Will the Civ 6 modding community be the quickest ever to establish itself?

[Ensabahnur]

I wanted to ask you modders will you still be making civ v mods or switch over completely to vi?

 

[Soduka]

Firaxis' most extensive comments on mod support so far that I've seen are here:



I would expect they are planning a big reveal on mod support sometime in the next couple of weeks before the release date.

Well at least we don't have a repeat of Dale talking up a big game like with Civilization 5 and getting everyone's hopes up about how great modding will be and how awesome every tool Firaxis has is and then when they released we all got a pile of barely working garbage and baffling choices such as unique data keeping sets that are extremely difficult to interface with and keep compatibility with other Mods.

Keeping expectations low this time around.

 

[Nomad or What]

I agree that art support is very important.

Firaxis never finished mod support for 3D graphics for Civ V, what they did provide was incomplete, broken and unexplained. If we'd had Nexus Buddy 2 in it's current state back in 2010 there would probably be a lot more 3D art for Civ VI and a lot more 3D artists would have made the switch.

Civ VI can't be worse in terms of 3D support and may be better if XCOM 2 graphics mod support is any indication. Also some of the quotes sound promising:
"A lot of the tools will be similar to what we had in Civ V. [Even] if you're a highly skilled modder, it was extremely difficult to work on leaders, and our elite units in the game, so we're paying special focus to that." I presume this must refer to modding the graphical side as modding the gameplay of leaders and units is not that difficult! As I suggested elsewhere something like the character customisation from XCOM2 for making 3D leaders would be awesome!

What is really needed for units is a way to export as well as import graphics so that new models can be rigged to existing animations or we can adapt existing models. Unfortunately I think Firaxis will be highly unlikely to provide this, but we'll see. They have created a brand new engine which could be an issue. If there graphics format is something unique/exotic then there won't be any tools for importing or exporting it unless they provide them or the modding community hacks them. We'll find out more in a few weeks!

This is inspiring. I am hopeful that the learning curve for Civ VI will be much easier than for CiV. I agree wholly with your first statement; if we can use reliable 3D model conversion tools quickly and get the animations and effects to run smoothly with them, then you can count me in.

 

[Axis Kast]

I've heard that Civ V modding was so limited in scope and popularity because of the challenges of coding and graphics design in that medium. Given that Civ VI is so similar in style, I fear that we will get the same result: many new maps, but almost no new units or functions, which would honestly dramatically diminish my interest in the game overall, especially after the failure to include scenarios on release.

 

[The Capo]

I modded Civ IV, barely even played Civ V, and I'm 100% down to mod Civ VI. That weird?