Help creating objectives submod

[Takarazuka]

I am working on a submod for historical objectives that reflect the expansion of Rome in an accurate way. I have everything done, but the missions just aren't changing in a new campaign; they are defaulting to the DEI missions. I used the DEI missions text under campaigns->main_rome->missions.txt and have my submod loading higher than DEI. I have changed this in the past and it worked, but it isn't now. Do I need to rename missions.txt to something else and then erase all data from missions.txt so it overwrites? Any help would be appreciated!

[TheLonelyEmperor]

Sadly I can't help but I was just thinking how badly more missions in the game would be SO much more enjoyable, at least for people who like to role play it a bit and try to create certain kingdoms/empires and what not.
If you end up creating more missions and it goes well I'd love for you to upload it here mate as I'd be super interested in using them

[Takarazuka]

Thanks! I am struggling trying to figure out what is wrong... I had an old submod called Historical Objectives a couple years ago and it worked fine. No idea why this one won't. I cannot play as Rome without trying to do the secondary objectives and, as we all know, they are insanely hard at times to do and not very well laid out. My submod, using Chapter Objectives (Historically Accurate) by SCVTVM with permission on Steam, has you claiming certain regions and provinces for the objectives and they are all grouped by time periods. All of the "Have 60 units" or "Subjugate X Faction" have been removed. SCVTVM did a lot of research and work on the mod for base game and I would love to get it working for DEI.

[Jake Armitage]

I've never added missions, so I don't know very much about them.
Are you changing the db > cdir tables as well?
db > missions ?
There is also the possibility to trigger missions via script, using "trigger_custom_mission" function.

[Takarazuka]

The cdir tables and missions tables for DEI only add chapter objectives for new playable factions. The keywords for the missions haven't changed from default for Rome. I mucked around a bit and figured out that it is DEI that is still taking precedent over my changes for the chapter objectives. Using KMM to force the load order has no effect either.

[Jake Armitage]

cdir tables (along with the mission script) will properly trigger the missions. If your modded missions do not trigger, means something is missing, or something is wrong.
You don't have to focus on what DeI has/is, you have to focus on what you want to do and then check/remove what can be conflicting or redundant.
If you upload your modded pack I might have a look.

[Takarazuka]

Yea, I am not sure what is missing. I just used the missions.txt contents from DEI (since they have the emp_ prefix for everything for their grand campaign map) and just replaced objectives and all. Attached the pack file... I am still messing around trying to figure it out. For fun and just to see if it works, I copied/pasted all my changes directly in to the DEI pack file for missions.txt and it worked fine. I cannot grasp how DEI is overwriting my submod when I have it loading higher priority.

[Jake Armitage]

I've tried to load the pack and the first roman mission (3 provinces instead of 8 region) is working.
Do you have problems with anything specific?

Now i get you're just changing the mission "descriptions" into the script and not creating new ones.
So, should be ok, until:
- you're describing every mission is inside db > cdir and db > mission (maybe if some are missing it won't work, dunno). Both for dei and rome
- script is correctly typed, something like a simple "," might ruin everyting

So, if something is not working, you have to carefully check EVERYTHING.

Idea is good, btw.

[Takarazuka]

Hmm well this is making me even more aggravated haha! So, you loaded it up and the first mission was to occupy 8 specific regions, instead of the default 3 provinces?? Mine just doesn't work at all.. like the new objectives aren't showing up at all and everything is default.

[Jake Armitage]

no, sorry, I misplaced the txt files I copied from DeI and yours, thinking vice versa. I had still the 3 provinces.

maybe I found an error

this is your script:

objectives_and_payload
{
heading 1_italia_heading;
description 1_italia_description;
objective
{

this is DeI's:


objectives_and_payload
{
heading mission_text_text_objective_rome_1_assertion_power_heading;
description mission_text_text_objective_rome_1_assertion_power_description;
objective
{

you miss a lot of infos for heading and descriptions, it seems.
check local_en pack into rome 2 data to find correct way to describe it .
probably these lacks won't make your missions work, even if it's strange since your txt file should overwrite both DeI's and Rome and so bugging everything.

another weird thing I've noticed is that your mission.txt is not highlighted to overwrite anything, whiole DeI's mission.txt is highlighted to overwrite Rome's
as I've said I've no experience in these things, so I'm just guessing and using logic.

[Takarazuka]

The headings and texts are in the text -> db -> @@dei_missions_text.loc file in the mod. I tested things out and replaced missions.txt (the file and scripts that give you missions) in DEI pack file with mine directly and it worked. So, my modification to the objectives itself works fine, but I cannot get it to overwrite DEI. Hopefully that makes sense. I confirmed that my mod works and there are no errors in the text that would cause it to fail, but it won't overwrite DEI as a sub mod. It's very confusing since I had a submod a couple of years ago that basically did this same thing... changed the chapter objectives for DEI... and it worked fine. I didn't do anything differently this time, but it won't work.

[Jake Armitage]

Weird.

Are you sure that without "mission_text_text_objective_" before your new key, will work?
I don't see any key into loc files without them, only yours.

Your text -> db -> @@dei_missions_text.loc won't overwrite DeI's tab, it will just create another one the game will refer too.
Also I've noticed there are 2 loc tabs in DeI (__Mission_Text_DeI.loc and __Missions_DeI.loc). Maybe the fact one is missing (title or description) won't make your mission.txt working.

Otherwise, the only thing coming to my mind, is that there is some error somewhere into your mission.txt.

[Takarazuka]

Okay... I have no idea HOW or WHY, but changing the name and putting another @ in front of the pack file name made it work. I'm sitting here very bewildered by how mods work in this game with load priority. Anyhow, to answer your questions, the keys are referencing new text for the secondary objectives for Rome, so nothing from DEI has to be overwritten there. Only the objectives themselves on the screen.

But... since it is strangely working, I am going to upload this new copy and let me know if it works lol. If it does, then I will polish it up and put it out for release.

[Jake Armitage]

yep, working.
You know what?
It was the $ you put into pack name, probably $ is not recognized to be valid, as overwritngs weren't higlighted.
Now they are and the first roman mission is properly described.

[Takarazuka]

Yeap! I think that was it. I just updated my old sub mod post and put the release version of the sub mod there. Thanks for your help, Jake!!