Mod Manager 1.5 (fixed download link)

[chairborne]

I downloaded this but there are no checkboxes and I ran as admin but nothing shows at all. what did I do wrong? I cant get a single mod to work at all. thank you for this im hoping I can get this working with your help

[DukeofMarlborough99]

Hello!

I am interested in trying modding myself could anyone point me in the right direction? I mean what tools should I use and which version?
I wish to do some skins for British line infantry, and perhaps, make an Irish regiment for Britain.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Alwyn]

Welcome, EarlofWessex. I cannot help you with doing skins, but this post might help if you would like to make an Irish regiment for Britain.

You could either make a new unit or edit the existing Irish Brigade unit in a mod pack file. The Irish Brigade unit is already in the game's files. Spain can normally recruit Irish Brigade (possibly Portugal too) - you might want to bear that in mind, if you edit the Irish Brigade. To edit this unit, you would need (at least) a mod pack file containing the unit_stats_land, units_table and units_to_exclusive_faction_permissions entries for the Irish Brigade. (You would need to either change the region in which this unit can be recruited to something like 'britain_home_regions' or 'ireland', or edit the startpos with an ESF Editor to add the 'displaced_irish' resource to the regions_array entry for Ireland.)

Edit: I made a small mod pack to demonstrate how to allow Britain to recruit Irish Brigade regiments. The mod makes the following changes:-
- Irish Brigade can only be recruited in Ireland (this is governed by the 'region ID' column on the units_table)
- Irish Brigade can be recruited with a military barracks (see the building_units_allowed table)
- Irish Brigade have two additional abilities: (1) skirmish fire (all rows can fire at once, not just the first row, like Minutemen) and (2) paths seldom trod (if an army composed only of units with this ability keeps still on the campaign map and out of sight of enemies for about three turns, you will see the soldier representing the army crouching down, showing that the army is ready to ambush. If an enemy army comes close to this army, you will have the opportunity to ambush. If you do this, you will be able to set up your units on both sides of the enemy army's deployment area at the start of the battle; also, the enemy army will start the battle in a column formation.) These abilities were added by editing two entries on the unit_stats_land table from 'False' to 'True'. In Pack File Manager, these columns are headed by the names of the abilities.

How to use the mod: download it from this mediafire link and unzip it (it was zipped with the free software 7zip, which you can find online of you don't have it). Put a copy of the mod in your C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Empire Total War/data folder. That's it - this is a 'movie' type mod so you do not need to activate it with mod manager or user script file. To uninstall the mod, simply remove the file from the Empire Total War/data folder.

How to edit this mod: simply open it an edit it with Pack File Manager. To edit this mod, I used PFM 1.5.3 which is a feature of husserlTW's EasyDB tool. You could use that version or the latest version, PFM 3.5.1.

Credits and Permissions: this little mod was made with Pack File Manager 1.5.9 (by erasmus777) and Pack File Manager 1.5.3 (which is a feature of husserlTW's EasyDB tool). If anyone wants to edit this file and use it as part of your mod, you would be welcome to do that. If you release a mod which uses your edited version of this file, please include a credit saying that you have done so.

[DukeofMarlborough99]

Hello Alwyn.

Thanks for your help and the info, I am noob at all this modding stuff, for now I think I will try the link you provided me with as already have 7zip.

Much obliged to you sir!

[DukeofMarlborough99]

Morning Alwyn.

Last night I tried making my own mod using your tutorial, my question is when I extract the database tables what should be in there? because I have a long list of all sorts of units and buildings.
I also cloned a unit just a little confused as what to do with it now.
I have a screenshot of it just have no clue how to post it.

Thanks in advance.

[DukeofMarlborough99]

Hello Again,

Sorry to bother you I think I have sorted it, I have just deleted everything apart from euro_line_infantry for Britain.
Still unsure what the cloning a unit is for though?

[Alwyn]

You asked what should be in your mod file after you have extracted the database. I normally delete the lines of database tables which I do not intend to use, as in the example of the Irish Brigade mod above.

When you have cloned a unit, your next steps could be to (1) re-name the unit in all of the database tables in your mod which refers to the unit. For example, instead of euro_line_infantry it could be called something like irish_regiment or euro_line_infantry_irish, (2) edit it so that it has the statistics and abilities which you want and (3) make a modded pack file containing a copy of the localisation file and edit it (I use Pack File Manager 1.9 to do this; it is available here) and add a unit name (and, if you want, a unit description). (If you do not make a mod with a localisation file, then your unit will appear in the game but will not have a name, e.g. on the unit card. Unfortunately, if we use more than one modded localisation file at a time, the game will crash, so this will not work if you are using another mod which includes a localisation file, such as the Unit Pack Compatibility Project mod.)

You asked what cloning a unit is for. I use cloned units to create new units. The Irish Brigade mod which I made available above allows Britain to recruit a unit which already exists in the game. Cloning a unit allows you to create a new unit and allow whichever faction(s) you want to recruit it. I cloned and edited unit to create the 'new units' mod for These United Colonies; if you would like to see how this works, you could download the mod file and have a look inside using Pack File Manager.

You wrote that you don't know how to post screenshots. Here's the method which I used for my Ireland AAR:-

- For screenshots, I use the Developers Battle Camera mod (to be able to zoom in and out much further) and Fraps to take pictures (you can download fraps for free).

- Before I start the game, I start Fraps.

- When playing the game, I press f10 every time I want a picture. Fraps saves the pictures in C:/Fraps/Screenshots.

- When I have finished playing the game, I use paint.net (you can download paint.net for free) to open and crop the pictures and to save them in jpeg format.

- I then visit the tinypic.com website to upload each picture (other, similar, photo sharing web sites are available).

- When I have uploaded each picture, tinypic.com provides a code which I copy and paste into my post on the Total War Center forum; the image then appears automatically in the post.

[DukeofMarlborough99]

Hello Alwyn.

Okay so I extracted the localisation.loc table, but that's one hell of a long list, so I will have a good look at it over the next week or so.
I renamed the unit euro_line_infantry_Ireland and tweaked a few statistics e.g accuracy 45 - melee attack 7.
I wish for them to be only recruited in Ireland, so I changed Region IDRef to Ireland, and for them to be only recruited with Military Governors Barracks in Dublin, so I changed Building IDRef to minor_governors_barracks.

Currently my mod pack looks like this;
Ireland_Regiment_Mod.pack
db
building_units_allowed_tables
Ireland_building_units_allowed
unit_stats_land_tables
Ireland_unit_stats_land
unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions_tables
Ireland_unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions
units_tables
Ireland_units
units_to_exclusive_faction_permissions_tables
Ireland_units_to_exclusive_faction_permissions
localisation.loc
text
localisation.loc

Thanks for the info on screenshots aswell I will check it out!

I really appreciate all the help you've given me I would plus rep you if I could!

[mittanan123]

Where is the download link?

[jamespfc]

Hi, I have downloaded he mod manager to install the font size mod, But my mod manager does not look the same? Also i am unable to get the mod working. Can anyone explain what is wrong. [IMG]C:\Users\User\Documents\Halo 5[/IMG]

[jamespfc]

I forgot to put that my Mod Manager does not appear to have the tick boxes

[celmaren]

Hi . Here is my problem: when I have to select mod and when I click on launch, that posts me " application load error 5:0000065434 ".
That have to I make?

[Alwyn]

Welcome, mittanan123, jamespfc and celmaren. There are some people who have managed to make the mod manager work. Unfortunately I am not one of them. I can suggest two ways of working around this problem:-

(1) open mods with Pack File Manager and right-click to change them to 'Movie' type so they work automatically without needing to be activated by Mod Manager. This works for some mods but not others; for example, it doesn't work for the Additional Units Mod. Various versions of Pack File Manager are available to download. I use PFM 1.5.3. which is available with HusserlTW's EasyDB software and PFM 3.5.1, which is available from the Mod Workshop for Total War: Attila (you don't need to own a copy of Attila to use PFM 3.5.1).

(2) using a script file to activate mods. The script file goes in C:/Users/[your user name]/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire/scripts.

In case you don't already have a script file and in case you would like one, I'll attach a zipped user script file. You can unzip it with 7zip, which is free (you can find it online with an ordinary online search).

Before starting the game (when you have a user script file in your Empire/script folder) it is vital to check that the mod files in your C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/Steamapps/common/Empire Total War/data folder match the mod files listed in your user script file. If your user script file contains a mod which is not in your Empire Total War/data folder, then the game will crash on launch. You can edit the user script file with an ordinary text editor, such as Notepad - you don't need to download any special tools to edit the user script file.

When people add instructions to activate mods, they usually start each line with the word 'mod', then put the name of the mod file in quotation marks, with a semi-colon between the name of each mod; they put the name of each mod on a new line, for example:-

mod "Sikh.pack";
mod "pottery.pack"

To install a user script file, just download it, unzip it, edit it so that it contains a list of the mod files you are using and put it in C:/Users/[your user name]/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire/scripts.

To uninstall, just move the user script file to another folder or delete it.

The user script file is Read Only because people have advised players to do that. Of course, you can add more instructions to activate other mods, by right-clicking and selecting 'Properties', to remove the tick from the 'Read Only' box.

[TCcorp]

Hello, I am new to this forum and I have read about using the Mod Manger. It does run for me and I can see the mod on my list but there is no Check boxes for me to enable/disable. However, I have read that a few people is having the same problem and saw that we should try using the pack file manager. Well, when I downleaded the PFM which was PFM 3.5.1 and unzipped it, went to the folder and saw that the files that was unzipping was slowly disappearing and then my anti-virus went haywire. It has detected it as a threat and got rid of the files so that makes me not wanting that software and now I"m curious about the Mod Manger. So seeing that I won't be using the PFM and the Mod Manager is useless to me, how can I get a mod to work for Total War Empire.

Also, I am new to this type of modding for TWE and the mod I'm trying to get working is the Font size because they are way too small for me and I do have vision problem. Thanks in advance.

[bristoled]

NEW: I added rudimentary conflict detection between pack files. It's quite useful to see which files are overwriting which between the various pack files. I also added the ability to view all pack types, not just mod packs. But you can only arrange the load order when viewing mod packs only.

I put together a very basic mod manager which will detect the mod packs you have in your ETW\data directory and allow you to enable/disable and order them as you please. When you launch the game from the mod manager, your user.empire_script.txt will be updated according to how you've set up your mods. When you start the manager, it will detect which mods were configured last time and list those first in the list - any newly detected mod packs are sorted in alphabetical order. Also, don't worry about it overwriting your settings in user.empire_script.txt: Mod Manager will preserve any non-mod-related lines in that file.

Once you check which mods you want enabled, you have to run the game from Mod Manager at least once to set the script up. After that, you can run the game any way.





Note that this software requires the .NET Framework 2.0.

Most people will just want to download this first package and extract it wherever as long as you keep all the files in the package together.
Windows binary: https://sourceforge.net/projects/etw...5.zip/download

If you're curious, you can also check out the source code:
Source code: http://etw-mod-tools.svn.sourceforge...unk/ModManager

Changes in 1.5:
- added an automatic "last used mods" profile that is created when the Launch button is pressed, and read whenever Mod Manager starts up (used in lieu of the broken commenting out of mods in the user.empire_script.txt file)
- fixed profiles to save disabled mod information and to preserve order of all mods

Changes in 1.4:
- fixed crash trying to use an invalid automatically detected ETW path (i.e. the game was moved manually)
- fixed launch button not using user-set ETW path
- fixed reordering of mods
- added saving of ETW path so if auto-detection fails the user doesn't have to find it again every time
- added "Show vanilla conflicts" checkbox to show conflicts in the vanilla files (i.e. ones that came from CA)

Changes in 1.3:
- improved list caption to explain difference between viewing all packs and viewing just mod packs
- added help link to define a "conflict"
- fixed Path.Combine error preempting the failed-to-not-find-ETW-directory failsafe

Changes in 1.2:
- added "Show all pack types" option for viewing non-mod packs
- added conflict detection between packs on a file by file basis
- fixed mod script output

Changes in 1.1:
- mac89 added profile saving
- added delete button for profiles
- changed CheckedListBox to ListView in preparation for displaying readme.xml metadata

Changes in 1.0.1
- fixed crash if no user.empire_script.txt exists when manager starts

Changes in 1.0
- changed encoding of user.empire_script.txt to Unicode
- fixed semicolon at end of line
- added version to form title
- fixed preserving checked state when moving checked items up/down
- added preserving of the last-used mods (preserving both enabled/disabled and load order)
- added preserving of non-mod-related lines in user.empire_script.txt
- added failsafe for user manual selection of path to Empire.exe

I have downloaded the mod manager but I haven't a clue what to do next it all looks very complicated to me.

[Gen. Edward]

I'm getting this, is it normal? I think the program is showing differently to me, just compare the two screenshots. Help! [IMG]file:///C:/Users/Edward/Pictures/Problem.PNG[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/Users/Edward/Pictures/Normal.PNG[/IMG]

[Gen. Edward]

[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Edward/Pictures/Problem.PNG[/IMG]
[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Edward/Pictures/Normal.PNG[/IMG]

[Gen. Edward]

It seems I'm also having problems uploading images. Oh...

[markarh16]

ok help do i need 1.5 or 1.0 first and where do i get 1.0 if thats what i need first

[Pethom]

@Gen. Edward

There are no pictures in your posts. Why didn't you make it possible to see the picture in your first post before you made a new one? You shouldn't put the direction to the picture on your computer but on a webpage like Imgur. Upload your pictures to imgur.com, right click the picture and copy the direction to it. When that is done you paste that direction into "insert image" in your post.

You aren't much of a general if you don't know how to control your own posts. But maybe Gen. Edward means Generation Edward? If that's the case there's not much to say.