How do I edit shared.sd, strategy.sd and battle.sd?

**BobaHat** · September 21, 2010, 08:36 AM

Hi all,

I want the game to recognise COA's for my newly added faction and I've been told that some of the editing process takes place in the .sd files in the data/ui folder. But how do I edit these files?

**Ishan** · September 21, 2010, 09:42 AM

U need .xml files for them that interact with these files like for eg the .txt files on .bin in the text folder.
U can find these in standard unedited version inside the retrofit mod.

Good luck !

**BobaHat** · September 21, 2010, 09:48 AM

I tried editing the xml file in the Bare_Kingdoms mod folder, but when I saved it the game crashed and said that it couldn't find the shared.sd file.

**irishron** · September 21, 2010, 09:53 AM

Check your log.

Odds are the logo name you put in the .xml does not match the one in the descr_sm_regions.txt.

**BobaHat** · September 21, 2010, 09:59 AM

descr_sm_regions? Don't you mean descr_sm_factions?

**Ishan** · September 21, 2010, 10:04 AM

Yes Sir Ron meant the same.

**BobaHat** · September 21, 2010, 10:28 AM

Hmm... I don't understand. The problem is the same. Do I simply add a new entry at the bottom of the list?

**SigniferOne** · September 21, 2010, 10:56 AM

The game should re-build the .sd files based on what the .xml files contain. This should be a simple heuristic of whether your XML edit worked, when new .sd files fail to be generated.

**BobaHat** · September 21, 2010, 11:27 AM

Okay... But how do I edit it? Is it simply a question of adding a norway entry with a new sprite number at the bottom or what?

Like this for example:

<sprite index="338" name="SMALL_FACTION_LOGO_NORWAY" page="0" left="356" right="422" top="356" bottom="387" x_offset="0" y_offset="0" alpha="1" cursor="0"/>

(This is what I added to the xml)

**irishron** · September 21, 2010, 12:06 PM

It has to be the coordinates of the logo on the shred_ .tga, and strat_ .tga. In the southern_european\interface folder.

**BobaHat** · September 22, 2010, 02:56 AM

Yes I understand. The coordinates I have written in the above entry are coordinates I have made based on where the logo is in the sharedpage_01.tga. Why doesn't it work?

**Ishan** · September 22, 2010, 03:41 AM

Try to put the default .sd files in your mod's UI folder and when u load the game they will be automatically modified or edited from the info lying in the .xml ones.

**Gigantus** · September 22, 2010, 05:02 AM

This has been described in my tutorial Creating a World - Adding a new Faction. Page 6, "Coat of Arms (CoA)"
Apart from adding the line, you also need to increase the "count" of the line and the total on top.

Coat of Arms (CoA) files

During my long travels in the modding world, I heard that these are easy to replace but very difficult to add. Let us try to make both ways easy. In the data\ui folder are two xml files (remember: right click, Open with notepad) which determine the source of graphics for the strategic map and for other shared graphics. Let us start with ‘shared’. I took the liberty to finish this file and the ‘strat’ file as well. It makes explaining a bit easier. Once you open ‘shared.sd.xml’, you will notice two parts: the small one underneath ‘texture_pages count’ and the huge one underneath ‘sprites count’. The first one points to the graphic files that contain all the little graphic signs. You will notice this entry: ‘sharedpage_NEW_02.tga’. This is the file that contains our brand new (cloned) CoA in the small version and can be found in the data\ui\southern_european\interface directory. When you add a new entry here, you have to remember to increase the count number (count="4"). The entry consists of the filename and the height and width of the graphic file.
In the big part you specify the name of the graphic element (remember descr_sm_factions?), in this case ‘SMALL_FACTION_LOGO_OTTOMANS’ as well as its position on the graphic. This can be a bit tricky, therefore the template. The index on the left of the line has to be in chronological order, starting with zero at the top. If you have to delete an entry in the middle, you will have to renumber every entry after it. The number of the ‘count=’ entry will be one bigger as the last line as the count starts with zero. The same principle applies for the number of the ‘page=’ entry for the individual element. In our case, it is 3 as it is the fourth page, starting with zero as the first page. Underneath the entry for ‘ottomans’ I left template entries for ‘yellow’ and ‘blue’ for later use.
The same principle applies to ‘strategy.sd.xml’ so I will not bore you with a repetition, just the ‘count’ numbers change.

**BobaHat** · September 22, 2010, 06:12 AM

Thanks Gigantus! You are, as ever, my saviour when it comes to modding.

**Gigantus** · September 22, 2010, 06:18 AM

Your one stop modding informatic at your service

**Noobio** · June 18, 2011, 03:08 AM

so here's my case...i'm making hero abilities (for the Third Age ) , so i only added-edited entries for those in battle.sd.XML

-i made a new battlepage_04 from scratch and put it in all culture folders
-i accordingly edited battle.sd.xml (it now has like 220 sprite entries ,instead of 164 and i did count also 0 when numerating in the file)

1) in battle , when selecting ONLY a hero-general (that is one with an assigned hero-ab) i get a crash ...so i guess it has something to do with battle.sd (the one with the funny-square symbols)

2) after deleting battle.sd ,the game doesn't crash , the abilties do work but i get an ui bug ,as in no hero-button ,just a dislocated upper frame (of the right battle-control box where all round buttons are )...funny thing is that all other round buttons that share the same position (like spear wall and flame arrows) work perfectly...

ps
just read in another thread that battle.sd should regenarate on its own...mine hasn't...and i'm sure i have eveything correct in its xml...

any help-hint-advice would be most appreciated...

i've also included my error log (with level = error )...i can't really understand anything of it
just saw that my game's last words were