I will continue my development and discussions of my Civilization IV modding on the tab on the top of the page, reverting to news, thoughts, and other general gaming ideas in the main page. Take a look, when you get the chance!
Month: July 2010
A Dream. . .
“Once upon a time I dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I woke, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”
~Chinese Proverb
The Joys of Modding
I never thought I would be saying this, but I really enjoy modding. From editing the XML files, to searching the web for new models, to play testing the minutia of changing a value from 1 to 0, all of this makes me get up early in the morning and charge home after work.
Not all of the learning curve has been easy. A week ago I learned the hard way to keep backups. I now archive each day’s changes to a separate dated file and then place it on a thumb drive.
I am often very confused about how the XML ties into the game, but much of that is because of poor documentation from Firaxis.
If I have not already alluded to it, all of my modding fun is coming from making changes to CIVILIZATION IV. You can get the entire game now on STEAM or D2D for less than 20 bucks. It runs great on all modern computers because it was designed for systems 7 years old. My friend run it perfectly fine on a 8 year old computer.
What started out as a meager attempt to change a few techs and adding a unit, has turned out to be a complete re-writing of an already super mod called “Thomas War”. If you are a Civ IV player, and have not tried this mod yet, I beg you to download it and try it. If you are new to Civ, learn the game for a couple of months, but then try the Thomas War. He has done a great job.
From all his basic modded files I have created my mod called, EXTREMEMOD. I have added 20 new technologies, 15 new units, and changed a hundred little aspects of the game from traits, barbarians, and bonuses you can find in the game.
Soon I will post my screen shots to the game, as well as a snapshot of the new tech tree and game interface. I will post my mod when I feel it is complete — which may be never? The only real question I have is that it is based on another modder’s work, and even though I have given him credit where ever I can, I don’t want to anger anyone that thinks that I am trying to upstage or steal their ideas. I couldn’t do any of this without all the massive help at Civfanatics!!
Learning the hard lesson of Modding
For the last several weeks I have been diligently working on my new mod, really a modification to a great Mod called “Thomas’ Wars” [NOTE: if you are a Civilization IV junky, you must try this mod]. Last night I was so excited to get home because I was ready to show it off to my friends.
I had just a few more changes that needed to be done, and on the last edit I tried to run my the mod.
To my shock it crashed, not even a an error code. I immediately backed off my recent changes and ran it again. To my utter despair it still crashed. Somewhere in my coding, I must have let slip a number or an extra slash.
Still learning this whole process of XML editing, I am still doing it the old fashion way of making the changes in WordPad. There are no doubt better ways to make the edits. The problem with the WordPad process is that it makes it almost impossible to find any errant problem in the mash of lines of code.
I tried all night to figure it out, but eventually gave up. My only recourse was to use a file that was three days old. I guess I was lucky to lose only three days of work, but it was my most productive three days in the weeks of learning the stuff.
Lesson 1: Backup everything, every night!
Lesson 2: Don’t throw away all those pages of scribbled notes — they may look like worthless hash but in truth they are the map to your changes.
Finally last night (very late) I got to a point where I said, “enough is enough”. I am calling this version done. Of course there will be further refinements but I hope to play the mod now for several weeks accumulating notes on changes and balances.
I do want to add in Heavy Footman and my Man of War (early wooden battleship). I have also been thinking of a line of technology for personal body armor and Promotions to match the tech tree. Ya, my mind is already spinning on the new permutations — “where is the notebook!”
Troy
Quote of the Month
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,
even though checkered by failure, then to take rank with those poor bastards
who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat!
~Teddy Roosevelt
Civilization IV Modding
I have owned Civilization IV for more than five years, but in all of that time I never pursued modification of the rules in any form. I knew that other gamers had undertook the challenge and created a number of fine Mods to the game.
I have been playing the Thomas’ War Mod for more than a year and absolutely love it. But even with this fine Mod, my friends and I wanted to do more. We loved playing the early part of the game, and always felt that it lacked allot of options in the way of alternate technological developments, different units, and options.
The other day my cousin suggested that I create my own mod for the game. I looked at him and scoffed. I have never been very good at programming and looked at the massive XML files with utter horror. But he kept pressing and telling me about what we could accomplish.
So I undertook a limited modification to the Thomas’ War Mod, which quickly grew into massive overhaul to the technological tree, the units, the buildings, and even new and varied civilizations.
Civilization IV allows you to modify the rules in three distinct levels of complexity. The first and easiest way, is to go into the MAPS/SAVE folder and make simple changes to the maps. Given some experimentation, you can change the tiles on the maps and add or subtract various animals, units, and starting technologies. To edit any of the variables in the map or XML, you need to make adjustments opening key files and copy and paste blocks of code or change values that already exist.
The next step up is the modification of the XML files that can be found in the Mods directory under XML and then the appropriate sub-directory that you want to modify, such as Technologies or Units. I open these XML files with Word Pad, but there are many other programs you can use. At first it appears very daunting but I suggest starting small and changing a value here and there. Always BACKUP all your XML files first because it is very easy to screw something up and nothing is worse than destroying a fine game like Civ. Some of the biggest problems I encountered with the XML is that you must be very careful modifying the list; even the smallest change can cause the program to crash. Make sure you watch spelling and copy whole blocks of code — if you accidentally delete a line in the XML, it won’t run. Consistency is very important throughout.
Ultimately, if you are patient enough you can modify the core program itself using the Python programming language. Also you can develop further models with any sort of Photoshop like programs.
I am halfway through step two. At first I was so timid to adjust the XML files but over the course of a couple of weeks I am confident enough to change the entire tech tree and adding new units (the art already provided from innumerable web sites).
If there is interest to those that come and read this, I can provide short tutorials on how to add tech, units, and even buildings. If you would like to see more, please comment.
Troy
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