-mod switch in BI

[Stuie]

That means that when you're making a mod this way, you're always starting from the Rome dataset, rather than the BI one. If you wanted to make a BI mod which leaves the original BI untouched you could write a little installer which made a copy of the BI directory, renamed it to 'minimod', then installed your extra changed files into it and added a program shortcut to the base directory called "Minimod" which starts rometw-bi.exe with '-mod:minimod' on the command line.

Problem is, that's not working. I made an exact copy of the bi folder and changed nothing, created a new shortcut with -mod:bicopy on the command line, and I get an error:

"Script Error in bicopy/data/descr_items.txt, at line 15, column 9.
include file not found in data/descr_items/:'di_spot_items.txt'"

Considering I changed absolutely nothing, just made a straight copy, that seems a bit problematic.

[Lord Adherbal]

maybe you've missed descr_items.db ? I think that filetype is invisible if you have system files turned invisible, so you might have missed it if you copied all visible files and not the entire folder.

[Stuie]

maybe you've missed descr_items.db ? I think that filetype is invisible if you have system files turned invisible, so you might have missed it if you copied all visible files and not the entire folder.

Nope - it's in there. Are you saying you tried this and it works for you?

[Lord Adherbal]

no, just making sure. I just got BI today

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Nope - it's in there. Are you saying you tried this and it works for you?

It worked for me when I tried it a minute ago... so if it doesn't on a retail build for you guys post it here and I will get someone to look at it.

Any chance of making "double fallback switch" for next patch. Would be great.

The problem is that loading speed in such a system will take a pretty severe hit. But it is something that we may look into.

Besides that Custom Battles will not work with the -mod: switch You can copy info and make a small mod that will load but using all the data from the vanilla the custom battles dont work just like in rtw 1.2

Chances are quite good that we will end up doing a 1.3.1/1.4.1 set of patches to fix various issues like the savegame compatbility problem. Hopefully we will be able to look at this as well.

[Lord Adherbal]

if you make a copy of the whole BI folder and run that custom battles work fine. I tried to work from there adding my mod's export_descr_units file etc but ended up with just the same problem: custom battles won't launch :(

[Jambo]

Can I just ask why custom battles are so important? Battle testing purposes?

[player1]

The problem is that loading speed in such a system will take a pretty severe hit. But it is something that we may look into.

Then please do.
Or you could add special switch for that purpose so that unmoded game doesn't suffer.


Anyway -mod switch really needs to work well, to be accepted in mod community as default way of making mods.

I mean backing up originals and replaing them for every mod gets tiresome after the while (and not user friendy).

[Lord Adherbal]

Can I just ask why custom battles are so important? Battle testing purposes?

well for a start it's very hard to start a mod if you can't even test whether your units work. The first step of porting a mod to BI would be getting the new units to work. But that fails so there's not much point in porting over anything else...

and the campaign options seem to act weird too (clicking the option often gives a "select an option" dialog), but again there's not much point trying to figure that out if the custom battles won't start.

[Lord Adherbal]

I've tried the -mod switch with the RomeTW.exe and that seems to work fine (custom battles work). So it must be that the BI.exe needs a certain file in the BI folder, because it's syntax is slightly different from the RTW folder's equivalent. Or atleast that's my best guess.

If only it would return some kind of error message... I wonder if Jerome could figure out why the custom battles fail ? It's really easy to repeat the problem:
-create a new folder called "test" in the RTW root folder
-create a data folder in this new folder
-copy paste RTW's export_descr_units.txt file in this data folder
-run the BI exe with "-mod:test" parameter
-try starting a custom battle and notice how it won't start

[Anarchon]

I would like to second this plea from Player 1. And make a suggestion and a request.
"Or you could add special switch for that purpose so that unmoded game doesn't suffer.
Anyway -mod switch really needs to work well, to be accepted in mod community as default way of making mods.
I mean backing up originals and replaing them for every mod gets tiresome after the while (and not user friendy)."

Suggestion:
In "Campaign" folders (RTW/Data/World/Maps/Campaign/Players_Mod_Name/) Please make it possible to create a duplicate of the directory tree for the core game. This could be any part of the tree however small or big. And you should only need to have files here which are different from the core game, so no need for 600 odd MB of files. And no need to load things like Myrrdal's 4 turns a year every time you load. Every Mod could then be launched as a Provincial Campaign. You wouldn't need to paste files back and forth every time you wanted to play a different mod or base game. Slitherine were able to implement this system for Spartan Mods very easily. It would make a huge difference in being able to have lots of other folks mods easily accessible and not crucifying your HD capacity. And making minor mods where one only wants a few changes.

Request: Can someone point me to where there are instructions on using the -mod switch. I have searched the forums and can find lots of stuff on it except what it is and how to use it.

[Simetrical]

The problem is that loading speed in such a system will take a pretty severe hit. But it is something that we may look into.

Why not just allow multiple specifications in the -mod switch? So -mod:rtr:bi would check the rtr folder first, then the bi folder, then the base folder, and -mod:custom:rtr:bi would check custom, then rtr, then bi, then base, but -mod:rtr would just check rtr and then base.

I don't see why a quick scan of which folders are present followed by a quick scan of which files exist in the folders that are present should take much time, though, unless your hard drive is really slow.

[player1]

The old Civ3 already does it with expansions.
Although it does have much less txt files (but there are unit animatiobs, graphics, etc...).

P.S.
I would definetly make bug-fixer this way (-mod), if all issues get resolved (double fallback, plus custom battles working). And I guess all moders would switch too, if it starts working in full glory.

[PROMETHEUS]

It is working fine to me , what are the problems u are seeing?