Does anybody know how to make good custom capmaigns?

Wait for TA, that will have a fully integrated Scenario and Campaign editor.

i'd love to wait but i'm making a mod now and i'm not 100% sure that i'll get TA (eventhough i definately want it) and since the mod's for DA not TA, will the new scenario editor work for it?
thanks for responding

The only "way" to enforce use of all & each of your customs rather than any of the regular defaults (0-TA all the way through 11-KR) is to re-write a brand new raceconfig.xml (which MUST be used and called from a MOD folder) with your races' data in place of the previous ones while complying with numerical order, etc.

Mind you, this "process" takes extensive editing to the format and requires properly devised locations (GFX folder, etc) for the necessary assets.

Which is possibly why i haven't bothered yet with the procedure for the X-Worlds triplet of thematic races. It may be annoying for players to copy/paste back & forth whatever options they select - but the GC interface itself doesn't handle such function. Players have to "create opponents" from what's being available and then start the new game with those "temporary" races.
Now try switching between APOC and TFTD and UFOD and multiple variations therein and you'll understand why i urge for an ingame option that would give us a "use mod/package" button right underneath the current simple "create---". Cuz, these lists they can get quite high in numbers and aren't really grouped right into the select opponents screen as intended by the mod.

True though, that the scenario/campaigns & other editors would certainly be quite useful even to those who have yet to buy TA. I could find some use for any once i begin the next modding phase; a dedicated campaign specially designed for X-Worlds' 42 races (13x3 plus 3 Sidekicks/Neutrals), 8 to 12++ Minors and the mix-match total fun that this kind of variety can achieve. Just imagine having to graph-paper all that stuff by hand. Nightmare i'd otherwise escape IF i could have real development tools/utilities from genuine SD staff & coders. Yep, I could also buy my very own copy of TA and so on. BUT, what about all that huge amount of players out there who still enjoy "just" DA and even DL.

Thus, modding is almost a difficult endeavor but could be MUCH easier.

- Zyxpsilon.

rewriting the raceconfig.xml isn't a big deal. i'm already doing that. Even with doing that
GalCiv2IDE doesnt recognize the races.

I've been having some "difficulties" with GalCiv2IDE and gave up using it pretty fast once i realized it was somehow and probably buggy.
Dunno exactly what's wrong with it, but i suspect it's caused by the Net-Framework setup on XP.
Or it may even be the GC2 installation structure i opted to have; the game itself in on a second drive within a partition (F:\) that receives some of the games i keep active. FAT32, and XP/NTFS is on a dedicated (C:\) un-partitioned with the usual "MyDocuments" where GC picks a few files.

Even the other tool Galactopedia couldn't read the DA folder values (still gathers all the DL data without a flaw though!) since the framing option of the clickable popup doesn't calibrate properly for me to alter the necessary box with a check mark. Again, possibly a NET-Framework error.

- Zyxpsilon.