First Steps to Civ V Modding

I received a comment to my "Fast Marathon Train and Construct" mod in which the fellow user asked about modding. I'm a beginner, but I wanted to pass along what I know so far. The comments section for mod discussions limits to 1000 characters, and the least I could get the job done with was about 4 times that many. So here it is: my "First Steps to Civ V Modding" 'guide.'

Basic Orientation

Mod files are kept in a separate location on your hardrive (HD) from the main game files. For example on my Windows 7 Operating System (Win7 OS) HD, the original (and unchanged) Civ 5 directory is at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V

Making ANY changes to any of the pre-existing files in that directory or its sub-directories is ill-advised and should be avoided if at all possible.

This is because the game engine can temporarily overwrite anything in those files, using mods and it is therefore unnecessary to ever make any changes here in order to make or use mods. Thus, all users can have both an unmodded Civ 5 vanilla install for whatever build of the game they own, and whatever mods they choose to install. The downside of this is of course that you must navigate through the "Mods" window of the game interface and make sure what mods are enabled every time you want to play, or at least that has been my experience with mods that do not have the "save file" lock activated.

Depending on your operating system, mods will be located somewhere like:

C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS

It is here that any files you want to make changes in should exist.

So, for example, in my own Civ 5\MODS directory I have six sub-directories, all of which were downloaded from the Steam Workshop by subscribing either to my own single mod or those made by other users.
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\3 Units per Tile (v 1)
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\Beyond the future (v 20)
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\citadel buff - autocracy remix (v 1)
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\Fast Marathon Train and Construct (v 4)
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\Improved Caravansary (v 3)
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\Ingame Editor (v 39)

If I wanted, I could create a mod using the "ModBuddy" application (described below) and save all the materials necessary for that mod to work on my machine in a sub-directory in this MODS folder, and never publish it or upload it for other users to access. If you simply want to fiddle around with making changes, it is thus advisable that you do all of your work in this directory, though you will likely find the need to copy files from the Civ5 directory in order to have template(s) to work with to make your changes.

Unfortunately however, it is not as simple as copying a file, and pasting it in there. The mod needs to have a "cover page" sort of document with it to get the game to recognize it as a mod and make it selectable in the in-game "Mods" window. Have a look at

C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\Fast Marathon Train and Construct (v 4)\Fast Marathon Train and Construct (v 4).modinfo

by right-clicking and select "Open With" and then choose something like Notepad or some other asci text editor.

So that is a basic "orientation" about where the files are located and overall how mods work. The nitty-gritty of getting one made (even a simple one like my Faster Marathon Training and Constructing, which actually only changes six digits in the overall game code, which must comprise hundreds of millions or even billions of characters/digits) is, in my expeirence about 5 to 15 hours of reading and effort beyond that.

It may be true that Civ V is "the most moddable Civ ever," but that doesn't mean that it can be modded "easily" from the standpoint of a person who has very little facility with understanding somewhat obscure file relationships, installing additional applications, manipulating files, and following somewhat confusing directions for how to use slightly complex user interface applications (specifically the ModBuddy).

Getting the Tools You Need

Getting the Tools You Need
There are a couple of applications you will have to install if you want to do it 'properly' and thus with the maximum chance it will work, and the optimum amount of support available in the form of guides and standards. You can always just wing it, and try to figure it out by copying game files from the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V pasting them to the C:\Users\Owner\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS directory, creating the .modinfo page and then slogging around changing things to see how it works. But honestly you are better off trying to learn how to do it 'properly.'

The proper way, as far as I can tell is to use the "Civilization V SDK" which is a nice little package of tools that is based off of Microsoft's Visual Studio. I learned all of this from reading Kael's Guide to Modding, which I so far have found to be pretty much sufficient, though there were a few subtle details it left me unclear on:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385009

Couple things which that modder's guide didn't make clear:

1. You need to download the Civ V SDK package (which includes the ModBuddy that Kael refers to as well as the WorldBuilder and some other things). You can get it here on your Steam account. If I recall correctly, it is a "Tools" tab under your main "Librarires" tab. Any licensed copy of Civ V comes with that tool I think.

2. Unless it is already installed, you'll need to install the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Isolated) Redistributable Package installed. Just do a Google advanced search for that (or key parts of that) text and make sure you go to a Microsoft site. This was the url I downloaded from

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...n.aspx?id=1366

If I get good at this, I may eventually make an 'updated' guide to Civ V modding that builds off of Kael's guide. But in honesty, his guide--despite some claims I've seen that it is in some ways now a bit obsolete--remains comprehensive, effective and useful. So starting by digesting that guide is I think the best place to start modding Civ V.

If this guide was helpful, let me know. If there were parts that were confusing, let me know and I'll see about correcting or clarifying. If folks would like to see me go into additional details or have additional questions let me know and I'll do what I can to help.

As I said, I'm just a beginning programmer and modder, but sometimes you can learn a lot by teaching others even if you are only 1 step ahead of your students :)

[RAMBO'S MOTHER]

Please, do more. I want to learn.

[dichebach]

So far I haven't noted Kael's guide to be too badly outdated. But then I just started.

[Max Madness]

Great guide, dichebach. Too bad that Kael's Mod-guide is outdated, as the note in the linked post says. However, your guide helps a lot.