BI: Adding new cultures? This is interesting...

[Dol Guldur]

Can We Now Add New Cultures?

Initial tests prove positive.

Follow the following carefully...I am going to try to create a 7th culture, "Chinese". The data folder referred to is of course the BI\data folder:

1. Go into the data\ui folder and create a new folder called "chinese". Copy all the contents of the hun folder into the chinese folder you have just created. This creates a culture folder.

2. open up the data\descr_cultures.txt file and copy the roman entry (first entry, starting on the culture line) to the bottom of that file. Rename the culture line and portrait mapping line to "chinese". This defines the culture. Save.

3. Open up the data\descr_sm_factions.txt file and go to the empire_east entry and rename the culture (2nd line) to "chinese". Save. This assigns that culture to this faction.

4. Open up the data\export_descr_buildings.txt file and add chinese to all building faction requirements. This can be done easily by globally replacing "roman," with "roman, chinese, " (note the space!) (I ignored capability lines). Save. This gives the culture its tech tree.

5. Open up the data\descr_settlement_plans.txt file and add the chinese entry on line 8576 under the plan_sets - give them the Roman_plan_levels for now. Save.

6. I also added the culture to the data\text\bi_expanded.txt file (line 56) though this may not be necessary for it to work.

Run the campaign (play as the Eastern Empire)

You should now see the east_empire has hunnic portraits/interface, so it must be looking in the Chinese culture folder. Building images will be defaulted of course.


Of course, this is by no means complete - this is where I need your help. Can someone who knows more about settlement plans and the like confirm that these can be altered from all other cultures for this new culture?

There may yet still be hardcoded issues here and this may all prove quite useless - but can one of you expert modders please poke around with what I've done and give me some good news? :)

This is not a tutorial (it may all prove useless): It is a discussion. So I have posted it in this forum.

[richyg13]

aha! i had a strong feeling this could be done. will be extremly useful for our mod which contains many different cultures and means you can have individual architecture for each faction and individual interfaces.

[Dol Guldur]

Indeed, that is my hope. 6 cultures is just not enough.

[Atheist_Peace]

This is great news! I was going to try to add a culture myself, but decided to wait and hope someone else would find it out themselves

Hopefully there is not a hardcode limit on the number of cultures, though.

[Epistolary Richard]

This is not a tutorial (it may all prove useless): It is a discussion. So I have posted it in this forum.

Not a problem, but research into _how_ to mod the game (rather than discussing actual mods) I'd prefer to keep in the Modding Questions forum.

Thanks

[Dol Guldur]

Ooops, helps if I read the explanation under the title, eh? ;)

Perhaps it will get noticed in here :)

[Myrddraal]

This is good info. Has anybody actually got it fully working? If someone does, then this is a very good bases for a guide, even though you insist it isn't one yet

[Dol Guldur]

I have it working to the basic degree, alas my understanding of certain areas is lacking and I cannot fully implement it; I do not know how to link up settlement plans with cultures for example.

[Lonely Soldier]

Dol Guldur - I think my colleague already commented, but I have one question - if you are still working on it that is. I was wondering if these changes could be applied to the descr_sound_music.txt as well?

[Dol Guldur]

I have only very briefly looked at sound thus far, and cannot give you an answer. Others are quite welcome to add their own findings ;)

[Simetrical]

For unexpanded RTW, at least, the settlement plans are in data\settlement_plans\, and are referenced per culture in data\descr_settlement_plan.txt. For instance, this snippet:

	plan	Egyptian_Fort			egyptian_fort.txt
	plan	Egyptian_Village		egyptian_village.txt
	plan	Egyptian_Town			egyptian_town.txt
	plan	Egyptian_Large_Town		egyptian_large_town.txt
	plan	Egyptian_City			egyptian_city.txt
	plan	Egyptian_Large_City		egyptian_large_city.txt
	plan	Egyptian_Huge_City		egyptian_huge_city.txt

The plan names are then grouped into plan-level categories, like so:

	plan_levels		Egyptian_plan_levels
	{
		village		Egyptian_Village
		town		Egyptian_Town
		large_town	Egyptian_Large_Town
		city		Egyptian_City
		large_city	Egyptian_Large_City
		huge_city	Egyptian_Huge_City
	}

And then the cultures are linked to the plan-level groups:

		egyptian		Egyptian_plan_levels

Unfortunately, I lack the time to test whether these things work, or rather I feel like spending it on other things.

[Dol Guldur]

I have not been able to create an 8th culture. It has the feel of hardcoding to it, but I may be wrong.

I have modded the files but it CTDs when I add the new culture name to the culture line in the descr_sm_factions.txt - will it perhaps accept no more than 7 throughout the file?

If I leave it out, leaving the vanilla culture name in its place, I receive the error that the new culture is not recognised in the EDB and it CTDs - this would indicate that the descr_sm_factions.txt file assign the existence of that culture to the game.

Is it hardcoded to 6+1?

Jerome? :)