Help me Get Started on Fictional Units Mod

[EmperorBatman999]

I'm planning to work on a fictional unit mod which will have:
Great Britain-The Irish Guard (Bulkeley's regiment for GB)
4 units max
Russia- Musket Streltsy (Foot streltsy with fire arms)
Armed with muskets, axe replaced with sword (Animation issues)
Unlimited
Russia-Steltsy Archer (Foot streltsy with bows)
Powerful, talented but expensive archers armed with swords (Need help on equipment theme)

However, the guides sound too confusing, so can somebody please break the unit making tutorials to a level that a noob-modder could understand?
I have PFM 1.11B (Units_tables is accesible)
And also how to put it all in a mod file (What paths will I nee, etc., note that I also have plans for desriptions and will need help on the loc file, too)
All the help would be appreciated.
By the way, Erasmus will probalbly think I made a thread like this already, which I did, but got lost in the switch-over.

[erasmus777]

I'm planning to work on a fictional unit mod which will have:
Great Britain-The Irish Guard (Bulkeley's regiment for GB)
4 units max
Russia- Musket Streltsy (Foot streltsy with fire arms)
Armed with muskets, axe replaced with sword (Animation issues)
Unlimited
Russia-Steltsy Archer (Foot streltsy with bows)
Powerful, talented but expensive archers armed with swords (Need help on equipment theme)

However, the guides sound too confusing, so can somebody please break the unit making tutorials to a level that a noob-modder could understand?
I have PFM 1.11B (Units_tables is accesible)
And also how to put it all in a mod file (What paths will I nee, etc., note that I also have plans for desriptions and will need help on the loc file, too)
All the help would be appreciated.
By the way, Erasmus will probalbly think I made a thread like this already, which I did, but got lost in the switch-over.

I'm borrowing bits from this tutorial: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=238847

1) Open patch.pack with the Pack File Manager. Right click and "extract" to your data folder the following files:
building_units_allowed
unit_stats_land
unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions
units
units_to_groupings_military_permissions

2) After you've done that, leave the PFM open, click "File" and select "New." You will be asked what folder you want your .pack to be relative to: choose your data folder. You'll now see a header for the file directory. Right-click on "Untitled", highlight "Change Pack Type" and select "Mod".

3) Go to "File" and "Save as" your mod name.

4) Right-click in the left window (anywhere is fine). Select "add file" (you can also press "Insert" on your keyboard) and add the files you extracted in step 1. They'll be in the data folder located relative to their place in the original file. In this case, open file "...empire total war/data/db and you'll find the files you're looking for.

5) Open the unit_stats_land table. Click on "Options" above the right window and uncheck "Use first column as row header." Find the unit you'd like to customize and click in the empty cell on the left to highlight the row.

6) With the row highlighted, press "Copy Row" at the top of the window (you can "Clone" but it doesn't always transfer all the information in the cells--copy is better). Then press "Add Row" and then paste the row you've added at the bottom.

7) Give your unit a new name and edit your unit stats. For the animations, find other units that are armed similarly and make sure that your animation table is the same as their's. Your streltsy, for example, will probably want man_musket_sabre. Also look at how those similar units are configured to make sure you're making the right changes.

8) After you've made your changes, click in a cell that you haven't edited and hit cntrl-s to save. If you leave an edited cell highlighted when you save, you'll lose your changes.

9) Open "Units." Copy the row for a comparable unit like you did in step 6. Make your changes and save.

10) In building_units_allowed and unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions, sort the tables by the column with the unit name. To do this, click on the column header. Find a similar unit to the one you're creating and highlight its first row and "Clone" (cloning works well when there are only a couple of cells). Do this for all the rows for that unit.

11) Change the cloned rows so they have your unit's name. Once you're comfortable with these tables and how they work, play around with them.

12) Repeat steps 5-11 for all the units you'd like to make.

13) Open units_to_groupings_military_permissions, add your units and assign them to the groups you want to use them.

14) Once you've made all the changes you want to make, go back to the tables you've been editing and delete the rows you left unedited. The easiest way is to highlight the first row you want to delete and then press shift-click on the last row you want to delete (just make sure you haven't edited anything in between!). Delete the rows until you only see the ones that you created. Do this for all the tables.

15) Right-click on each of the table names and rename them. It doesn't matter what you change them to so long as they are changed. If you leave the original name, the game will think you want to overwrite the entire table. By changing the name, the game now knows you only want to amend the table.

You're done editing the tables.

Follow the tutorial I linked above for textures.

16) To create screen names, etc, you'll need a second file. Open local_en.pack (or whatever it is for you) with the PFM . Extract the localisation.loc file. Create a new .pack as you did in step 2, but select "Movie" for the pack type. Add the loc file to your pack.

17) At the bottom of the loc file, give your unit a screen name by typing
"units_on_screen_name_xxx_xxx" (x= your unit name) and then unit name in the right column.

18) If you want to add descriptions, etc, you'll want to export the loc file to .tsv. Then use your spreadsheet to open and edit it. If you don't have a spreadsheet program, download OpenOffice and use Calc. Sort by the left column and you'll easily locate the various naming structures you can use. After editing the tsv file, import it back into your .pack.

19) Do not delete the unedited portions of the loc file. Save your work.

Put your loc file in your data folder and load your mod file as a mod and you should be in business.

[EmperorBatman999]

Thanks, but how do I "Extract"? Copy and paste?
Also when I extract, does it HAVE to be in data?

[erasmus777]

Thanks, but how do I "Extract"? Copy and paste?
Also when I extract, does it HAVE to be in data?

I wrote it down for you. Step 1: right-click on the table and choose extract selected. Step 6: highlight a row and press "Copy Row" at the top of the window. There is no other copy/paste functionality other than entire rows.

It doesn't HAVE to be there, but it's going to get screwy if you don't understand the entire file structure. Let's say you extract them to "My Mod" folder. You'll need to select "My Mod" when you're asked what folder you want your pack to be relative to in step 2. As far as I know, there's no way to change that once you've create the .pack.

[EmperorBatman999]

I also don't really understand the part with the data, how will the section appear in there?
And I just wanted to extract them all to a seperate folder in step 1, not a data folder, will that mess it up?

[erasmus777]

I also don't really understand the part with the data, how will the section appear in there?
And I just wanted to extract them all to a seperate folder in step 1, not a data folder, will that mess it up?

It's much easier if you print the the directions or have them on screen when you're looking at the PFM. Start the PFM, open patch.pack and everything will start to make sense. It's really the only way to learn: play around with it. Nothing will get broken.

You can extract the tables to a different folder, but you'll need to select that folder when you're asked what folder you want the directory to be relative to in step 2. In either case, the tables will be in subfolders inside a folder called "db". "db" will be in whatever folder you extract the files to.

[Mouth Of Sauron]

this tutorial was very helpfull, thanks, big up

[EmperorBatman999]

It keeps telling me if I want to overwrite the files in step 1, do i want to

[erasmus777]

It keeps telling me if I want to overwrite the files in step 1, do i want to

You must have previously extracted the files. As long as that's the case and you aren't overwriting any changes you want to keep, yes, go ahead.

[b0b9]

Wait i have done all of the editing how do i then play with it

[erasmus777]

Wait i have done all of the editing how do i then play with it

Put the mod pack in your data folder. Load your mod in the Mod Manager or do it the old fashioned way: type "mod [your mod name, no brakets].pack;" in user.empire_script.txt. Save as Unicode. Create or edit the script here:

Vista
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts

XP
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts

[EmperorBatman999]

I can't save the loc file, and what if I want to use my local_en loc file for a new description? How will I convert into a TSV without killing the game?

[erasmus777]

I can't save the loc file, and what if I want to use my local_en loc file for a new description? How will I convert into a TSV without killing the game?

Why can't you save it? Also, why don't you copy it, rename it, and change it to a movie type with the PFM? Then you remove your modded loc file from your data folder if you don't want the changes or if you want to substitute different changes.

[EmperorBatman999]

Save works now, been using a box that's not supposed to be saved.
And wait, explain to me how I can convert my vanilla local.loc file into a movie file?