A Modding Tutorial by Dee Jay
Getting Started
This Tutorial will tell you everything you need to know about how to make your own mod; I’ve tried to make this simple, short, resourceful and with lots of pictures for a beginner modder.
You will need the Napoleon Pack File Manager (PFM for short) to create a mod for Napoleon; click here for download and instructions it’s pretty easy to use.
When you download it, run the program and go into File > Open, then you will have to find your Napoleon data directory, for most it’s:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\napoleon total war\data
When you find it, open the data.pack, this file is where just about every file is that affects the game.
First off I’m going to explain all the different files that you will definitely use in making your own mod;
DB Files: These are located in data.pack, these files tell the game pretty much everything it needs to know for the campaign and battle filed, things like unit sizes, unit stats, abilities, morale effects, recruitment locations, buildings and a crap load more. Have a scroll through all these files just to get a quick look at them all, the name of the DB file pretty much tells you what it does.
UI Files: These are also in the data.pack files, UI stands for User Interface and they are for nearly all the visuals you seen in the game, things like the unit abilities buttons, main menu, unit cards and icons and heaps more. You can scroll through them if you like.
Varient_Models Files: These are in the variantmodels.pack file, these files are what visually makes a soldier, so the textures and meshes.
There are heaps more of different files that can be used but we won’t worry about them for now and keep the PFM opened for this next bit.
Creating a Basic Mod
Now we are going to create a mod, let’s just make a mod that changes the stats of the Austrian Grenzers.
You will need to create a folder on your desktop named “Mod”; this is where the files are going to be for your mod.
Now we are going to extract one of the files that we need to edit unit stats, so open patch4.pack with PFM and then go to this: patch4.pack > db> unit_stats_land_tables (were going to patch4.pack instead of data.pack because that has the latest of the file we need).
Now we are going to click on the file in there named “unit_stats_land”, on the right window it will show the DB file for editing, but were not doing that yet.
So now while you’re still selected on “unit_stats_land”, where going to go to the top were it says “Choose a Pack Action” and select “Extract Selected”.
Then were going to find your folder you made earlier named “Mod” and extract it to there.
Now you can click on: File > New; and select you “Mod” folder that you extracted that file to. After that you can click on “Choose a Pack Action” and click “Add Directory” and then pick your “Mod” folder again. After that we are going to pick “Choose a Pack Action” and click “Change Pack Type” and then pick “mod”.
Now were going to have to save your work before you make any changes, so go to: File > Save; and just save it as “Mod”.
Now that we have saved it we can start making changes to it, so go to this: mod.pack > db > unit_stats_land_tables; and open “unit_stats_land”.
This file shows every stat for every unit, so we are going to click on the top tab that says “Unit ID Ref” (this just puts everything in alphabetical order)
And scroll down until we see “Inf_Light_Austrian_Grenzers”. Once you see it click on it once, this bookmarks it on the left with an arrow so that you can see which line you’re on.
Then scroll across until you come across the columns named “Accuracy” and “Reloading Skill”.
And change them both to 50 (I’m just telling you to do what is most historical).
Then keep scrolling across until you see the columns “Melee Skill”, “Charge Bonus” and “Defence Skill” and increase them all by 1.
Now you can save it again.
Now we are going to making it so that the game recognizes our mod, for this we need a .txt document, so create one on your desktop.
Open it and type this in there:
mod “Mod.pack”;
Now go to Save As, call it user.script and then at the bottom were it says “Encoding: ANSI” change the “ANSI” to “Unicode” and save it.
Then we are going to have to paste it in this directory:
C:\Users\*USER*\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Napoleon\scripts
Replace the *USER* with your own user name and you will also have to be able to see hidden folders to get to this; you can do that from your control panel.
SWEET! should be all done, play Napoleon and see if your changes have taken effects.
If it works, you can have a look through the file that you addited and fiddle around with it.
The other DB files for editing all the other stats of a unit and their abilities are;
units
unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions
To add them into your mod, you will need to extract your mod into your folder on the desktop (say yes to over write the existing one) and then find the above files in patch4.pack and extract them into the same folder. Then make a new pack in the PFM, select your folder, add your folder, change the pack type to a mod, and save it over your old pack. Then you can edit them.
Also, here are some important things that you need to know for making a mod:
ONLY SAVE YOUR .PACK FILES, IF YOU SAVE ONE LIKE DATA.PACK, YOU COULD "BREAK" YOUR GAME. BUT IF YOU EVER DO THIS GOHERE FOR HELP.
Also, whenever you open a DB table, click the tab at the top for the first column to put everything in the right order
Hope you liked this tutorial and learnt some good stuff, Cheers DJ
DJ's Beginner Tutorial To Modding: Getting Started & Making a Simple Mod
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Re: DJ's Beginner Tutorial To Modding: Getting Started & Making a Simple Mod
> sorry for may English
+1 rep
