Welcome to the Community Patch!

[Gazebo]

Greetings!

This is the new home of both the Community Patch and City-State Diplomacy (CSD) Mod. We are on the verge of publishing v1 of the Community Patch, which includes some pretty incredible changes. I'll outline a thorough list of the changes once they are finalized, as it is quite extensive.

The Community Patch project is going to be divided into two separate mods:

1.) The Community Patch
This mod is focused on fixing bugs, improving AI performance, and making the Civ V dll more accessible to modders. This mod is the base upon which all other Community Projects will be built.

2.) The Community Balance Patch
This mod will endeavor to correct and modify existing gameplay mechanics in order to provide a more enjoyable and exciting CiV experience. This mod will be largely built off of the work of CEP, though we will focus on greatly improving performance by moving lots of the custom LUA to the dll. Work will begin on this project shortly.

Additional projects, including custom civilizations, entirely new content, etc., may eventually be added to the project, however these are our two current goals.

Community Guidelines
​

This is a community project, meaning that decisions and changes will be discussed prior to implementation. Any and all ideas are appreciated, so long as they stick to the focus of the mods described above. That said, I will make this point: the designers of this mod have the final say as to what is and is not added. This is the only way that work can proceed at a decent pace; if every decision went before committee...well, we'd be here for some time, no?

Please be courteous to your fellow forum-users. Abusive language or insults will not be tolerated. Just because someone doesn't like your idea, or the designers did not implement your idea, does not justify bad behavior. Just play nice! We all want CiV to be a better game.

If you have a new idea, or question, please start your own thread. Hijacking someone else's thread is a very good way to have your post ignored or skipped over.

Cheers,
G

 

[Gazebo]

Reserved!

 

[JFD]

Community Guidelines
​

This is a community project, meaning that decisions and changes will be discussed prior to implementation. Any and all ideas are appreciated, so long as they stick to the focus of the mods described above. That said, I will make this point: the designers of this mod have the final say as to what is and is not added. This is the only way that work can proceed at a decent pace; if every decision went before committee...well, we'd be here for some time, no?

It's difficult to accept that this is a reasonable reservation when the only designer appears to be you, and Whoward on matters of mechanism.

 

[ExpiredReign]

@JFD
Appearances may be deceptive.
All of the CEP team are also providing input into the 'Balance' side of this mod.

Speaking from experience, unless someone steps up and takes charge of the decisions ANY mod, CEP being the best example, will grind to an inexorable halt. Stating at the outset that someone WILL make hard decisions is the best thing about this mod.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

[JFD]

But are they the "designers?" I am not questioning the authority, just who holds that authority.

 

[Gazebo]

But are they the "designers?" I am not questioning the authority, just who holds that authority.

Good point – I'm happy to oblige with an answer.

Designer = anyone who directly helps with the mod's development, be it c++, xml, lua, tooltips, art, etc.

That statement was intended as a means of creating a source of veto and/or executive power. With any project of any scale (particularly on the internet), there needs to be a means of decisive action. I'm not the sole designer, nor would I abuse said power to add something that the majority of people do not like. It does, however, free designers (such as myself) up to make decisions if there are divisions within the community over key issues such as balance. Nothing will done without consultation, however not all consultation will directly lead to things being done. Make sense?

The position of designer is neither absolute, nor elected, nor immutable. I don't want to run into the position where a 'lead designer' becomes such a lynchpin that the project collapses because of administrative reasons.

G

 

[JFD]

It is not a question of sense, but rather the argument that the grave label of a "community" patch demands a certain level of transparency that is going to be inevitably curtailed for the sake of progress. I believe it a mistake to call it a "community" patch, because it comes with it implications that are unlikely to be realised. I mean no disrespect to your efforts, of course; I merely contend that, as a member of this "community," a technocratic approach is not the most in-keeping with the community label, which you presumed to give your project.

 

[mystikx21]

I think the point of making this a "community" patch would be as follows
1) There would be input from a broad community of people, which would help inform and guide this process of what things are to be worked on and perhaps how or to offer suggestions as to how and feedback as to "not how".

2) There would be design work, anything from dll code to art to data editing from a broad community of people. The basis for that would be that it shouldn't collapse and have no support if some of the major people take a break for other games and so that it can be done faster (break people off into teams to do the work of adapting necessary modifications, have people farm existing modifications for completed work, etc).

But pretty much any community is going to produce varied interest groups as to what priorities should be, what changes are needed, what changes are not needed and some form of executive action is occasionally needed to keep work proceeding forward such that "most" people might be happy with a finished product even if it is not their perfect vision. Otherwise it will become bogged down in endless debates.

 

[JFD]

But by calling it a community patch it implies that all members of this community agree upon and have been consulted upon what goes into it, which is inevitably going to be untrue. Users who come to view this patch will make those assumptions, and will come to trust that the patch is reflective of this community, because it is unreasonable to expect them to investigate or expect otherwise. When this patch extends into the scope of balancing, it will alienate mods that attempt to balance outside of this patch, - such as Reform and Rule - as would adding any new civilisations.

 

[mystikx21]

A community inevitably and inherently does not agree on all points of how that community is run, governed, or behaves as it is composed of competing interests. I don't understand your argument as a result. The idea would be that these competing interests should produce a better outcome by arguing over particular changes in a natural push-pull dynamic that sometimes wins the day or loses. Pleasing everyone with every change ever made to the design of a game is impossible. I don't see how it should be considered the only way something should be regarded as communal as a result. This should be democratic enough to be regarded as a community.

 

[ExpiredReign]

@JFD
I think your view of 'community' is a bit off, but that's ok. Just rest assured this mod is not out to alienate anyone and will try to be as inclusive as possible without being a bloated hulk.
At least that's my goal.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

[JFD]

As I said above, calling it a community patch will give it weight that mod users will presume is at the consent of the community - which it will be with the exception of the bulk that will not participate or have any interest in the patch. Calling it a community patch gives the mod a certain license that will potentially harm other mods.

My view of community is that it is inclusive of everyone that frequents these forums, which will include a large number of people who do not participate in this.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Like I said your use of 'community' may be clouding your view. In its simplest form it means a group of people with similar goals. That fits this mod and the larger forum populace as well. So any group, or subset of it, fits the bill.
I feel certain though with contrary ideas presented in a civil manner, like yours, this mod will work.
All we need is to keep users like you and I focused on the task at hand.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

[JFD]

Like I said your use of 'community' may be clouding your view. In its simplest form it means a group of people with similar goals. That fits this mod and the larger forum populace as well. So any group, or subset of it, fits the bill.
I feel certain though with contrary ideas presented in a civil manner, like yours, this mod will work.
All we need is to keep users like you and I focused on the task at hand.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

But, as I evidence, community connotes everyone, and so with it comes the aforementioned implications.

I'm not really sure what the task at hand is, however.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Well I was thinking more along future discussions but, I would say get clear in mind what you consider to be essential balance issues.
If you are proficient in lua there will be a need to fix or rewrite some of the functions in CEP if they can't be replicated in the DLL. We are going to use that as a starting point. I suggest though we don't clutter this thread ideas and wait to set up some purpose built threads.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

[mystikx21]

"Community"

a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

a similarity or identity.

joint ownership or liability. - We really should not have to pull out the dictionary.

None of that implies that everyone who ever uses or touches the mod we are looking to produce here as an outcome must have had a say in what goes in it, that everyone who ever argues for something to be put in it must have their wants satisfied. Some ideas are bad or terrible and can be rejected out of hand almost, some ideas are good, and some ideas are good but won't work for other reasons, in time we should reach a consensus about which of these we want for sure, which we want no part of, and so on.

I think you are getting hung up on a title here to be pedantic and that is not working well to get you on a good foot start here. We are forming a community of people with a particular goal, that community will get a large say in how that goal is shaped and formed, but when that community inevitably bogs down (and I say this from the experience in watching VEM-CEP which was a similar project) some executive decisions will have to be made or the entire project will wither and die. Sometimes those decisions will be bad and have to be reversed or altered (or grinned and beared), and sometimes they will work out fine. It's really not worth worrying about. Bad decisions will be identified and called out by lots of people as "problems" and have to be defended. I have confidence that Gazebo or whoward can listen to criticism and change course or that contentious changes can be made modular or easy to alter.

Focus on what you want this project to do (or not do, sometimes just as important to have restraint) as expired suggests, and you should be fine to have a voice and contribute if you wish, which is the entire point of calling a community patch is it should serve the larger community's interest to have wide viewpoints introduced and used, to gather feedback and a strong collective assessment of what we need to do and to go and do it.

As far as the task at hand. I have outlined some aspects of it here. More specifics will follow.

 

[JFD]

I understand that I am mistaken in believing that "community" here intends to mean everyone who participates in the Creation and Customisation forum, but it is the implication that was given to me by the use of the word community - the meaning of which has many alternatives to your provided definitions - and I expect it is one that will be given to others, especially after the mod is released to Steam. If you intend that this patch be communal, then it should have been named as such to avoid any confusion.

What I want this project to do is to be clear about who this community is, and what part this community plays in the patch, to be assured that it has not been arbitrarily or inaccurately labeled as such, so that those who come upon this patch do not presume that it speaks for a community that it does not.

If the only task is to discuss the balance patch, then that has no interest to me.

 

[albie_123]

Is it really necessary to use the word 'community' when we already have a 'communitas' mod which is relatively popular?

I understand that this project is somewhat spawned off of it (although I'd dispute any suggestion that it's a 'successor' mod) but the reason for communitas' name doesn't seem to have followed with it, namely, the idea that the community, not the creator, has the final say, and so the name seems pretty misplaced. There's a very good reason CEP didn't work at a 'decent pace', and that's precisely because it was formed by the community at every step. It's worth noting that when Thal disagreed with a change but the majority of the active community wanted it, he made it, and vice versa. That led to a lot of back and forth and stalling (in regards to the controversial 'vanguard' class especially) but it meant that the features were discussed at great length.

EDIT: This post seems much more negative and / or hostile than I actually feel in regards to this new development, so don't get the wrong idea: I'm actually super excited about the bugfix/AI/DLL Community Patch, it's about bloody time we had something along those lines!

 

[Gazebo]

'The Whoward/Gazebo Authoritarian Patch You Must Use Or Else' just didn't have the same ring to it.

 

[JFD]

That's a shame, because that's just the type of name that would appeal to me