Would you like 4UC modmod to be integrated to the VP?

[Cebrudras]

If people end up disliking a particular civ's 4UC kit, yet can't come up with something better within the allotted time, it would probably be easy to just deactivate that civ for a patch or two until someone does a redesign.

 

[CppMaster]

If people end up disliking a particular civ's 4UC kit, yet can't come up with something better within the allotted time, it would probably be easy to just deactivate that civ for a patch or two until someone does a redesign.

Nah, let's keep it anyway, so people get to know it better, so they can come up with a solution. Every civ can be disabled with Really Advanced Setup mod.

 

[rebar64]

This, to me, is a quintesseintial part of VP. I vote towards integration

 

[Captain Carrot]

If I remember correctly, DLL integration is already planned? So if we arrive at the point where 4UC is already fully DLL integrated, then most of the positives of full integration will have already been achieved.

1. Futureproofing - the 4UC mod is entirely dependent on 1 person, me, to maintain it. It’s a precarious situation that depends on me having enough free time and interest to keep it compatible. Moving it into the main mod makes compatibility the responsibility of the people making changes in the main mod. This is much more tenable than the current situation in the medium term.

I admit that I've only dabbled in very minor personal modding, so I might be wrong here, but doesn't DLL integration mean that 4UC will not need Lua anymore and will thus consist entirely of SQL? Therefore pretty much any of the modders could step in if you retire. Hell, I would probably be willing to do that once I graduate a year from now.

As for balancing, I think you are doing a great job of it yourself. Of course, 4UC doesn't have the Congress, but you said yourself that you listen to the issues put forward in the modmod thread, and even in the Congress, your ideas, or their modifications, go through more often than not. Even if you retire and someone like me, who doesn't 'feel' the balance like some people here do, takes up the maintenance of the mod, there will still be the thread where players can suggest improvements. Still, exposure to the Congress is probably the one advantage that full integration has over just DLL integration, but I think it's overshadowed by the negatives.

AI suddenly being able to utilise the new components once DLL integration has gone through will probably shake up the balance. Thus even if we decide on full integration, there would probably need to be a transitional period where the strength (and potentially nature) of the new components is adjusted, or we would end up with another round of reworking something, realising it's too strong/weak and tilting over in the other direction, like happened not too long ago with Rome, China, France and I think someone else.

... if you really don't want the extra components then it is trivial to simply remove them; much easier than adding them in.

Edit: ok so I'm dumb and didn't even consider the possibility of removal being handled by a new modmod. Now that I do, the first half of this paragraph is pretty much hot air.
I think you're speaking as a modder, not as a regular player. Sure, just deleting the files is trivial compared to writing them. But for most people, it's not a matter of coding versus deleting files, but of clicking three times on the forums to download the mod and following instructions to find the MODS folder to unpack to archive to, versus following the instructions (assuming the download thread will have 4UC removal instructions) to find the MODS folder, the Vox Populi folder and the required files there. A difference of one click. Besides, there is probably a not insignificant amount of players who don't follow the development of VP and just install the new version once in a while and play it. Maybe they don't know about 4UC and will welcome the unexpected addition. But maybe they saw it once and decided that it wasn't for them, and now they'll install the mod, see the things they didn't want in the past and go spam "how do I remove this this mod sucks" on the forums. This will be the new "why force GitHub" / "why no Steam Workshop" / "mod not user-friendly" debate, except this time the mod will appear to have actively turned away people. We could lose players that way and while VP isn't exactly a business that cares about the amount of consumers, I think it would be a shame to turn away people who could potentially like the mod by forcing optional features onto them.

The experience of seeing that civ selection screen with the the extra boxes is, for a long-time civ V player, an amazing moment. It's the first thing you will see, and it will tell you that VP means business.

I agree, but amazement could serve to turn people away. My first two VP games didn't have any of the modmods and while I have since discovered them and never looked back, I may have decided against even trying VP if it had them included. From other 4X and grand strategy games I've grown very sceptical of cool-looking features that turn out to be just power creep, and while some of the modmods I enjoy using are pretty much that (More Wonders and Unique City-States come to mind, they tilt the balance very strongly in favour of the human), I would have probably turned away VP if it came automatically bundled with them. 4UC is probably the least concerning one, true, but I feel that full integration would be opening a Pandora's box of further integrations, as evidenced by the calls in the 4UC thread for integrating new civs. Extra civs would also be a red flag for past me who just heard about VP.

Of course, the reverse is probably also true, that there are people who look at VP and think "that's nice, but a bit more extra content would be better." It's hard to think of a solution to one problem that doesn't exacerbate the other, but perhaps we could have a stickied thread in the main forum with a list of recommended mods or something (or at least update the part of the FAQ thread that has it, the OP was last edited in 2019).

Overall, I'm not personally against integration, but I also don't want it to be forced on those who are against it. In a perfect world 4UC would be a toggle on the installer, but the devs have repeatedly pointed out the difficulty of maintaining multiple versions of the mod. To me, DLL-only integration seems like the most prudent option, because once we have that, proceeding to full integration would be alienating a portion of the playerbase for the purpose of saving the other portion a few clicks and achieving a slightly better balance some time in the future. I think we should first go for DLL integration, then iron out all the remaining kinks in the modmod and then give it at least a year before deciding on full integration. Some of the sceptics of 4UC could change their mind once the modmod is entirely within VP's code base and thus doesn't introduce any bugs or crashes. Without such preliminary steps I would probably vote against full integration.

 

[Solic]

It really is untenable to just keep up different versions for everything, especially versions that are so widely different. It will put a huge strain on the developers, so full integration or no integration are my options.

I have only played once regularly and right after that exclusively with 4UC, so I will probably be biased in that regard, but I couldn't think of any reason why you would not want this. Power creep can be rebalanced through the congress and there is even some AI games showing that 4UC is more balanced. AI intelligence is already being worked on and feels sufficient to me to be honest compared to the regular mod. It's a slippery slope fallacy to say that integrating this would make integrating other things easier. They still need to meet the required vote threshold in congress and stand up to scrutiny of the developers. Not to mention that this is a mod that has been there for ages and has gone through countless updates. There can be people turned off by more content somehow, but on the other hand this could also attract new people. The only data we have on that is fora polls and our best guesses.

Then, as benefits we have a way more futureproof 4UC that is considered in balance implications and the congress can have its say on.

 

[Captain Carrot]

It really is untenable to just keep up different versions for everything, especially versions that are so widely different. It will put a huge strain on the developers, so full integration or no integration are my options.

To clarify, I am not calling for a different version of the main mod (I said that this would be how it worked in a perfect world, but I understand why it's not done), but the proposal that was floated around earlier (and, iirc, agreed to both by pdan and the devs) was that all the new features of 4UC that are currently coded in Lua would be implemented in the DLL without actually adding the extra components to the main mod. There would be need no need for further balancing by the dev team and as the changes would be done to the default VP version anyway, there would be no risk of accidentally breaking something (or at least no more than usual).

It's a slippery slope fallacy to say that integrating this would make integrating other things easier.

I guess, it's just that I'm somewhat surprised at how quickly we arrived here and want to slow the integration hype train down a bit. The 4UC AI test games happened not too long ago and here we are already making 4UC threads in the Congress and the biggest advocate of integration started a discussion in the 4UC thread about adding new civs to the main mod. None of this is inherently bad, but it feels like jumping the gun when none of the new code has even been written yet.

The only data we have on that is fora polls and our best guesses.

Ultimately, yes, only the input of the people who are active here (and on the Discord I guess) gets heard, so they are the only ones who drive decisions. Still, doesn't hurt to consider others.

Then, as benefits we have a [...] 4UC that is considered in balance implications and the congress can have its say on.

We agree here.

Everything I didn't quote was already adressed in my previous post, I feel.

 

[CppMaster]

slow the integration hype train down a bit.

And others may want to accelerate the hype train, but that doesn't matter since it's all comes down to votes anyway.

biggest advocate of integration started a discussion in the 4UC thread about adding new civs to the main mod.

That discussion was out of curiousity, not bounding at all.

 

[Captain Carrot]

And others may want to accelerate the hype train, but that doesn't matter since it's all comes down to votes anyway.

That discussion was out of curiousity, not bounding at all.

Naturally. As I said, neither of those things are inherently bad. It always comes down to votes, but that doesn't prohibit campaigning before the election

 

[CppMaster]

Yes, so if I want this integration then I should encourage others to it.

 

[Captain Carrot]

Yes, so if I want this integration then I should encourage others to it.

Of course. I'm guessing you took my reference to you as a personal attack, I apologise if so, that was not my intention. I was just pointing out something that had made me more cautious about integration as a reaction or something.

 

[CppMaster]

Of course. I'm guessing you took my reference to you as a personal attack, I apologise if so, that was not my intention. I was just pointing out something that had made me more cautious about integration as a reaction or something.

Nah, don't worry

 

[JavaBaklava]

I think there's Yes/No for "Integrate 4UC".

IF that passes, then there's individual proposals for each civ, where the options are Yes, or any counter proposals. That's where there won't be a No option.

I'm a bit confused, was the voted on already or not? I don't see a 4UC yes/no in the passed or failed resolutions, nor do I see it in the queue, but I see all of the individual civs in the Congress forum.

 

[Rustonreddit]

I'm a bit confused, was the voted on already or not? I don't see a 4UC yes/no in the passed or failed resolutions, nor do I see it in the queue, but I see all of the individual civs in the Congress forum.

No, not yet. The individual civs were posted "as aides for users when the integration vote is posted"

 

[Anarcomu]

It will probably follow the "67% for super-majority" vote, so we know if the threshold for integrating 4UC would be 67% or 70% (it is considered big enough of a change to warrant a super-majority vote).

 

[JavaBaklava]

No, not yet. The individual civs were posted "as aides for users when the integration vote is posted"

Understood, thank you.

 

[4CV]

Occasionally I play with 4UC, but mostly not, although I like the game with the mod itself. Most of the time, however, I don't use it because the many changes brought about by the congress are enough to make me lose my bearings. In any case, I can hardly manage to complete an entire game between congresses.

That's why I'm in favor of leaving the model as it is and not being forced to activate 4UC all the time.

Apparently there are good reasons for integration, especially technical ones. But for me, it probably won't make the game any better. And I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

There is, of course, the alternative of staying on the last version before the integration, but somehow that makes you feel left behind...

 

[rebar64]

I am very much for 3+4 UC. This game feels more complete with this.

I would like to add my second point which is many people coming here at a later state will be confused by the amount and number/ etc

 

[rebar64]

in 10 years when i am a grandpa i will not know which order load this or whatever,,, hence i prefer this to be integrated

 

[1shmael]

Considering new majority vote threshold it'll be easier to pass it.
Recent Research proved that the modmod doesn't distrubt the balance. In fact, it improves it a bit! And of course, it makes the game more interesting by adding new components (duh!), so what's not to like?

Note: this is not an official VP proposal, it's just checking opinion of the community. Modders suggested that the integration would have to be done separately, because of the scope of changes.

That's a big yes from me Dawg.

 

[rebar64]

VP feels incomplete for me without this, I would like for it being included.