!MODING BREAKTHROUGH! - Azog’s automated Switcher (AAS) VERSION 1.2 IS UP (FIXED)

[Azog FTW]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hello I'm not new here. I was here under a different nick but I forgot the login name and password and the email address that account was associated with and so on.

But yeah this is my first mod for TATW.

Azog’s automated switcher 1.2 (FIXED) with menu and loading screens support

!NOTES!

* There has been a bug in the 1.2 installer. I uploaded the fixed version.
* Azog’s automated switcher is not like Cedric's AUI launcher where you have to choose everything manually. AAS is fully automated. See for yourself.

Distinct ui's for every faction were impossible until now because in M2TW all faction ui’s are associated with culture. That means only one distinct ui for north men, elves, dwarfs, evil men and followers of melkor unless the player changed them manually before starting TATW. Not anymore!

Azog’s automated switcher (AAS from now on) loads a distinct ui for every faction on the go without the need for intervention by the player given AAS runs next to every TATW session which is set to do so by default. If people are interested I explain this process in more detail.

cedric37's custom ui for Silvan Elves

AAS also has support for Louis Lux's menus and loading screens. AAS loads various loading screens and menus based on which faction is loaded. The changes are visible immediately (on the first loading screen picture).
Like for example your current faction has loading screens like this:

Good faction loading screen

And you decide to load a save from an evil faction. Boom! Your first loading screen now looks like this:

Evil faction loading screen

I made use of Louis Lux's Good menu, Evil menu, Gandalf menu and I kept the vanilla TATW 3.1 menu for some factions for bigger diversity. Like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

High Elves - Vanilla 3.1 menu
Silvan Elves - Vanilla 3.1 menu
Rohan - Gandalf menu
Dale - Vanilla 3.1 menu
Eriador - Good menu
Arnor - Good menu
Rhun - Evil menu
Harad - Evil menu
Mordor - Evil menu
Isengard - Evil menu
OotMM - Evil menu
Orcs of Gundabad - Evil menu
Fellowship - Good menu
Gondor - Gandalf menu
Dwarfs - Gandalf menu

You can check how the menus look like in Louis Lux's thread with the original content. Download menus and loadings screens here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256326

Features

* Fully automated. The player has to do nothing.
* One ui per faction support.
* Changing loading screens and menus based on faction loaded.
* Optional AAS with ui or menu support only.
* Easy to use Installer.

What's new in AAS 1.2

* Way more efficient: The difference in efficiency between 1.2 and 1.1 is bigger than between 1.1 and 1.0.

* Bug fixes:
- Because large amounts of files are being copied the game suffered by little longer loading times. That has been fixed. This was not really a bug.
- The switcher was failing to kick off when a new campaign launched and the player managed to cancel the intro the millisecond it started. This has been reduced however not completely removed.

* AAFUS shall from now on be known as Azog's automated switcher (AAS). Because it does and will do so much more than just switch ui's.

* New content: No new content. I have not received any suggestions! And I had no idea what to add.

For modders

* AAS 1.1 was able to manage all the TATW factions including the Fellowship and Arnor (15 factions) just so-so. AAS 1.2 can now support any number of factions easily.

* (1.1) AAS can move large amounts of data in a flash. I tested it with game menus, loading screens and faction ui's of 250MB. All of the loading screens were moved before the game started loading them. I wouldn't attempt more though. The switcher accomplishes this by moving files so they have to be copied back again for further use.
* I have worked on this and I managed to remove the 250 MB limit. There is no limit now in theory but in practice it's about 500 MB. The mechanics for this are not implemented in 1.2 however because they are not needed.

Room for further improvement

* There is still one thing I'm not completely happy about and if I can make this work it would make AAS completely stable and almost perfect.

* I made the saves.txt cleaning process a lot quicker so I'm thinking about having the saves.txt cleaned after every save.

* There is still some room for improvement in efficiency.

Development notes

* I removed the "quit when TATW quits" function because it was slowing AAS down and used too much CPU. It might however come back in future versions.

Compatibilities
* TATW 3.1 and 2.1
* All TATW sub mods which do not add more factions
* Steam

What AAS could be easily modified to do
* offer a solution to all culture limitations even portraits - see post #41
* load custom battle ui’s based on which faction is played
* load custom faction ui’s based on which faction is played - Done
* load game menus based on which faction is played - Done
* load quotes based on which faction is played
* load loading screens based on which faction is played - Done
* It could also apply .:Zack Fair:.'s Full Arnorian Reemergence 1.3 mod: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=377112 and switch back to Eriador on its own!
* It should also be compatible with small modifications or no modifications at all with every other TATW sub mod and M2TW mod.
* And so much more! In fact it could change the whole game based on factions.
* Please leave suggestions!

Currently working on:
* AAS 2.0.
* After that: AAS for Call of Warhammer as promised.
* After that: AAS for cedric37's Alternate Ui's v1.20 "GOLD EDITION - requested by cedric37.

I did all the basic testing but I would be grateful if people who decide to use my mod would report bugs here if there are any.

This mod does not contain any custom ui’s just the switcher. You will have to download all the ui's separately. I recommend cedric37's Alternate Ui's v1.20 "GOLD EDITION here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=351984.

It also does not contain the menus and loading screens. Download them here from Louis Lux's original thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256326

How to install + DOWNLOAD LINK FOR AAS 1.2 (FIXED):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Step 1

Unrar content in to the TATW mod folder (.Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3 in TATW 3.1).

Step 2

Run Install_AAS_1.2.bat and follow the instructions.

What you will have to do anyway:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Optional step 3A

Download the Good menu pack, Evil menu pack and the Gandalf menu from Louis Lux's original thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256326
And place menu.rar, menu_evil.rar and menu_good.rar in to the AAS_1.2_INSTALLER folder.

Or

Optional step 3B

Download desired ui’s if you haven't done so. I recommend cedric37's Alternate Ui's v1.20 "GOLD EDITION here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=351984. You can get them from other mods or use any from vanilla TATW. You can customize this.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Step 4B

Place the custom ui files for each faction

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That means:

radar_map_background.tga
sharedpage_00.tga
sharedpage_01.tga
stratpage_01.tga
stratpage_02.tga
stratpage_03.tga
stratpage_04.tga

in to the .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog folder sub folders. If you run the installer at least once then these will be created for you! Place them like this:

High Elves files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\noldor\
Silvan Elves files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\lorien\
Rohan files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\rohan\
Dale files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\dale\
Eriador files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\eriador\
Arnor files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\arnor\
Rhun files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\rhun\
Harad files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\harad\
Mordor files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\mordor\
Isengard files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\isengard\
Orcs of the Misty Mountains files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\ootmm\
Orcs of Gundabad files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\gundabad\
Fellowship of the Ring files in to: .Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3\azog\fellowship\

The names of the last folders should be named so by default in cedric37's Alternate Ui's v1.20 "GOLD EDITION mod. So if you have his mod just copy-paste.

And then

Step 4

Start TATW (by shortcut or Third Age.bat only - is there any other way?) and enjoy!

!IMPORTANT!
AAS will NOT work with your old saves! To make them work (look also for step B here):
* People who used AAS 1.0 and 1.1 have to do this as well!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I.

Run TATW with AAS installed and then exit.

II.

Go to your saves folder and select all your saves.

III.

Right click them and select Properties in the menu.

IV.

Click the advanced button and uncheck the File is ready for archiving box.

V.

Check the File is ready for archiving box in the saves that belong to the same faction and then run the corresponding faction .bat file located in the azog folder. The dwarfs-gondor.bat is for both Gondor and the Dwarfs. Do this one faction at a time! If you do this twice for one save it will mess things up!! If that happens continue to step B below.

B. Did step V for one save file twice or something's not right? Then go to the saves folder, delete the hidden saves.txt and run TATW with AAS installed again and then exit. Repeat step V with all saves again.

DL here: http://www.gamefront.com/files/21146...28FIXED%29.rar

[Tomziom]

And where is link to download AAFUS?

[Azog FTW]

I will add it shortly. I'm just completing the readme based on my post. Have patience please.

Ok the download link is up for all to download.

[Dutch-Balrog]

I'll try it out, sounds very nice.

EDIT: I've installed TATW into my americas folder, is that a problem?

EDIT2: Nvm i'll just test it out haha.

[Emperor of Hell]

As far as I can see in the bat file, no problem

[Azog FTW]

That should not be a problem as far as I know. But I'm wondering how you start TATW, because the shortcut links to Third Age.bat and that is .mods\Third_Age_3\ folder bound. If there is a problem just rename your americas folder to Third_Age_3 and you should be fine.

[Dutch-Balrog]

Cant be done as i have the steam version. If i rename it to Third Age then steam wont launch the game at all. Steam can be such a pain in the ass sometimes..

[Emperor of Hell]

Open Third Age.bat and change the line

start kingdoms.exe @mods\Third_Age_3\TATW.cfg

to

start kingdoms.exe @mods\americas\TATW.cfg

[Azog FTW]

Yes that's it. Thanks Killersmurf. I should post instructions for people who use steam.

[Dutch-Balrog]

Thanks! It works even without the Third_Age.cfg edit.

[Kahvipannu]

This is very interesting, I'll try this out. It sure does sound big breaktrough, finally someone figured this out.

+1

[Jean=A=Luc]

This seems pretty similar to Cedric's AUI launcher.

[Kahvipannu]

So it is not "automated" so to speak? You still have to choose the UI manually? Would test this out myself right now, but I'm just downloading 3.0..

[Azog FTW]

Yes this first release was with Cedric's ui's in mind but

This seems pretty similar to Cedric's AUI launcher.

Cedric's AUI launcher requires you to choose your ui manually. While my AAFUS requires the player to do nothing. That reads: NOTHING and thus is fully automated. Why don't you dl my switcher and see for yourself before you accuse me of plagiarism again? Now will you Jean?

It was not easy to write and I had to come up with a lot of solutions. I will add this to the notes in the first post before it bites me in my ass again.

[Kahvipannu]

Man, that I was hoping to, thanks for clarification. One limitation by those cursed cultures down

[Azog FTW]

Man, that I was hoping to, thanks for clarification. One limitation by those cursed cultures down

It's not just this one limitation. It's all culture limitations. In fact the whole game could be changed based on factions. Like game menus, loading screens, splash screens and what not.

[GueulEclator]

Does that works with baron samedi's submod?

[_Tartaros_]

interesting, i will check it out.
thanks for and regards

[Warden of the Galadhrim]

When I tried to install it, it replaced the .bat, but says it couldn't create the CUI folders because access was denied. What did I do wrong?

[Azog FTW]

When I tried to install it, it replaced the .bat, but says it couldn't create the CUI folders because access was denied. What did I do wrong?

What CUI folders are we speaking about? Like .\CUI\noldor\ for example? Those you have to create yourself or copy them from Cedric's mod if you have decided to use it. Then put the appropriate files inside. It's all in the main post.

- Edit: The next release will include these folders in the .rar file so people will not have to create them manually when installing AAFUS.