What will get all you amazing Civ4 modders...

[Gedemon]

I wouldn't expect all that much... While CIV V has a lot of mods right now, only a handful of them go into any sort of depth beyond basic XML, and most of those have by now been abandoned. Unless an onslaught of modders previously hiding in the shadows start modding for V, I don't see this having a huge impact, especially with CIV V STILL not supporting mods in multiplayer.

Modders coming over from IV could make an impact, and while the lack of a .dll was always a main complaint as to why the switch was never made, I think a dislike for the streamlined mechanics of V, (and the lack of any sort of depth whatsoever combined with atrocious AI), have had an equal say in why not many modders have bothered up to this point.

I've the same feeling that the dislike of the game mechanism was the first reason that have made Civ4 modders stay on civ4.

The lack of DLL is important too, yes, especially for the bigger mods that had already a large part of their code made in C++, it make sense to wait for the DLL rather than converting the code to Lua and switch it back to C++ for performance when the source is released.

But to make a good mod for Civ5, you'd have to make Civ5 a good base, and it has taken 2 years to Firaxis to make it. And I know it's still debatable, so let's just say the base game is way better after 2 years and one expansion. Still not what I expected, but truly better.

That's sad, because the 'potential' is really here, IMO Civ5 without DLL is more moddable than Civ4 without DLL, it would have required a lot of source code to convert to Civ4 the WWII mod I've made for Civ5 using Lua only.

And that's a point going in your direction: the source code will not make as big an impact that it had on civ4, because there were already a lot of thing doable in Lua (a RFC conversion was possible for example)

So we'll see what's available in the source we'll get access to, but even if the first part of my post may sound pessimist, I really hope that the access to the diplomatic AI and some of the core mechanism will allow to finish to fix the base game and start "real" modding.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Well, I agree with you guys that we need to wait to see what is actually delivered. But this upcoming patch has me excited. With Gods & Kings the game is vastly improved on Civ 5 Vanilla. It appears that the patch will address performance issues although I honestly never noticed much of a turn time issue. I do remember Civ 4 really bogging down my old computer though.

Some commenters are bringing up an interesting complaint: if the base game lacks depth, it is inherently flawed and unable to be changed even with DLL access. I disagree on both counts. What depth is missing? You explore, build cities, research tech, fight wars, spread religion, spy on rivals, and trade just like you do in all the other Civ games. What depth does BTS have that G&K doesn't?

The game mechanics are much tighter in Civ5 and one really has truly different and balanced options for play. BTS was "who could build the biggest stack first". In Civ5 you can go Wide, Tall, or a variation which incorporates several different Social Policy options.

And yes there is the "Steam" issue but it reminds me of the guys who won't buy Windows because of the DRM. For the average joe, Linux boxes suck. I like the whole DRM free open source idea but frankly, you get what you pay for. I like Steam and I as a consumer feel I benefit from this business model.

 

[markusbeutel]

Well, I agree with you guys that we need to wait to see what is actually delivered. But this upcoming patch has me excited. With Gods & Kings the game is vastly improved on Civ 5 Vanilla. It appears that the patch will address performance issues although I honestly never noticed much of a turn time issue. I do remember Civ 4 really bogging down my old computer though.

Some commenters are bringing up an interesting complaint: if the base game lacks depth, it is inherently flawed and unable to be changed even with DLL access. I disagree on both counts. What depth is missing? You explore, build cities, research tech, fight wars, spread religion, spy on rivals, and trade just like you do in all the other Civ games. What depth does BTS have that G&K doesn't?

The game mechanics are much tighter in Civ5 and one really has truly different and balanced options for play. BTS was "who could build the biggest stack first". In Civ5 you can go Wide, Tall, or a variation which incorporates several different Social Policy options.

And yes there is the "Steam" issue but it reminds me of the guys who won't buy Windows because of the DRM. For the average joe, Linux boxes suck. I like the whole DRM free open source idea but frankly, you get what you pay for. I like Steam and I as a consumer feel I benefit from this business model.

Don't want to turn this into IV vs V, but if you fail to grasp the level of depth in IV compared to the complete lack of depth and re-playability in V, (and if you think that biggest stack always wins) then V's definitely the game for you and nothing anyone says will make you think otherwise.

Bottom line, you want people to mod CIV V that have been modding CIV IV, but if people don't like the base game due to its (lack of) core mechanics, then perhaps that's because thing's that were in previous iterations are missing in V, including:

Health
Local Happiness
Trade Routes
Terrain diversification
Improvement diversification
Rational AI diplomacy (number diplomacy).
Capable AI tactical ability
A UN that isn't pay-to-win.
Commerce vs Gold
Cottages vs Trading Posts
Interchangeable Civics
A non-linear tech tree.
Traits that aren't severely circumstantial.
Turn times that are at least 50% faster.
Culture takeover of plots/cities.
Barbarian Cities.
Animals (although not everyone would agree here).
Era specific music.
Deity in V = to middle difficulties on IV, if that.
AI that actually expand across the globe and compete with you for viable spots.
Gameplay that doesn't lock you into going for a specific victory type on turn 1.

And that's just scratching the surface. In the end, once the .dll is released we'll see if the lack of modding tools was the only thing holding people back from modding CIV V, but I feel confident in saying that a lack of tools is/was just a small part of the problem, (although I'd gladly be proven wrong).

And +1 to everything from Gedemon's post. CIV V still has a world of potential, but at this point "potential" is like a limited strategic resource in V that's quickly being used up as time progresses.

 

[kiwitt]

What depth is missing? You explore, build cities, research tech, fight wars, spread religion, spy on rivals, and trade just like you do in all the other Civ games. What depth does BTS have that G&K doesn't?

Lack of depth may be the wrong word here. What it is really missing, is a wider granularity of control for how your cities and civilization develops. You have a much wider range of options as a player as to the paths you take and how you manage them. Civ V placed many of these controls on auto-manage*.

However, mostly it felt like a console game, i.e. great for a couple hours of play, but not a long game. I've had individual games play for weeks, if not months and still be enjoyable.

* TBH: It felt like Windows Vista compared to Windows 2000/XP. You lost so much control over how you ran your machine. G&Ks maybe like Windows 7, an improvement of Vista, but the same lack of control is there (e.g. \Program files\ security issues).​

 

[platyping]

Most absurb part of CiV which I don't like is this
You can build a city on turn X and then...
Buy all cultures in same turns.
Buy 10000 Buildings in the same city in the same turn.

Tada, you built a super city in just 1 turn...

Seriously, CiV has so many game design problems that it needs an overhaul to look sensible.
But why bother when you already have a platform that is sensible.
The only difference is the graphics I guess but gameplay > graphics.

Award winning games like Starcraft are played by players all over the world for > 10 years even though over the years obviously new games of the same genre are released with better graphics.
Yet people still play them because the game was balanced etc...

 

[ls612]

Most absurb part of CiV which I don't like is this
You can build a city on turn X and then...
Buy all cultures in same turns.
Buy 10000 Buildings in the same city in the same turn.

Tada, you built a super city in just 1 turn...

Seriously, CiV has so many game design problems that it needs an overhaul to look sensible.
But why bother when you already have a platform that is sensible.
The only difference is the graphics I guess but gameplay > graphics.

Award winning games like Starcraft are played by players all over the world for > 10 years even though over the years obviously new games of the same genre are released with better graphics.
Yet people still play them because the game was balanced etc...

And I'd be willing to bet with access to the DLL source all of these annoying gameplay issues could be removed and/or rewritten. It's really just a matter of someone getting the ball rolling. CiV will need it's Kael in order for modding to take off, but once people start showing the ability to fix CiV gameplay mechanics I suspect that the modding will snowball, like it has for Civ 4.

 

[Leoreth]

But again, what's the point? Why should someone spend hours of work to elevate Civ5 to the level of gamedesign Civ4 already has?

 

[platyping]

Exactly. It sounds stupid to modify a new game into an old game, when we might as well just play the old game.

After spending hoursssss to change all the issues to look similar to Civ IV as stated by markusbeutel, all we get is just Civ IV with V graphics, hexes and social policies?
Then might as well find a way to implement social policies into Civ IV for those who like that feature. Isnt it simpler...

 

[Pazyryk]

It's a huge hump to learn the Civ5 modding tools. I can see why Civ4 modders just won't make that jump and I don't blame them. And it's just plain crazy to put 100s of hours into converting a Civ4 mod that already works just fine as a Civ4 mod.

But there is no way that I could go back to Civ4 modding. Heck, I couldn't even store the value of a variable between turns (without dll modding). How can you mod without a database? Without a Live Tuner (or equivalent) for troubleshooting? It would be like being forced to program in FORTRAN.

The depth argument seems a little silly to me. Come on, research and culture sliders? Deciding whether to build a library or marketplace in Civ4 is just "gaming the slider" -- there is nothing deep about that. Though I have to say that the original implementation of RAs in Civ5 was pretty terrible (just an easy way to convert gold to research ... which totally negated the removal of sliders). It's easy to list out areas where either 4 or 5 fall down badly on depth. It's irrelevant anyway in a major conversion mod because depth in these is more or less totally up to the modder, and is usually better than base (perhaps because the audience is different or due to a more iterative development).

 

[God-Emperor]

But there is no way that I could go back to Civ4 modding. Heck, I couldn't even store the value of a variable between turns (without dll modding).

Then you were doing it wrong.

 

[Leoreth]

It's a huge hump to learn the Civ5 modding tools. I can see why Civ4 modders just won't make that jump and I don't blame them. And it's just plain crazy to put 100s of hours into converting a Civ4 mod that already works just fine as a Civ4 mod.

I don't know where you got the idea that it's the complexity of Civ5's modding environment that alienates Civ4 modders.

But there is no way that I could go back to Civ4 modding. Heck, I couldn't even store the value of a variable between turns (without dll modding). How can you mod without a database? Without a Live Tuner (or equivalent) for troubleshooting? It would be like being forced to program in FORTRAN.

You had the whole power of Python or even C++ at your command, why the need for a puny database? And from what I've gathered, modding in Civ5 is like being forced to program in RPGMaker (to continue your analogy) - convenient for people who are intimidated by actual programming languages, but in the end just constraining. Most Civ4 modders, at least those who this thread is about, have already made the step over to actual programming, and don't need something to hold their hands.

The depth argument seems a little silly to me. Come on, research and culture sliders? Deciding whether to build a library or marketplace in Civ4 is just "gaming the slider" -- there is nothing deep about that. Though I have to say that the original implementation of RAs in Civ5 was pretty terrible (just an easy way to convert gold to research ... which totally negated the removal of sliders). It's easy to list out areas where either 4 or 5 fall down badly on depth. It's irrelevant anyway in a major conversion mod because depth in these is more or less totally up to the modder, and is usually better than base (perhaps because the audience is different or due to a more iterative development).

Depth is the wrong word, at least partially. I prefer complexity. It's all about, to quote Sid Meier, "interesting decisions". The decision between a market and a library may just be "gaming the sliders", but it was a meaningful decision, with the choice being dependent on your situation. The good thing about Civ4 was that it had a multitude of such simple but meaningful decisions that together created complexity. And that's what good game design is: complexity from simplicity. In many aspects Civ5 removed the ability to choose outright or made the choice obvious. This robbed you of the feeling to actually make decisions that influence the fate of your civilization. It all just played out after a fairly obvious strategy that had to be pursued.

 

[Pazyryk]

Then you were doing it wrong.

Very possibly. I had tried to figure out some kind of persistent data handling (short of dll modding) but came up empty. Thank you for the correction. I'll now shut my mouth on this point.

I don't know where you got the idea that it's the complexity of Civ5's modding environment that alienates Civ4 modders.

Learning new systems always sucks. Or at least that's my experience. And it is much worse with lousy documentation, which has been the case for Civ5 (but at least that has been fixed now thanks to DonQuiche's fantastic wiki).

You had the whole power of Python or even C++ at your command, why the need for a puny database?

Because databases are useful and C++ doesn't replace them? Am I going out on a limb to say that? (I don't mean to be sarcastic here. OK, maybe a little bit. But I could try to give a better answer if the question is serious.)

Anyway, you are certainly working with complex tables in Civ4 via xml. Civ5 just makes this more -- I don't know how else to say it -- "professional". You can use standard SQL functions to manipulate it and any 3rd party tool (e.g., SQLite Manager) to view and troubleshoot it.

And from what I've gathered, modding in Civ5 is like being forced to program in RPGMaker (to continue your analogy) - convenient for people who are intimidated by actual programming languages, but in the end just constraining. Most Civ4 modders, at least those who this thread is about, have already made the step over to actual programming, and don't need something to hold their hands.

For all the griping about ModBuddy, it's just Visual Studio ... nothing more, nothing less. If you are a professional coder, of course you could develop something yourself or perhaps you have your own pipeline for software development. It's kind of ridiculous to call it "hand holding" when many professionals (at least outside of the gaming industry...which is all I can comment on) use something similar. And if you are not a professional coder, then it is a pretty nice introduction to this sort of thing. In any case, you can bypass ModBuddy entirely if you want. The modinfo file isn't that hard to make (holy cow! reading page 1 of this post would make you think this little < 1kb text file is the root of all evil). You can build an entire Civ5 mod using a text editor if you like.

Sorry, I don't know what RPGMaker is, so I can't comment on that.

And that's what good game design is: complexity from simplicity.

Yes, Yes, we all agree on that, I think, even the developers. Problems is, after playing so much Civ (all versions) I end up playing like a robot, and none of the decisions are very hard, and then neither Civ4 nor Civ5 feels very deep to me (and yes, I have kicked the difficulty up). When I said the argument is "silly" what I meant was that I don't really want to fight for either Civ5 or Civ4.

I have the feeling that the developers were striving for "complexity from simplicity" in Civ5 and got...well..."simplicity from simplicity", at least at initial release. Removing the slider had the potential to really make gold and research different game elements and not just a gamey "playing the slider" system, but then they completely negated this change with the stupid RA implementation. For what it's worth, this has more or less been fixed (was improved with patches, but now finally fixed in G&K) and science and gold are finally no longer interchangeable. So this is an example of added complexity in Civ5 that wasn't really realized at release, but I think finally is now.

Anyway, my memory of Civ4 is clouded by all the fun games of FFH (and a few other mods) I played... so it's really impossible for me to compare the two base games.

 

[Jatta Pake]

I think many Civ4 fans here have forgotten what vanilla BTS played like which is understandable as most Civ4 players probably play mods now. There wasn't any great degree of depth to BTS. Now the ability to micromanage - yes, BTS did allow more granular control of various aspects. The difference is that this granularity is tedium for many Civ players. In my mind, it's not a game if I need a graphing calculator at my side to run my Civ. I think most people want a game that takes hours to play and not months to play.

Now that DLL source release is imminient, I think the Civ5 haters are really stretching with their arguments. You don't need Modbuddy. I don't think anyone wants to mod Civ5 into Civ4. Structurally Civ5 is a more modern platform from which to build mods.

At some point, Civ4 will no longer be playable with new versions of Windows. Why waste time coding on an antiquated platform? Civ5 will work with Windows 8.

 

[kiwitt]

At some point, Civ4 will no longer be playable with new versions of Windows. Why waste time coding on an antiquated platform? Civ5 will work with Windows 8.

Windows 8

I have no intention to move to Windows 8, and many commentators are saying that Windows 7 will be the Windows XP for this generation, whereby people hung onto it for far longer than necessary. (Windows XP is still supported until April, 2014). I suspect Windows 7 will be supported well into the 2020s.

 

[melcher kürzer]

I think many Civ4 fans here have forgotten what vanilla BTS played like which is understandable as most Civ4 players probably play mods now. There wasn't any great degree of depth to BTS. Now the ability to micromanage - yes, BTS did allow more granular control of various aspects. The difference is that this granularity is tedium for many Civ players. In my mind, it's not a game if I need a graphing calculator at my side to run my Civ. I think most people want a game that takes hours to play and not months to play.

Now that DLL source release is imminient, I think the Civ5 haters are really stretching with their arguments. You don't need Modbuddy. I don't think anyone wants to mod Civ5 into Civ4. Structurally Civ5 is a more modern platform from which to build mods.

At some point, Civ4 will no longer be playable with new versions of Windows. Why waste time coding on an antiquated platform? Civ5 will work with Windows 8.

Ah, i see. Makes sense, where do i need to subscribe?

 

[Voyhkah]

I think many Civ4 fans here have forgotten what vanilla BTS played like which is understandable as most Civ4 players probably play mods now. There wasn't any great degree of depth to BTS. Now the ability to micromanage - yes, BTS did allow more granular control of various aspects. The difference is that this granularity is tedium for many Civ players. In my mind, it's not a game if I need a graphing calculator at my side to run my Civ. I think most people want a game that takes hours to play and not months to play.

Now that DLL source release is imminient, I think the Civ5 haters are really stretching with their arguments. You don't need Modbuddy. I don't think anyone wants to mod Civ5 into Civ4. Structurally Civ5 is a more modern platform from which to build mods.

At some point, Civ4 will no longer be playable with new versions of Windows. Why waste time coding on an antiquated platform? Civ5 will work with Windows 8.

One thing that really bothered me about CiV modding is all the XML commands. In Civ4 modding, you only need to delete an entry to get rid of a thing. In CiV, due to all this "Modularity" gobbledygook, you make your own XML files and have to manually delete and change anything you want to delete or change. Civ4 also has modularity capabilities, and they work much better.

 

[Leoreth]

I think many Civ4 fans here have forgotten what vanilla BTS played like which is understandable as most Civ4 players probably play mods now. There wasn't any great degree of depth to BTS. Now the ability to micromanage - yes, BTS did allow more granular control of various aspects. The difference is that this granularity is tedium for many Civ players. In my mind, it's not a game if I need a graphing calculator at my side to run my Civ. I think most people want a game that takes hours to play and not months to play.

I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. You can very well play Civ4 competitively on high difficulties without using a calculator. I don't even know a single situation where you would need one.

And the old "Civ4 vanilla had problems too!" argument has been done to death, it's not very applicable for reasons I have already mentioned earlier in this thread. Civ5's problems are systemic and inherent to its flawed game design. This is easily noticeable in how several major aspects of the game have been overhauled in the patching process, quite cluelessly if I may add, and things that were touted as "intentional features" pre release have quietly been redone and still don't really work as well as we were used to (I'm talking about diplomacy here). What's been changed to Civ4 is finetuning in comparison.

Now that DLL source release is imminient, I think the Civ5 haters are really stretching with their arguments.

I have several problems with this statement.
1) I loathe the term "haters". Why must everyone either be a gushing fanboy or an irrational mouth-foaming hater to some people? Seriously, it's nothing but a strawman to imply the other side "hates" the subject of the debate, instead of just not liking it for rational reasons.
2) The lack of DLL source code was never the problem. Civ5 being a bad game was.
3) You act as if modders (those "haters" you want to mod Civ5) have to justify their decision not to mod Civ5, so you can now triumphantly declare they have "run out of arguments". Breaking news: people do what they want, and just that you think you have better "arguments" doesn't change that.

Structurally Civ5 is a more modern platform from which to build mods.

I'd really like to know why this is.

Also, I prefer a good game over a "modern platform".

At some point, Civ4 will no longer be playable with new versions of Windows. Why waste time coding on an antiquated platform? Civ5 will work with Windows 8.

I'm going to make a bold claim now and predict that Civ6 will be available before Civ4 won't be supported anymore. And I really doubt Civ4 won't work on Win8.

And even if it doesn't, there are emulators after all. People are still playing DOS games on Win7 at this very moment.

This last argument looks more like it's you who's grasping at straws.

 

[Pazyryk]

OK, I went back and actually read the thread (yes, I posted before reading all 5 pages).

Holy molly you are a persistent fellow Jatta Pake. I don't mean that as an insult in any way. Perhaps you should put some of that particular trait into making a Civ5 mod yourself. I'm obviously a partisan for Civ5 modding after putting this much effort into it myself.

All I can say is that someone who hates Civ5 -- or really anyone who has a mild dislike of it -- isn't going to put in the enormous effort needed to make a good and deep mod. And it is an enormous effort whether we are talking about Civ4 or Civ5.

(The Windows 8 argument really is grasping at straws.)

 

[ls612]

OK, I went back and actually read the thread (yes, I posted before reading all 5 pages).

Holy molly you are a persistent fellow Jatta Pake. I don't mean that as an insult in any way. Perhaps you should put some of that particular trait into making a Civ5 mod yourself. I'm obviously a partisan for Civ5 modding after putting this much effort into it myself.

All I can say is that someone who hates Civ5 -- or really anyone who has a mild dislike of it -- isn't going to put in the enormous effort needed to make a good and deep mod. And it is an enormous effort whether we are talking about Civ4 or Civ5.

(The Windows 8 argument really is grasping at straws.)

I subscribe to the "If you build it they will come eventually" argument for modding. CiV is a good platform from a technical perspective, even though it was/is a poor gameplay experience. However, compared to the mods we now have for Civ 4, the vanilla BtS experience was also quite poorer.

 

[The_J]

...guys...most of this stuff here is about taste. And since we all (should) know that you can't argue about taste, I'd ask you to get rid of everything connected to it.
Else I have to close this thread, because it begins to get seriously on my nerves.