Mod Manager 1.5 (fixed download link)

[Endomatic]

This doesn't read "movie" type mods, how come?

I need to set my localisation.loc changes to movie in order for them to work, but your manager won't load it.

EDIT: If I load it in the unpacker, save it as a "mod", load it in the manager, save it in a profile, reload it in the unpacker, change it to "movie" and then reload the manager it will work.

This means that anyone that wants to use my mod (and include my custom units and descriptions) will have to do the same thing.

Is there maybe something I'm missing? Is there a reason why I can't just add "movie" type pack files into the profiles?

[Lincoln6Echo]

OK, everysince I installed the Mod Manager, along with the common.dll file, the sound in my game has become delayed and even cuts out. And by sound, I mean the "selection clicks" on the campaign map between towns/farms/plantations/ports/etc. and especially in the 3D battles when musket fire, cannon fire, and even hand-to-hand fighting sounds do not match up to the action. And it got so bad one time that those sounds cut out altogether, and all I was getting was music.

To troubleshoot, I kept deactivating one mod at time via the Manager to see if one was causing the issue. It wasn't until I removed the Manager and the common.dll file that the problem fixed itself.

So, I'd advise those who created those files to go back and do some actual game testing with them, as I know you all are probably just doing a lot of texture repaints rather than actually playing the game to see how all this affects the game.

[Quixote07]

This is a problem with the new patch, not with mods.

[Ahiga]

I've got a strange error. If I change any mods order in the list and then try to load the game or check or uncheck it, this error comes up: Invalid Argument=Value of 3 is not valid for index. Parameter name: index

[Lincoln6Echo]

So when should I start to worry? I've used 2 mods so far and just recently downloaded the mod manager. The mod packs themselves only cause a couple of conflicts each but both my sounds_animation_triggers and patch_pack are causing over 2000 each! Sorry if I'm asking for the obvious but this got me stunned.

So there is a problem with the Manager screwing up the sound triggers. I thought so. As I soon as I installed this thing and began playing, my sounds were getting all screwed up. I have just recently removed all mods activated by it and now the Manager itself from my Data folder and sound problems went away...I think.

[Lincoln6Echo]

This is a problem with the new patch, not with mods.

So when did this new patch come out? And is there any way to tell what version of the game we have? I can't seem to find where a version number is listed. I know I got a Steam update a couple days ago.

Nevermind...found update list within the Steam client.

[LtChambers]

So there is a problem with the Manager screwing up the sound triggers. I thought so. As I soon as I installed this thing and began playing, my sounds were getting all screwed up. I have just recently removed all mods activated by it and now the Manager itself from my Data folder and sound problems went away...I think.

Say what now? I call . Mod Manager does nothing but enable mods that you choose. If it's broken, the worst that will happen is your user.empire_script.txt will be broken which may crash the game. But as long as the game loads, whatever mods are loaded are entirely up to you. A sound mod could easily screw up your game's sounds.

[1in1class]

How do you dl updates and how do you know what version you got? I look on the steam properties and go to DLC and it says You currently have no downloadable content for this game.

[Augustus Lucifer]

Great work mate, certainly will be a valuable utility for mod aficionados. You've stated you came from the HL2 community. I'm not sure if you've had experience with the Oblivion community at all, but I will suggest if you haven't that you look at a program called Wrye Bash, which handles load order and plenty else for the Oblivion platform. The reason I say this, is it might provide some ideas for extensibility of this valuable tool, as it has grown quite massive: loading only certain parts from packs to circumvent full-pack incompatibilities, the Bash Patch which compiles compatible packs(might decrease overhead on game start if packs are combined), etc

Keep up the great work.

[LtChambers]

Great work mate, certainly will be a valuable utility for mod aficionados. You've stated you came from the HL2 community. I'm not sure if you've had experience with the Oblivion community at all, but I will suggest if you haven't that you look at a program called Wrye Bash, which handles load order and plenty else for the Oblivion platform. The reason I say this, is it might provide some ideas for extensibility of this valuable tool, as it has grown quite massive: loading only certain parts from packs to circumvent full-pack incompatibilities, the Bash Patch which compiles compatible packs(might decrease overhead on game start if packs are combined), etc

Yes, Wrye Bash and the F3MM are inspirations. But I'm afraid moddability in ETW is rather limited in comparison to Oblivion/F3. I'll probably put a thumbnail viewer in there for texture files and a line-by-line diff/merge for db files, but I don't know how much more sophisticated it can get than that. A mod merger is certainly possible if it will decrease overhead significantly, but that would be kind of sad if it were true - in C# these files are read in just a few seconds, that'd be even faster in C++, so there's really no excuse for the pack file performance being a significant slow down.

[Lincoln6Echo]

How do you dl updates and how do you know what version you got? I look on the steam properties and go to DLC and it says You currently have no downloadable content for this game.

Game updates should download automatically if you didn't change the default setting upon installation.

But to look at the updates for Empire do this:

1) Open the Steam client.
2) Click on the "My Games" tab.
3) Right-click on "Empire: Total War"
4) Select "Properties".
5) Click on the "Updates" tab.
6) Finally click on the "View Empire: Total War update history" link.

You can also change that auto-update setting here, within the "Updates" tab.

The last update should be March 26th as of this writing. Supoosedly, they fixed the sound issue, but I swear, it didn't.

[Ftmch]

I have the sound issue to, and I got it after the patch on the 25th, so it's probably not the mod-manager.

But wait a minute, you said "installed" the mod manager, don't you just have to unpack it anywhere? Does the sound become normal when you remove it? :O

[Nordmann]

It's the new patch, I didn't have the manager installed until today, and was experiencing these sound issues.

[Ftmch]

It's the new patch, I didn't have the manager installed until today, and was experiencing these sound issues.

Yeah, I just tried it without the mod-manager aswell, and still had the problems, so you are correct.

[Diocletian]

Thanks

[Augustus Lucifer]

Yes, Wrye Bash and the F3MM are inspirations. But I'm afraid moddability in ETW is rather limited in comparison to Oblivion/F3. I'll probably put a thumbnail viewer in there for texture files and a line-by-line diff/merge for db files, but I don't know how much more sophisticated it can get than that. A mod merger is certainly possible if it will decrease overhead significantly, but that would be kind of sad if it were true - in C# these files are read in just a few seconds, that'd be even faster in C++, so there's really no excuse for the pack file performance being a significant slow down.

Indeed. I'm not that familiar with the ETW engine personally, since my project is for M2, but I do imagine it isn't as modable, but who knows maybe we'll be proven wrong(probably not!). And with the pack mounting, it isn't something Jerome really elaborated on, as to whether it's a 1-time load like the map.rwm compiling was in old games, which could take quite a while, or if it is on every startup. I assume the latter because the former would be dubious for changes. I also made the assumption each pack file was being considered for compiled overhead separately, which if it is the case and it was worth mentioning in a post about architecture, coupled with how long TW loads just on average, could possibly be significant. Whether this has to do with running the .pack format or just the files within them will determine if one big pack is better than a bunch of small ones or not. All in time, hopefully.

[Pdguru]

When I run the program, in the window I see no way to "check" anything - it's just a list. Can someone advise?

[Nevins]

I have the same problem. There is no way for me to select/ launch Darthmod, it says that Darthmod is there but its just a name w/ 10 conflicts, no check button is available

[LtChambers]

Check boxes are only on when non-mod packs are hidden.

[Lincoln6Echo]

I have the sound issue to, and I got it after the patch on the 25th, so it's probably not the mod-manager.

But wait a minute, you said "installed" the mod manager, don't you just have to unpack it anywhere? Does the sound become normal when you remove it? :O

Yeah..I meant just copy it and the common.dll file to your Data folder.

But yeah, apparently the new patch has f'ed things up. Hope they get this fixed as it's annoying as all hell. It's almost like they've done something to slow down something and it takes the game a few seconds to catch up.