Diplomacy & Invasions + Improved Vegetation Rendering // Compatible with almost every 3.1 sub-mod // Super Easy Installer released //Unite the free people of Middle Earth under one banner and strike Sauron's forces hard!

[proximusj]

Really good proximusj. +rep

I like the meeting idea. How is this done? A bunch of diplomats spawned somewhere?

No, its more like an interactive event. You'll have to make several choices during the meeting, each will affect the way your allies are going to support you.

[AragornElessar]

are the units silver on the battle map?

[proximusj]

are the units silver on the battle map?

All units appear correctly, if you install this over clean vanilla 3.1. Are you getting silver units?

[SRACon17]

can you make a baron compatible version please

[BabyLure]

Is it possible to make a script that allows you to give your units to another ally? I'm playing hotseat and I want to give some of my Khazad-dûm guards to my friend and ally who is playing the high elves. Also, I noticed that the units presented in the screenshots are all classified Mercs in the export, I'm guessing using other units that are only from the other factions roosters give the portrait problem, where you get the basic peasant portrait instead, am I right?

[proximusj]

Is it possible to make a script that allows you to give your units to another ally? I'm playing hotseat and I want to give some of my Khazad-dûm guards to my friend and ally who is playing the high elves. Also, I noticed that the units presented in the screenshots are all classified Mercs in the export, I'm guessing using other units that are only from the other factions roosters give the portrait problem, where you get the basic peasant portrait instead, am I right?

I haven't played hotseat, so I don't know if this mod would work on it. I guess that if the mod works, you and your friend will share the same timer. In order for your friend to get your units, first he needs to work on his reputation (to increase his success %) and be allied to you, then when his turn comes he needs to call a meeting.

What you say is correct, in order to make this mod as compatible as possible I tried not to create more units, instead, used vanilla ones under the section "#### Units for free #####" which are available for any faction.

If you add a unit from another faction rooster, as you said, you'll probably get silver units and the peasant portrait problem.

can you make a baron compatible version please

Right now I'm working on a tool to detect compatibility issues with other mods.

When its done, any person would be able to try to merge my mod with his/her favourite compilation.

[SRACon17]

thank you, i think this mod is really great

[Bslade]

Congrats on the re-release, but now you put me in the odd predicament of choosing to finish my current campaign or start a new one with this submod.

Can I assume it's still compatible with alreadydead's AI submod?

I would be happy to give your text a read-through, but am unsure of the most efficient method for editing in notepad (so you can easily find my changes). I would normally copy text into MS Word which offers an accept/ reject feature for every change that is made. Would the only files needing editing be in the "text" folder?

If you're still searching for a submod name, some suggestions: Diplomacy & Invasions, Allies & Invasions, Axis & Allies...

[proximusj]

Congrats on the re-release, but now you put me in the odd predicament of choosing to finish my current campaign or start a new one with this submod.

Can I assume it's still compatible with alreadydead's AI submod?

I would be happy to give your text a read-through, but am unsure of the most efficient method for editing in notepad (so you can easily find my changes). I would normally copy text into MS Word which offers an accept/ reject feature for every change that is made. Would the only files needing editing be in the "text" folder?

If you're still searching for a submod name, some suggestions: Diplomacy & Invasions, Allies & Invasions, Axis & Allies...

Thanks for the name suggestions,People have always told me that I'm not that creative with names.

About your campaign, I'll recommend you finishing it. The new release is stable only with vanilla 3.1, it includes more files that need to be edited so manual merge is more complicated now.

My script merger is almost done. When I release it, merging this mod with your compilation is going to be a lot easier.

[EccentricMeat]

I haven't played hotseat, so I don't know if this mod would work on it. I guess that if the mod works, you and your friend will share the same timer. In order for your friend to get your units, first he needs to work on his reputation (to increase his success %) and be allied to you, then when his turn comes he needs to call a meeting.

What you say is correct, in order to make this mod as compatible as possible I tried not to create more units, instead, used vanilla ones under the section "#### Units for free #####" which are available for any faction.

If you add a unit from another faction rooster, as you said, you'll probably get silver units and the peasant portrait problem.



Right now I'm working on a tool to detect compatibility issues with other mods.

When its done, any person would be able to try to merge my mod with his/her favourite compilation.

There's a tool called "WinMerge" that I use, which lets you see differences between two text files (The text file of the current mod, and the equivalent text file of the mod you want to merge).

While this means that you have to check the compatibility with every text file you want to merge individually, it's still pretty effective.

I assume you know of or use WinMerge, but in case you don't I just thought I'd point it out. I used WinMerge to merge your submod and a lot of other submods with Baron's (Including RC/RR, Archer Accuracy, Epic Campaign's mount file, Enhanced Campaign AI, Expanded Map Mod, and a few others!)

So for those asking, yes you can make this submod compatible with Baron's.

Oh, and:

FIRST POST!

[proximusj]

Finally, I finished my script merger!

I tested it with Baron's 5.0 and it's working fine.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now you can install this over your favourite mods very easily.

This application will merge your TATW mods compilation with Proximus'j Diplomacy & Invasions with a few clicks.

No files will be altered. Feel save that your original TATW compilation will always work.

It will create a backup of any required files and will verify your compilation compatibility.

You can always restore to your previous settings using this app too.

For optimum results, install your favourite mods first, then install this at the very last.

Download the file from one of the mirrors in the OP and follow the instructions.

There's a tool called "WinMerge" that I use...

Thanks, didn't know about this. It helped me a lot to create my script merger.

[Withwnar]

Impressive work proximusj! I am curious as to what it is doing exactly. e.g. Does it read your submod files and go from there or are the file alterations hardcoded into the program?

[proximusj]

Impressive work proximusj! I am curious as to what it is doing exactly. e.g. Does it read your submod files and go from there or are the file alterations hardcoded into the program?

Thanks!

What do you mean with harcored?

It reads your files, creates backups, verifies compatibility and finally it writes new files based on your originals.

So for example, if you have Baron's 5.0 + RC + Extended map + any other mod already working together, this will backup your mods files (saved as *.pxs_backup), then it will verify that your compilation has the necesary requirements, based from some files provided by me (intalled as *.pxs_dev).

In this case my mod only needs that your compilation includes some required units. If your mod have them, it will finally create a merged solution writting new files based on *.pxs_backup and *.pxs_dev files.

[Araval]

Impressive work, +rep!

[EccentricMeat]

Thanks, didn't know about this. It helped me a lot to create my script merger.

No problem, glad I could help!

Impressive work on the script merger! Is there any way you could make it a universal script merger? By that I mean, if you could make one that would verify, backup, and merge files from any submod to any other submod?

That would be a revolution!

[Withwnar]

I am curious as to what it is doing exactly. e.g. Does it read your submod files and go from there or are the file alterations hardcoded into the program?

Yeah, sorry, that wasn't very clearly asked.

it writes new files based on your originals

So it is inserting your submod's stuff into the new files. Or rather, the new files are built from whatever the originals are + your additions.

My question is where is it getting the additions from? Is the program reading them from files too? And if so are those files of a special format?

I guess I'm wondering how simple it would be to adapt your program to merge any submod. Or has the program been written specifically for your submod and so wouldn't be able to work on anything else?

[proximusj]

Yeah, sorry, that wasn't very clearly asked.



So it is inserting your submod's stuff into the new files. Or rather, the new files are built from whatever the originals are + your additions.

My question is where is it getting the additions from? Is the program reading them from files too? And if so are those files of a special format?

I guess I'm wondering how simple it would be to adapt your program to merge any submod. Or has the program been written specifically for your submod and so wouldn't be able to work on anything else?

More like the new files are built from originals + my additions. This version has some hardcoded behaviour with files like name.txt, descr_names.txt and descr_names_lookup.txt, where I didn't add any additional *.pxs_dev files since I only had to add one name to those files.

I gotta say that now that this app was made. I see a lot of potential of converting this to some Generic mod merger, extending its functionality to any mod. The only problem that I see right now, are my M2TW modding skills, as I only know the basic functioning of files like:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• campaing_script.txt
• export_descr_unit.txt
• descr_names.txt
• descr_names_lookup.txt
• name.txt
• historic_events.txt
• export_VnVs.txt
• export_descr_character_traits.txt

Let me explain furthermore.

Take a look at the attacked files:

1. Merging procedure type 1

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• campaign_script.txt.psx_dev: This file contains my script alone
• campaign_script.txt.psx_backup: This is just an exact copy of campaign_script.txt found while running the app.

Procedure: To merge those 2 files, I know that the rule I have to follow for files like campaing_script.txt, is that any new code should be inserted within the first "script" opening tag.

So, the app reads the *.pxs_backup file and writes a new campaing_script.txt until it finds this first tag.

Then it adds my script below this line.

And finally it continues writing the rest of the file.

1. Merging procedure type 2

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• export_descr_unit.txt.pxs_dev: This files contains a list of all units that I use to create in my script.
• export_descr_unit.txt.pxs_backup: again, this is just an exact copy of any export_descr_unit.txt found while running the app.

Procedure: This one is a little bit more complicated.

I need to add the attribute "fpome_unit" to certain units, so they can be destroyed when needed.

So, the app reads the *.pxs_backup file and writes a new export_descr_unit.txt.

It will look for every unit until it finds one that is exactly as one in the *.pxs_dev file.

Then it will search for its attributes line and will add ", fpome_unit" at the end of this line.

This will be repeated for every unit found.

In case not all units are found, this means my mod is not compatible and will restore all backups.

I hope this help answer your doubt. What do you think?, if you wish I can share the source code. It was made with c# framework 2.0.

I you find it viable, we could work together on a Generic Mod Merger.

[Withwnar]

Thank you, that answers my question perfectly.

So it is a combination of both methods. An "append the contents of file A to B" for things like CS and some hardcoded specialisation for things like EDU attributes.

I have toyed with the idea of making a mod merger. There was a discussion on it recently here in the TATW forum. But every time I think seriously about it again I abandon the idea two minutes later with "no way, that is too much work".

The problem is how to handle anything other than 'insertions', i.e. making changes to things already in the files. Your EDU attribute case for example. As I see it the merger tool would need to be able to parse every single M2TW txt/xml/modeldb file before it could make decisions on what is different and how to then apply the merge.

I have some ideas on the matter but they mostly involve the 'parser' already being built. That alone is enough to put me off. I have written a few tools that parse some files but the files are few and even then only reading some info from them.

By the way, I would suggest making your CS inserter do it at the end of the file rather than the beginning. If the submod contains any campaign-start event messages (e.g. activation yes/no) then they would appear before the Welcome To TATW one which should be the very first thing the player sees. But it needs to be before the wait_monitors (and ideally it's comment) so you could insert it after the final end_monitor, assuming that nothing but comments lies between that and the wait_monitors bit.

[angus young]

Great work + 1

Is it compatible with Frome ?

[proximusj]

...I have toyed with the idea of making a mod merger. There was a discussion on it recently here in the TATW forum. But every time I think seriously about it again I abandon the idea two minutes later with "no way, that is too much work".

The problem is how to handle anything other than 'insertions', i.e. making changes to things already in the files. Your EDU attribute case for example. As I see it the merger tool would need to be able to parse every single M2TW txt/xml/modeldb file before it could make decisions on what is different and how to then apply the merge.

I have some ideas on the matter but they mostly involve the 'parser' already being built. That alone is enough to put me off. I have written a few tools that parse some files but the files are few and even then only reading some info from them...

You'r probably right. From where I was seeing it, I was not taking a lot of things into consideration. My merger works because; 1. my mod is small and 2. I know exactly what has to be done to merge it. A generic merger would need to have all possible merging cases, which as you say, is a hell lot of work to be done.

Great work + 1

Is it compatible with Frome ?

I guess you are talking about Frome for TATW 2.1. If that's the case, then I'm afraid the answer is, no. But when Frome for TATW 3.1 is released, I'll make a compatible version since I'll like Frome too.