Introduction
Hello everyone,
As i'm affected by the modder illness, i'v decided to try modding the game, but i've been really desapointed by the poor possibility of modding this game ! The game seems to me isn't built to be moddable, or in VERY little aspects.
As I already modded numerous game, I now see how game work more precisely, and that's why i suggest a new way of modding the game : the memory editing.
In facts, everyone just tried to mod the files when it isn't "mounted" on memory ( Aka RAM ), in this way you can modify everything you want.
For the case of medieval II TW, someone on twcenter forum find a way to edit files on .exe file ( but prohibited by dam EULA rules ) and then moved on the memory editing. That's what i'm going to show you in this exemple.
In my very first ( epic ) game, atuuk and securan empires both choose way of the darkness as governement ! Very funny at first, I choose to incite revolution in both empires with 2 agents ( 400 at skill ) ; both succed and boom, galaxy had 22 empires ; this show me that the 20 empires limit ( at start ) was a glass wall, and that this limit can be overrided ! So after a 30 min search ( seriously ! ) i found how do it.
In this exemple of memory editing (NOT PROHIBITED BY ANY LAWS LIKE THIS DAMN EULA!!!) I'm going to show you how to start a game with 20+ empires !
The endless possibilies of memory editing !!!
[font="Arial"]let's start [:)] :[/font]
In this case i'm going to use :
♦ A memory editing software, in this case, i'll use cheatengine, you may also use whatever software you want, like Quick memory editor ( NOT TESTED !! ), etc ....
♦ And use the good old
+
!1) Start Cheat engine ( or your favorite ME soft )
2) Then go to start a new game > next until this screen :
3)
+ and bam cheat engine appears !
4) Hit the process explorer ( he is lighting ) and search for the distant worlds processus :
5) Easy for the moment, as you can see, i've 19 auto-generating empires, what's what we are going to change. So, on the "hex" value, type 19 and then "first scan".
6) Cheatengine found half a million ( just kidding but a good hundred ) "19" in the allowed memory of distant worlds.
7) Now, we are going to "refine" the result, here i write "17" (or any other number ) in "the genrate # empires" then press "enter" to validate this number in the memory of the game. After, just put "17" (or the other number in question ) on the "hex" value and then hit "next scan".
The explanation : you are going to say to the soft that you're searching a "19" value, then filter all of this "19" value that changed into a "17" value, got it ? Right, let's move :
8) For me, cheatengine found 3 "19" value that changed into "17" value" (note that these standart are highly variables, see the 37 wich was a 17 half a second ago ) :
9) redo the same thing until you have ONLY one value, i've got to go to the the value "15" :
10) Double-click on the value, wich appear on the bottom, then double click on the "15" (or whatever value you hav ! ) then modify, in this case i'll try a "35" then ok. Then DO NOT touch the number of auto generating empires in the game, and start the the new game !
11) We did it ! look at the number of new empires !
12) 25+ Empires appears on the stats window, it can be bothersome to know where you are, but indeed, if you aren't in the top 20, you don't deserve to be known [:D]
13) And finally a diplomatic screen to show you :
BUGS (yes not only one .. ) :
♦ 20 first auto generated empires start "normally", but if you look on the 15 last, they are very weak (started on expanding universe )
♦ some empires have EXACTLY the same color, can be bothersome ....
New bug spotted :
♦ if you end the game and start another game, it will be very likely to say "value # not possible" where # is the number of races that you put ( for me "35") to deal with it delete the "defaultOptions" file in your "C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Code Force Limited\Distant Worlds\1.0.5.8" if your version is 1.0.5.8
"C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Code Force Limited\Distant Worlds\1.0.5.7" if your version is 1.0.5.7
"C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Code Force Limited\Distant Worlds\1.0.4.9" if your version is 1.0.4.9
BUT :
♦ both bugs can be corrected trough the game editor !
Conclusion :
[font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]I hope that this tuto will inspire some new modders to push back the limts of modding ! Long live to Distant Worlds ![/font]
Original idea here from [&o]Argantonio.
