Civ5 Useful Programs

This page includes information on the Civ5 Modding Tools as well as links to other useful programs.

SDK

World Builder

The stand-alone world builder allows users to create and modify maps and scenarios for Civilization V.

Mod Buddy

An editor (IDE) for the XML and Lua elements of the game and allows for the creation, packaging, and uploading of mods. To use it, you have to install the Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Isolated) Redistributable Package.

Installing ModBuddy Extensions

Nexus

A collection of tools to to work with the art in Civilization V.

Initial Look at Nexus, 3D Unit Art, and Reskinning

Note that Photoshop templates for icons are also bundled in the SDK, under the Art folder (in Programs Files/Steam/...).

FireTuner

An advanced debugging terminal. It displays the lua output, provides an interactive console and can be simply extended with custom controls and tables.

Do not forget to modify your *.ini files, see Debugging#Configuration.

Simple Tuner Modifications

Digging the source code and the data tables

Since the documentation is sparse, you need a tool to quickly inspect the civ5 source and data files and search in all of them at once. See also this comparison of search tools.

Notepad++

A great and renowned text editor with a "search in all files" feature (hit ctrl + shift + f). Used by many developers around the world. Download.

Browsing the art assets

Dragon unpacker

Can extract the Firaxis packages (.fpk files). Download.

DDS Unpacker

Some DDS files have been compressed even further and look messed up if you open them in an image viewer. This tool rebuilds them. Download.

XnView

An images browser to get a quick look at all the DDS files to spot the one you're looking for. Download.

FireTuner: Textures Viewer

A FireTuner panel to browse most of the game's textures. Download.

FireTuner: Icons Viewer

A FireTuner panel to browse the game's icons. Download.

Creating textures

NVidia Texture Tools for Photoshop

A Photoshop plugin to save textures under the DDS format. Download

Paint.net

An easy-to-use and moderately powerful open-source image editor for Windows that natively supports the DDS format. Download

Testing and debugging

SQLite tools

Anytime it starts a game, Civilization V saves a SQLite snapshot of the database, including the changes made by mods, under Civ5DebugDatabase.db.

SQLite Manager

A Firefox plug-in, slightly more powerful than the previous tool. Download

SQLiteSpy

A Windows software to inspect the SQLite files. Download

SQLite Browser

A Windows software to inspect the SQLite files. Download

Cheating tools and game inspectors

In-game Editor (IGE)

Add or remove units, cities, resources, change the terrain, trigger wars, etc. Convenient to quickly test your mod. Download (also on the Steam Workshop).

FireTuner: Techs and policies panel

A FireTuner panel to list, grant and revoke techs and policies. Download.