Stripped-Down Mod Folder

[alpaca]

Update II 04/29/07

Version 1.1 also contains stripped names and banners

Version 1.1: Download

Update 04/29/07

This is now the stripped-down mod folder, or if you want the stripped-down map 2.0

The stripped down mod folder is a small side project that I made to have a clean base for total conversion mods.
I annihilated a lot of stuff from the vanilla game so you can easily start adding your own factions, etc.
What I stripped was:
- Cultures
- Factions
- Units
- Map (including script, events)
- Buildings (including guilds)
- Rebel Factions
- Faction standing
- Ancillaries
- Traits
- Advice
- Missions

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Well, I made a stripped-down map for testing purposes (to eliminate as much bad stuff as possible) and thought it might be useful for some of you.

It disables all factions except for England, and has only one province (North_America) plus a lot of water. You can also use it to create new maps from scratch, so have fun ;)

Here's a screeny of the regions map so you know what to expect (notice the wee island on the lower left):


You can find it here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1256

[adembroski]

thank you, sir

[Myrddraal]

Brocken link?

[nikolai1962]

Cool.

[alpaca]

Brocken link?

Works for me, but maybe you have to log in on the TWC?

[Harve]

Brocken link?

I think so- ok maybe not

[adembroski]

Having some issues...

Put all this in a mod folder, worked fine... edited files to reflect my map, simply be adding land mass and editing the size of the files (510x337)... all I did was add the land, of the same color as the original piece of land (212-198-206)... changed nothing else (save making all of the .tga's match up) in size and land masses)...

Now when I attempt to start campaign, it does nothing but go back to the single player menu... then I can't even go into the campaign screen unless I back out to the main menu and try again... get the same error. What could cause this?

[alpaca]

Having some issues...

Put all this in a mod folder, worked fine... edited files to reflect my map, simply be adding land mass and editing the size of the files (510x337)... all I did was add the land, of the same color as the original piece of land (212-198-206)... changed nothing else (save making all of the .tga's match up) in size and land masses)...

Now when I attempt to start campaign, it does nothing but go back to the single player menu... then I can't even go into the campaign screen unless I back out to the main menu and try again... get the same error. What could cause this?

Heh you're lucky, at least you get an error that has a proper error message.
Enable error logging and see what it throws up.

[adembroski]

Heh you're lucky, at least you get an error that has a proper error message.
Enable error logging and see what it throws up.

Seems it doesn't like the location of the settlement... which is odd, I didn't move it.

EDIT: okay, moved the settlement and characters away from the edge of the map, and now I'm getting a lockup once it gets past the loading screen.

I enter campaign, it holds for a while (presumably building the map), then goes to the England intro. After that I hit the normal loading screen, which loads normally, then a black screen with just the hourglass cursor on it and it locks there... I can't even ctrl-alt-delete out, I have to shut down my system with the power button to get out... similar to the time-stamp issue after unpacking. Error log is blank.

PS- 100th post, hurrah!

EDIT: Finally waited it out and got an error report... yay... unspecified.

13:23:31.015 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE
13:23:31.015 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Dec 5 2006 version development ===
13:23:31.140 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack
13:23:31.218 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack
13:23:31.328 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack
13:23:31.765 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack
13:23:32.203 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack
13:23:32.312 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack
13:28:03.250 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

[adembroski]

By the way... have you noticed that the outline of the original map is still present on yours? Almost like the continent is underwater?

[adembroski]

Is there any reason 0x0 is valid on the stripped down map, but invalid for mine?

[alpaca]

The outline comes from water_surface.tga which I didn't edit to bother. If you don't like it, you can replace it with a single color or something ;)

Anyways, did you think of changing descr_terrain.txt to reflect the new map size?
There could also be a discrepancy between some of the files. They need all to have the correct size, otherwise all you have to change is map_regions, map_heights and map_groundtypes (the rest can just be resized, staying mono-color for testing purposes)

You could try only adding small bodies of land at a time instead of the whole thing.

[adembroski]

The outline comes from water_surface.tga which I didn't edit to bother. If you don't like it, you can replace it with a single color or something ;)

Anyways, did you think of changing descr_terrain.txt to reflect the new map size?
There could also be a discrepancy between some of the files. They need all to have the correct size, otherwise all you have to change is map_regions, map_heights and map_groundtypes (the rest can just be resized, staying mono-color for testing purposes)

You could try only adding small bodies of land at a time instead of the whole thing.

Yes, I changed descr_terraint.txt, adjusted all the map sizes, and added land masses to the appropriate ones.

[adembroski]

This is getting a tish old... grr... anyways, i keep getting the same error over and over...

05:09:24.125 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mymod/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 329, column 1
You have chosen an invalid tile(0, 0) for the settlement of Miccosukee

The problem is, Miccosukee is a.) no longer at 0x0, and b.) worked fine in your stripped down map.

If I move a settlement (ie the black pixel), do I need to change any of the text files to reflect that?

PS- Yes, I'm deleting map.rwm

[alpaca]

Well, all I can say is tell you again to try and add the land mass part by part to see what's afoot (start by expanding the small island).
How did you crop your images by the way? You need to cut stuff from the top and right if you want to preserve the existing land.

[adembroski]

Argh... well, I figured it out... it's always the simplest crap.

Somehow when I adjusted the map, I apparently changed the color of the dang settlement square. Changed to 0-0-0, works fine.

Really appreciate your help, alpaca, you've been awesome.

[Tominokar]

Hi,
Thanks very much for the map Alpaca. I've built something onto it (and cropped it down a bit) but can't seem to get it working, crashes when I click start campaign (without creating a log file). I'm sure I've edited all the necassary text files without mistake.

I was wondering if you could take a look and see what's wrong?

Link in my next post.

[Tominokar]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1272

[alpaca]

Sorry mate, I usually make it a principle to not fix other people's stuff for them directly.
I can try to help you if you give me a detailed description of what you did, but the first thing you should do is to undo everything and apply the changes one at a time. This will most likely deliver you with the solution.

[Tominokar]

Sorry mate, I usually make it a principle to not fix other people's stuff for them directly.
I can try to help you if you give me a detailed description of what you did, but the first thing you should do is to undo everything and apply the changes one at a time. This will most likely deliver you with the solution.

By no means did I expect you to fix it for me, I just thought it would be easier and quicker if I showed you what I had done rather than explaining it. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression

Basically I've added most of the North American continent, the terrain map comes to 1001x851. I'm positive all the other map sizes are correct.

Firstly I was getting a CTD once the loading bar had gone all the way across, and I pinned this down to there being one giant province. Once I removed a lot of the terrain (leaving Central America) it loaded fine. So I added 19 more random provinces named one, two, three etc. I've added these to descr_sound_music_types, descr_regions, imperial_campaign_regions_and_settlement_names, descr_regions_and_settlement_name_lookup and descr strat. With this last one I just copy and pasted all the stuff from your City, like buildings and stuff, to the new provinces.

[alpaca]

You sure you don't get an error? Each settlement needs the settlement keyword before the actual tag in descr_strat

settlement
{
...
}
settlement
{
...
}

What you have is:

settlement
{
...
}

{
...
}

[Tominokar]

Thanks for pointing that out, I still get the crashes though As a matter of fact I do get a series of errors, just a log file isn't created.

[alpaca]

Thanks for pointing that out, I still get the crashes though As a matter of fact I do get a series of errors, just a log file isn't created.

Well try using the backup from before you added the provinces (always make backups of working versions by the way) and add them one by one.

[Tominokar]

Well try using the backup from before you added the provinces (always make backups of working versions by the way) and add them one by one.

Problem is that didn't work either 'cos of the size of the province, how many more do you think I'll need to add before it will?

[alpaca]

Problem is that didn't work either 'cos of the size of the province, how many more do you think I'll need to add before it will?

You might want to try to make these islands one province each, but I'm not really an experienced mapper, I'm sure wilddog could tell you more about that.

[Tominokar]

Thanks for the advice Alpaca, after many hours I got the whole landmass working I did what you said and started again, adding piece at a time then trying out a province. I learnt a lot in the process, and could probably do it all again in 10 minutes now. I'll post some pics when I get it looking pretty.

[Makanyane]

Hi Alpaca, I've installed the stripped down map in the hope that I could work from that forwards to answer why variations of new maps /campaigns we have been trying have been giving random "M2:TW encountered an unspecified error and will now exit". Unfortunately the un-modified stripped down map does it for me as well, random crash normally occurs at end of first or second turn but once past that point seems OK. Crash occurs roughly one in every three loads.

That is running with M2 unpacked, with map in mod-folder, using .bat to launch, -io in .cfg file. M2 is using the unofficial 1.02 patch - but we were having same problem with other new maps under 1.01 so I don't think it is just related to that.

Wilddog was wondering about missions causing problems but I am confused as no-one else seems to be reporting similar difficulty. Any ideas?

[alpaca]

Well I have the same problem. For me the map usually crashes on the rebel turn (I expanded the map a bit and added more provinces). I don't have any theories yet as to what causes it (and in fact there are probably multiple reasons).
I noticed that it sometimes gets worse if you use different ai settings so one of the problems could be pathfinding. I really don't know.

[wilddog]

Alpaca
True it might be a size thing causing the error through pathing but as the remainder was sea I'm not so sure. I don't know whether there is something tied to missions or one of the random 'comparison' events (ie you're the biggest, richest etc type things) that may cause it as there's only one province one faction to compare. However I've had similar random crashes where I have a big map and several factions so not sure.

Spent some time this afternoon trying to work out where it was happening and all I could get to is that it seemed to occur regularly between the top and bottom of these log issues. The last definite line to appear was the top one and the only guaranteed line if it didn't crash was the last one - the others being tied to events etc).

19:04:46.671 [system.io] [info] open: found data/ui/northern_european/eventpics/end_of_turn.tga (from: I:\Medieval II Total War unofficial 1.2)
[19:04:46.671 [game.script.trigger] [trace] Trigger <0578_Unexplored_Army_Fleet_Idle_Trigger> fired
19:04:46.671 [system.io] [trace] file open,,data/ui/southern_european/portraits/portraits/old/generals/000.tga,26540
19:04:46.671 [system.io] [info] open: found data/ui/southern_european/portraits/portraits/old/generals/000.tga (from: I:\Medieval II Total War unofficial 1.2)
19:04:46.671 [game.script.trigger] [trace] Trigger <0006_UI_Panel_Settlement_Icons_Trigger> fired
19:04:46.671 [game.script.trigger] [trace] Trigger <0046_P_Normalise> fired

We're now trying to set up some scenario's to test on a smaller map which may point to either pathing or memory. Although even in Vanilla I used to get odd crashes early on so I don't know whether there's still a bit of a bug problem... I'm pretty much out of ideas on this one.

[nikolai1962]

I noticed that it sometimes gets worse if you use different ai settings so one of the problems could be pathfinding. I really don't know.

I think it is pathing somehow. In my version i've added a chunk of land but not much and it crashes now and then. Used to crash on the first end turn every time when i had one particularly huge region. Maybe pirates trying to find land on the other side of the map or something silly like that.