New to Modding in Civ 6, and I have some questions

[abandag]

I did some modding in Civ 5 and was able to figure most things out on my own, with some help from fellow CivFanatics. I'm trying to get back into modding for 6, but it all seems a lot more complex. I'm trying to create a new civ and I've been figuring things out as I go along. I've got most of the gameplay elements in place except the unique unit, which shouldn't take long. My first question is, are there defaults for graphics/icons, or do I have to define them all? Mainly I thinking about the leader screen and associated background. Will my unit building's icon default to the one for the building it replaces, or do I need to tell it to do that? I basically want to get my mod into the game to see if it works like I want and don't want to mess around building and unit icons. Civ icon and leader portrait I'll get around to later.

Next question is more about getting advice from people. I have a unique ability for my leader, but I'm not really satisfied with it. Right now it's basically the same as Pericles except it's 10% gold per CS instead of 5% culture. That'll do, but what I really want is something cooler. I'd like to do some kind of City State Suzerainship (or whatever the right word would be) stealing, or granting an envoy or bonus influence points if suzerainship is stolen from you. So if anyone has any cool ideas for that and how to implement it (because I couldn't figure out how to do it) I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks for any help you might give me.

 

[isau]

I did some modding in Civ 5 and was able to figure most things out on my own, with some help from fellow CivFanatics. I'm trying to get back into modding for 6, but it all seems a lot more complex. I'm trying to create a new civ and I've been figuring things out as I go along. I've got most of the gameplay elements in place except the unique unit, which shouldn't take long. My first question is, are there defaults for graphics/icons, or do I have to define them all? Mainly I thinking about the leader screen and associated background. Will my unit building's icon default to the one for the building it replaces, or do I need to tell it to do that? I basically want to get my mod into the game to see if it works like I want and don't want to mess around building and unit icons. Civ icon and leader portrait I'll get around to later.

Next question is more about getting advice from people. I have a unique ability for my leader, but I'm not really satisfied with it. Right now it's basically the same as Pericles except it's 10% gold per CS instead of 5% culture. That'll do, but what I really want is something cooler. I'd like to do some kind of City State Suzerainship (or whatever the right word would be) stealing, or granting an envoy or bonus influence points if suzerainship is stolen from you. So if anyone has any cool ideas for that and how to implement it (because I couldn't figure out how to do it) I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks for any help you might give me.

Here is a non-specific answer to your question. If you got comfortable with Civ 5 IMO in the long run you will eventually find Civ 6 easier rather than harder. It just takes some time to wrap your head around the the different architecture.

The most important thing to know IMO is that almost everything in Civ 6 comes back around to the concept of Modifiers. The Modifiers system is unified way to change values that is independent of the system that the Modifier rides on. What this means in practice is that a Modifier that was created to support a Religious Belief can usually be ported over to a Leader, or to a Government, or to a Policy, or to a Governor, or to a Civilization, etc. with very few changes. This is different than previous Civ games, where just because you knew how to add something with a Religion didn't mean you knew how to add it as a Policy--the systems spoke different languages.

I highly recommend getting a copy of a tool like SQLiteStudio or another tool that can connect to the debug SQL database. Poking around in there with queries, particularly of the Modifier and ModifierArguments tables, can help you visualize the data. Using SQLiteStudio I was able to come up with a list of possible Modifiers you might consider using for your leader's ability:


Modifiers that have a ModifierType like "envoy":

Modifiers that have a ModifierType like "influence":

 

[abandag]

Thank you for your reply.

I had found the MODIFIER_PLAYER_GRANT_INFLUENCE_TOKEN modifier, and figured that's what I needed. The problem is that I couldn't find an appropriate requirement. I can't seem to find anything about having your suzerainty stolen in the existing XML. I know you get a notification when it happens so I looked in Notifications, but couldn't find anything. That's pretty much how I've found stuff so far. I look where it would make the most sense based on my knowledge of the game. It's been working out so far, but not for that particular requirement.

I've been making some good headway today. One of the last things I have to do is set the agenda. I'm checking through that stuff now. It's all the art stuff that really stumps me. That's what prompted the first question.

Anyway, thanks again.