where do I start?

[CrazyOkie]

I'm a big fan of CIV, ever since the original MS-DOS version.
With a wife, daughter, and work, it's taken me a while to finally get BtS, but I am finally getting it for Christmas.

Seeing all the discussion on this site about the different mods that are in various stages of creation has whetted my own appetite for creation. There are still a number of prime subjects, particularly for scifi and fantasy settings, that haven't been touched (Battlestar Galactica, Battletech, Dune) for Civ IV and others that look enticing to help on (Babylon 5, Star Wars, Star Trek, and what about Middle Earth?). But it's a little tough to know where to start in creating a mod or how I can help with one that's already started.

I've dabbled in the distant past in Basic, Pascal, HTML, and JavaScript. I've got no knowledge of Python or XML. Looking around here I've seen some information - like Gingerbread Man's stick on learning Python - but are there any forums to guide me in XML or the SDK? And where do I start once I have some knowledge of Python and XML? How do you 'create' a mod and what files have to be modified/copied/etc...?

 

[phungus420]

I would focus on a mod you are interested in helping, and ask the creator or devs of the mod how you can help. If you don't get a reply in a few days, assume the mod is dead and either take over or move to another one you're interested in.

XML is intuitive. It just uses tags, no reason to "learn" it, you should figure it out quite quickly, just take a look at a tutorial. As for Python and SDK, don't know, haven't even looked at SDK and all the python stuff I've done, I've had to get help in the Python and SDK forums. People here are quite helpful though if you are willing to do the work, and express your intent clearly.