How to relocate cities?

[higgadt]

Hi everyone!

I'd like to ask a more experienced modder to explain me how to relocate cities in BC 2.32?

I really love this mod, have made my share of text editing to try to reach a more historical state of 1174 for my own pleasure, but can not manage to relocate some of the settlements that really need to relocated. In a few cases I can get around this problem by simply renaming the city to a historically and/or geografically more accurate one (like: Yerevan>Dvin, Ani>Artanuji, Kirkuk>Arbil and so on) but in other cases this doesn't work because there's no historically more or equally important alternative (like: the capital of Bahrayn, Amorion, Ardabil, Shamakha, Ajmer, Gwalior and a few more) and this saddens me a lot...

The easiest way to do what I'd like would be to change the coordinates of the settlements, but as far as I know this can't be achieved via text editing because there's no file which could be edited with Notepad that would contain them.

I know that there's Geomod also, but I just can't get it done with it.
It doesn't read BC 2.32.
It starts with Bare BC and I can make the desired changes with it (which is to relocate a city, nothing else), but when I copy the newly altered map_regions.tga into mods/BC/data/world/maps/base and delete the original map.rwm the game crashes upon selecting a faction.

What is the solution?

[elias athenian]

Open the map_regions of Broken Crescent in data/world/maps/base and relocate the black pixel wherever you want in this region. The black pixel should not touch any other region. When you do that, save, close and delete map.rwm in world/maps/base folder. Then go and start a new campaign.

[k/t]

Gigantus corrected the BC files so BC would run on Geomod. You'll have to download the corrected ones. Unless that's what you mean by Bare BC.

Maybe you selected an impossible place for a city.

After you change the city position, whether with Geomod or an image manipulating program, don't forget to change the garrison's position as well, in descr_strat.

[higgadt]

Well, it still doesn't work for me, so I will try to break down what I'm doing so one of you may notice what am I missing!

1. I made a clean installation of Broken Crescent 2.3 (without the patch 2.32) into C:/Sega/Medieval II Total War/mods
2. Opened Bare_BC (the Broken Crescent compatible version of the Geomod folder family made by Gigantus, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...roken+Crescent) which is in a different folder then the mod, with the latest version of Geomod (which is o.6.18 EN)
3. With Geomod relocated Ajmer from x386 y186 to x387 y196 (which is not in an impassable zone, neither corresponds to any feature and is of course within the same region) then validated the change and saved upon exiting.
4. Copied all the files in Bare_BC folder, where the changes were made, into the correct folders in mods/Broken Crescent
5. Converted all the string bins and deleted map.rwm

Still, when I want to start a campaign it steps back into the main menu.

[k/t]

Don't you have to delete the string.bins, not convert them? The game remakes them from the text files.

What does the log say? Is it set to "trace"?

[higgadt]

Well, regarding the logging system it is already quite strange to me, that it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't: in about 65% of the cases it creates a logs folder, but in 35% of the cases it just doesn't do anything.

It isn't a huge problem, not like the others...

If I copy the files from Bare Broken Crescent by Gigantus into the respective folders of BC 2.3.2.2 to be able to modify the files with Geomod, the game steps back into the main menu upon selecting a faction.

Here's what the log says:

12:54:03.817 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 821, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.817 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 821, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.817 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 965, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.817 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 965, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.818 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1113, column 5
The city core building level should be one less than the settlement level!

12:54:03.818 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1113, column 5
The city core building level should be one less than the settlement level!

12:54:03.825 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1298, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.825 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1298, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.830 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1914, column 16
Population of 5000 is too high for a town - max is 4000
12:54:03.830 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1921, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.830 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1921, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.830 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1949, column 16
Population of 7000 is too high for a town - max is 4000
12:54:03.830 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1956, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.831 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1956, column 5
The castle core building level should be EQUAL the settlement level!

12:54:03.836 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 2101, column 14
couldn't find Yusuf bin_Ayyub's character_record
12:54:03.837 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 2110, column 1
The character record Crown Prince Uthman is set as faction heir but is not in the family tree.
12:54:03.837 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 2110, column 1
The character record Esmatdin is neither married, nor has a father and will be ommited from the game. She needs to be defined as a relative
12:54:03.837 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 2110, column 1
The child character record Ghazi has no father and will be ommited from the game. THey need to be defined as a relative
12:54:03.837 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 2110, column 1
The child character record Khidr has no father and will be ommited from the game. THey need to be defined as a relative
12:54:03.841 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/broken_crescent_kingdoms/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 2501, column 34
Couldn`t find spouse Sibylla

Line 821 means Nicaea, 965 Seleukeia, 1113 Varna, 1298 Ankara, 1914 and 1921 reflect to Ibrim, 1949 and 1956 to Tayma. The rest is self explanatory.

Some of these "errors" are legit: the settlement levels of Seleukeia, Ibrim and Tayma are set to town altough they should be large towns because they are supposed to be castles in the game. This can be corrected easily.
However Varna being a castle is already at the correct settlement level of large town, the fortresses of Nicaea and Ankara are already set to large city - as they should be. What the heck?
If I play around and change the type of the settlement, or change the level of the settlement, or the population, or the buildings after a fairly lengthy usage of the trial and error method I can come up with something that is seemingly all right. I can get to a point where the error messages are only concerning the characters.

As for them: Sibylla being older than 16 should be on the map as an agent (princess) so that's fine, and easy to solve.
But what the hell is wrong with poor Yusuf (Saladin)???? /:He is the source of the problem with the other Ayyubid family tree issues as well.:/ He's older than 16 and alive, so he doesn't need a character record as the log says. He has coordinates, traits, everything: not a comma is missing but the engine still can't find him... The components od his name are registered in desc_names. His parents, spouse and children are also in the right places.
Well, I tried to rename him, play around with the family tree (changing the order of the records, giving him a character record or completly omitting him) but nothing works. The beauty of it is that when I do this I get newer and newer error messages concerning settlements not being at the adequate level which previously didn't appear... Literally, if I solve one problem two others are spawned...

I've spent days trying to figure out a way to make this work and I'm getting to a point where I'm coming to the conclusion that Geomod just can't handle BC 2.3 or even worse: it is intentionally programmed in a way that prohibits any changes on the campaign map...

So annoying and so sad...

[higgadt]

In the last couple of days I experienced with GIMP and that at least works, altough it is way more complicated and time consuming than using Geomod would have been...
So, in case anyone is interested in modifying the maps of BC 2.3 I suggest GIMP and forgetting about Geomod.