Modding vs Customizing

[Steve Clark]

With all of the debates that have been going on regarding this subject, esp. with those that don't understand the degree to which Civ can be changed to suit your taste, a simple thought dawned on me from reading one of yin's comments.

Customizing is NOT the same thing as Modding.

Alot of you come from the CtP world where the perception is that the HAD to be modded in order for it to be playable. I believe that was the crux of my debate with Locutus, who argued that a scripting language is essential (it was for CtP). That's different than with Civ2 2.42/MGE where it did not have to be modded to play for thousands of hours. What you see in the scenario designing community are modpacks, custom maps and scenarios that turn Civ2 into, not something that becomes playable, but to a new whole game (whether they are a new look-and-feel or an events-driven historical scenario). For example, I use my friend Tim Smith's HiRes modpack that replaces city and unit graphics with something with more detail. Does that mean that the original city and unit graphics were wrong or unplayable? Not at all, it's just a personal preference.

The point is when I constantly talk about customizing Civ3, all I'm talking about is the ability to change the game to your match your personal preferences (whether it be civs, terrains, units, tech trees, wonders, etc.). Folks like yin seems to think that such things are modding/fixing in the CtP sense. I disagree, I believe it will be customizing/changing in the Civ2 sense. One has a negative perception while the latter has a positive perception. Does this makes sense?

[Sarxis]

They're not the same?

customize:
1 to build, fit, or alter according to individual specifications

modify:
1 : to make less extreme : MODERATE
2 a : to limit or restrict the meaning of especially in a grammatical construction b : to change (a vowel) by umlaut
3 a : to make minor changes in b : to make basic or fundamental changes in often to give a new orientation to or to serve a new end
intransitive senses : to undergo change

[webster online]

I do concur! But really, I agree with you on your point- CTP needed to be modified to be playable, while CivII could just be embelished and altered to suit one's taste.

[Grumbold]

Oh puhlease! Civ II was in drastic need of improvements to AI and other "features" that just could not be delivered by the user fraternity. I didn't stop playing 1 player games for lack of new maps or better graphics but because the computer opponents were not worth playing after a while.

In CtP2 the users had to do a lot of work remedying inexcusable faults in the original game just to bring it up to par with the likes of Civ II/SMAC, but the potential to achieve that also allowed them to go on and far exceed them in all those areas where Modding could affect the gameplay.

[Steve Clark]

Grumbold, I haven't ever disagreed with that. 90% of the Civ2 games I have played after I started winning on deity have been scenarios and the remaining 10% were spent playing OCC or other similar challenges/maps.

I don't put the emphasis on the regular game in Civ3 or Civ2, to me that's not where the true enjoyment and longetivity is. With all of those whining about what Firaxis included as the default Civ3 regular game, I view that as pretty much irrelevant, imo.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Grumbold
In CtP2, the users had to do a lot of work remedying inexcusable faults in the original game just to bring it up to par with the likes of Civ II/SMAC, but the potential to achieve that also allowed them to go on and far exceed them in all those areas where Modding could affect the gameplay.

Thanks Grumbold. Its utterly true. Civ2 wanted customizing, CtP needed modding, but if you can mod, and mod in so many ways, then the modded game can be better than the original game, even if the original game didn't need modding.

Customize all you want, but a good game that cannot be modded, only customized is not as good as a good (or even mediocre) game that can be modded and customized, and made better than the good game.

[hexagonian]

Re: Modding vs Customizing

Originally posted by Steve Clark
Alot of you come from the CtP world where the perception is that the HAD to be modded in order for it to be playable. I believe that was the crux of my debate with Locutus, who argued that a scripting language is essential (it was for CtP). That's different than with Civ2 2.42/MGE where it did not have to be modded to play for thousands of hours. What you see in the scenario designing community are modpacks, custom maps and scenarios that turn Civ2 into, not something that becomes playable, but to a new whole game (whether they are a new look-and-feel or an events-driven historical scenario). For example, I use my friend Tim Smith's HiRes modpack that replaces city and unit graphics with something with more detail. Does that mean that the original city and unit graphics were wrong or unplayable? Not at all, it's just a personal preference.

The point is when I constantly talk about customizing Civ3, all I'm talking about is the ability to change the game to your match your personal preferences (whether it be civs, terrains, units, tech trees, wonders, etc.). Folks like yin seems to think that such things are modding/fixing in the CtP sense. I disagree, I believe it will be customizing/changing in the Civ2 sense. One has a negative perception while the latter has a positive perception. Does this makes sense?

Actually, I think you need some clarification - or perhaps I do...

Mods are changes to the files that will either fix an inbalance, or change the basic layout of the game (for instance setting up the files so you play the entire game in the Medieval Age) Scenarios are more specific, in that you usually have a preset map, preset civs - oftentimes focused on a single event (like WWII).

There's no debate that CTP2 needed to be fixed - but it was more along the lines of getting the AI to create a challenge fot the player. In going through the files, I had noted decisions that Activision made that were poor. Those files needed to be fixed, but in all I did along those lines of Modification for my setup, the AI alts were very minor in terms of the time involved. If Activision had done their homework, there wouldn't have been a problem (and as a sidenote, ALL games will suffer from certain inbalances/inconsistancies and so forth - the truly good games have few such imbalances).

Other issues such as unit specs/balance were actually handled by Activision very well. They made, I thought, one really boneheaded decision on the tech tree - the rest looked fine to me. Issues such as the interface, PW could not be changed and boiled down to player preferences.

The tools for map creation, unit/wonder/tech addition were there and were easily used to customize your own setup. But CTP2 suffered from the fact that they did not do a good job on the AI, thus turning off potential customers (and potential Modders/Scenario creators). So it was left to a few Modders to go through the files and try to fix up the AI. And now with civ3 on the horizon, there will be no turning back for any civ players. That's life, I guess...

A question to those who have created Scenarios for civ2 (having never done so myself for civ2) - and please correct me if my perceptions are wrong. What is the process involved? I realize that you probably create a map with cities, and then placed units/civs/improvements. Was there a scripting mechanism to tell the AI what to do - or the ability to create in-game triggers for specific events, or did you just let the AI handle the decisions based on the game engine?

Simply giving the AI huge built-in advantages, while creating a Scenario, in terms of unit placement, (in terms of numbers and where they are in relation to where they need to be), larger and better production cities, and other such boosts will give a player a sense that he is playing a tough Scenario too - BTW, this simple mechanism is available in CTP2, and if I wanted to spend the time to make Scenarios on CTP2 using this method, I know I can come up with some good ones with my current CTP2 setup. But why bother - the fan base is not there...

The advantage that CTP2 seems to have at this stage of the game is the ability to trigger and script events, because it can already do all of the other things that a Modder/Scenario builder would want it to do.

Firaxis has already said that this scripting option is not going to be available for fans for civ3. This is at the crux of the whole Modification/Scenario process as it stands now. The games have advanced to the point that fans demand more. I have little doubt that civ3 will probably be a polished product (involving less fan modwork than was needed for the CTP series), but without that scripting language, the Mod community is left short-changed.

It remains to be seen just how customizable civ3 will be even along those more basic lines - I do not doubt that modders will be able to add all the things you want to do Steve.

[Immortal Wombat]

I would have said that, but I couldn't be bothered.

[Steve Clark]

Those are excellent questions and observations, hex. I am not qualified to give an accurate answer to some of them.

Regarding the actual mechanics, I know Civ2 designers like Shay Yates Roberts, Captain Nemo and Paul Cullivan (Kull) have done some very clever and ingenious stuff with Civ2's events.txt and rules.txt files (along with .bat files). I, myself, have replaced/customized individual units, terrain graphics and adjusted the tech tree, all in a matter of minutes to suit the type of game I want to play. The rules.txt files can allow game engine changes to the AI, but only scenarios (which a regular random-map game can be saved as) can use the events.txt file, I believe.

For example, just by changing one number in the rules.txt file, you can play a deity+5 game. These are all very, very easy to do. Again, they are not done so much as to fix problems but to customize/enhance the game based on personal preferences.

I hope someone from the Civ2 design community can shed more light on what mechanisms exist for controlling the AI within scenarios (Kull?). From experience, I don't think the AI is Civ2 is much better, it just sounds like there enough other things going for Civ2 (perhaps the thousands of custom units/graphics/scenarios?) to make it much more of an enduring game than CtP?

[Locutus]

Dang, I wish I had seen this thread sooner. Ah heck! Better late than never...

First of all, I fully agree with everything Hex said, I would have posted something just like that myself had I found this thread earlier...

Steve,
For the record, although many others have, I for one never said modding was essential for CtP2 'cause it was unplayable otherwise. It is true that that game needed fixing but, as Hex said, it was in essence already a pretty good game. My argument in that other thread was a strictly personal one: for me the modding abilities that CtP offers (through a scripting language) are crucial because that is exactly the I want to do with my game. I personally don't particularly care about individual units/terrain types/graphics/civs/whatever but I do care about introducing new concepts like morale, support, terrain dependend civ specific abilities, militia units, leaders, unique units, repair cost, better AI, new forms of diplomacy, etc*, without having to resort to programming a game from scratch.

All the things you describe above that are customizable in Civ2 are also possible in CtP2 (and though the way in which it should be done may seem overwhelming to the unexperienced, even an only moderately experienced CtP modder can do them in roughly the same amount of time). The whole crux is, like Hex said, that CtP's SLIC and AI files (esp. SLIC) can do so much more. Though I'm only a beginner as far as Civ2 modding goes, I know for certain that CtP is miles ahead of Civ2 and SMAC when it comes to customizibility. If it was possible to implement something even remotely resembling a PW-like system in Civ2, wouldn't someone have done it by now (even if only to prove it's possible)? It's one example of something that Civ2 is simply not capable of doing but which CtP can do (well, it's already got PW of course, but bringing back the settlers would be possible). We don't know the details of Civ3's resource and culture systems yet, but I'm convinced much (if not all) of those systems could be implemented in CtP2 (as far as they aren't already in), albeit with a more clumsy interface (the only part of CtP2 that is truely hard to mod). I just don't see this happening in Civ2 or SMAC.

The essence of advanced CtP modding is not about fixing problems (although out of necessity it is being used for that as well) or customizing relatively 'minor' issues (like most of the Civ2 modding), it's about adding completely new features, concepts, layers of complexity and AI behavior to the game. Without this Civ3 is simply not worth the money (and effort) for me personally and it will be much less good and replayable than it could have been for everyone else (even though many people will probably never realize this)...

*= all examples mentioned are things that I or others have seriously worked on for CtP2 and most of them have actually been successfully implemented in some way or another (morale and support are still stuck in prototype due to time constraints, I think the rest was all implemented in some way or another).

[dainbramaged13]

Originally posted by Locutus
(even though many people will probably never realize this)...[/size]

the most imporant line in your paper...
you are right. how many people have downloaded your patch to ctp2? maybe, 100-300? how many people would do it if you made one for civ3? probably more, maybe 500-1000... how many people will play civ3? well....

dont get me wrong, i agree that it would be cool if there was a scripting language, etc. but to me and most other people it is not esential. If the only enjoyment you get out of a game is messing with it, i am sorry for you but i understand why you wont buy civ3

[Grumbold]

That is mostly an issue of accessibility and information awareness. For games like SimCity where the developers actively supported 3rd party customisation and hosted the quality stuff on their own website alongside their own free extras, a very large proportion of the players downloaded add-ons. Firaxis have now got themselves a good Civ 3 site. Things like CivTrivia encourage people top come back day after day to see what is new. It remains to be seen whether they will do more than just use it as a vehicle for promoting their own expensive expansion packs.

If Civ III needed a patch but someone released a script that got round the problem before Firaxis fixed it, how many people would download it? Quite a lot, especially if the online technical support page made mention of it.

[FrostyBoy]

Wouldn't you have to modify the 'default' game settings in order to customize?