-mod switch in BI

[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

[player1]

I remember in 1.2 that you needed to have descr_start.txt file from campaign folder in new folder stucture othwerwise custom battles would not starts.

As far as I remember.

[lt1956]

[cF]Adherbal, the 1.3 is bugged also. It will work with the default UNIT files but not a edited one. when I tried it I can get the campaign to work using a vanilla campaign, but not the custom battles and ALL my tests were mainly done of 1.3.

For some reason once your reach an editing point in the file it isnt working on custom battles. just back to the menu. I would say for sure 1.3 is bugged also, but some others tried it and it didnt work also. But again if you use just the default files not edited then yes Custom battles work, but when they a severely edited they dont. Its weird.



Jerome:
Thanks for the reply, Also I am getting Lockups now on some of the units which worked perfectly fine for 1.2? Any reason why this could be happening. I have no idea if anyone else is having this issue? One time I actually got an error on one of them that said vertex something, and it was 8 lines of the same message in the 1 box. wierd.

Also if this helps Jerome, I the pilum units for the AI dont seem to Fire before attacking they just charge. And of course though this isnt a bug if your team can fix the 1st cohorts so they get a consecutive numeral no matter which province they are recruited in, so 10 1st's recruited in 10 provinces equals I-X with different provinces titles of course. its better than 10 1st cohorts with different titles.

[player1]

Custom battles problem SOLVED!

In order to work you need to have copy of data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt file in your mod folder.

Also you need to have copy of whole data\world\maps\base folder in you mod folder.

[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?

[player1]

My main gripe is that you can't make minimod for BI, by just adding mofidied file to new folder.

Instead you need to make whole copy of BI folder and then there to modify files you want.


P.S.
Not to mention that copying could take 10 minutes.

[PROMETHEUS]

Actually to me works .... but I did copy all the bi folder then pasted in my stuff and start editing .....

[player1]

Well of course that works, but it's not very handy at all.

Should every modmaker make an installer that will for 10 minutes copy original files once more, so that mod should work.