Cernelius commented an hour ago
@ron-murhammer Before going on with this conversation, can you confirm that you actually mean that, for example, you would create 5 "age_of_tribes" maps, one for each of these xml:

Age_of_Tribes_Classical
Age_of_Tribes_Cold_War
Age_of_Tribes_Modern
Age_of_Tribes_Primeval
Age_of_Tribes_Renaissance

Duplicating everything but the xml themselves in each one of the folders, obliging Frostion to update 5 different repositories every time he wants to make any skin-related changes?

As another example, would you want to split "world_war_ii_v3" into two different maps, one for the 41 and another one for the 42, plus making 1 stand alone map for each one of these xml:

WW2v3-1941.xml
WW2v3-1942.xml
WW2v3-1941-3Teams.xml
WW2v3-1941-freetech.xml
WW2v3-1941CB4P.xml
WW2v3-1941FFA.xml
WW2v3-1941_ChinaMod.xml
WW2v3-1941_UKfactory.xml
WW2v3-1942CB4P.xml
WW2v3-1939-11N.xml
WW2v3-1940-11N.xml
WW2v3-1941-11N.xml
WW2v3-1942-11N.xml

(yes, I believe they all deserve to be kept)

And do you also intend to multiply "world_war_ii_global" into 6 skin clones, one for each of these xml:

ww2global40_2nd_edition.xml
ww2global40.xml
ww2global40_alpha3.xml
ww2global40_alpha3_veqryn_balanced.xml
ww2global40_balanced2_0.xml
ww2global40_veqryn_balanced.xml

(yeah, keep them all; I've never seen anyone playing or even asking to play or even selecting any of the Veqryn's mods in lobby, but I surely believe they deserve to be kept, as well)

Also, do you have some plans for the mapskins, that you would need to multiply by the total number of mods currently available (for example, 3x2=6 NWO mapskins and 6x1=6 Global mapskins)? Or do you have plans for allowing a same mapskin referring to multiple original maps?

To be absolutely sure, can you please confirm that this is indeed your current proposal? Or are you thinking to just delete a lot of mods (I hope not)?

Just for info, this matters for me, as I intend to propose for upload 6 mods soon, currently info named:
270BC 40%
270BC 40% Rev
270BC Rev
Napoleonic Empires: 5 Alliance - 1794
WWIIv3 1941 Move-Buy-Move
WWIIv3 1941 Tech Advance

(270BC 40% is the successor of 270BC Tertiered I proposed for upload almost 1 year and a half ago and no uploaders wanted to add it to 270BC)
 @Cernelius

Cernelius commented 42 minutes ago
Since the matter is so important and complex and the release is so close, my suggestion would be that you either sane this bug or revert all the related changes that caused it, keeping the mods supported as they are now, and think about how to eventually change how mods and mapskins are handled thereafter, waiting at least some months for opinions, especially from experienced map / mod makers.

Myself, I think that the current way is about the best possible one, all considered (which is a lot to consider), and I would also suggest you to move all or most of the Global mods and old versions outside the original map, in a different "variants" mods' folder, not to oblige everyone to have them, if they want to have Global.

Also, wow, thanks RogerCooper noticed and you didn't release yet, or all mods would have been broken down in the next release...
 @Cernelius

Cernelius commented 32 minutes ago
Also, why is this not tagged as Regression or Bug? This looks like a major regression to me, and it is of course a bug. And I would definitively say it should be solved before any release, due to the general importance of mods.
And why is this tagged as "Close Pending Confirmation"? Confirmation of what? That nobody cares about mods at all?
Of course, up to the developers; if you don't want to support mods anymore, and no developers want to solve the bugs, noone can oblige you. I'm just saying I don't get it, and would rather suggest you revert all changes that caused this regression, in that case.