Marjo Koskenkangas Designing a civilisation mod that blends into Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm Bachelor’s thesis Bachelor’s degree in Game Design 2019 Tekijä (Tekijät) Tutkinto Aika Marjo Koskenkangas Muotoilija (AMK) Marraskuu 2019 Opinnäytetyön nimi 47 sivua Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Stormiin sulautuvan 4 liitesivua sivilisaatio modin suunnitteleminen Toimeksiantaja Kakkois-Suomen Ammattikorkeakoulu Ohjaaja Suvi Pylvänen Tiivistelmä Tämä opinnäytetyö dokumentoi sivilisaatio modin suunnittelun ja game design-dokumentin luomisen Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gatherin Stormiin. Tämän opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena oli selvittää kuinka sunnitellaan pelin modi, joka sulautuu alkuperäiseen peliin niin hyvin, että se ei pelattaessa tunnu modilta, vaan alkuperäisen pelin tekijöiden tuotokselta. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin tapaustutkimusta, jossa tutkittiin Civilization VI:n alkuperäisiä sivilisaatioita, jotta pelin luoman yhtiön, Firaxiksen, suunnittelutapa saataisiin mahdollisimman hyvin selville modin laadun takaamiseksi. Firaxis ei ole itse julkaissut mitään omista tavoistaan suunnitella sivilisaatioita, joten hyvin perusteellinen tutkimus oli aiheellista. Pelin sivilisaatioita, yksikköjä ja rakennuksia myös tutkittiin balansoinnin vuoksi. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin myös Valven Steam Workshopin suosituimpien sivilisaatio modien ja niiden kommenttien tutkimista, jonka päämääränä oli selvittää mitkä asiat modeissa ovat yleisesti pelaajien mieleen ja mitkä ovat negatiivisia asioita. Tällä taattiin yleisimpien virheiden välttäminen ja tiettyjen asioiden silmällä pitäminen. Civilization VI:n ja modien tutkimisen jälkeen modin suunnitteluvaihe aloitettiin tutkimalla valitun maan johtajaa ja maata. Tutkimuksen perusteella pystyttiin päättämään tarvittavat asiat modiin ja balansoimaan se sopimaan muihin Civilization VI:n sivilisaatioihin. Suunnitteluprosessi onnistui ja lopputuloksena oli täysi ja balansoitu game design- dokumentti maan johtajasta ja maasta, jota pystyy käyttämään varsinaisen pelattavan modin luomiseen. Asiasanat Pelisuunnittelu, modaaminen, tutkimus, balansointi Author (authors) Degree Time Marjo Koskenkangas Bachelor of Culture November 2019 and Arts Thesis title 47 pages Designing a civilisation mod that blends into Sid Meier’s 4 pages of appendices Civilization VI: Gathering Storm Commissioned by South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Supervisor Suvi Pylvänen Abstract The purpose of this thesis was to design a mod for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm that blends into the game and write out its game design document. The objective of this thesis was to figure out what it takes to design a mod of which design would seamlessly fit into the original game without feeling like a mod, but a product from the game’s original creators. A case study was used to research Civilization VI’s original civilisations to work out the possible design conventions used by the game’s creator company Firaxis to ensure the close likeness of the mod. Firaxis has not published anything on how they design their civilisations, so a very thorough research had to be done on this. The civilisations and specific units and buildings were also researched for balancing purposes. A case study was also used to do research on ten most popular civilisation mods and their comments on Valve’s Steam Workshop to find the generally negative and positive traits in mods to figure out what players consider to be good and bad. This was done to ensure the same mistakes were avoided and some small details were given great attention. After the research on Civilization VI and civilisation mods, a design process on the mod began with research on the chosen leader and country. The research enabled to make decisions on what was needed for the mod and how it should be balanced to fit in with Civilization VI’s civilisations. The design process resulted in a fully-fledged balanced design document of a civilisation and its leader that can be used to create a playable mod. Keywords Game design, modding, research, balancing CONTENTS GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................... 5 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 6 2 MODDING .................................................................................................................... 7 3 INTRODUCTION TO SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION VI ................................................. 8 4 CIVILIZATION VI’S CIVILISATIONS .......................................................................... 13 4.1 Eleanor of Aquitaine ............................................................................................. 14 4.2 Victoria .................................................................................................................. 17 4.3 Mansa Musa ......................................................................................................... 19 4.4 Results of the research ......................................................................................... 22 5 MODS IN CIVILIZATION VI ........................................................................................ 25 5.1 Mod research methods ......................................................................................... 25 5.2 Researching mods ................................................................................................ 27 5.3 Research results ................................................................................................... 31 6 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MODS AND ORIGINAL CONTENT ............................... 32 7 DESIGNING A MOD ................................................................................................... 33 7.1 Research on Gustav Vasa .................................................................................... 35 7.2 Design document .................................................................................................. 37 8 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 40 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 42 LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ 47 APPENDICES Appendix 1. Game Design Document 5 GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS Due to the nature of this thesis, some game industry and design terminology are used. The used terms are gathered here and shortly explained in the following list. 4X 4X is a genre of strategy-based game in which the player controls an empire. 4X is an abbreviation of “exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination”. (Emrich 1993.) AI (Artificial Intelligence) Mod (modification) A game modification is when a player makes an alteration to the game. These alterations can be e.g. custom levels, objects, visuals, characters or quests. Many games enable modding by including an editor with the game. (webopedia, 2019.) Mods’ additions can be supplementary, in which the mod is only a partial conversion, or mods can result in a completely new game, which is a total conversion (Sihvonen 2011). “Modders” is the informal term for people who create and distribute mods. DLC (Downloadable content) Downloadable content is additional content created for a video game that has already been released to enhance its features. DLCs are distributed through the internet by the game’s publisher. DLCs can be bought or added to the game with no extra costs. DLCs can contain cosmetic changes to visuals in the game, expansion packs adding new content to the game or adding a new storyline. (Anon 2019a.) Bug A mistake or problem in a computer program causing something to not work, do unwanted things or even crashing the program (Anon 2019b). 6 1 INTRODUCTION Modifying games (modding) has steadily been increasing its popularity since the 1980’s when the first mods for Castle Wolfenstein were created. When id Software launched DOOM in 1993 the modding culture caught the eye of a larger audience as id Software included a modding tool in the game. This allowed the players to create their own content in the game. By the year 2000 modding had become a part of the PC-gaming culture and got more popular with the games Max Payne, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Valve Corporation’s Half-Life 2 with the launch of the gaming platform Steam. (Reseigh-Lincoln 2017.) With Valve Corporation’s digital games platform Steam, it became easy for players to create mods and other content for games to modify their gaming experience. This thesis will go through the design and research process of creating a design for a civilisation mod for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. The aim of the mod is to be as authentic to the original game as possible. The mod will be designed specifically for Civilization VI’s latest add-on Gathering Strom, as the add-on introduced new game mechanics which brings more variety to the game and its leader and civilisation choices. Civilization VI has almost 4000 mods in the Steam Workshop of which some are e.g. civilisation mods, map improvements, User Interface changes or other add-ons to improve the gaming experience. Civilization VI was chosen for this project as it has an active modding community, good tools to mod the game and the base game is interesting as it provides many possibilities when