Slitherine

Hello everyone

First off, just a heads up: we're featuring some of the mods for our games, in an effort to give modders the acknowledgement they deserve. The first game we are featuring is Pike & Shot. You can find the thread here: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 58&t=73801 . It'd be nice to hear your opinion and comments on those mods

Secondly, we have a few questions for you. It's really interesting for us to hear your input on the subject, so if you can take five minutes to answer we'll be really grateful

1) Are you satisfied with Slitherine's modding support?
2) How do you think it could be improved?
3) What Slitherine games have you played with mods and scenarios?
4) Was it a positive experience?
5) What Slitherine game would you say has the best modding community?
6) What is your favourite mod for a Slitherine game?

Thank you!

I'm obviously extremely biased, having created a few public mods and a handful of things that are either sitting on my hard drive or abandoned. Hopefully my views are at least somewhat useful though.

1/ Admins and devs have been very helpful. A number of moderators have supplied me with graphics and advice (thanks guys!). Nothing negative to say at all.
2/ It would be nice if more people commented on my threads. I'm not on the forum now as much as I would like, but it makes me pleased when I see people taking an interest in my work.
3/ Panzer Corps mostly. Most newer games are more complicated and I'm not an expert with IT.
4/ I wouldn't have bothered with it for 4 years if I didn't think so!
5/ I had my homepage as the PzC forum specifically for about 3 years, so I haven't seen much on any of the other games.
6/ One of mine, obviously. Soviet Storm and Battlefield Europe were both pretty good as well, so I'll give them a mention.

Devs, if you want to use my work to create a mod installer for PzC, you're welcome to. Random Battle Generator is the best that uses only vanilla stuff, WWI otherwise.

- BNC

Hi there!
I'm the guy currently modding "Commander: The Great War" with my "Potzblitz" mod which is my first step into modding ever as the developers were so kind to release the scripts in unencrypted form.

CTGW uses LUA for scripting purposes so I first had to get my head about the basics of LUA which was not that hard for i've been doing some sporadic coding since I had my Commodore64 homecomputer back in the 80ies. Anyone with a basic understanding of how a program works should be able to understand LUA in my opinion.

Modding the game has been both a great pleasure and pain at the same time, and I had some help to get me going from fellow forum members. My design philosophy is not to add more graphics, sounds or variety of units but rather to improve upon the possibilities of twists and turns the course of the First World War could have taken if certain conditions were met.

1) Are you satisfied with Slitherine's modding support?
Well, you released the CTGW scripts in unencrypted form which of course was mandatory to mod the game to begin with. Later the AI files were also released in unencrypted form which was even more helpful. Though by reading the comments in the scripts it's obvious to see the AI was nowhere near at being completed and in some parts even partly dysfunctional. I applaud your obligingness and courage(?) to release those files at all.

2) How do you think it could be improved?
It would have been very helpful if at least some of the original coders of CTGW were still around which is apparently not the case anymore. Also a map-editor was announced but never released which severely hampers modding the game. This is sad but perfectly understandable since the game is quite old by now.

3) What Slitherine games have you played with mods and scenarios?
Only CTGW since WW1 is my favourite topic.

4) Was it a positive experience?
As I've already said it was both a joy and total frustration trying to mod the game. The satisfaction you get when something you coded is actually working at last is outweighing the hours of trials & errors by far in my opinion. Positive feedback from players is an additional motivator to keep me going even if the community has probably shrinked to about a dozen of players.

5) What Slitherine game would you say has the best modding community?
I have no clue to be honest, but I'd guess the game with the largest community. PanzerCorps maybe, don't know if it's moddable though.

6) What is your favourite mod for a Slitherine game?
CTGW Potzblitz-Mod for sure. It's a love (and sometimes hate) affair.

Best regards!

Congratulations to the modding community in Pike $ Shot and Battle Academy (Stalingrad being the most creative for me)
Pike and Shot modding community is tied with 1st place.
Thank You

i like the option of more mods being able to be installed from in game, as i think the ftp access is better and the integration overall makes more sense