Ubernoob to modding

[Classicus]

I am interested in modding on Civ IV. I am however a complete noob when it comes to modding so I have a few questions:

1. Is it possible to have completely 2D graphics for Civ IV, like C III?
2. Is there a totally comprehensive guide to modding?
3. Is it possible to change the shape of the HUD or its borders, so for example to have the HUD as a treasure map with ripped borders and such?
3. Has most of the modding community for Civ IV migrated to Civ V or is it still strong for this game?

Thanks in advance to any responses.

 

[NikNaks]

1. Someone did once replace all units with their buttons on the map, so I imagine it's possible to an extent, but I think the 3D engine is hard-coded into the EXE, so things like a fixed camera and isometric view might not work.
2. You could try the Modiki and the Tutorials & Reference forum. There are lots of tutorials, some basic and some more advanced, so you should find what you need there.
3. Yes it is. There's a tutorial on that, and those changes can be extended into what you want by modifying copies of the NIF and DDS files found under Resource. Remember not to edit the core files, though, as you'll have to re-install if something goes wrong.
4. Things have slowed down a bit since I was last here, but there's still a strong core of modders working on IV, and some are returning to it after being disappointed with V. I imagine it'll fluctuate over the next year or so.

 

[Classicus]

Thanks for the help. I am a strong advocate of Civ and other 4x games being 2D. A slight disappointment it is not easy to do a 2D engine.

 

[Baldyr]

I felt exactly the same, as having to supply 3D models for new game content made me hold off getting into modding - until the the fourth edition was more or less obsolete. While I'm not looking to get into CiV modding, I have no plans on returning to CivIII either... (I did look into getting back to Civ2 modding, but no, its just not working for me.)

So unless you can live with the current edition of Civilization, CivIV is the best thing available, as far as modding goes.

I do however believe that the leader heads can be disabled and replaced with an plain image. This also makes is possible to realize what I personally would prefer to have in the game - having dynasties/governments instead of leaders. No need for a portrait either - a symbol/flag/coat-of-arms would do.

 

[Classicus]

The Modiki is great, it gives me the confidence to begin thinking about a total conversion mod. If I cannot find an answer to a specific questions using the tutorials or the Modiki I will post the question I have here, hopefully someone will answer.

The question I have now is: I would like to keep the player scores, as a guide for players to see how advanced their civ is compared to others, but any mod I make would be based around the concept of infinity - just to exist in a world as a civ and to continue as long as the player wishes with no forced conclusion.

Can I remove ALL victory conditions including score and time, so that the game will continue indefinitely?

 

[God-Emperor]

It seems to me that you should at least keep Conquest. If you are the one and only civilization left on the planet then it is pointless to not declare yourself the winner. But all the victory conditions are optional - start a game via "Custom Game" and turn them all off. No modding necessary, as far as I know. I'm sure someone has tried a "no victory condition" game before, but not me.

I expect that eventually your civilization will start to decline, in some sense, as well. You've built every building in every city, researched every actual tech long ago and are now on future tech 142, and are stuck running every city in "produce gold" mode since the ever increasing inflation value now causes your maintenance costs to exceed the output from your 7 religious shrines (every city has had all 7 religions spread to it long ago). Then your sustainable percent research finally reaches 0 due to the inflation value. Before too much longer your income per turn will go negative. A few days of clicking on "end turn" after that you'll find it has disbanded all of your units, but it doesn't matter since there is nobody to fight. There is literally nothing to do in the game except click "end turn" since you have no units and nothing to build, except that every once in a long while a "you have completed Future Tech 257" type screen pops up for you to click on, and you might get some random event that has miraculously never been triggered in all those thousands of turns as well as those that can happen an unlimited number of times (your improvements have been wiped out around this peak for the 37th time due to the volcano type deal). So every once in a while you get to try to rebuild an improvement, or rebuild a building, that was wiped out by an unlimited random event. Eventually, they might wipe out all your improvements and buildings everywhere since you have no money to spend to prevent the effects from happening and your civilization is still on strike all of the time so you can't build any buildings anywhere and if disbanding workers can happen then you can't rebuild the improvements that get randomly wiped out either (which leads to starvation in your cities as all the improvements are wiped out and Sid's Sushi's food bonus goes to 0, except that I'm not sure if there is an event that wipes out seafood, ultimately leaving you with no happiness or heath or strategic resources, but that doesn't matter because of the huge amounts of happiness and heath you are getting from all your future techs and you can't build any units anyway so who needs strategic resources). And that isn't even taking global warming into account - that will eventually turn every land plot to desert. So here you are with dozens of empty cities on a bare map full of desert with no units still clicking away at "end turn" for hours on end, day after day, week after week, year after year. Sounds like a real exciting hobby. Or perhaps not.

Infinity makes for a bad game. Averaged over infinity, nothing ever happens. Anything that seems to happen is just a delusion brought on by the infinite amount of nothing ever happening.

 

[Classicus]

I just want to be able to remove the time condition where the game decides on a certain year that the game has finished. I understand your point of view, but at the point you are describing I would simply conclude that the game has finished and start another. I always play with no victory conditions as in reality civilizations don't have victory conditions - their only goal is to exist in some form or another by any means necessary. That is more realistic.

 

[Asaf]

@GE - Now that was depressing.

 

[Baldyr]

@GE - Now that was depressing.

Yeah, very much so... A good point, still. And a good post.