Any Chance Firaxis Will Give Us "Easy Mod" Ability?

[yin26]

It strikes me as the debate over Mali and others rages on, would it not be possible for Firaxis to put a user-friedly UI on a lot of the modding that seems possible in Civ 4? For example, a "Create Your Own Civ" area that allows you to simply create any number of Civs via some radio boxes, toggles, drag and drop graphic/audio windows, etc.?

Or will our star modders at Poly whip this up?

Yes, I understand the talented among us can dig into all this anyway, but the dumb masses (say that fast!) like me (or just me?) would also join in on the modding fun if it were more accessible. I also understand, of course, that this might be a break-even use of Firaxis time at best, so I'm not holding my breath.

I should say that I'm only pushing this angle because if, as seems to be the case, we should only expect small changes to Civ formula over time (and maybe Civ 4 will prove the final title?), enabling more gamers to tweak at least some aspects of Civ is all the more important. Again, it sounds like the modding options as they stand in Civ 4 are a good jump forward...I guess I'm perhaps looking even a little further out.

--Yin

[Aro]

Re: Any Chance Firaxis Will Give Us "Easy Mod" Ability?

Originally posted by yin26
(or just me?)
--Yin

Me too.

[sophist]

I assume all of the data defining a civilization will be in common file formats such as XML or JPEG in a logical layout on the file system. A Civ Wizard tool that put all the stuff in the right formats and in the right places wouldn't have to be a mod of the game. In fact, it would probably be better as a standalone tool.

[LDiCesare]

I doubt a UI would help much in making a new civ.
What's a civ?
First and foremost: A list of cities.
Why? Because that's where you need most work. Filling 20 or 30 vity names takes time, and nothing beats a raw text file for that.
Graphics: Typically, a flag, cities. City style could be a choice but if you want to do it yourself, then you'll need some tools for drawing them which won't be friendly (it's 3D, not as easy as 2D).
Abilities: Not much work in comparison to the other two. If you managed to do the text part of the city names, filling that in a text format should be easy.
Now units might make do with some ui for those who don't love vi, but when you'll want to tweak and test, you're likely to find out that text files will be faster.

[Spiffor]

IIRC, they were speaking about an editor for simple mods. I imagine they want to make an editor similar to Civ3's for it. Modding should become more complex if you intend to script events, and if you want to actually change the game engine (or at least AI engine).

The Civ3 editor was very straightforward and efficient when it was complete, and I think it's one of the good things they intend to keep.

[Datajack Franit]

Easy as it sounds

[Kuciwalker]

Since the data's in XML, it won't be hard to modify even if they don't release an editor - there are plenty of XML editors available already.

[Zoid]

Re: Any Chance Firaxis Will Give Us "Easy Mod" Ability?

Originally posted by yin26
It strikes me as the debate over Mali and others rages on, would it not be possible for Firaxis to put a user-friedly UI on a lot of the modding that seems possible in Civ 4? For example, a "Create Your Own Civ" area that allows you to simply create any number of Civs via some radio boxes, toggles, drag and drop graphic/audio windows, etc.?

I would welcome such a UI. But I´m also not holding my breath for this... I´m not likely to learn XML anytime soon, so I´ll be stuck with Poly mods. Not that this is by any means bad, but still...

[Spiffor]

There is nothing to learn in XML. If the file is well made (and I think it will), you can easily modify an XML file under wordpad. The only skill it takes is to speak English

If you have Rise of Nations on your hard drive, look for the .xml files that contain the info for each playable country. Modding these files will strike you as very easy.

[Zoid]

My copy of RoN never worked right. So I threw it in the bin. But if it´s that easy to modify XML I´m sure I´ll cope.

[Ninot]

if almost everything is in XML and easily modded, heck, i'll be all over that like flies on stink.

XML is easy

[MarkG]

xml and python are used widely
wish they had used php though

[sophist]

PHP? You have to be kidding.

The textual format of XML is easy, certainly, but the structure of the elements could be pretty complicated. In other words, it would be easy to type stuff in, but hard to know what to type in where. Or, at least, time-consuming to learn it. With an editor (not an XML editor), only the writer of the editor would have to learn the structure; then he/she would capture that knowledge in the tool and everyone else could use that.

[MarkG]

php instead of python....

[H Tower]

where's the best place to go to learn XML online? W3C maybe?