Tremo said:
Because of the fact that modding this game is already easy as hell, I don't want developers devoting any time to making editors instead of focussing on the game itself. If you can't/don't/won't understand it or don't want to put the effort into something that is already easy as pie, you simply shouldn't be modding at all.
Now, that screeny posted above is pretty good. It makes it a bit easier, but probably won't take away the fact that it will still take a bit of effort. Nevertheless, I will always do this by hand. I like to do stuff myself.
Note that this is just my opinion, don't flame me for it.
I found it Significantly easier to mod Civ3, because it shipped with an editor that let you modify all of the rules on one screen, in a single file.
The way its set up right now, with XML and Python, it may be "easier" to change the values how you want, but it's a ton of work just to find what file the value you want to change is in.
And yes, I am aware that there are tutorials on how to do that in the forums, but if the game shipped with an actual editor in the first place, a good number of those tutorials would be completely unnecessary.
I understand that Firaxis has a limited amount of time and manpower for patches, editors, etc... but this is the kind of game where it's reasonable to expect it to ship with a powerful map and script editor. From day one they've been advertising the extreme modability of Civ IV. Imagine the commotion there would have been if NeverWinter Nights had shipped without a module builder, or any scripting documentation whatsoever.
Bottom line: when the game is advertised to be extremely moddable, you expect it to ship with a tool to help you do so, or at the very least, a reference that lets you easily determine what file you want to edit to achieve a desired result. Firaxis dropped the ball here, and it's reasonable for us to ask for a little bit of post-release support in this area.
PS: I have had previous experience scripting, and modding games that I play, including those that weren't designed for player modification, (Civ2, C&C: red alert, Total Annihilation, StarCraft) and have found all of these easier to work with than Civ 4. All of them were more helpful to modders than Civ 4 has been to me. Even red alert, which required reverse engineering of packed data formats to edit, had more helpful and useful comments in its rules.ini file than I have found in any of these xml or py files.
PPS: I see in previous posts a general attitude of "people who can't mod civ-4 are idiots". These posts would have you believe that the responsiblity for educating people about how the game works lies with the people who play it, rather than the people who actually put it together, and that anyone who has a complaint just hasn't read the tutorials. One of them makes reference to a modding pdf file which certainly doesn't exist on my game disc.
I call BS. I spent three hours last night trying to find the subfunction that assigns names to newly created units, so that I could mod it so great prophets, engineers, artists, scientists, and merchants have names specific to the civilization the were born in. The tutorials provided by the community of civ players certainly provided more help than nonexistant ones provided by the people who made the game, but there was still nothing that actoually helped me find the function.
RE: Shroudedmist
Where is this modding pdf you speak of? It's certainly not on my disk, and I see no mention of it on the Civ-IV site.
Where is a link to the bmp->wbs converter
that Firaxis made? Again, I see no mention on their site.
Maybe there's more modding support for this game than most games its age, but that support is entirely from the community, not the creators. And this is a game which the creators marketed as being extremely moddable, and therefore have a responsibility to support the modding community.
Edit:
Moved a colon for better readability.
And, by the way, sorry for ranting so much on my very first post on these forums ever, I'm having a bad day, it makes me grumpy.
