What will get all you amazing Civ4 modders...

[platyping]

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.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I do my modding based on vanilla BTS. I make mod components which can be added to both vanilla and modded BTS, and personally I do play vanilla BTS with better graphics installed.

You seem to fail to appreciate the depth part which is more than just simply talking about sliders or the need of a calculator. Local happiness VS Global happiness, why should I be happy if I live on an isolated island and the president decided to build a theatre 10000 miles away and my island is not even connected to the mainland? Long term improvement choice like building cottages for them to become towns, or mines hoping for new resources, rather than simple trade posts that make no difference 1000 turns later. All these are choices which you do not need calculators to enjoy, we are not talking about the extreme players who look into each city and micromanage their citizens and specialists.

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.

As mentioned, DLL was not my problem. I use python anyway.
Civ V is too simplified, plus dumb AI => pokemon to me
I prefer to mod a game where the AI can actually defeat me, rather than a game where bleh, anyhow I play I also win...

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.

... ... ... You certainly don't know your stuff well. I can still play games made 10 years ago if I want on my PC now.

P.S.
@The_J
Posted before I saw your post

 

[Padjur]

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 for one enjoy it and as The_J says it is a matter of taste.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Sorry Mods, I'm not trying to direct this thread into a debate about tastes. I apologize for the "haters" comment, it isnt rhetorically accurate. I think a better term would be Civ5 detractors.

As Platyping illustrates with the local vs global happiness comment, I think many Civ5 detractors don't fully understand Civ5. Civ5 has both local and global happiness, and a theatre built in another city isn't going to change happiness in a city 1000 miles away. Also you cannot insta-build a city by simply purchasing tiles and buildings in a newly founded city. The city population would still start at 1 and the costs associated with such a move would be detrimental to ones overall play.

I don't think it is grasping at straws to say the target audience for Civ mods will grow for Civ5 and stagnate for Civ4 mods. New players will have modern PCs and a desire to play games with "current" specs and graphics. More players are getting their mods from Steams Workshop and this trend will continue.

Yes, I know many fans prefer a certain game regardless of platform based on taste, and they will continue to play those games with emulators, etc. But for every old-timer firing up his Atari 2600 there are oodles of new gamers buying the latest and greatest game. If a goal of modding is to reach the widest possible audience with ones work, then it makes little sense to mod for outdated technology. If one mods only for the ones self (personal enjoyment, inner peace), then it doesn't matter. I don't think ALL of the civ 4 modders are modding for their own personal pleasure, and I think many want their work to reach the widest audience possible. It's like writing the great American novel but never letting anyone else read it. What's the point?

I think there is an element of fear that is energizing this topic. There are some fabulous Civ4 mods here that are really works of art. But there is a fear that all of this hard work will roll into the dustbin if the mod community moves to Civ5. I guess my point is, this shift will happen whether folks want it to or not. Bit by bit modders will be jumping over to Civ5. Now with the DLL being released, I think you will see a lot more decide to bite the bullet and tackle their fears with using Civ5 to mod. There is always angst with new platforms but folks eventually make the move. I'm old enough to remember when Windows95 was going to be the death of the PC industry.

 

[markusbeutel]

Sorry Mods, I'm not trying to direct this thread into a debate about tastes. I apologize for the "haters" comment, it isnt rhetorically accurate. I think a better term would be Civ5 detractors.

As Platyping illustrates with the local vs global happiness comment, I think many Civ5 detractors don't fully understand Civ5. Civ5 has both local and global happiness, and a theatre built in another city isn't going to change happiness in a city 1000 miles away. Also you cannot insta-build a city by simply purchasing tiles and buildings in a newly founded city. The city population would still start at 1 and the costs associated with such a move would be detrimental to ones overall play.

I don't think it is grasping at straws to say the target audience for Civ mods will grow for Civ5 and stagnate for Civ4 mods. New players will have modern PCs and a desire to play games with "current" specs and graphics. More players are getting their mods from Steams Workshop and this trend will continue.

Yes, I know many fans prefer a certain game regardless of platform based on taste, and they will continue to play those games with emulators, etc. But for every old-timer firing up his Atari 2600 there are oodles of new gamers buying the latest and greatest game. If a goal of modding is to reach the widest possible audience with ones work, then it makes little sense to mod for outdated technology. If one mods only for the ones self (personal enjoyment, inner peace), then it doesn't matter. I don't think ALL of the civ 4 modders are modding for their own personal pleasure, and I think many want their work to reach the widest audience possible. It's like writing the great American novel but never letting anyone else read it. What's the point?

I think there is an element of fear that is energizing this topic. There are some fabulous Civ4 mods here that are really works of art. But there is a fear that all of this hard work will roll into the dustbin if the mod community moves to Civ5. I guess my point is, this shift will happen whether folks want it to or not. Bit by bit modders will be jumping over to Civ5. Now with the DLL being released, I think you will see a lot more decide to bite the bullet and tackle their fears with using Civ5 to mod. There is always angst with new platforms but folks eventually make the move. I'm old enough to remember when Windows95 was going to be the death of the PC industry.

If it's about reaching the widest possible audience, than why would anyone mod for CIV V? IV has a far greater user base of both of players who have purchased the game, and mods to serve as instruction booklets. Fact of the matter is, if players don't like a game, they aren't going to feel inclined to mod for it.

And it's not because they don't understand the mechanics of V. I bought the game, fully understood the mechanics, thought they were mediocre and aimed purely at the war-gamer, and then beat Deity after a week - in short, I was horribly disappointed. I'd assume most others here are in the same boat - being Civfanatics themselves, having spent thousands of hours modding IV, and being promised the "most moddable Civ yet," - we're probably the first purchasers of V, the ones that stood in line (or waited at our computers) for that release date to inch ever closer (not bothering to try the demo, because honestly, how could they screw up CIV?)

Seeing as this is posted in the IV forums, it's not an argument or case you're going to win, (and it'll just lead to more verbal conflict) - you'd be better off sequestering people in the CIV V forums to START modding for V, seeing as how they're the ones still invested in the game - or better yet, take up modding yourself, as everyone has to start somewhere.

Bumping Kael's modding guide would be a good place to start - as even though it's a bit outdated, it answers a lot of the basic questions that routinely come up in the CIV V Creation and Customization sub-forum.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385009

 

[stfoskey12]

I only became familiar with Civilization in 2010, so I'm wondering how busy was the modding community of Civ4 in 2007? It seems to me that it could just take time for people to make the switch and Civ5 to get a big enough base.

 

[platyping]

When did Civ V have local happiness?
In Civ IV, when a new theatre(come to think of it, should be collesium) is built, only the citizens in the city feels happier. Makes sense logically, because I don't see why I should be happy that it is built 1000 miles away from my city.
In Civ V, when a new one is built, since there is only global happiness, everyone in the nation feels happier. In fact, I should feel more fed up that they choose to built it 1000 miles away rather than build it in my city.

As for buying buildings and culture tiles.
Yes, it may not be wise move, because you cannot buy population.
But the fact that you can buy a super city with all buildings in just one turn, is totally unrealistic.
And since you cannot buy over tiles owned by others, I can mark my terriority with it, even though it is just an empty city with 1 poor guy living in it.

 

[markusbeutel]

When did Civ V have local happiness?
In Civ IV, when a new theatre(come to think of it, should be collesium) is built, only the citizens in the city feels happier. Makes sense logically, because I don't see why I should be happy that it is built 1000 miles away from my city.
In Civ V, when a new one is built, since there is only global happiness, everyone in the nation feels happier. In fact, I should feel more fed up that they choose to built it 1000 miles away rather than build it in my city.

As for buying buildings and culture tiles.
Yes, it may not be wise move, because you cannot buy population.
But the fact that you can buy a super city with all buildings in just one turn, is totally unrealistic.
And since you cannot buy over tiles owned by others, I can mark my terriority with it, even though it is just an empty city with 1 poor guy living in it.

Certain buildings work on a modified "local" happiness system in V after patching. Basically, a building can generate up to a certain amount of happiness based on how many citizens are in that particular city. So Building "A" could generate up to 5 happiness if the city it's built in has 5 population, (if it had 3 population you'd get only 3 happiness - up to the eventual max of 5 if that was the buildings max allotted amount) - but this happiness is in fact counted towards your global happiness score - it's not unique from city to city, and you can build as many different happiness buildings as you want with gold. It's kind of a pay-to-win mentality where if you're maximizing how many cities you build, you're always eventually going to buy every happiness building in every city according to the linear path of the tech tree.

So "local" happiness only comes from buildings that are limited by the pop. in cities themselves. All other forms of happiness that you can get, (through policies/resources/religion, etc) immediately go to your global pool.

At the very least, it's better than the original system that automatically gave X amount of happiness per building.

 

[platyping]

Yeah, I know about that part. Although it is an improvement to the system, it is still nevertheless, a global happiness system.
Building a happy building in a big city 1000 miles away, is still going to make me happier even though I am living in an isolated city with no airport or harbour, so there is no way I can even take a plane there to enjoy the facilities. Yet, we are all happier.
On the other hand, building the same building directly at my doorstep does not make me happy at all because I am living in a small city. What is the logic behind this?

 

[Derf]

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.

Just like to point out one thing. As a happy Linux user, I can report that even if Windows whatever-version no longer runs Civ4, it is possible and I often do enjoy a good game of Civ4 working perfectly under Wine on Linux.
For that matter, I can play any version of Civ up to 4 through Wine with no issues at all, and so see no reason to just assume that an 'antiquated platform' will stop people playing it.

If it works somehow and people can do it, sooner or later they'll do it.
Also, add me to the camp of people that bought Civ5, tried it, and sold it again. Only got a fraction back, but it was better than keeping it around when I was never going to play it again.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Re Global Happiness - I don't want to debate the merits of a quasi-global happiness system (Civ5) versus a local-only system(Civ4). Rather I think Civ5 happiness needs to be understood in the context of national stability which is what the global part of happiness represents in Civ5. If your nation has high happiness it means the citizens as a whole are happy. Birth rate goes up and people immigrate in. Low happiness means your country is experiencing turmoil like modern day real life Greece. It's not simply about keeping people in town A happy with buildings. Many other aspects influence global happiness including the economy and relations with other states.

For the Civ5 Detractors - I strongly recommend giving 5 another shot. Folks who hated Civ5 upon release are now posting in the Civ5 Rants thread that they now enjoy the game in its current state. It is such a different game that one play at time of release does not give it justice. Try the demo for free.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Re Global Happiness - I don't want to debate the merits of a quasi-global happiness system (Civ5) versus a local-only system(Civ4). Rather I think Civ5 happiness needs to be understood in the context of national stability which is what the global part of happiness represents in Civ5. If your nation has high happiness it means the citizens as a whole are happy. Birth rate goes up and people immigrate in. Low happiness means your country is experiencing turmoil like modern day real life Greece. It's not simply about keeping people in town A happy with buildings. Many other aspects influence global happiness including the economy and relations with other states.

For the Civ5 Detractors - I strongly recommend giving 5 another shot. Folks who hated Civ5 upon release are now posting in the Civ5 Rants thread that they now enjoy the game in its current state. It is such a different game that one play at time of release does not give it justice. Try the demo for free.

I did - it still sucks I'm afraid :-(

I think the fundamental design is just wrong and you can't patch that.

 

[Leoreth]

Re Global Happiness - I don't want to debate the merits of a quasi-global happiness system (Civ5) versus a local-only system(Civ4). Rather I think Civ5 happiness needs to be understood in the context of national stability which is what the global part of happiness represents in Civ5. If your nation has high happiness it means the citizens as a whole are happy. Birth rate goes up and people immigrate in. Low happiness means your country is experiencing turmoil like modern day real life Greece. It's not simply about keeping people in town A happy with buildings. Many other aspects influence global happiness including the economy and relations with other states.

I'm sure you can spin a lot of flavour around this mechanic so it "makes sense". It's still a broken mechanic because it causes ICS, a problem that Civ4 solved flawlessly and even Civ3 handled better, and it's still counterintuitive that a building in one city affects your empire wide stability.

I still encourage you to give modding a try so you can create what you want on your own

 

[Jatta Pake]

The restrictions on city placement and degrading social policies have ended ICS in Civ5 if it ever really existed. Civ3 and/or Civ4 used corruption and distance from capital to limit ICS which is a much more arcane and mathematics intensive method for the player to track. Civ5 has fewer cities and units, but they make up with quality over quantity. Four quality cities can dominate the world vs. a city spam happy player.

Also, Civs like Polynesia can incorporate a kind of ICS as a viable strategy. Civ5 has much more diversity of play between Civs. I think it is comparing apples to oranges.

 

[platyping]

Hmm, so why ask the apple gang to mod for orange game?
If they are really 2 different games, then it is like asking Sim City developers to mod for Diablo?

ICS existed in Civ V, seems like you just started Civ V if you never knew about it.
It was THE strategy where people simply build small cities as close to each other as possible because of all the benefits such as City States.

It is not just one or two issues with Civ V that Civ IV modders do not like the game.
Global happiness is just one of them.
Dumb AI is another, and there are many more which were already stated.
Whether the dll is released or not isn't the main issue here since people here do not like the main mechanics of Civ V and it is not something you can change with just one or 2 lines of codes.

 

[markusbeutel]

Seeing as this is posted in the IV forums, it's not an argument or case you're going to win, (and it'll just lead to more verbal conflict) - you'd be better off sequestering people in the CIV V forums to START modding for V, seeing as how they're the ones still invested in the game - or better yet, take up modding yourself, as everyone has to start somewhere.

Bumping Kael's modding guide would be a good place to start - as even though it's a bit outdated, it answers a lot of the basic questions that routinely come up in the CIV V Creation and Customization sub-forum.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385009

Going to quote myself here.

For the Civ5 Detractors - I strongly recommend giving 5 another shot. Folks who hated Civ5 upon release are now posting in the Civ5 Rants thread that they now enjoy the game in its current state. It is such a different game that one play at time of release does not give it justice. Try the demo for free.

No. They are not. And even if they were, (which they are not), that's a rants thread. It's for ranting, not arguing, or giving positive feedback on CIV V. The point's been driven home numerous times by the mods already.

The restrictions on city placement and degrading social policies have ended ICS in Civ5 if it ever really existed. Civ3 and/or Civ4 used corruption and distance from capital to limit ICS which is a much more arcane and mathematics intensive method for the player to track. Civ5 has fewer cities and units, but they make up with quality over quantity. Four quality cities can dominate the world vs. a city spam happy player.

Also, Civs like Polynesia can incorporate a kind of ICS as a viable strategy. Civ5 has much more diversity of play between Civs. I think it is comparing apples to oranges.

4 Cities with 30 population in each city will never "dominate the world" if another player spams 30 cities with 5-6 population in each one, (which is not at all difficult with how slowly the AI expands, how easy the CS's are to exploit, how many luxury resources there are, and how many policies/buildings there are devoted to happiness) - ICS will ALWAY rule the day as long as science is tied together 1:1 with population. That's just basic math. The "restrictions" on city placement, where cities now have to have 3 spaces between them, merely makes tiny/dual/small maps pointless to play due to a lack of space once you get even a remote few cities built - that's not fixing game mechanics, that's just a lazy band-aid that took 1 line of XML. As far as nerfing policies, with the introduction of religion and additional happiness resources in G+K's, happiness is NEVER a problem unless you're completely new to strategy games, (which CIV V is not - it's a tactical war game - and according to Kotaku, it's an RTS) .

As for Civ specific traits, half of them are useless, half of them are worthwhile only at certain point during a game, and all of them force you into a specific play-style - which is exactly what traits in CIV V didn't force you into because it actually had diversity.

Hmm, so why ask the apple gang to mod for orange game?
If they are really 2 different games, then it is like asking Sim City developers to mod for Diablo?

ICS existed in Civ V, seems like you just started Civ V if you never knew about it.
It was THE strategy where people simply build small cities as close to each other as possible because of all the benefits such as City States.

It is not just one or two issues with Civ V that Civ IV modders do not like the game.
Global happiness is just one of them.
Dumb AI is another, and there are many more which were already stated.
Whether the dll is released or not isn't the main issue here since people here do not like the main mechanics of Civ V and it is not something you can change with just one or 2 lines of codes.

+9000

 

[Leoreth]

The restrictions on city placement and degrading social policies have ended ICS in Civ5 if it ever really existed. Civ3 and/or Civ4 used corruption and distance from capital to limit ICS which is a much more arcane and mathematics intensive method for the player to track. Civ5 has fewer cities and units, but they make up with quality over quantity. Four quality cities can dominate the world vs. a city spam happy player.

Your idea of what makes good design is utterly alien to me. The corruption mechanic was flawed, yes, but Civ4's "cities cost upkeep but buildings do not" mechanic is the most elegant solution to the ICS problem I've seen so far. I don't see what is arcane or mathematics heavy about this simple principle (it's not as if you had to calculate the upkeep to understand the mechanic). Civ5 seems to work more on arbitrary rules, especially with the later patches where they are applied like band-aid, to treat symptoms without addressing the flaws in the underlying mechanics. If you think that is better design we have found the root of our disagreement.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Ok, I concede that I will change no minds of responders in this thread. Also, I struggle with even turning on a PC so modding is out of the question. I have yet to even find the floppy drive on my new computer.

On another note: Are any of you afraid Civ4 modding will die with the release of Civ5 DLL?

 

[AbsintheRed]

On another note: Are any of you afraid Civ4 modding will die with the release of Civ5 DLL?

No, there is no chance for that
Actually, the way I see things now, Civ IV modding will live much longer than Civ V modding

 

[ls612]

No, there is no chance for that
Actually, the way I see things now, Civ IV modding will live much longer than Civ V modding

I've always found predictions like that risky, especially when they involve the future. Seriously though, CiV has a far more robust engine than 4 did, and even though many of it's mechanics suck, they will hopefully eventually be fixed by modders with DLL access, and then the main complaints of the IV people (except for steam) will have been addressed.

I though do expect to keep modding Civ 4 for the foreseeable future, just saying that in the longer range DLL access will help CiV considerably.

 

[stfoskey12]

I actually may start modding Civ5 in the future, but first I need a powerful enough computer.