Want to discuss RPG-ing this game with experienced modders

[Irealys]

Hi. This is my first post. Hope it's in the right sub forum (otherwise I'm sure I will be directed to the right place).

I'm a 40 year old with an 18 year old son who loves tabletop RPGs. I'm hoping to discuss with any experienced modder about the feasibility of making some changes that would make Civilization 6 a tool to be used by my son who struggles with creating backstories to his civilisations. The idea would be for him and his friends to basically play amongst themselves the creation of multiple civilizations, create conflicts and have some kind of large scale history that they can then create stories within.

I'm not looking for someone to do the modding, I will do what I can and when it's too hard or time consuming I'm willing to just tell them to use their imagination. I'm looking for people who know what is possible and what isn't and have a talk about what I'm trying to do so they can tell me if things would be complex or impossible or if there are things I could do that I was not aware of so that I have a better idea of what I could do if/when I take the plunge. I have looked at a few tutorials and from what I saw it would be pretty easy to make new races (it would most likely be some kind of combinations of elfs, dwarves goblins and whatnot that he'd want) as long as I don't mind living with the units, buildings, wonders, etc that are in the game and pick what powers or unique content I would want.

But I have quite a few other ideas that I'm wondering about that I couldn't find much information on what could or could not be done. What can be done with the history timeline? What about the tech tree? Could we change it the order? The pre-requisites? How about a way to show something different than what would be studied? Kind of a general direction instead of a detailed view (ex: starting 3 could be "Trying to use the animals, trying to make use of the minerals, trying to preserve food") and only show the precise things unlocked once it is?

And that's the tip of the iceberg. Is there a "cheap and easy" way to create new districts? Units? How far can I take changing values of strenght, effects or yield with only name changes? I barely started to think about this project so it's not like I'm expecting it to be done and released soon but any help discussing what is possible, what could be easy or hard and every thing in between, that would be appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Irealys]

Wow... tough crowd. Let's see if some direct questions get some reactions.

My plan is to basically use an existing Civ as a template, preferably one close to what I want to do. For example, The Incans would be my choice to create Dwarves. Already has a power to make them work mountains and the Terrace Farm is not a bad unique improvement to give them. Obviously I'd need new icons and leader images, I won't go animated, my son and his friends will take care of images but they will be immobile.

Obviously I'd have to rename the civ and look at what unique unit or any other unique item we would like them to have and copy paste from where it is used in the game to add it to the civilization I'm creating.

I'd also make new lists of cities, mountains, rivers etc. Filling all the blanks from the templates I've downloaded.

A few questions!

First off: Am I right that this would work as a way to create new Civs relatively easily?

Is there a minimum required or a maximum number for cities, mountains, deserts, civilians and any other list we make?

I also have a question regarding the historic timeline. My son looked at the first image of the first city built (near a river or something) and hated it, asked if he could make his own image for it instead. So My question is can we redo the drawings for any of the current moments and replace them?

That's gonna be all for tonight. I'll be back in a day or two, hopefully someone will have some answers by then.

Thanks in advance

 

[Gedemon]

Modding civ6 is not too hard, once you get the prerequisite knowledge. Learning to mod it is the hard part, and it also require a lot of free time to produce anything, as some tasks require a few repetitive steps.

First step it to learn the meaning of the database framework and how to update it. Once you get that, renaming a Civilization or Leaders, and changing there abilities is very easy. Replacing the art (2D) would take a bigger step to learn, but is not hard after that, just time consuming, and editing units appearance do not require 3D modelling skills as you can reuse parts of existing units assets to create new ones, but both require to learn another creation process (editing Artdef files)

Of course if you want Fantasy-style units, then you'll have to take another (even bigger) step to learn to create them, animate them, and import them.

For your direct questions:

AFAIK the game won't crash if a list is empty, I don't think there is a minimum number required.

I think you can replace an existing picture by adding a picture with the same filename in a mod, you may not even have to "cook" it, "importing" it (PNG or DDS format) may be enough. If you have question about "cooking" art or "importing" files, it's time to read LeeS modding guide

 

[Irealys]

What? Now I have to LEARN stuff to mod? There's always a catch isn't there?

Jokes aside, thank you for the information. It is highly appreciated even though your descriptions were kind of scarier than the coding of the template I looked at (the document is called MC Mastertemplate). "learn the meaning of the database framework and how to update it" sounds a lot scarier than looking at the code and thinking "it looks like copy paste and search/replace might do the trick here".

As for the 2D art, I might have missed something because I felt it was actually relatively straightforward. The only bad part, I thought, was the tediousness of having to save a bunch of different sizes and rescale between each. Otherwise the background image, the icons and the leader image as DDS (I'm familiar with GIMP and already used the DDS extension while working on a Sim Settlement addon).

As for the units appearances and even creating new units from the parts on hand I got a series of 4 tutorials by a Leugi that only has two of them released it seems but the ones I have are both very insightful and really made it tempting to go play around with it. The step about making complete new units animated looking like dwarves and elves might be just one bridge too far. At least for now. I feel like with only the tools I get from the modbuddy and the unit creation I already have more than enough to create a dozen different races. And since those are meant to be played only against each other between friends (and never against normal Civs) I can really start by looking at the improvements, districts and agendas that are in the game and just start mixing and matching.

I have so many other questions but you know what, you were nice enough to give me a short tutorial to read so I'll go check the post from LeeS and I'll be back with my questions after. Shouldn't be long. (sees the size of the document)

Oh dear...

 

[Irealys]

Ok so I changed my mind, I'm not going to ask zero questions until I'm done reading. It's a bit of an intense read. So I have a few short questions if you guys don't mind.

- I have a few questions regarding ethnicity. I'm guessing it's changing the skin color of the units, I'm wondering if it changes anything else?
- Could I add an extra ethnicity? Like... Green. I would do nothing but change the color of the skin but if it could be done easily to help sell civs like orcs or goblins or whatnot. At the end of the day, I don't want to learn to do complex things, (I don't really have the time to start learning 3D or stuff like that) but if I can help their immersion with some small things I'm always happy with that.

I also opened a few of the game civ files in modbuddy along with some templates from various sources to look inside and try to put into context what I'm learning. One of the thing that caught me off guard was that not every file for quotes had the same content. Like some Civ would not have a few of the positive or negative answers that another other civ had and vice versa. So my question here would be
- Does anyone have a lit of all the possible quotes that would need to be written? That list would keep the kids busy for quite a while... (P.S. I told them that they wouldn't see their leaders talk when plaing multiplayer but since it didn't seem to register I'm not reminding them. Besides writing one-liner dialogue might be one of their favorite passtime.

I have another question but it's more of me being puzzled than a real question. How is it possible that the timeline feature doesn't have "First city ever! Civ start existing!" as the first thing on that timeline? I know it's not a mod thing, I'm still too shocked not to share my puzzlement.

Again thanks for anyone who takes the time to read and answer. Take care

 

[Deliverator]

Re-tinting existing body parts to green, pink, blue or whatever can be done with RGB-value Unit Tints if you want. The existing skin tones are already done that way.

 

[Irealys]

Re-tinting existing body parts to green, pink, blue or whatever can be done with RGB-value Unit Tints if you want. The existing skin tones are already done that way.

Sweet! It means the green ethnicity is feasible.

Now speaking of feasible, there is one thing that is bugging me; I can't find info on how to do what I would expect is the easiest thing to do: Create a fantasy Civ and just steal the unique improvements, units etc from other Civs in game.

Example: For the purpose of testing and learning, I'm doing the Pirate Civilization (I like Pirates, don't judge). I went through the list of unique everything and I found a good option in each of them which is great, it will allow me to test each one. Even have easily two units to test that too. They are all from other Civs. Here's a list, if anyone is curious

Civ Ability: Knarr, Leader Ability: Kupe's Voyage, Agenda: Last Viking,
Uniques; Improvement: Kampung, District: Royal Navy Dockyard (could use a less formal name), Building: Navigation school, Units: Viking Longship and Sea Dogs.


Now maybe I have just not looked at the right place but up to now all I've seen in tutorials has been about creating new stuff. Even in the MC (hammer) template, he's redoing something that is already in game.

Is there no way to just tell the game "for unit, use this thing that is already in game, as is"?

Thanks for anyone who can shed some light there. And if there is a way, I'd appreciate being pointed to a tutorial that shows it if you know of one.

Edit: The one thing I would not use in game content would be for the leader image and I already know how to change them. I already done a version of them (a horsehocky version because I'm using screenshots from an old game called puzzle pirates.... again don't judge). It's for in game buildings, improvements, leader abilities and other similar things that I'm looking for

 

[LeeS]

For the FrontEnd Database code: unique components are merely listed as being Player Items in the FrontEnd table PlayerItems. This is what makes them show up on the leader and civilization selection screens when setting up a game and when reloading a saved game.

	<PlayerItems>
		<Row CivilizationType="CIVILIZATION_CHINA" LeaderType="LEADER_QIN" Type="IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL" Icon="ICON_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL" Name="LOC_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL_NAME" Description="LOC_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL_DESCRIPTION" SortIndex="20" />
	</PlayerItems>

-----------------------------------------------------------------

For the InGame Database code: Unique Units, Buildings, Districts, and Improvements are first assigned within their respective main definition to a TraitType.

<Improvements>
   <Row ImprovementType="IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL" Name="LOC_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL_NAME"
      Description="LOC_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL_DESCRIPTION" Icon="ICON_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL" PlunderType="PLUNDER_GOLD"
      PlunderAmount="50" Buildable="true" PrereqTech="TECH_MASONRY"

      TraitType="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL"

      BuildInLine="true" BuildOnFrontier="true" DefenseModifier="4" GrantFortification="2"/>
</Improvements>

That Trait is then defined within table Traits and table Types.

	<Types>
		<Row Type="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL" Kind="KIND_TRAIT"/>
	</Types>
	<Traits>
		<Row TraitType="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL" Name="LOC_TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL_NAME"/>
	</Traits>

Then that Trait is assigned as a trait to a leader or civilization.

	<CivilizationTraits>
		<Row CivilizationType="CIVILIZATION_CHINA" TraitType="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL"/>
	</CivilizationTraits>

Re-assigning or adding the trait to a different or additional civilization or leader is as simple as listing the trait as belonging to that civilization or leader in table CivilizationTraits or LeaderTraits

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 900 ton elephant however is the in-game animations, because in many cases the 3d animation models for the Unique Whatsis is directly coded within the Artdef file as belonging to CivX or LeaderX. This can be dealt with via a new artdef that is part of a mod to allow another civ to use the same animation "artdef" for a Unique Component. Unfortunately this snippet of "artdef" info is as about as far as I have been able to thread the needle so far as artsy stuff goes. There are a couple different threads (at least) that discuss this very thing in the "get mod help" subforum.

 

[Irealys]

Hey! I know that name! That's the name at the top of the 6 billion page document I'm using to try to learn how to mod! And he flat out gives me coding lines, holy crap this thing is gonna do itself. It's going to be super easy. No problem whatsoever...

The 900 ton elephant however is the in-game animations, because in many cases the 3d animation models for the Unique Whatsis is directly coded within the Artdef file as belonging to CivX or LeaderX.

The old gipsy told me artdef would be the death of me. Ok so it wasn't a gipsy it was other people on these forums but still, Artdef has been pointed out as a potential problem for most of the things I mentionned up to now. So this is one area I will need some serious reading!

Now jokes aside, thank you so much LeeS for all of your help. This answer is of course appreciated but never as much as your modding help document. Over 500 pages, that's a type of dedication that notmany people would have, especially when it's to HELP others. So Thank you a million time for this!

I will be looking at the artdef content on the forums soon. It's one of the vew few places left where I understand basically nothing. I've tried looking into an artdef file to try to understand it by just reading but it was not as straightforward as other files what those lines are supposed to mean to me. (LOC_DIPLO__KUDOS_HAPPY_ETC is at this point self explanatory and I don't even need anything else to know what I should put there and how it will affect the game but artdef doesn't click for me yet).

But again, and at the risk of repeating myself, I cannot thank you enough for all the help you game me personally and the community in general.

 

[maconnolly]

@Irealys - I have sent you a direct message to suggest a way I could support your endeavour. But for the interests of anyone who may read this, a few comments:

It is highly appreciated even though your descriptions were kind of scarier than the coding of the template I looked at (the document is called MC Mastertemplate). "learn the meaning of the database framework and how to update it" sounds a lot scarier than looking at the code and thinking "it looks like copy paste and search/replace might do the trick here".

What @Gedemon is advising is bang on the money. Learning to mod Civilization VI is absolutely a step-by-step process. In my humble opinion, there's only one 'right' approach to take and that is to learn how the game works (or, another way, "learn the meaning of the database framework") to a functional degree, then do equivalent replication/modification ("how to update it"). This is the fundamental starting point. Without achieving a solid grasp of how the game uses code to put the functionality together, you will always feel frustrated/stuck. It's basically a knowledge prerequisite to being a modder.

It would be very strong onward recommendation to not even give any artwork components (neither 2D nor 3D) a second thought until you have a solid, foundational knowledge of the way the game code is structured. You can't update artwork without understanding the code, anyway, but frankly, it is of little value learning the artwork side of things first unless your only goal is to replace artwork for existing civilizations (which yours is not).

My own learning journey is only about 18 months long (and I've been idle most of that time, from a learning perspective). I learnt in the following order (put in a spoiler because, let's face it, there's a lot of detail there that most people couldn't care less about):

Spoiler :

1. Inspect the base-game code and understand how it works. This included making notes, copy-pasting strings, drawing myself simple little diagrams/flow-charts to understand the relationships between separate code-strings, that kind of thing. I was arriving with a full understanding of the XML syntax, so this bit was easy for me - but I can appreciate that 'code can be overwhelming'. If you intend to make mods, this step is not worth skipping. In fact, I'd argue you'll struggle to make mods by skipping this step. Assuming we have an appreciation for the syntax, we learn and we move on.

2. Try and recreate the base-game code via ModBuddy to make a replica of an existing in-game thing (civilization, leader, building, unit, district, etc). The workflow, for me, is identical no matter what the thing is. What you end up with is a selection of code, drawn from the base-game, that forms the basis for your mod. At this stage, all you've got is a copy of something that exists already, but with all of the required code now in one place - without the distraction of the other code - the job of modifying it is suddenly a lot easier. Indeed, this was the exact approach I took in order to create my template. With the code extracted, I used notes I made for myself in step 1 to annotate my template.

The general principle I apply to identify these 'code-chains' is: find the text entry for the thing you intend to understand and note down the unique string this is linked to (simple example: the civilization "England" is CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND). From there, look up CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND and look for the one place that this unique string is defined into the game, on its own (in this example's case, it is actually the second link in a code-chain, as it is defined as an object of the Type KIND_CIVILIZATION). We stop, learn and appreciate that in order for a civilization to exist it must be registered into the game as an object of the type KIND_CIVILIZATION.

At this point, we avoid going off on a tangent and learning a principle of modding, which is that things that are already in the game don't need to be defined again. Remember, we're trying to recreate here. So, we go and search for KIND_CIVILIZATION and note that the game defines what this is. We find something quite rare in the files - code that is only indicating a single unique reference in a line. This is a good sign that this is that specific reference being defined. It's not linked to something else - it is the way the game registers that thing (in this case, KIND_CIVILIZATION) in isolation. We recognise this as our 'starting point' for our code-chain.

Back to our civilization, CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND, we note the simplest form in which we see this cited in the game's code is where it is tied to KIND_CIVILIZATION. That's the second link in our code-chain. So far, we've found:

- KIND_CIVILIZATION defined
- CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND defined as an object of the type KIND_CIVILIZATION

The more curious amongst us might have stopped to ask ourselves "how does the game know it can define something like KIND_CIVILIZATION?" and that is absolutely a valid question. But it's a tangent at this point, so I won't go into it. Whilst we are creating like-for-like things, it is enough to know how to find the code for the equivalent things that already exist in the game; we don't explicitly need to go hunting around the database definitions. But they are there for the curious and the enterprising.

We look for the next occurrence of CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND. We note that our now-defined CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND is being used alongside other unique references. We copy the full code excerpts and move on. Once we have all of the CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND code excerpts, we go back through them and look at those other unique references and follow their chains respectively.

Doing this, you are effectively finding every bit of code the game uses to create a particular thing. Remember, we're just talking functionality, here - no art.

3. With the entire code for a certain thing now at our fingertips, given the amount of time we have spent in the base-game files, we've probably absorbed a decent appreciation for naming conventions and, assuming we know how the game works from playing it, what mechanics the different code excerpts are applying to. Vast majority are 'obvious' - something you've already said yourself. It's at this point we should consider modifying to create our own version of the thing - because, actually, an exact duplicate wouldn't work anyway. But that's accidentally stumbling into that principle of modding I cited earlier. For the record, I strongly, strongly do not recommend treating this as a copy-and-paste exercise. Doing that may achieve results, but it won't aid understanding. You will save yourself frustration and iterations by changing things only once they are well-understood, at this point. I've never known anyone to get a mod of any reasonable uniqueness working more quickly by copy-and-paste than by understood modification.

4. With all of that done, we can tackle that principle of modding which is that things that are already in the game don't need to be defined again. Because, at this stage, we're well on the way to actually having a functional mod with some unique thing that we wish to represent in the game. It's common to 'borrow' things already in the game (like traits, unique units, buildings, districts, abilities, modifiers, diplomatic behaviours - the list goes on). So what we'll then be doing is removing significant portions of the code we ended up with in steps 2-3, as many of the duplications will actually cause our mod to fail to work. It's not a topic I'll try and cover here - but if you're following along with the logic of 'code-chains' you should be able to identify which code is duplicated and therefore not needed.

5. The final step is then to understand the non-code sections of ModBuddy. This is what we can term 'compiling' the mod - but I use that term to include setting up the Front-End and In-Game Actions properties. What you need to understand to know how to do that goes a litle beyond the actual base-game code - but if you're still persevering at this stage, you can probably leverage my template and a bit of enterprising searching of base-game files to learn the principles here (and, indeed, use the @LeeS guide which I'm fairly sure has a section for this).

I would be doing all of the above before even trying to unravel 2D and 3D art, including the Asset Editor and the various filetypes you'll encounter when you make that leap. That is a worthwhile leap, but not before you have a sound, working knowledge of modding at the code-only level. This is not intended as a swipe, but the difficulty you're running into with understanding ArtDefs stems from not learning in the right order. I understood nothing of ArtDefs until I appreciated how Firaxis intended them to be used. Funnily enough, once my overall knowledge grew to a point where I was looking at them in the right place, in the right format, they were 'as easy' as anything else I had learnt to that point.

In fact, that serves as quite a good conclusion - the learning curve, as with a lot of things, to modding Civilization VI is steepest at the beginning. With every step you take forward, the next step - even though overall more advanced - becomes ever-more approachable, pound-for-pound. Mainly because you have the weight of your own knowledge and confidence behind you when taking that next step. Do the steps in the right order, taking a good amount of time on each to satisfy your own understanding, and you'll find the whole modding experience rewarding, self-sufficient and - in my opinion - easier.

 

[Irealys]

Hey! I know that name too! It's the guy that made the template I've spent the past two weeks slowly destroying page by page by filling in the blanks for myself.

Look sir, I'm sorry, I swear I had the best intention when I started. I just wanted to replace Olmec by something more neutral like "CIVNAME" and one thing led to another and now there's nothing left...

Ok now that the obligatory joke is out of the way, I will gladly check my messages in a minute. Also I find it hilarious that you contact me because I was actually about to reach out to you about your template. I was going to write a somewhat humoristic post about how you said you stopped the annotation when it was not needed anymore and I wanted to tell you how wrong you were to assume I understood enough with your annotations to understand things like the bottom of agenda. No idea what those numbers represent. A "scale" of what the game expect here would be helpful. But enough about it, let's get on to your reply.

What @Gedemon is advising is bang on the money.

I refuse to accept that someone who became so synonymous with modding Civ that even PC gamer used him by name in an article know more than me and that I should listen to his "advice". He's only trying to get rid of his obvious biggest competition; a 40 year old with little to no experience in modding asking beginner questions on the forums. (jokes aside, I know he's right about that and I know I need to go through the process of learning)

It would be very strong onward recommendation to not even give any artwork components (neither 2D nor 3D) a second thought until you have a solid, foundational knowledge of the way the game code is structured. You can't update artwork without understanding the code, anyway, but frankly, it is of little value learning the artwork side of things first unless your only goal is to replace artwork for existing civilizations (which yours is not).

Yeah this is where me and other modders will differ. I'm not going to be responsible for any artwork. Or VERY little of anything artwork related. I will ONLY be using the artwork of others. Either my son and his friends or content that was shared. Now for leaders and icons it's been super straightforward for me to understand what the game needed (DDS wise, again I need to give those kids horsehocky to do now and working on their leaders looks and icons and stuff is perfect to keep them occupied). Since we will not create any new 3D models or anything like that, the only other thing I could see us really change is the textures of buildings. From my experience with Fallout 4, reskinning a building to change the look from brick to wood for instance is not something complex but even then that's not something I told the kids would be possible yet. In case it's harder than it looks. But if it is, I could tell them to go ahead and try to work with textures to make the buildings look more like they want while I'm learning what I need to do the mod. Yeah, at the end of the day, I will keep being the chokepoint of why things don't go fast enough. Everything else is keeping the kids occupied.

My own learning journey is only about 18 months long (and I've been idle most of that time, from a learning perspective). I learnt in the following order (put in a spoiler because, let's face it, there's a lot of detail there that most people couldn't care less about):

Oh bless you for caring about what others care about the lenght of your post when replying to someone. Personally I add a TLDR at the end of my really long postsaying : If you cared about it you would have read it.

the difficulty you're running into with understanding ArtDefs stems from not learning in the right order.

Honestly not at all. My difficulty with is because I opened the file once, look at it, didn't understand and closed it. I'm on your side when it comes to learning in steps. This is one step I KNOW I'm not at yet. But because I want to know what can be done to tell my son and his friends what can be done I end up trying a lot of things really quickly, realize I don't get most of them and end up going back to the beginning.

But yes, at the end of the day we agree on the fact that in order to be able to do everything in the mod I need to learn things step by step. Hell my project right now is step by step too. If modding this game was too complex it would have gone back down to
- "hey kids, just pick a Civ that is close enough to what you want and use your imagination for the rest".
- But it's not so now I'm fairly certain I can get all the way to creating new races, use custom art for leaders and icons, using in game unit unit/ability/improvement etc to give the new civs, maybe with a name change in some cases.
- If I can learn to add units from shared content, I could add some of those as unique units.
- If this is really easy, we could try to replace units by others (ex: Civ 5 unit converted to Civ 6 seems to have dirigeable and Leonardo Da Vinci plane on there, maybe we could replace most of the airplanes with looks that would fit better)
- And there are side project that could happen depending on how the code is done. Can we rename the great X? Can we replace great art names? Can we replace the content by stuff they write themselves and sea chanties because... don't judge
etc

My point is, I'm going to learn aiming to be able to reach at minimum the second line but I can easily see myself learning more in order to make this project cooler over time.

Ok, time to go read my first personal message that isn't "You wrote in the wrong forum"

TLDR: I'm asking a lot of questions because the kids also bring a lot of questions. For instance I asked someone if I could control what cities look like (ex: Leugi's city style mod, could we select what city styles goes to our civs? could we decide in what eras? Could we decide NOT to use the last looks? etc) The kids want to think about those things and yes I am asking this WAY before I'm ready to ever work on it but if I know it's relatively simple then I can tell them to go ahead and pick what look they want and I can tell them what limitations there would be. Even though I know I will not touch that part personally for a while, it's still something for them to think about.

The rest was not for you anyway.

 

[Gedemon]

Honestly not at all. My difficulty with is because I opened the file once, look at it, didn't understand and closed it.

That's a perfectly understandable self-defense mechanism for your brain.

I mean I did the exact same thing back on release when I started to look at how to change the units size and formation for my R.E.D mod, which I was hoping to be as simple as for civ5...

So I've opened the Units.Artdef file, looked at it, and closed it 3 seconds later, sweating. And decided that I'll start modding civ6 with Yet (not) Another Maps Pack.

About City Styles, a good news first, I thing they can be adapted the way you want.

The bad one: it's done in Artdef files.

But don't worry, Artdef are not as complicated as the first look make them appear.

 

[Irealys]

About City Styles, a good news first, I thing they can be adapted the way you want.

The bad one: it's done in Artdef files.

ROFL.Of course it's in artdef. Artdef is the Steve Urkle of Civilization.

"Did I do that?"

Now, not gonna lie, the good news has way more weight than the bad one. I know at some point I'll be finr with artdef files so knowing that this is an achievable goal is a good bump for the morale.

Thanks for the input Gedemon! It's highly appreciated!

 

[Irealys]

Ok so quick update. I managed with some help to get to a working Pirate Civ with the only thing not working being the stupid leader art. No idea why but this s the only thing I can't get to work. The icons are fine for both Civ and leader, the background image is in without problem. But for some reason my male Pirate Leader called Graybrush looks like a hot egyptian. Yes I know about default. Still makes me mad.

For now I'm only using in game content still but it's clear I won't be keeping it this way. There are quite a few abilities that don't make sense without another. For instance, Kupe's ability to spawn in the ocean without the Civ ability to embark from the beginning of the game leads to a hilariously short game.

But at least everything else from dialogues to naming rivers, unique units, districts etc, all that works in game (as long as I have a mod because my Kampung unique improvement doesn't show otherwise... something I'll have to look into)

Now I need to look at what do I want to do exactly in terms of the tech tree. I need to pick where I want my technology to reach and then stretch the tech timeline so that the last era I want to see is the last era and then pepper new techs to fill the voids. When said like this it sounds so easy... I know it won't be quite as easy but I still plan on taking the easiest route possible especially if I can make something cool out of little to no new content. For instance, the airport ability to send people left and right can easily be called teleportation, be used in a new type of magic district. And maybe I can have a portal of some kind. Although that would imply someone else than me doing a portal. Me? It willmost likely be a darker, more purple library renamed Teleportation center and call it a day.

Oh I did find a good use of work of arts in the context of what this experiment is supposed to do. By replacing the great artists, writers, musicians by nicknames (the Grandfather of horror, The father of suspense, The uncle of self help books, etc) these can serve as a way to randomize the culture in this new fantasy world. Who created the first horror story and when? We got that covered. Who was being the classical music movement? We got that too. Who was that world version of Sun Tzu? Ok I need to have a few more options than one otherwise it's boring. But I'm fairly certain doing three of any great people will not be too complex.

Anyway I'm rambling. If anyone has any insight into what I could be doing wrong to not get the leaders in the game let me know. Oh and if anyone feels like brainstorming ideas feel free too.

Thanks to all of you who have supported and helped me so far. It's appreciated.

 

[Irealys]

UPDATE. It's alive!!! It works, images are there, dialogues are there, uniques are there. That's it. I finally managed the first step of modding.

Step 2... the world...

 

[Irealys]

Well I feel like it's about high time I get onto step 2. Well... I say step 2, it's only because I dont know the other steps.

But it's officially alive! My slightly ridicule test pirate mod is working and now I want more. I wanted sooooooo much. I wanted to have my own mini forum just for me. MC Hammer told me to talk to a mod so I started asking questions to my Pirate mod. 3 days later when MC Eisher finally stopped laughing long enough to have a conversation he explained what he meant and I have now spoken to a moderator who told me "Who are you again?". I was so insulted that he didn't know me, my project, what with the 14 replies.... half of them me replying to others who replied... you know he has a point.

So for now I am relegated to the unreleased mod section and the next step will be there. Step 1.00000000001 will be to have an official announcement and I was told that if all 7 people who cared enough to answer keep caring and we can get like... way more... who knows, I might even get the honor of being in the incomplete, unreleased total conversion mod section of the forums...

And then the World.

But see you in the other section of the forums first