Adding New Units

[Bullethead]

I just looked at Lord Krazy's add-on unit pack and was simply stunned at the number of files he had to tweak just to add 3 units to the game. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif

Is all that really necessary? It appears LK was making new units completely from scratch, along with new graphics and animations. But what if you just want to take an existing unit and change a few of its stats. Use the same graphics, animations, etc. But still have it has a separate, distinct unit type.

For instance, I want to make English Civil War units of pikemen and cavalry. None of the existing units quit fit the bill. Here's what I have in mind:

ECW PIKEMEN
Start with SwissArmoredPikemen but get rid of the shield and lower the base moral to reflect the fact that many were conscripts.

ECW CAVALRY
Start with Alan Mercenary Cavalry and bump the armor/defense up a bit and change the spear to a sword.

Is this possible? If so, what all do I have to do to make it happen?

Thanks

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

[This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 09-24-2002).]

[spmetla]

I know for certain that's it's possible but don't know how to help you. Sorry.

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"samishika wa nai shitte irukara saigo wa itsumo hitori to"

"I'm not lonely Because I know I'll be Alone at the end"

email me at: Luftwaffle@mad.scientist.com

[dclare4]

Hi Bullethead... so you're doing ECW too? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
I've been working on an ECW campaign myself but I'm pretty much in the same boat as you.

Best of Luck
Gilbert de Clare

[Bullethead]

Surely there's somebody out there who knows how to add new units to the game. I'd really like some tips on how to procede here.


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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

[Lord Krazy]

yes you can make new units by just changing
the stats but all the files I tweaked
are needed for a new unit.I did not create
new animations ,well not published ones yet.
All the art work in my published units are by CA
I would like to make that clear.
I have just enabled a few loose ends
thats all.
If you understand what I and barroca have
done you can follow the same proceedure
it gets easy after the first 30 attempts
or so ,only joking.
Tell me what you want exactly and I'll
see if I can help.

LordKarzy
rodaigh@yahoo.co.uk

[Bullethead]

Lord Krazy said:
Quote yes you can make new units by just changing the stats but all the files I tweaked are needed for a new unit.[/QUOTE]

In the words of Vanya... GAH!!!!!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif

Quote If you understand what I and barroca have done you can follow the same proceedure
it gets easy after the first 30 attempts or so, only joking.[/QUOTE]

Well, I certainly don't understand what you've done, but I THINK I've gained a general impression from looking at your work. My deductions are listed below. Please tell me if I'm on the right track http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

It appears that there are 3 basic things the game needs to know about a unit before the unit can be used:

Its stats (both strategic and tactical). Found in the crusaders_unit_prod11.txt file
Its graphics (both icons and animations). Found in the various subfolders under \campmap (icons) and \men (animations).
text info for the player (name, description, etc.). Found in the files under \loc\eng.


From the above, I make the following assumptions:
[list=A]
Graphically, adding new units based on existing units is modular. Just make copies of the files used by the unit you're basing your new unit on, rename them, and stick them in the appropriate subfolders. IOW, the new unit would be a simple plug-in up to this point.
The stats and text are another matter. You have to append the new unit's stats and text to the existing files that contain all this info for the existing units (crusaders_unit_prod11.txt, descriptons.txt, and names.txt). This means you CAN'T simply add a new unit as a plug-in http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif. It also means that different players will have different versions of these files if they have different new units, which might mean no multi-player between them.
Because you have to define all the strat info for the unit, you can't simply make new units solely for historical battles. You have to at least fake incorporating them into the strat game w/out breaking that http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

Right or wrong?

Quote Tell me what you want exactly and I'll
see if I can help.[/QUOTE]

Thanks muchos.

What I want to do is make some generic units for the English Civil War. I figure the existing arquebusiers and serpentines will work as-is (except maybe removing the "weapon causes fear" thing because by then guns were old hat) so what I really need are the standard cavalry and pikemen, as follows:

ECW Cavalry:
Weapon: sword. Armor: back-and-breast, no shield, no horse armor. Normally deploys in 3 ranks. Has higher charge bonus than existing sword-armed cav due to firing pistols just before impact. However, these pistols don't give them any ranged attack, they're basically a 1-shot bonus on melee. I'm thinking of stats along the following lines:

CHARGE: 6
ATTACK: 3
DEFENSE: 3
MORALE: 2
ARMOR: HALF PLATE (4)
WEAPON: SWORD
SHIELD: NONE
HORSE ARMOR: NONE
MARCH SPEED: 9
RUN SPEED: 20
CHARGE SPEED: 22

From a graphics POV, I think the battlefield sprites of Byzantine Cavalry look closest to ECW cavalry, but I don't think there's as good an analog for icons so any cav would probably work.

ECW PIKEMEN
This is mostly a stat change to reflect the fact that many of them were conscripts (low morale) yet had the back-and-breast armor. It's my understanding that attack and defense ratings represent skill, so these wouldn't be as high as Swiss Armored Pikemen. However, by this time pike theory was well-advanced so what training they got would have been good. Thus, I'm thinking along the lines of the stats below:

CHARGE: 4
ATTACK: 2 (+2 VS. CAV)
DEFENSE: 2 (+6 VS. CAV)
MORALE: 0
ARMOR: HALF PLATE (4)
WEAPON: PIKE
SHIELD: NONE
MARCH SPEED: 6
RUN SPEED: 10
CHARGE SPEED: 11

I figure the standard, non-Swiss pikemen look the most like ECW pikemen.

Thanks for the help.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

[This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 09-27-2002).]

[Lord Krazy]

At the moment I am tinkering with cavalry
animations to inplement pistols.
this can be done easaly without changing the animation but I have nearly finshed
them anyway so you might as well have them
if u can't find anything better.
I wish to make English Civil and American
Civil war mods too thats why I'm doing
it .
---------------------------------------------
I have similar views about the foot units.
Although I will probably change the hats
and so on for effect
---------------------------------------------
You seem to have a good idea of the unit
implementation .
---------------------------------------------
If I think of anything else I'll
get back .

If u have any problems feel free to mail
me.

Lord Krazy

[Bullethead]

Lord Krazy said:
Quote I wish to make English Civil and American Civil war mods too[/QUOTE]

Well in that case, I shall leave this in your much more capable hands http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif. When you get the units done, I'll be more than happy to make historical battles with them.

Quote You seem to have a good idea of the unit implementation[/QUOTE]

Only in general--I have no idea what most of the variables in the unit_prod file do, nor any certainty of all the places you need to change the other files.

This has made me REALLY wish for a new feature in the patch: allowing new units to be complete plug-ins w/out having to mess with any of the original game files. Kinda like historical battles. And why not go one further and allow plug-in units that aren't available in the strat game but only in historical or custom battles?

Add a new branch to MTW's directory tree called \Units, with sub-branches for \Strategic and \Tactical. Then each new unit would go in its own subfolder on either of these branches. Within each folder there'd be all the files necessary for the unit. Thus, users could just plunk the unit's subfolder in the right place and that would be that. No more messing with existing files and sticking new files in skads of folders all over the tree.



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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

[Lord Krazy]

You will be able to create a bunche
of units add them using a batch file
and romove it and reinstall original
files.This is a plug in no?

make the mods anyway I'll try
help if I can.I'am busy with the roman mod
right now but the roundheads cavaliers
will be finished soon caus its not as much
work as the rest.

LK

[TomThumbKOP]

I am at work, so I can't look at the files right now, but if someone e-mails me some info, I would be happy to look into making a unit mod program that would do the tedious file modifications for you.

ardowell@earthlink.net

[This message has been edited by TomThumbKOP (edited 09-27-2002).]

[Bullethead]

Lord Krazy said:
[b]Quote You will be able to create a bunche
of units add them using a batch file
and romove it and reinstall original
files.This is a plug in no?[/QUOTE]

Not technically, because it still requires modifying existing files. The ideal would be for the game to know it can look in other places for unit data so you could leave crusaders_unit_prod11.txt and such things completely alone and just have new files with the data for your new units.

Quote make the mods anyway I'll try
help if I can.[/QUOTE]

Well, first you can tell me how to open crusaders_unit_prod11.txt in Exel 2002 so that all the columns work out correctly. I can't figure out how to do that. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif



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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

[Lord Krazy]

quote:

Not technically, because it still requires modifying existing files.
---------------------------------------------
Which files are you talkinig about?
Is the deadpage coor.txt,names and so on.
It's just because my units did not change existing files.They are an add-on that are not compatable with old saved games
but if you make a civil war mod
and you friends download it
whats the problem apart from the fact
you have to have the same version.
Is this not the case in most games?

---------------------------------------------

go to the downloads section you will
find an exel tool or two there
I can't rember what they are called now.
If you cant find them get back to me
I'll locate them.
These tools will let u see everything
in order.I wish I had one before I figured
it out
I use word ,don't ask me y.

LK

[Lord Krazy]

Quote Originally posted by TomThumbKOP:
I am at work, so I can't look at the files right now, but if someone e-mails me some info, I would be happy to look into making a unit mod program that would do the tedious file modifications for you.

ardowell@earthlink.net

[This message has been edited by TomThumbKOP (edited 09-27-2002).][/QUOTE]

---------------------------------------------
that would be nice.

LK

[Bullethead]

Lord Krazy said:
Quote Which files are you talkinig about?
Is the deadpage coor.txt,names and so on.
It's just because my units did not change existing files.They are an add-on that are not compatable with old saved games[/QUOTE]

I'm talking about the crusaders_unit_prod11.txt, names.txt, and descriptions.txt files. These are existing files that contain the info for all existing units. When you make a new unit, you have to append the data for new units to these files. Because of this, you have to include in your mod a version of these files with the data for your new units inserted in the correct places.

The problem is, suppose several people make new units and the end user wants to be able to use them all at once. Assume each mod is like yours and comes with versions of the above files that differ from the original only in the data for the units in each mod. Thus, to use all the new units at once, the end user has to make his own version of these files, carefully pasting in the data from all the mods. This is especially confusing for names.txt where you have to make multiple entries in different places.

If new units were actual plug-ins, none of this would be necessary. All the data for each new unit would reside in its own subfolder. No existing files would have to be changed at all, and there'd be no pasting required. Just unzip the mod to the correct location and that's it. Then all new units would be available all the time and you could keep adding new units w/out having to mess with anything else.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

[Lord Krazy]

I see ,what you want is to be able to
have an addon that you dont have to remove.
Talk to the developers or somebody smarter
than me.All you can have at the moment
is a plugin which you have to plug out.

I mean use yor head ,the prod can take
more units but how many.
Let's say 500 I wish
Let's say LK and co make 400 units
and the other people make 600 units
lets say they were desinged for
100 campaignes, where are you going to put
them?

So even if we could have 500 more units
which we can't we'd still need to add and
remove stuff.

I hope you get my point.I'm trying to be
smart I just want to let u know the things
I'v been thinking about in an effort to
resolve this problem.

LK

[Lord Krazy]

Btw I did not say any of this,I wrote
it all without moving my lips LIS.

LK