of what is really planning the AI on all levels, so you'll have to take control of all levels if you want it to be efficient.

ie: taking an unit randomly and putting it on another front where one of your created function in lua think it will be more useful could break the AI plan to take a city, or making it to switch globally to tech production when it was planning an invasion will leave it defensless...

for that the DLL will be required. But I do agree that we can do much more in Lua only than what's generally said.

 

[Pazyryk]

You have total control of city construction too, which indirectly influences AI behavior. For example, if you constrain an AI to make only military units for a while, you will most likely increase its aggression.

 

[killmeplease]

For tactical AI, yes. With Lua it is possible to have 100% control of AI policy/tech progression. I've already done this in my mod and it was only ~500 lines of Lua code and three extra tables added by SQL .

what mod do you mean? i would like to see your code..

 

[Pazyryk]

what mod do you mean? i would like to see your code..

That's the theoretical mod that's bouncing around near the top of this subforum. Well, let's hope it's more than theoretical. I (perhaps unwisely) put a tentative release date in the OP.