Tutorial [TUTORIAL] How to create Mods

daud.fr · Mar 31, 2009

Hey guys,

First of all let me thank you all, who participated in the creation of the tool...it's just awesome!
I have been following the other tutorial, about adding custom units.
Decided to finish things up by using this tool to create my own mod.
But got a problem...
Once i add the files in,
i get the nice structure too:
Mymod...
...[+]db
.......etc.
However when i try to open the files using the manager, say for editing or whatever,
an error comes up,
for exmaple:
1.Object reference not set to an instance of an object
another one:
2.Unable to read beyond the stream

Same errors come up, when i try to use even the original files...
Am i doing smth wrong?
Any help would be most appreciated!

Just some info:
All the files i did in notepad, unicode, billion times checked, used excel too, everything seems fine.
Followed the tutorials to the letter.
System is Vista..

daud.fr · Mar 31, 2009

P.S. I can still make the pack file, but it causes ctdss...
Just in case, i've attached it to the post

MrThib · Apr 1, 2009

There're two possibilities:
-Make sure you've unchecked "use online definition" in the options of the editor (sometime that's the cause).
-When exporting to exel, you cannot delete rows under exel or that will corrupt the file (you can add some through). So the best way is to delete them in the editor.

joedreck · Apr 1, 2009

For all with CTD's. My tipp.

I make the most errors here:

For example: the name is standard_hussar

standard_hussars
standart_hussars
standard_husars

Sometime I read again and again between the many letters and can't see whats wrong for a while, so look concentrated or copy and past only from one file. :tongue:

tarloch · Apr 1, 2009

why dont u post a picture of the original file structure so people can see how u changed it , then there will be no more confusion on the different names

also i have edited some sound files am i correct in guessing you cannot rename those? current structure is:

z_my_mod_pack/sfx/hud/campaign...then files
emp_lib_button_endofturn_01_v1.00_gme.wav
etc

if i change that name how will game know wot to play for event?
forgot to mention that for the sounds to change i have to save file as a patch file, saving as type "mod" doesnt have any effect

daud.fr · Apr 1, 2009

MrThib said:
There're two possibilities:
-Make sure you've unchecked "use online definition" in the options of the editor (sometime that's the cause).
-When exporting to exel, you cannot delete rows under exel or that will corrupt the file (you can add some through). So the best way is to delete them in the editor.

joedreck said:
For all with CTD's. My tipp.

I make the most errors here:

For example: the name is standard_hussar

standard_hussars
standart_hussars
standard_husars

Sometime I read again and again between the many letters and can't see whats wrong for a while, so look concentrated or copy and past only from one file.

thanks for the replies, it seems that everything i did was just fine, perhaps a crazy glitch withing my versions, which prevent me from doing it right...
So, i just took the patch pak, and deleted, all the unwanted files except for those i am gonna edit...That seems to work fine...Strange...
Will try it in a bit, will post back with the results.

Reiver · Apr 1, 2009

So I created a mod which edited the building_effects_junction and made all building s give double the amount of region wealth. It worked but in in tidying up and deleting all the unnecsessary entries it seems i removed their effects. So, for example, the winery doesn't give any effects other than increasing region wealth.
So what's left in the mod pack is just the GDP alterations but, rather than the mod just override those, it overrides the whole file. Any ideas where i went wrong or is there more info I can provide?

MrThib · Apr 1, 2009

Are you sure you've changed the name of the db?
Else your file overwrite the whole default db not just the modded entries.
That's expained in the tutorial with quotes from CA

tarloch · Apr 2, 2009

also i have edited some sound files am i correct in guessing you cannot rename those? current structure is:

z_my_mod_pack/sfx/hud/campaign...then files
emp_lib_button_endofturn_01_v1.00_gme.wav
etc

if i change that name how will game know wot to play for event?

ok i missed the unicode part so got mod working as "mod" type. any answer on the name change question please?

Bladerunner · Apr 9, 2009

there are many questions about how to add units and permissions and this might really go with the idea of having new and renamed file that are added to the database, but how do i i.e. remove a grouping permission? i can't see this working with the idea of adding lines by introducing a new file. I also had some trouble while try to change from replacing faction table to just have a table with the altered informations.

Ragnorr · May 1, 2009

Sorry in advance for asking a question that has probably been answered in a different thread (but one that I cannot find in my searches).

But.. is there any way to extract a single row instead of the whole table e.i. so I don't have to delete all the extra unchanged rows when I import it to a new pack?
(can't get copy+paste to work when opening a new pack..and cannot make new tables so guess that wouldn't help anyway)

erasmus777 · May 4, 2009

Ragnorr said:
Sorry in advance for asking a question that has probably been answered in a different thread (but one that I cannot find in my searches).

But.. is there any way to extract a single row instead of the whole table e.i. so I don't have to delete all the extra unchanged rows when I import it to a new pack?
(can't get copy+paste to work when opening a new pack..and cannot make new tables so guess that wouldn't help anyway)

Export to .tsv. Make your changes, delete the rest. Then import to the new table.

Ragnorr · May 4, 2009

Ah of course. Well still have to delete manually but does take a lot less time thank you.

Edit: Been fiddling with grouping permissions as well and haven't found any solution other than including the whole table and altering it (e.i. no table name change).

erasmus777 · May 5, 2009

Ragnorr said:
Ah of course. Well still have to delete manually but does take a lot less time thank you.

Edit: Been fiddling with grouping permissions as well and haven't found any solution other than including the whole table and altering it (e.i. no table name change).

You might be able to delete most of the file by including the complete list for the faction you're editing (even if changing only one cell). I had that happen with another table.

uanime5 · Jul 2, 2017

I was looking at the raw XML files for Empire and noticed that they are similar to the Shogun 2 XML files. I found that if I modified these Empire XML files I was able to load them into Tweak (Shogun 2 DB modding tool), which made it easier to edit them. Would anyone find it beneficial if I added all the XML files for Empire into Tweak and released it as a tool?

I would like to make it clear that I don't know if DB tables made by Tweak will work in ETW but even if they don't work they should provide a good framework for making ETW mods.

Leonardo · Sep 9, 2017

uanime5 said:
I was looking at the raw XML files for Empire and noticed that they are similar to the Shogun 2 XML files. I found that if I modified these Empire XML files I was able to load them into Tweak (Shogun 2 DB modding tool), which made it easier to edit them. Would anyone find it beneficial if I added all the XML files for Empire into Tweak and released it as a tool?

I would like to make it clear that I don't know if DB tables made by Tweak will work in ETW but even if they don't work they should provide a good framework for making ETW mods.

I think most people would appreciate that, however, to release it as a resource tool and if you can test it by using HusserlTW's EasyDb tool would be awesome for a newbie like myself.

zoomies · Oct 20, 2019

im using PFM 5.2.4 and a fresh install of ETW 1.5.0 (Definitive edition if that matters) on Windows 10

the game either doesn't apply the changes I make, or it CTDs at start-up. for reference i'm only trying to change euro grenadiers to 160 men just as an initial test

I have followed the various instructions such as extracting the unit database from patch5.pack (and in later attempts the other packs too), renaming the db with a prefix (and not renaming), enabling the mod in the script .txt (or switching to movie type)

Tutorial [TUTORIAL] How to create Mods

Tutorial [TUTORIAL] How to create Mods

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