As a site firmly grounded in the modding community, it’s important that we acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our members. These people are truly the un-sung heroes of PC gaming, who provide the community with new and fresh content to keep old games interesting. They’re not always supported by the publishers or developers, but they’re definitely supported by us.
We talked to Phungus, one of our most active modders, about his experiences:
Strategy Informer: Hello Phungus, thanks for taking the time to talk to us about you and your mod projects. Can you tell us what was the first game that you developed mods for?
Phungus: And hello to you at Strategy Informer, thanks for providing such a reliable site from which to host my mod from. I actually use 4 sites, and I always link yours as the primary download because it is the most reliable, and the fastest available that I have found. I’m also not just saying that, I’m one of those people who’s honest to a flaw.
As far as the first game I ever modded, that would have to have been Civilization 2. I must have been really young because I don’t even know how old I was at the time; just have a vague memory of it. Basically a friend of mine showed me a simple text file in the game’s folder you could edit, and add up to 3 new units and techs, and tweak the stats of those things in the game. I didn’t do anything very in depth, as civ2 was pretty well filled out, but I definitely enjoyed tweaking that game at the time.
Strategy Informer: How many games in total have you modded so far? Which one was the most difficult to mod and why was it?
Phungus: The only games I have modded are Civ2 and Rome: Total War. With RTW it was similar to Civ2, I didn’t do anything in depth. This is probably because there wasn’t much exposed in that game, everything was pretty hardcoded; basically all I did was tweak some values in the mod Rome: Total Realism to my liking. And even though RTR was a huge mod, it as well really only tweaked things (you can make tweaks in smart ways that feel epic), because the firm that controls the Total War series refused to open up their code at all. Horrible decision on their part, since the worst part of the game is their AI and it’s impossible to fix. Anyway, I didn’t do anything big, and never released anything I worked on for RTW. Civ4 is really the first and only game where I have put some depth and heavy work into modding, and released anything for the community.
Strategy Informer: In regard to difficulty, how many different tools/software have you used to mod Civilization IV? How modding friendly was it, considering that all of your files on SI are Civilization related?
Phungus: I’ve gotten pretty in depth with modding civ4. I suppose the most important tool for me was google, as I’ve pretty much taught myself C++ and python by doing research on it. For civ4 I mainly use the following tools in order of priority:
Notepad++
google (yes the internet search engine)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (still haven’t upgraded to 2008, no need)
WinMerge
NSIS
TortoiseSVN & www.sourceforge.org
The Civfanatics forum, especially the Python/SDK forum (at least I consider that a tool, I get a lot of help by posting issues I’m having with code in those forums)
GIMP
PakBuild (civ4 art packing utility)
In terms of difficulty, it depends on what you want to do. Some stuff I have done is pretty heavy and in depth; some projects with the SDK have taken full 8 hour workdays to get functioning. At the same time a lot of modding civ4 is just simply tweaking XML values, and then running through a game to see how it works out. To make a well balanced mod you really need to put a lot of time into it, and be willing to do some tedious stuff, like editing text files, which is just no fun, or watching the AI play; which is again not very interesting.
Software companies have teams with budgets and can hire beta testers to check out how their code runs on various systems. As a hobby modder you don’t have such luxuries. So depending on how balanced, and well done you want your mod to be, at least with civ4 it can be relatively easy and you can finish in a couple of days, after a few hours of work on the computer. Or you can end up with a project like I’m working on, which after years and thousands of hours of work still isn’t done. Since a lot of the Civ4 source is exposed, it’s really up to you how difficult the projects you want to tackle are.
Strategy Informer: In your modding projects, was it normal to team up with other authors, or did you usually work alone?
Phungus: I don’t have a straightforward answer to that question. I suppose I do both, some as a team, and some by myself. Even when I do work on things alone, I am often getting help and advice on the forums.
In more detail, Legends of Revolution is built around the RevolutionDCM core, which originally was produced by glider1. The main component of RevDCM was Revolutions, which was created by jdog5000; those two eventually teamed up to work on the single project: RevolutionDCM. I was constantly fixing issues within RevDCM, or adding new features, and I was posting a lot of code for them to add or fix, so eventually they added me to the RevolutionDCM team so that I would have SVN access. This makes things much simpler, so for now I am on a team, the RevolutionDCM team.
All that said, originally I built WolfRevolution, which was a simple merge of the Wolfshanze mod and RevolutionDCM. However, Wolfshanze, the creator of the Wolfshanze mod, quit modding civ4 and disappeared. This left the Wolfshanze mod in a stagnant state. Originally I planed to tweak things in the Wolfshanze mod itself, but it had a well established fan base, and I didn’t want to deal with any resistance there, so certain enhancements and tweaks I thought were needed started slowly creeping into WolfRevolution. That probably would have been it, and I would have stopped modding once WolfRevolution was as far as I could conceivably develop it, inside the confines of being a Wolfshanze based mod; however a talented graphics artist, AchillesZero, teamed up with me and we decided to produce Legends of Revolution.
This was essential because I had long since known that the project I really wanted to do required a graphics artist. Unfortunately AchillesZero sent me a PM on the civfanatics forums in November, stating his computer had broken, and he had no money to fix it, and thus he could no longer continue working on LoR. I haven’t heard anything from him since, and thus am currently on my own in regards to developing Legends of Revolutions. There are people that contribute small things, like translations, and that’s nice; but it’s no longer a team project. Which is too bad because it needs to be; I simply am incapable of finishing the project without a talented and dedicated graphics artist. I taught myself C++ and Python, but I can’t learn graphics art. Like many artistic talents it’s something you just have to have, it has to be intrinsic to your personality, and artistic talent is unfortunately not a strong suit of mine.
Strategy Informer: Are you planning any further updates to Legends of Revolution? When do you think you’ll be able to reach v1.0?
Phungus: I’m constantly working on RevolutionDCM, and any improvements that go into RevDCM will make it into LoR eventually. Also I pretty much have the changes for LoR 0.9.9 already in my head; I just need to finish up the current RevDCM build we are working on and get that released first.
As far as Legends of Revolution 1.0 is concerned, two things need to happen: 1st we need to fully fix multiplayer, this will likely take a couple of months. 2ndly the project absolutely needs a graphics artist to finish touching up some important details. I cannot finish the project without those two conditions being met, and sadly they may never be.
Strategy Informer: What other Civilization IV mods have you enjoyed?
Phungus: I strongly recommend checking out Planetfall and History of the Three Kingdoms. Also, I have not played it, but I’ve heard good things about Dune Wars.
Strategy Informer: Did you have any support from the developers of the games that you were modding?
Phungus: Not directly, no, though I haven’t worked on projects that the developers would directly involve themselves with. Jdog5000 and Emperor Fool have had direct involvement occur with work they have done on the Unofficial patch so the civ4 devs do definitely watch the modding community. It is also nice that the developers decided to expose the code in civ4 as much as they have; we virtually have full access to the source code. Of course there are some parts that are still locked up, mostly just things like the Gamebryo engine, and those have to be due to proprietary laws.
Of course intellectual property law in the US is overbearing and does considerable harm to the economy. It really shouldn’t be legal for copyrights and patents to extend beyond 8 years; the current situation was certainly not how the framers of the constitution originally designed these concepts. Creating artificial and draconian controls on intellectual property like is done under modern law simply stifles innovation. There is a reason China is developing as fast as it is, and the US is loosing it’s edge, and the greatest part of that is the overzealous intellectual property laws currently repressing America’s engineers and artists. Now don’t get me wrong, copyrights and patents are important, but the fact corporations buy these and renew them for no other reason then to stifle competition, and they are doing so on copyrights that extend beyond generations is unforgivable; and this runs directly counter to the very nature and purpose of a capitalist economy. Of course none of that is the fault of Firaxis, they did what they could to expose the guts of the game to us, and the fact they did that has produced one of the most vibrant modding communities around.
Strategy Informer: What upcoming games are you looking forward to playing?
Phungus: I don’t know really. My computer is old, it’s got some upgrades in it, but parts of it are from 2002, probably the newest thing is the graphics card, which is from 2006. This old thing can’t really play upcoming games. When it comes to computer games, I suppose the majority of my enjoyment comes from modding Civilization.
If I did have a computer that could handle it, I’d probably play a lot of Left 4 Dead, that game is a lot of fun.
Strategy Informer: What would you say to the people that are considering becoming modders? What road lies ahead of them if they do convert?
Phungus: I don’t know really, I got into it by just tinkering around. If you enjoy doing that sort of thing, I suppose you’d do it naturally, if you don’t, I don’t see why you’d consider modding in the first place. For those that do, ask lots of questions, and be precise about what you’re asking. It’s a good idea to learn from trying. Just stating some ideas you have is useless, no one cares, and no one can help you just put your ideas into practice; you need to be willing to get your hands dirty yourself, and enjoy it. Now once you break something, if you can explain what you did to break it, and what you are trying to do people are generally very helpful. But I suppose the biggest thing is no one cares about idea guys, idea guys are dime a dozen.
Strategy Informer: Based on your SI stats, you’ve just had well over 10,000 downloads and your average file score is 9.5. Hence, we greatly appreciate your efforts, and the fact that you’re hosting your files on SI, thus allowing our visitors to enjoy the fruits of your hard labour. Is there anything that you would like to add?
Phungus: Not really, your site is great. It’s clear and fast, the only thing that’s sort of annoying is having to get approval of the file first, but that’s needed to verify that people aren’t putting up junk. Wouldn’t mind some “safe user” list though, so those of us who are known to put up trusted content can do so immediately, but that’s the only thing I can think of to improve Strategy Informer.
On a final note, if you enjoy Civilization IV, be sure to check out Legends of Revolution. It’s totally stable, and very easy to use, just click and play. BtS has been out for years now, so if you like civ games you owe it to yourself to check out the closest thing there is to a commercially viable expansion pack. And thanks for asking me about modding, hope it’s interesting to some folks.
