Modding has been around as long as video games have existed. The earliest games were really only played by other programmers or nerdy academic types with access to university mainframe computers, who were happy to jump in and improve the software made by their colleagues.
Nobody called it modding back in the late 70's as far as I can tell, but we can see that same hacker spirit infusing the video gaming community right up to this day.
Hell, some genres are almost entirely comprised of games derived from mods: all of the so called Major Roguelikes, including NetHack, ADOM, Angband, Crawl etc. are all derivatives of the various modded versions of the original Rogue, and each of those games has spawned dozens more. Roguelikes are their own little subculture within the computer science community, but 4X games are no stranger to the modding scene either.
Dedicated fans and bedroom engineers have lovingly fixed, improved and mutated their favourite titles pretty much ever since the genre began. Civ II was one of the first 4X that made modding easy, and Civ IV is still going strong almost entirely on the strength of the excellent modding tools that Soren Johnson fought with Firaxis so hard to get out to the public. Other games really needed mods to fix their most serious issues (looking at you Master of Magic, you little flawed diamond!)
We love mods at Stardock, and recognise that we can’t possibly create games that are perfect for every single gamer that buys them, with all their myriad tastes and needs. That’s why we’ve built Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova to be easy to mod.
And now, we’ve added a handy modding tool into our launcher that links up to the GalCiv4 website, allowing easy access to community created mods. Simply click on “Mods” on the launcher to bring up the new interface.
Clicking on the “Get mods” button will take you to the GalCiv4 website where modders can upload their creations, and you can download them too.
We can see Frogboy’s mod here on the right, click on it and you’ll be prompted to save it somewhere on your computer. Once you’ve done that, come back to the mod manager and click “Install new mod”, and select the file you just downloaded.
You’ll be prompted to enable your mod, or click “Enable game mod support” at the bottom of the window, and your mod will be activated. Launch the game as usual and hey presto! Frogboy’s insanely large map mod is activated and ready to steal a couple of months of your life.
If you’re inclined to modding, get your mods uploaded to the site! Galactic Civlizations is a game limited only by the imaginations of the players and modders that support it, so get involved!
And let us know what you think of the modding tool in the comments below. Cheers!