Modding Newbie

[gty12]

Hey,
I was thinking of changing my game a little bit by adding new units.
Is this a mod if I add new units?
Are they easy to delete if they don't work thus I can keep playing the game?
I want a continued patch download from steam but a few extra units.
Any help would be much appreciated
Thankyou

[Demokritos]

Yes, adding new units would be tantamount to modding (=changing) the game. A mod could be made by either changing the original files, which is a very bad idea (even if you make backups, considering CA updates undoing those changes), or creating a separate file containing the changes in any of several formats which essentially differ in how they are loaded into the game. A mod made in the "mod" format (as opposed to "patch", "movie" etc), for example, can be installed without changing the game unless you activate it. Whenever you want to stop using such a mod, all you need to do is to un-activate it.

A mod of this kind is activated either by using a program called "Mod Manager" (found in the tools section of the Workshop forums) or by writing a command line about which mods to launch in a file called "user.empire_script". The latter is a text file which you can create yourself and place in the Scripts folder (on a XP system, with the setting for "Show all hidden files and folders" enabled, this folder is located in the following directory or similar (depending on which account you have installed the game): C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire).

In the Mod Manager, you activate mods by marking a box in front of their names, and un-activate them by doing the opposite. In the user.empire_script file, you activate mods by writing the names of them in a very special way on separate lines there, and un-activate them by deleting those lines (the relevant ones). When using the Mod Manager, the game is launched from inside that program, but when using the script, you launch the game the normal way through Steam.

With mods in other formats, however, you "activate" them by simply putting their files in the appropriate folder of the ETW installation, most often the "empire total war/data" folder, and "un-activate" by removing those files from the folder in question. This might look like a simpler way of dealing with mods, but they run a greater risk of causing problems as soon as CA updates the game. But the advantage of a mod in a patch format, if I remember correctly, is that it can be used in multiplayer games (provided that all players have that mod installed).

To create mods, use the DB Editor (DBE) or the Pack File Manager (PFM). If all you wanna do is to give existing units new textures (colours etc), then all you need is the PFM. If you also wanna change the ability of the units, give a certain faction an existing type of unit which it did not have before, create a unit with a completely new name etc, then the DBE is for you as well. With the PFM, you can change the mod format, too.