Why are you (still) modding CivCol ?

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

I would really be interested, why the modders currently around are (still) modding this game.
(I thought discussion in this forum might be better than in "General Discussions" because it is more related to modding than playing.)

This discussion has been lead several times already I know.
(But it is still interesting to me to hear some new opinions.)

For me it is:

Spoiler :

1. The modability of this game is incredible.

With some motivation and time, you can learn to do almost anything you can think of.
Limitations are really low if you have acquired the appropriate skills or have partners that do have the skills.
Being able to create totally new concepts and features is so fantastic !

Just like Civ4:
DLL sources are available, core logic can be changed.
A lot is also possible with Python.
Graphics are looking good, but not too complicated that you could not create your own.
A lot of configuration possibilites already in or can be exposed to XML.

It really is extremely modding friendly.

2. I really like some of the concepts:
(I also like Civ4 but some concepts of CivCol are simply more interesting to me.)

A) The economy system with productionlines and transportation of goods is great.
It is much better than the one of Civ4 to my personal opinion.

B) Focussing on one historical area creates a lot of atmosphere to my opinion.
Fighting knights with tanks in Civ4 often felt ... strange.

C) Many different strategies available to win the game.

...

3. I also still miss some concepts:
(Yes, this is a major reason for me to keep modding this game. )

A) Different Religions as a major factor of that time are not really represented.

B) Possibilities of Diplomatic Interactions or Trade are still relatively weak.

C) Other concepts like Inventions, Satisfaction or Health would be cool, too.

...

4. The community is really great:

The modders have created so many great features and ideas already.
(But many of these have simply not been integrated together.)

Cooperation between the modders has always worked well.
(But it could have been more structured ....)

Atmosphere in the forums is generally friendly and very open minded.

We are a small community, but that is not necessarily bad.
(Thus relations / contacts between the modders have simply been stronger.)

Even though many of the great legends of CivCol-modding have left the arena,
some of them return from time to time and there are always promissing new modders around.

5. I got infected by the original Colonization:

Since these days I had been dreaming of "My own perfect Colonization game".
And I am not that far away from that anymore.

----------------

My personal summary:

Extremely good base for modding.
(Technologies and concepts.)

Lots and lots of potentials for new features and improvements.
(A lot has already been done, even more is still possible.)

Small but really good community.

I am simply too close to my personal "perfect game" to stop.

Modding this game has been more fun to me, than playing any other game.

Why are you still modding this game ?
What are you still missing or dreaming of ?

 

[raystuttgart]

Are there any new CivCol-Modders out there ?
We (the other CivCol-Modders around) would really like to get to know you.

Tell us about your plans, your current work or simply your wishes.
Maybe we do share some idea and could help each other.

 

[Kailric]

Hey Ray, I sympathize with all your points. Some of my best times on the PC was modding Civ4Col. I still have big dreams and plans but kinda got sided tracked by getting married with kids But I still browse around these forums and see who all is doing what from time to time. The problem these days is there is just so much going on out there. New games to play, new games to mod, its sad that these older classics get set aside. Cheers to all the Modders on these forums!!

 

[raystuttgart]

Hey Ray, I sympathize with all your points.

Hi Kailric, nice to see you around again.
Your work is really inspiring.

Some of my best times on the PC was modding Civ4Col.

Yes, for me too.
I had more fun modding this game than playing any other.

I still have big dreams and plans but kinda got sided tracked by getting married with kids

Well yes, modding eats up a lot of time.
Especially if you really have big dreams.

And real life, especially family, always comes first.

But I still browse around these forums and see who all is doing what from time to time.

Me too.

The problem these days is there is just so much going on out there. New games to play, new games to mod, its sad that these older classics get set aside.

Well sure, there are always newer games.
But it has always been like that.

Also it is not necessarily said, that all these games are better.
("Better" is subjective anyways.)

Cheers to all the Modders on these forums!!

Cheers to all the Modders that keep up the spirit !

 

[Sanotra]

Why is it that turn based strategy games are not really made much anymore? Everything is real time strategy or first person shooter or role playing. Where are the games like Civ or Lords of the Realm 2?!

 

[Commander Bello]

Why is it that turn based strategy games are not really made much anymore? Everything is real time strategy or first person shooter or role playing. Where are the games like Civ or Lords of the Realm 2?!

They need much more thinking on both sides.

The player has to think more about developing his nation/tribe/group/whatever and the creator of the game has to provide him with a plausable world. In addition, the AI has a much bigger role in TBS games.
In FPS, you can rely on the graphics card and scripts - in TBS you have to have a good AI. Much bigger task for the developer.

 

[Sanotra]

Oh. I guess that makes sense. I don't know if you have ever played Lords2 but the AI sucks. Your ally will attack you. Also a neighbor will repeatedly invade your territory and when you successfully repel the invasion they send you a message warning you to stop your aggression lol.

 

[Commander Bello]

Oh. I guess that makes sense. I don't know if you have ever played Lords2 but the AI sucks. Your ally will attack you. Also a neighbor will repeatedly invade your territory and when you successfully repel the invasion they send you a message warning you to stop your aggression lol.

In any TBS I have played so far the AI did suck.

And this is not really a surprise, as the developer is always limited in many aspects.

The first and probably most important reason is money. Money = time. And time is a scarce resource in developing a game.
Weak graphics you can identify almost immediately. Weak AI you don't see at first glance.

But even, if you would have enough time, the task ist of awful complexity. You have to take each and everything into consideration, since you don't know what - maybe stupid, but nevertheless - things the player will do. And the AI should always respond to it in a meaningful way.

And finally, and this problem might very well be the second after money: the developer has to understand the game - meaning he has to play it by himself. Which in turn costs time he might spend for programming.
It is not sufficient to have beta testers - you have to feel by yourself how your new, "wonderful", algorithm behaves and therefore "feels" in the game's world.

 

[raystuttgart]

Well yes, programming good AI is one of the most difficult aspects in Civ4Col-Modding.
The modders that have been able to understand and implement AI have always been very few.

But how is this aspect related to the question why people are still modding this game ?

 

[Commander Bello]

Well yes, programming good AI is one of the most difficult aspects in Civ4Col-Modding.
The modders that have been able to understand and implement AI have always been very few.

But how is this aspect related to the question why people are still modding this game ?

I think this is quite obvious.

 

[raystuttgart]

I think this is quite obvious.

No Sorry, it is not obvious for me.

So you are modding Civ4Col because its AI is bad and programming good AI in CivCol is a challenging task ?

 

[Diegozubi]

Hi everyone!
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post it, but I see that you are in some way "lack of projects" modders and maybe you can help.
I would like to merge the TAC mod with Custom House v0.02 (by Ameryck). Just add the building and its functionality to the first one.

Can someone tell wich modifications I should make? or even better (I'm not trying to abuse, just asking for help!!), can someone do it an upload the files?

Links are:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=19763
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=19766

I'll appreciate any help!
Thanks a lot!

PD: Sorry for my English, I'm not a native.

 

[raystuttgart]

I would like to merge the TAC mod with Custom House v0.02.

You could also play Religion and Revolution.
It is based on TAC 2.03 and contains the most advanced version of a Custom House (incl. Custom House Screen) that exists for Colonization.

 

[Diegozubi]

Great! thanks ray, I didn't know about this mod.
I'll try it ASAP

Cheers!

 

[raystuttgart]

I didn't know about this mod.

Really ?
It is the largest mod for Civ4Col that exists so far ...

 

[Diegozubi]

Yep. I reach TAC and CustomHouse modcomp from google, some time ago, and didn't realize that RaR exists until you told me. I'm new on this Mods thing.

I tried it yesterday and, I have to say, it's really an improvement. It's amazing.
So, thanks!

I found the merge with the 2-plot-radiocity modcomp, but I don't want to debalance anything. I'll wait for the new release.

It works a little slow to me, although I have a powerfull pc. I'll try a few things today to improve this, it really worth it.
Also, i'll translate the mod into Spanish. If you want, I could send you the files when I'm done.

Once again, thank you

 

[drjest2000]

I am no where on the level of the greats in this community, but I have been tinkering with Civ4Col mods on and off since 2009. I don't have the skills or the mind to really do much under the hood/bonnet. I am more a hacker than a modder.

Since the day I got my Civ 4 Complete DVD with Civ 4 Col, I've been disappointed by the version shipped to market. There's something missing. I don't mind micromanaging things, that's why I like Civ after all. But there's something too limited with the market version of Civ 4 Col. I don't need more complexity per se, but I would like there to be something other than an Amero-centric feel to the game.

Why add the Dutch and French colonists if their goal is identical to the Anglos?

Why leave out the Portuguese?

Why have the Aztecs and Inca but not the Maya?

Why make the Native Americans non-playable? I mean, come on, the Cherokee were close to achieving statehood/nationhood when Andrew Jackson hit them with the Indian Removal Act. And the Hurons (Wyandot) had real embassies and diplomats in European courts, chiefly that of Louis XIV of France.

The end result is that the product has a "rushed to market" feel.

SO I mod, hack, fold, spindle, and mutilate it until I get it to feel more like a game, rather than a piece of U. S. propaganda.

Now, if I can just figure out how to ....

 

[Nightinggale]

The problem these days is there is just so much going on out there. New games to play, new games to mod, its sad that these older classics get set aside.

What new games? I pay attention to what comes out and I did spend time on Civ5 and StarCraft 2, but they lack "the spirit" that drags me back to Civ4Col.

The end result is that the product has a "rushed to market" feel.

I agree. I have the same feeling and looking at the vanilla DLL code just confirms this feeling. For instance my newest commit was inlining global getVAR functions. It's the most ideal candidate for inlining as it change the function call (and all the stack stuff etc) with just reading a certain var from memory. It's much faster and the DLL size was reduced by 8 kB which is an indication of how often unneeded stack activity was activated. Another example is the vanilla network code. Take import/export setup changes. Each packet contains city, yieldtype, and an int. It sends a packet for each changed setting, which is one int and 2 bools. However each packet also has 4 unused bools. I changed that in RaRE to send one packet with one int and 3 bools (I added the 3rd one for feeder), meaning even though I send 33% more data, I reduced bandwidth 66% (worst case).

It literally took me minutes to code improvements to those two issues, which really supports my impression of a rushed release. I'm able to improve on that. Imagine a game where the AI spend less time to take it's turn. That's one of my goals

Another goal is "getting rid of boring/repetitive tasks" and deal with the fun parts ingame.

This is basically what makes me mod Civ4Col. Now I wonder what I would have made if I had actually started when the game was first released instead of waiting until the game was 5 years old. Realistically speaking I wasn't able to do anything until at least 2011 though, not skill limitations, but time. Still a guy can dream

 

[drjest2000]

What new games? I pay attention to what comes out and I did spend time on Civ5 and StarCraft 2, but they lack "the spirit" that drags me back to Civ4Col.

It's very much the same for me, "the spirit" of Civ4Col that draws me back time after time. Nothing in recent years comes close to the appeal of Civ4Col.

My recent experiences with "new games"... well, you would have a very hard time convincing me that game companies have made anything in the past 5-6 years that was worth the time and money I spent on them. I certainly don't think any of them were worth the price I paid for them as a "first-day release".

Civ5... meh... I feel about Civ5 pretty much the same way I feel about Windows 8. They both make me nostalgic for Window 3 and DOS 6.22.

...It literally took me minutes to code improvements to those two issues, which really supports my impression of a rushed release....

o_0 I suppose the good news is you found it and fixed it.

 

[raystuttgart]

Now I wonder what I would have made if I had actually started when the game was first released instead of waiting until the game was 5 years old.

A few years ago Civ4Col Modding Community was quite different from what it is today.
(Maybe the game has simply become "old".)

There were much more active modders than today.
They were exchanging ideas wildly, formed great cooperations or even big modding teams of more than 10 people.

It would really be awesome to see that happen again in the Civ4Col Modding Community ...
As long as there are still new promissing modders around, there is still some hope though.

Still a guy can dream

Dreaming is an essential part of being a modder.