Cold War Clash senario in the making

[elhior]

Hi there,

Since apparently noboby's interested in creating a "Cold War" mod, I decided to try and create one myself. I'm just a noob concerning modifying the game and creating a senario, but I'm really enthousiastic into trying it. For the time being I'm trying to change the countries' allegiance and the alliances so that they fit the Cold Was clash. I put SU, CHI and GER to Axis (I don't think I can change the names of the sides) and JAP and UN as Allies. Then I editted the "Alliance" file, so that many countries (Norway, Danemark, Bulgaria) belong to the correspondent major power, but nothing happened. I checked Lebatron's Franco's Alliance mod (its Alliance.txt file) and found out that he editted Spain to have the number "1", meaning to belong to Germany. Although I did exactly the same with other countries, it didn't work. Norway starts as neutral and Bulgaria as frozen belonging to Germany, no matter the numbers I'm inserting.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? Any help from the veterans would be deeply appreciated!

[JanSorensen]

You will have to change PLAYER_NEU to PLAYER_SOV (or PLAYER_UN) for the relevant regions in your regions file in addition to the change you have done already.

Good luck making the mod - do keep us posted on your progress.

[elhior]

Thanks for the quick feedback! I figured that out and I also found out that I had to change the "regions40" file as well (did I mention I'm a noob in this?).

Big thanks for the support, I'll keep you posted.

[elhior]

Hello there,

Still, spending hours in creating the map and reading books on the two sides' forces during the Cold Was period, so I guess I'm still far, far away from having something serious to show

Two issues have occured, for which I need some help:

a) I have created new neutral countries (many of them, this is the period of de-colonization). The new names (e.g. "Pakistan" instead of "Western India") show on the map, but if any of these countries with the new names get attacked, the question shown is: "Do you want to declare war on..." and then empty space, or "sources: 0, rail:0". Is there any way to have the new names appear in this question as well?

b) I have merged several areas in a new neutral country, Indonesia. It includes Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Timor and Deutsch new Guinea. Still, when a unit attacks one of these areas and war is declared upon Indonesia (I wish the name could present in the question ), not all Indonesia goes to war, as it happens with all the other neutrals who are comprised of more than one areas (like Libya or Egypt or Persia). Any ideas on what's wrong?

Thank you again for your patience!

[Joel Billings]

I'm not sure you can add more countries without running into many problems. You could add new countries by consolidating some of the other countries or perhaps using the one country slot that goes by the name "neutral".

[elhior]

Apart from the two problems mentioned, I didn't encounter any other. I have "created" about 15 new countries, some of them comprising of 2 areas, some of them frozen and others neutral, even by specifying which side they'll take in case they're attacked. I just can't explain the case of Indonesia. Also, I take it you can't have the new names of the new countries been written in the "Do you want to declare war to..." message, right? Pity

Thanks (again) for the quick feedback!

[JanSorensen]

You are probably missing
Nation.txt: NATION_NAME,Indonesia,Indonesia

When I added that it seems to work nicely.

There is a hard cap of 50 total on nations - with 41 of those used by WaW normally. As long as you stay within that limit you should be fine to add new nations. So, if you need more than 9 new nations you have to drop some of the 41 original nations.

[elhior]

I didn't miss them, they were put correctly. Still, I didn't know the 50 nations camp I'll see what I can do. Thanks!!!

[JanSorensen]

Thats odd. If you put that line in you should be seeing the correct name in the "Do you want to DoW ####?" pop-up.

As a small test I changed Greenland to be its own nation with its own seperate new name. When I attacked it I was shown the name I had given the new nation correctly. So, if you are not seeing the correct name for any DoW on a new nation then something is still missing. If so you are welcome to zip all the files in your dat folder and mail them to me (janbs@stofanet.dk) so I can see if I can spot the problem.

I havent checked what happens if you make more than 50 nations - I just spotted the hard coded limit in the code and figured it was worth mentioning.

[elhior]

Problem solved, it had to do with the number of countries exceeding 50 (actually they were 71!). What I did is to put all the beligerents under the Soviet or the Allies' respective nationality, while I reserved the "extra nation" slot for neutrals. Now I have exactly 50 countries in total, and all problems have disappeared!

Thanks, thanks, thanks [&o]

[JanSorensen]

Splendid, I am happy I was able to help.

I will be looking forward to eventually seeing the fruits of your labors.

[elhior]

... and the questions never end

Concerning factories and production:

a) I have Czechoslovakia as an autonomous nation, belonging to the Soviet Union. Still, I can't see its own production window along with Rumania's, Poland's (I have put a factrory in western Poland) and Soviet Union's. I checked everything and it seems in order, but the factory remains invisible. Any ideas?

b) For some reason all the factories can build all units, which means that the landlocked factories can built any ship they want [&:] Is there any way to prevent that? I thought the computer prohibited the building of ships in landlocked factories automatically [:-]

Thanks in advance [&o]

[elhior]

Hi there,

I solved problem (a). For some reason the production slot of a nation does not appear in the production screen, unless it has a flag! If it's just an independent nation added beyong the starting 42 nations, although it is like them in every aspect, it still doesn't appear there. I put Czechoslovakia in Chile's slot and vice versa. Now their flags are mixed up (actually many flags are mixed up [:)] ), but Czechoslovakia can produce units as an autonomous nation!

Still waiting for any feedback regarding problem (b)! Thanks again for your time!

[JanSorensen]

I am not sure what the problem you are seeing might be due to. As a quick check I attached Czechoslovakia to the nation of Chile and both that nation's areas to German control. The factory in Chech Chile was unable to produce naval units due to not having a port.

My offer from earlier stands. If you zip up the files in the dat folder and mail to me I can take a look at it and try to find the problem.

[elhior]

Alright, sending you the "dat" files! Thanks!

[elhior]

By the way the problem with the "Factories in landlocked areas" building ships concerns the entire map, not only Czechoslovakia. Even factories in Kazan, Moscow and North Central USA can build ships!

[JanSorensen]

In CWregions.txt you have removed DATA,PLAYER_GER,1. You need to add that line back in.

The game is (arbitrarily) using the unitdata for the units of player 1 to determine which units are naval, air, land etc. So, you have to have a player 1 and that player has to have the correct UNITDATA TD_CLASS values. When you removed "player 1" by deleting the line the game had no real idea which units are ships etc. It probably should have been coded so class was based on player - but thats not the case so you need to comply to this restriction.

This one was tricky and certainly took me a long while to narrow down. The bill is in the mail.

You have also made two mismatches concerning labels as you have changed the labels for Commonwealth and ComHotCommonwealth to UK and ComHotUK yet have not changed the places the label is used in the text files leading to alot of error messages showing up during the loading of the game.

I hope this helps.

Jan

[elhior]

Thanks a lot Jan, you were very observant to spot these mistakes. The senario's creation can now go on. After three days of continuous work and research on the political and diplomatic relations between the countries, I believe the creation of the map is almost at an end. Next step: the placement of military forces. That will require A LOT of research concerning numbers, quality and locations of the two great powers' military forces. Thankfully, I have two books on the subject, and there's always the internet.

I'll keep you posted! Thanks again!

[elhior]

Hello there,

The "Cold War" project is proceeding fast, it's taking so much of my time that I don't think I'll be able to recover and re-enter my everyday life [:D] The old and new countries is almost set, their diplomatic status after deep historic research is also set, and so are the stats of the units. When I'll upload the mod, I will also inform the players about the specific type of each unit, (e.g. the Soviet fighter will be the M-21, while the US fighter will be the F-104 Starfighter), as well as the reasons for each modification. Only the land units remain to be placed on the map, and - of course - some playtesting.

For now, I have a couple of questions:

a) Is there a possibility to make the subs able to fire at other subs? Since we're 10 years after the WW2, subs are supposed to do that.

b) How can I modify the double borders? I know Lebatron did it, but I can't figure out how and I'm really tired to make a detailed examination (although I'll do it if needed . E.g. I want to turn Alaska's western (and only the western) double-border to single border.

Thank you in advance!

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: elhior
a) Is there a possibility to make the subs able to fire at other subs? Since we're 10 years after the WW2, subs are supposed to do that.

I haven't tried this, just waded through the files. But I think it is in unitdata40.txt (maybe unitdata55.txt for a 1955 scenario).

Code: Select all

UNIT,SUB FLEET,PLAYER_GER
 UNITDATA,TD_TYPE,4,TD_AA,0,TD_SA,0,TD_UA,0,TD_LA,0,TD_TORP,2
 UNITDATA,TD_SPEED,8,TD_RANGE,1,TD_EVADE,2,TD_ARMOR,0,TD_DURAB,3
 UNITDATA,TD_CAP,0,TD_AMPHIB,0,TD_COST,4,TD_CLASS,4,TD_SUP_USE,0
 UNITDATA,TD_FUEL_USE,0

I think that TD_SA is sub attack. Make it non-zero.

I can't seem to find where the world standard is set. Is it just the PLAYER_NEU settings? Or is it somewhere else?

ORIGINAL: elhior
b) How can I modify the double borders? I know Lebatron did it, but I can't figure out how and I'm really tired to make a detailed examination (although I'll do it if needed . E.g. I want to turn Alaska's western (and only the western) double-border to single border.

That's tough. Look in Regions40.txt (or maybe Regions55.txt). We have

Code: Select all

REGION,290,Alaska,PLAYER_UN,United States,TER_RCOLD
 MOVECOST,2
 POP,0
 FORT,0
 CONNECT,248,249,289,291
 SIDE,4,4,4,6
 UNIT,RAIL,1
 UNIT,RESOURCE,1

Change MOVECOST to 1. But the way it works is that if all zones that share a border have a movecost of 2, then the border is 2. If any zones that share a border have a movecost of 1, then the border is 1. So it is tough to target specific borders like you mentioned.