How do I create my own civ?

[Evanw1256]

Hey! I recently got 0 A.D. and I wanted to play this with my friends! We decided we wanted to make some custome civilizations for the game. So, I would like to know how to go about doing this, links to tutorials or source code would help! If you know please tell me!

[Loki1950]

Have you trolled though the wiki most of what you asked is there it's a fairly tedious process we have been limiting ourselves to the 500BCE to 0 AD time period for now.

Enjoy the Choice

Edited September 5, 2013 by Loki1950

[Lion.Kanzen]

is very Hard Process, if you toild us what you want to do i can say how hard you can work.

see the Bronze Age Forum and Rise of East to know how hard is do that XD.

[sanderd17]

If you want to mod on the game, the best is to work with the svn version, so you always have the latest files (and you can notify us when something is going wrong with your mod). Here's the process to get the SVN version http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/TortoiseSVN_Guide

After that, creating a civ requires two main steps. One is modelling, texturing and animating new units and buildings. That requires that you know your way around with blender. Once you're able to make textured blender models, you can probably ask help of an artist to get it exported to the game.

The third main thing is that you need a template for each unit with their gameplay values (armour, health, attack strength, speed, size ...).

That's all told how to do more or less in the wiki. If you find out something new that could be handy for a newbie modding, you're also welcome to add it to the wiki.

But as it's such a big task, if you really want an original civ (with original buildings and units), you probably need to be part of a team.

[dvangennip]

I made a simple mod for fun, just to see how it could be done. I tried my hand at the Amazones, just using the default textures and meshes available in 0 A.D. It's available online on GitHub. Perhaps it provides a nice example of how to do stuff. The most important thing is the civ.json file, which defines the name and the starting units. The starting units determine what else you could construct, and so on It involves a lot of XML file editing, which can be tedious. But it's not that hard really once you get the hang of it. Ok, your own structures, meshes and such make it a lot harder

I once had the idea of generating a demo mod, to show off different types of units and structures as an example for modders. Things like how to make a mage with fireball staff and such (the mage exists somewhere on my hard drive). It could be nice as a separate repo for 0 A.D. with all kinds of ideas and examples.

Edited September 6, 2013 by dvangennip

[Evanw1256]

Thanks guys! I will look into it, and I am part of a team (we have some modelers, which also texture).

[Evanw1256]

I made a simple mod for fun, just to see how it could be done. I tried my hand at the Amazones, just using the default textures and meshes available in 0 A.D. It's available online on GitHub. Perhaps it provides a nice example of how to do stuff. The most important thing is the civ.json file, which defines the name and the starting units. The starting units determine what else you could construct, and so on It involves a lot of XML file editing, which can be tedious. But it's not that hard really once you get the hang of it. Ok, your own structures, meshes and such make it a lot harder

I once had the idea of generating a demo mod, to show off different types of units and structures as an example for modders. Things like how to make a mage with fireball staff and such (the mage exists somewhere on my hard drive). It could be nice as a separate repo for 0 A.D. with all kinds of ideas and examples.

I was looking at your repository, and I noticed there was no code, does this mean I dont have to code any C++?

[Gen.Kenobi]

There's C++ code there too, but that's used by the programmers to expand the game-engine and develop the game. Sure, you could tweak the game-engine and create new stuff for your mod, that's why it's called open-source.

The way the modding works, at least throught the interface art->ingame -> stats, it's throught XML files, but also with some Java Scripting, depeding on what you want to do. Those are the two main languages to mod the game. That's what we use. 0.A.D. itself is basically a mod of Pyrogenesis, the engine, which is written in C++ or other stuff that I don't know about.

[sanderd17]

when our engine would be complete, you shouldn't need to code at all, certainly not c++ code. But since it isn't complete yet, you might need to code some additions. we like if you code something for your mod , you also mention it to us, so we can see how to get it in.

[dvangennip]

I was looking at your repository, and I noticed there was no code, does this mean I dont have to code any C++?

For just a civ there is no need to code any logic, nope. It's mostly adding/editing XML files, meshes, textures and that kind of stuff. If you use the SVN version of the game, it's easy to look up how to do things with the currently available units and copy and adjust that in your files. You can even just refer to the original files, if that suffices (e.g., no need to copy anything if you just want to use a default sword for a new unit). The way it works is that pyrogenesis loads the public mod, then adds any other mods you asked for. It builds a list of files and references. If no file is found within a mod, it will look for the file within the base public mod. So unless you provide your own, the default is used. That limits the amount of work to be done is you heavily use default game assets (as I did with the amazones).

If your mod/civ needs to have capabilities that are not present in the main game (or public mod, as it's technically called) there is some need to code. That will be mostly javascript.