14 DAY TRIAL // Firaxis, as the developer, and Taker Two, as the publisher, have announced that a number of tools that can be used to mod their latest turn based strategy title, Civilization V, have been released through the Steam digital distribution service from Valve.
The package includes a World Builder, designed to allow the easy creation of maps and other content, a Lua script IDE, which can be used to create Artificial Intelligence behavior files, a Nexus Art Important and something called ModBuddy.
The latest piece of software is described as “an integrated development environment (IDE) for Civilization 5 mod development. Features include a code editor with syntax coloring for Lua and SQL, source code control (SCC) plugin support, and the ability to upload finished mod packages to the Civilization 5 Community Hub. ModBuddy is built off of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Isolated Shell.”
Those who are interested in doing a bit of modding on Civilization V can get all the tools by accessing Steam, clicking on Library, choosing the Tools section and the searching it for the “Sid Meier's Civilization V SDK”.
Civilization V comes packed with Steamworks, which allows the game to quickly get content via the Valve made digital distribution service.
This means that both updates and mods can be quickly delivered and downloaded from inside the video game.
Civilization V has been out for about one week and has significantly changed the mechanics of the series, to the joy of some veteran players and to the dismay of others.
The game has replaced squares with hexes and has eliminated stacking for military units in an effort to make the war mechanics somewhat more realistic.
The happiness systems, the culture evolution and the production systems have also been revamped, making the game feel more like a revolution than an evolution of Civilization IV.
Maybe the weakest aspect of the current release is the Artificial Intelligence, which often struggles to compete, and good modders can do a lot to address that problem.
Information on the tools is also offered on the Civilization V Wiki.