Modding questions ?

[AlbertN]

Just some quick questions here:

A- Can units be modded in their type and values?
(Pratical intent, possibly add an Hungarian HQ unit by converting some other Hungarian Land Unit.)

B- Can map be modded in landscape or even factories / cities / resources?
(Pratical intent, evaluating if to make the Croatian / Slovenian Factory red instead than blue.)

C- What of above for Map can be used too for Norway to make it look more appetizing for Axis.

[markb50k]

A Yes

B Yes

C I added a blue factory in Norway

I am playing a HEAVILY modded game (I added in all the AiF and PatIF units into the game), so you can do a heck of a lot using the game files. It honestly is almost a different game.

See Volume 2 of the User Guide, the back chapters to see how to edit the game files. Of course, save off the vanilla files before hand.

[AlbertN]

Out of pure curiosity what's the bonus of adding a Blue Factory to a nation that normally is ignored already?
Shouldn't it be Red for that Nation to be of any interest in the department? Blue simply means it works only for the side the Nation is aligned with, so any conquering power would have no benefit in that department.

[Larry Smith]

I tried a bunch of mods, such as advancing the years for the SS units by one to simulate playing an option from the old DoD2. I also tried giving some more factories and resources to Germany, France and the CW to simulate a few of their options for better production. But the game refuse to load in my modded files for the map, and after I restored the originals [the TER & Nam files] it loaded up to a point, then tripped over my adjusted LND file. Do you need the Debug version of the game? Is there a special tag you have to make note of so the game knows it's a mod, and not a corrupted file? Or did I just miss something [or messed it up]? What's your opinion? I asking on the thought that you may have hit the same errors, but got them sorted out later.

[markb50k]

This is what I've learned

Changes to names of cities etc happen even if a game has already started

Changes to resources also seem to take effect even after a started game

Changes to factories, ie adding one to the map only take effect if the country hasn't become active yet. I could add one to Ireland before it was aligned but adding one to Peru which was already aligned shows up on the map but doesn't get taken into account by prod planning screen. Safest bet especially with adds to major powers is to do it on a new game

Changes to any units either the LND AIR or NAV files will only take effect on new games.

Adding the blue factory to a country that you suspect will be conquered is yes worthless. But on my game Germany aligned Norway so the blue was useful

By and large if you are careful in your edits I didn't have any issues with the game not starting. Only big error I saw is trying to add a unit to a governed area. It has to be a major power country, sub country, or minor

[Larry Smith]

I'll have to take another look at my changes, then. I might have put something in the wrong field. I did start with a new game, and all I did with the units was change a few of their build dates. Did you do anything with the NAM file? I added factories in Frankfurt and Kiel, as well as adding an oil resource in Calgary, so I tried to match the placement field with a similar hex [I wonder if that was my error?]. For the rest of my changes, I tried to add to what was already there.
Mostly, I just wanted to see if I could do it. I didn't expect much the first time around.
Thanks for the reply![:)]

Also, you mentioned adding the PatiF units. What about the Heavy Unit conversions? I did notice that while there is a field for heavy units, I didn't know whether there is a means by which the game will handle swapping out the heavies for the originals.

[Larry Smith]

I just tried again, but only the TER file [not the NAM file], and it still refused to load. It might be because I have modified Germany, which is active from the very start. I'll try something else.

And... I tried again, and failed again. I tried restricting my changes to minors neutral at the beginning of the Global War scenario - Poland, Hungary, Belgium & the Netherlands. The idea is to give Germany the extra production to simulate a .25 bump in production [in the old DoD2, it would be an increase to a x4 modifier]. So I tried turning blue factories to red, adding more red factories, and increasing the present resources [x2 or x3]. Unless there is another corresponding file where I need to log in the changes, or make matching changes, it could be that I messed up by trying to mod some Objective hexes. I'll have to give it another go with just one change, and see if the game takes that instead of what I have been doing.

[markb50k]

I forgot one thing, make sure you are editing these files in Notepad, not Excel. If you do it in Excel, you need to make sure you go into the file in Notepad afterwards and removed all the commas added to the last row. The file should NOT have something like this as the end of the file.

Code: Select all

194,359,0,5,126,,,,,,,,,,
 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

(that second row needs to have all those commas removed. safest to edit it ONLY in Notepad so those don't get added)

increasing the present resource definitely works, and its easy I implemented the synth oils as permanent oils.

Easiest way to do the resources is look up the row,column in the TERR file, and update the "1" in the 8 column (non-oil resource) to "2" adding a resource.

Should look like this now for the hex just East of Berlin, if you update the resources from 1 to 2, for instance.

Code: Select all

50,40,2,1,,79,,2,0,0,0,0,0,1199,51

Finally, for the Heavies, since the game automatically removes any heavy units from the force pools you have to get around it. You could do a number of things.

Implement the unit with the new strength, but bump its year of availability back a year or two. A compromise.

If you want to keep the cost increase that heavies cause, you could edit a MOT to be a MECH , or a MECH to be an ARM, using the new heavy strength.

Its not a perfect solution either way.

FYI, there are some non-Heavy units added by those expansions too. Also, the new Khaki in Flames kit adds new units as well, I've added them.

[Larry Smith]

Thanks. I was doing the edits via the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet function that popped up. I'll try it in Notepad.

Was there a combat bonus when using heavy units? I was never able to get around to buying PatiF. Every time I thought I'd saved up enough money, I'd discover the game had morphed so much [yet again] that I'd need to update other portions. I was paying off debts from my university days, so... Anyway, I didn't find anything in the rules. I missed the added cost - I thought it was just a one-time fee for upgrading on-map units. Just curious. For now, I'll just have to cope without.
Thanks again. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Larry Smith]

That did the trick! It was the program I was using to edit! Wrong format!
Such good timing, too! A new Beta patch, and my step-son will be over for the weekend, and will no doubt want to dominate the consoles.
Thanks for the help. If I can get a feel for balancing this, I'll post the map file. I've got my eye on Kashgar for a last-ditch Chinese bastion, especially if I can extend the Silk Road to the Soviet rail network. Maybe see how railing Mao to some point along the Soviet Manchurian border works, if the Chicoms are forced out of the Lanchow-Sian area and have no cities left in that area. With the old CWiF, I could just use the editor debug function to make a NatChinese city Chicom.
I've recently started reading a new history about Mao, and in it the author asserts that Mao was a lot closer to Stalin and the Stalinist line with his loyalties that we've been lead to believe.

Reminds me of a line from one of the Monty Python movies - "It's the Chinese Communist Conspiracy!"

[WarHunter]

markb50k,
Quite impressed with what you have related to us. Congrats!![:)]

Thanks for sharing.

[markb50k]

Thanks warhunter!

The heavy units don't get a combat bonus other than the strength increase. You can read about how it's supposed to be implemented in the rules as coded handbook that came with MWIF even tho it hasn't been coded yet

FYI I don't have Patton in flames either, I just found Patrice's awesome spreadsheet that shows all the units in the expansions. Google "French world in flames page" lots of great stuff there