Mod Tools / tables or resources

[Daniel Amieiro]

Hello!

I am playing and trying to Mod some things on Empires in Arms.

I tried de Editor tool that allows me to do many things, but i have some things that i can't do and i ask if there is some way to do these thing allthough it needs some file editing not included in the default campaing editor.

Things i would like to change, i do not find in editor and i think it should be in some kind of table and i think it could be easy to edit just now.
- Edit province list and their money and manpower values. I think there should be some internal table, but i do not know where is it. For me, this is the most important thing, because if i can mod this, then i can "adapt" any changes to this.
- Trade value of ports.
- Leader type. I do not know how to differentiate a Maritime Leader (Nelson) from others.

- National Modifiers (minor country Chart 14.1)
- Purchase costs of each unit (cavalry, infantry, militia...)

Things i do not know if there are editable.
- More "Create kingdom options" -> I really need Kingdom of Italy and other options. A Table with the nation list, and the new nation that substitutes. I do not know if the Otoman, Confederation of the Rhin and Polish are hardcoded or game uses some table to give this option=-
- Minor Country Variations (Changing starting provinces/districts for some minors). Add or remove Minor Countries..
- In broad sense, any that is on the map (city capacity, port strenght, type of terrain, name of province...) but i think this can be more difficult. Really this would need some kind of map editor and i could thing that perhaps this could never be implemented, but if the data is in some kind of table i could try to change it.

I do not know how the map is implemented or how the tables are. I think it must be with two layers

Geographical layer: Zone list: each zone has their data (type of terraing, food suply, perhaps cities or ports on that, province adjacency ... what the hell)

Political Layer: Province has N Zone List and a money and manpower value (perhaps others like guerrilla values, polish province or whatever flag). Then a Country (minor or great power) has N provinces ("natal ones"). Perhaps major powers are hardcoded or perhaps are a flag (playable country). It would be awesome to play more than 7 countries... . It would be awesome that each minor had a complete economy like a major (UK, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Otoman, Spain..)

I do not know if there is some kind of future developing of maps (it really suprised me the option in editor to choose a map, but it seems of no use just now, but perhaps it can be edited some way)

Some options i thing it would be ok as optional and it would need changing the game engine (in relationships with previous comment).
- Minors do not waste excess of money (they keep that).

Do you know if there is some info about the previous topics i ask?


Yours,

Daniel Amieiro Casal

[pzgndr]

There are known issues with the editor that need some fixing. Leader type (land or naval) and other leader bonuses (cav) is one. I've been unable to create new depots. Availability dates for units need to be editable, since changing scenario date from say 1805 to 1812 also advances all unit availability dates and that's no good.

Whenever Marshall Ellis gets back into EiA development work for a v1.09 update, we can look at these and the other items suggested above. It would be nice to have more editable parameters, but really if we develop a standard EiH map/setup and also develop a classic EiA map/setup and ensure they work then additional editing capability would just be icing on the cake. I think we need to continue focusing on the basics for a while. Whenever we get back to re-focusing at all? Hang in there...

[Daniel Amieiro]

First of all, thanks for the response.

Well, I would really love that Marshall Ellis would include these in the editor.

But really, i don't need an editor program if the program would load some kind of text file with the data. I'm a computer engineer, and for me is far easier to make that a program load data from a text file (and show a error if the file isn't ok) than to make an editor.

The same thing as a modder. If i want to make a new France OOB, leaders, etc, it's simpler for me to type a text file with human-like behaviour (or edit some text file used as a model). I see all the OOB and editing is simpler in a comprehensive text that in an editor. Click and re-click on the editor (which seems buggy) is slow and i don't see all the changes as a whole.

A "load from text" in the editor with a simple plain text "mod file" will be (IMHO) the best.

On the other hand, i don't know if there will be some improvements that i see in EIH 5.2 like Cavalry Guard.
If there is many complication on this, it could be enought to have some parameter editable by unit instead of by country. For example, Cavalry morale, and infantry morale could be higher on some "regular units" than in others (so these values could be editable by unit, and not by country). I do not know how to edit Militia Morale (not for country nor for unit).

What i'm saying this? Well, i would make a different campaign and i wanted to put some units that evolve from militia (landwerh prussians) to infantry and to really good infantry (better morale of 3.5) that it's impossible to do with only national morale values (well i can do that with infantry units with one guard factor actually that substitute old ones). On the other hand, some militia units (like spanish ones)could have better morale (i am thinking about making Spain tougher (their infantry number where similar to Prussia in reality at the end of Peninsular War (1814) by introducing better militia units (say 2.2-2.5 morale militia by provincial Guardias at the start...)

Same thing for political combinations (Westphalia kingdom/Italy on some political/campaing file).

And I would apreciate a lot that a resolution tweak or windowed mode will be an option (i have a big monitor and 640x480 its a pity )

But the thread is for modding. And as i was saying, i thing the best option will be that the program would accept a text file for modding. Simpler and faster to develop for the designers and for the modders.


NOTE:

This is an example of what i wanted to say_
A sample file of a .txt would look like that

"
NATION: FRANCE (or Nation_id if the program needs it, and shown in a table)

INFANTRY UNITS:
{Name, type (regular, freikorp, guerrilla, insurrection), avaiable start, avaiable end, (Guard Strenght, Infantry Strenght, Militia Strenght, Cavalry, Artillery Strenght), TR, SR, Movement, Morale of each component, natal province id_ (for insurrects, guerrillas)}

I Guard , regular, 01-01-1805, 01-01-1816, 20G, 0I, 0M, 3C, 0A, 2, 2, 4, 5.0, 4.0, 2.0, 4.0, 4.0)
I Infantry, regular, 01-01-1805, 01-01-1816, 0G, 25I, 0M, 3C, 0A, 2, 2, 4, 5.0, 4.0, 2.0, 4.0, 4.0)

NAVAL UNITS (similar thing)
I Naval, 20 HF, 0 LF, 0 T
I Light, 0 HF, 10 LF, 0 T
I Transport, 0 HF, 0 LT, 100T

LEADERS
(Name, type (infantry, cavalry, naval), start, end, SR, TR, CR)
Napoleon , infantry, 01-01-1805,01-01-1816,, 5,5,6)
Murat , cavalry, 01-01-1805,01-01-1816, 2,2,3)
Nelson , naval, 01-01-1805, 01-01-1816, 5,5,6)

DEPOTS: 8

etc...
"

Other file will be the campaign file with data of initial strenghts, starting and ending year of the campaing, political startup, etc..

I haven't though this a lot. For me, makes sense there should be more than one mod file. At least these:
- Countries OOB -> It can be used in more than one campaing.
- Campaign File. (starting strenghts, political situation, relations between countries, country list?, possible kingdoms).
- Political/ high level map file. (province money & manpower data, which province belongs to a country... if it is a home province of some country, not a "zone file")
- Hard map file: A zone map file with all the zones, their neighbour zones, type of zone, forage values....)

above it's an example. Marshall Ellis really would do it more complete and fine. Really if i will have the first one file loadable (Countries OOB) and some of the second and the money/manpower edit (on the third) it will cover nearly all my needs (well, only with the Countries OOB one can do a lot of interesting scenarios if it allows a complete unit edition, and better unit data not tied to country)

Someone did a kind of specification on data that should be editable/loadable or a thread with that? I would help on doing that specification file it you need that