How to change borders in Stainless Steel 6.4

[pandras82]

Hello,

I would like to change borders on the map. Nothing else, only borders. Is there a guide how to do that?

Thank you.

[lolIsuck]

I doubt there's a tutorial for that, I can't find any but it is pretty easy. All you need is map_regions.tga and GIMP or Geomod and you can alter the borders. The only thing you have to pay attention to is that the ports and cities of the regions don't get on a border pixel as that way the map won't know which region they belong to.

[pandras82]

Thank you for the quick reply. Well, there is a region that has port. Can I cut it and add to another settlement? Because I would like to that settlement without port. Is that possible?

[lolIsuck]

Yes you can do that, what region is it? You have to make sure there is no port built in that region yet, otherwise it will not work.

[pandras82]

Targoviste region. I would like to change its borders and remove its port. Also I would like to add a port for Zagreb region. Is that possible?

[lolIsuck]

It shouldn't be a problem for Targoviste, it hasn't got a port constucted. You can check this in the descr_strat.txt file:

settlement castle
{
	level large_town
	region Targoviste_Province

	year_founded 0
	population 3100
	plan_set default_set
	faction_creator hungary
	building
	{
		type core_castle_building castle
	}
	building
	{
		type hinterland_castle_roads c_roads
	}
	building
	{
		type castle_barracks mustering_hall
	}
}

This is the descr_strat entry for Targoviste, descr_strat determines ownership, buildings present and settlement size as well as the location of starting armies and resources. As you can see there is no port so you're all good to go.

Just select another region's colour, colour the part of Targoviste region you want to give to the other region and delete Targoviste's port pixel (the white one, RGB value 255, 255, 255) by colouring over it with the region colour.

Attachment 261245Attachment 261246

For Zagreb, select Zagreb's colour and colour over a part of Ragusa's region so Zagreb's region reaches the sea too. Than you can add a port pixel to the region, this will be a bit harder because you have to make sure that the pixel is on a valid tile and borders the sea. It's best to open map_ground_types.tga too and make sure that you don't put the port on an invalid tile (low mountains, high mountains, impassable, dense forest), in this case you mainly have to pay attention to low mountains, the brownish colour (98, 65, 65 RGB). This is way easier in Geomod because you can easily switch between maps and you don't have to worry about the different map sizes. (map_ground_types is twice the size of map_regions and ports and cities are placed on 9 ground_types tiles).

Okay, here's how to add a port to Zagreb via Geomod:

First, you select Zagreb's province:
Attachment 261248

Than you expand the province to the coast:
Attachment 261249

After this you switch to map_ground_types, select the "move" option for port and find a spot to put your port, bordering the sea and not on an invalid tile or on a border.
Attachment 261250

Than you save and you're good to go.

[pandras82]

Thank you very much for the help. what is about the sea trade routs for the new Zagreb's port? Is there anything to do with that? Or is it automatically generated?

Cheers

[pandras82]

One more thing. I would like to make these changes on the late era map. Targoviste has a port from the beginning I think. Is it a problem?

[lolIsuck]

Thank you very much for the help. what is about the sea trade routs for the new Zagreb's port? Is there anything to do with that? Or is it automatically generated?

Cheers

They'll automatically generate.

One more thing. I would like to make these changes on the late era map. Targoviste has a port from the beginning I think. Is it a problem?

Yea, you'll have to open descr_strat.txt and delete this for the Targoviste entry:

	building
	{
		type port port
	}

That's all.

[pandras82]

One more thing noble sir

When I go home I will make these changes. I hope I won't mess these things up.

By the way, is it possible to rename and move a settlement? Merge half of the Salzburg's region with Inssbruck's region, merge the other half with half of Wienna's region, move Salzburg to south, make a port for it , then rename to Trieste.

[lolIsuck]

Sure it is, this is very easily done in Geomod and not too hard without it either. First select Salzburg's region colour and move the region to where you want it, give the old part to Innsbruck and Vienna, move the city and place a port. With Geomod the renaming is as easy as changing the second entry for the name and press validate, don't forget to do the same for the province.
Attachment 261315
Without Geomod it's not much harder, the first part stays the same but for the renaming you need to change some stuff in the Imperial_campaign_regions_and_settlements_names.txt, which can be found in the data/text folder. You need to find the lines for Salzburg and change the part I put in red:

{Salzburg_Province}Austro-Bavaria
{Salzburg}Salzburg

The first entry in Geomod and the part in brackets here don't neccesarily need to be changed, they're the internal names for the game and will not be displayed.
After you've done this you need to delete the imperial_campaign_regions_and_settlements_names.strings.bin file. This will regenerate after you've started a new game.

Note that the garisson of the settlement will not change with the settlement, it will stay on the old location so to have a garisson in the settlement you will either have to relocate the old army or create a new one.

I'd advice you to do all of this in Geomod as that will be quite a bit easier, faster and leaves less room for errors but if you're hardcore you could do it without.

To move characters in Geomod, tick the characters box to show them, select the region the army is in and select "sort by region" in the characters tab. Select the guy you need, Markus is the commander of Salzburg, and move him to whereever you want. If you don't want Trieste to be part of the Holy Roman Empire you'll need to change the ownership of the settlement from Holy Roman Empire to the faction of your choice under the "Various" tab of the Regions panel.
Attachment 261316
If you want to change ownership you can also create a new garisson for the settlement under Characters>New. Choose a name for the guy, choose wether he's a captain or a general and choose his army, it's not very hard and pretty selfexplanatory.

Moving armies and ownership without Geomod is a bit more work and requires some stuff to be done with descr_strat, if you want to I can explain that to you too but we'll start here.

[pandras82]

I am having problem with geomod, it does not open the map_regions.tga file, it causes fatal error

"Geomod v0.6.18 requires the language file geomod.txt.strings.bin to operate correctly"

[pandras82]

Ok I managed to start geomod, but when I wanted to save it crashed and stopped and the game crashed too on campaign start.

[pandras82]

When I want to save it stops working and I get a windows 7 error it says the program has stopped working... I only did a simple border change and validated it, didn't cross settlement,port and resource.

I also did the UAC steps.

Any advise?

[lolIsuck]

You can change it manually of course with GIMP and editing the text files, it will take some more time but this kind of stuff is way less likely to happen with GIMP or notepad. I'm not really great at solving errors so you'd better contact Gigantus or we can wait untill help arrives.

[pandras82]

I downloaded GIMP but it was so difficult I did not understand it at all. I have no clue what should I do to make any changes.

[pandras82]

Geomod now freezes on opening at 79%.

[Kaiser Leonidas]

Geomod now freezes on opening at 79%.

According to the Geomod manual that probably means that there's an error with descr_strat.txt

[lolIsuck]

I downloaded GIMP but it was so difficult I did not understand it at all. I have no clue what should I do to make any changes.

GIMP's not very difficult, it might look that way the first time but once you know a few things it gets easier. I will see if I can help you tomorrow, it's rather late now and my Steam account got hacked a few days ago so I'm going to have to solve that first.

[Gigantus]

The first time you use the Geomod tool on an existing mod you have to do two things:

1. Make a backup
2. Open and save the mod in Geomod without doing any edit

The first will save you tears
The second will show you if there is some formatting (or custom entries) that Geomod rejects and then crashes on save. Crashing on save in Geomod means messed up files, hence number 1.