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I posted these over in the simple/easy patch requests on the main forum, but I think this forum should have a topped thread for patch requests related to modding. There are a lot of weaknesses in the existing XML that could be (it would seem) easily improved upon, I'm sure I'm not the only person to run into something like this. If we had such a thread, we might hope that firaxis could consider looking at these requests as they work on the modding tool.
Anyway, here's a repost:
I have two requests for modders that I think would be quite helpful:
[197] (for modders) Use schema defaults for your schemas. Currently things like building must have every property defined, which makes the building info file (and tech etc) unnecessarily huge, and more difficult to edit than it needs to be. This also impacts load time, since the various files are unnecessarily large.
For example: every building defines foodkept, which is (I believe) only actually of interest to granary.
ElementType name="iFoodKept" content="textOnly" dt:type="int"
should change to:
ElementType name="iFoodKept" content="textOnly" dt:type="int" default="0"
Then granary overrides this, but all other buildings ignore it, and take the 0 value from the schema.
This change will improve ease of modding, and load performance (load fewer blocks from hard drive: current 570kb building info would probably drop to about 64k or less).
[198] (for modders) Any where there are yield changes, change to terrain yield changes. This is a generalization of the building effect SeaPlotYieldChanges. Allow modders to define an effect for any specific terrain they desire, and do this everywhere that yield changes are allowed (not just in buildings, but in religions, civics, techs, etc). For example, I'd like to make one religion give you an extra production on TERRAIN_DESERT only. And I'd like a specific tech to grant you an extra commerce from TERRAIN_OCEAN only. Seems like this should be a straightforward generalization of what is currently special cased.
Anyway, here's a repost:
I have two requests for modders that I think would be quite helpful:
[197] (for modders) Use schema defaults for your schemas. Currently things like building must have every property defined, which makes the building info file (and tech etc) unnecessarily huge, and more difficult to edit than it needs to be. This also impacts load time, since the various files are unnecessarily large.
For example: every building defines foodkept, which is (I believe) only actually of interest to granary.
ElementType name="iFoodKept" content="textOnly" dt:type="int"
should change to:
ElementType name="iFoodKept" content="textOnly" dt:type="int" default="0"
Then granary overrides this, but all other buildings ignore it, and take the 0 value from the schema.
This change will improve ease of modding, and load performance (load fewer blocks from hard drive: current 570kb building info would probably drop to about 64k or less).
[198] (for modders) Any where there are yield changes, change to terrain yield changes. This is a generalization of the building effect SeaPlotYieldChanges. Allow modders to define an effect for any specific terrain they desire, and do this everywhere that yield changes are allowed (not just in buildings, but in religions, civics, techs, etc). For example, I'd like to make one religion give you an extra production on TERRAIN_DESERT only. And I'd like a specific tech to grant you an extra commerce from TERRAIN_OCEAN only. Seems like this should be a straightforward generalization of what is currently special cased.