How To: The Ancillary Guide

[NewAgeOfPower]

Wondering if I did something wrong, I reformatted the export_ancillary.txt entries, then tried switching the .tga images to standard images, then edited the stats... no good.



Apologies for wall-of-text ness and multipost, this forum is blocking things I do...

[Gigantus]

Delete the export_ancillaries.STRING.BIN file to generate a new one.

Words and pictures (links) = it's a spam bot measure, once you have more posts that will fall away.

[NewAgeOfPower]

Thank you very much, Gigantus.

Related note, what is the largest possible modifier? Is it possible to make generals Turbo-Hasted (e.g., moves across entire nations in a year) or into a Sith Lord (practically unkillable, with over 100 hp)?

[NewAgeOfPower]

Nope. Doesn't seem to work : [ I'm not sure whats going on, I deleted the files and no new files are appearing when I start a new game.

[Gigantus]

I am not sure if there are limits to the MovementPoints or HitPoints entries. You would have to test that your self. Although putting HitPoints unrealistically high would mean that one unit could wipe out a full stack. After a certain number the movement range does not display correctly anymore on the stratmap, you will have to move the character to determine the actual range.

[NewAgeOfPower]

I am not sure if there are limits to the MovementPoints or HitPoints entries. You would have to test that your self. Although putting HitPoints unrealistically high would mean that one unit could wipe out a full stack. After a certain number the movement range does not display correctly anymore on the stratmap, you will have to move the character to determine the actual range.

Thats the point.

Still can't get ancillaries to work... I've noted files do not appear. MTW2 is pretty inconsistent.

[Gigantus]

files do not appear.

Please be more specific, do you mean the STRING.BIN files? If so, then the TXT files may be formatted wrongly. They need to be saved in 'Unicode' format and have that fancy sign in the first line. Which program do you use to edit the text files?

[NewAgeOfPower]

Notepad.

You saw in the screenshot the sign they had in the files- I used alpaca's handy tool to convert them.

[Gigantus]

Now another thought: VirtualStore problem. Go through the tutorial from step 3 forward. I am assuming that you are using a mod folder, or are you modding the original?

[NewAgeOfPower]

I modded a mod folder, and it sortaseemed to work- except it wouldn't load the tgas. So I placed the tgas into the main folder... >.>

Funny thing is, when I place the files into the original, it 'forgets' ancillaries, but when I fire up the mod bat file, it remembers them despite the ancillary files being in the main data folder and not the mod folder...

[NewAgeOfPower]

My SEGA installation is to my C drive, not Program files- but I changed the permissions as per the thread's Third Solution. Going to be back later.

[Gigantus]

About 'forgetting' - the game looks up files in the following sequence (provided you have the file_first entry in your mod's CFG file):

files in the mod folder
unpacked files in the game's folders
files in the pack files (packs\**.packs)

Please do not forget to check for the medieval II folder in the Virtual Store folder and to delete it if it is present.

[NewAgeOfPower]

It doesn't exist.

Sorry, I meant, if I fire up the original EXE it doesn't 'see' the modified text files that I put into the main >.> but the .bat will.

[Gigantus]

The 'original' EXE will not 'see' the modified\added files as it does not have the file_first entry in it's CFG file. It therefore reads only from the pack files.
The BAT file will lead to the CFG file of the mod which usually has the file_first entry and therefore will first look for modified\added files.
This is the entry I am referring to:

[io]
file_first = true

Seeing that there is no med2 folder in the VirtualStore and you have the file_first entry in your mod's CFG file the only problem here would be a wrong formatting of the data\text\export_ancillaries file.
Can you compress and attach the TXT file here (or upload somewhere and give a link) so I can have a look at it?

[NewAgeOfPower]

As you command.

[Gigantus]

The files look OK, I just did some minor editing (removed trailing spaces, deleted surplus empty lines) and then converted the TXT file to String.Bin - copy the three files into the correct folders and then try again.

[NewAgeOfPower]

IT WORKED! IT WORKED!!!!111 Thank you so much!

How can I get my computer to create the strings.bin files on its own? I'd hate to bug you every time I added something...

[NewAgeOfPower]

After some testing:

-Changing movement bonus from 1-5 has noticeable effect, but from 10-100 does not seem to increase the effect at all. Strangely enough, 1000 movement has more bonus than 9000, but the bonus is not dramatically greater than 5... my Crusading Generals with Energetic, Disciplinarian, and Drillmasters moved more than Movement 1000...

Thus, the individual bonus cap might be as low as 5.

-I don't think 1000 or even 100 hp works; Rufus still died fighting York even with ancillaries set to 1000 or 100 bonus hp... Uncertain as of how much max HP each bonus may grant.

Sith Lord Ideal shelved for now...

[Gigantus]

Under normal circumstances the string.bin files will generate automatically if you change the txt file. You just have to make sure that the first line with the fancy sign is always there and that the file is in unicode format (the txt file).

one movement point change = 5%

Looks like there is a ceiling for hit points...

[NewAgeOfPower]

Under normal circumstances the string.bin files will generate automatically if you change the txt file. You just have to make sure that the first line with the fancy sign is always there and that the file is in unicode format (the txt file).

Normal circumstances?

Were my files not unicoded?

one movement point change = 5%

Looks like there is a ceiling for hit points...

I know its 5% per move point- Drillmaster gave Movement +5, and ingame descr says 25%. But it looks like there is some ceiling on how much movement any individual bonus can generate.

I suspect individual bonus, because I've seen a general with Berserker, Fine Armour, and the Holy Grail take much more damage than Rufus and still live.