Editing the new startpos.esf Files

[TheTrueBlue]

I have the ESF editor, am playing a Republican Tosa game, but I realized 5 turns before game end I had accidentally selected short campaign instead of long... so many hours wasted? Is there any way to edit a save to either change the current date or number of turns or the end date? Please help.

[Akaie]

Are you using ESFEditor or EditSF? Make sure you use EditSF !

Just to note, you can keep playing past the victory or defeat screen. The only thing that stops you is loosing all provinces .

[TheTrueBlue]

Are you using ESFEditor or EditSF? Make sure you use EditSF !

Just to note, you can keep playing past the victory or defeat screen. The only thing that stops you is loosing all provinces .

Yes I have EditSF 1.0.5, so what happens when the time runs out? Do they just play the movie with the 2 sword-wielding actors and then a screen + pic "you lost"?

I found a few instances of the year (1869), and the turn number (143) in the savefile, will changing these move back the clock, or are there other numbers that need to be edited? In the same sub-tab there's a few other numbers, such as 11 and 3. The current date is 1869, 5 turns till end of winter, but I've built things up a certain way and want to see how they play out, and that will take years of turns.

I found one instance of 1870 in CALENDAR_DATE, but changing it didn't change the "Objectives" tab message of "Conquer x provinces before year: 1870".

[TheTrueBlue]

Ok, I decided to subtract 4 years from the date, which is 4x24 = 96 turns

I went through the save file and found and changed 3 or 4 instances of 1869 and changed them to 1865.
I found 1 instance of 143 and changed it to 143-96 = 47, and 2 or 3 instances of 144 which I changed to 144-96 = 48

I also found a case of 1870, which, just to try, I changed to 1888

Result:

In game, everything is the same except the date and 1 or 2 funky things.
The game history still shows recorded battles and events from the future... and new events from the reset date.
But as Tosa leader I had 1 SON and 2 DAUGHTERS. These children came of age the next turn with an age of 3276892 or something like that, 3 million something, so the son immediately spawned into a general in my capital and a retainer offered him a prudent wife -1 morale -10% upkeep which I OK'd. The 2 daughters are also 3 million years old and I can now marry them to generals or others, etc.

I've played 2 turns since, everything seems to work as normal. I'm really not sure what caused the ages of the daimyo's kids to become Jurassic like that.

Also the end date of 1888 was changed in the "objectives tab", although I'm not sure if it's just for display or the victory conditions have actually changed.

Was update as I pass the next 2 years and hit the "old" deadline, see if anything happes.

[TheTrueBlue]

Also, the Prudent Wife 19, how's that for age difference in marriage eh? 3 million year old who was a 1 year old yesterday a marries 19 year old (Yamauchi Mutsu nee Takeda).

I tried to edit post, but I couldn't so I'm posting again, sorry, no choice. But I forgot to mention that my grandkids (1 son and 1 daughter) to my heir (who was and remains I think 20 or so, his wife too), also appear to have aged eons. They have adult portraits even though they are a only a few months old. No other info is available for them as they as kids of kids in the family tree. Other ai spawned generals so far appear to have regular age numbers as well. Will update if any other funny stuff happens with this instance of using the ESFeditor.

[Akaie]

Yes I have EditSF 1.0.5, so what happens when the time runs out? Do they just play the movie with the 2 sword-wielding actors and then a screen + pic "you lost"?

It shows up a variant of the clan history page (I think there's even a video in there) and an option to either press on or exit. Clicking the continue campaign button lets you continue as if no 'failure' had occurred .

[Lord Baal]

I'm having an error at:

Done: 10.6%
RuntimeError: Trying to annotate value of unknown type: bin16

[Akaie]

Best use EditSF to save yourself the headache .

[liebenskunst]

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to illliterate s like me.

Really appreciate it.

...But where am I supposed to find startpos.esf? I know. I'm fail.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[liebenskunst]

Apologies for the double post, but I thought I'd add a but of background.

Basically, I'm stuck here:

Now that that is all done, the tools should work. Using your keen PFM skills, extract the startpos.esf and paste it in the “esfxml” folder.

My PFM skills are clearly lacking, because I don't know where to look for startpos.esf - a saved game? The data folder? Please help!

[liebenskunst]

I feel guilty for making you all post such detailed replies because I've got it all worked out now.

Thanks.

[Hick]

I have all the files unpacked and everything, I know where to find the files I want to modify (general traits) using EditSF or just searching through the xml's....but I am unsure how to make any modified saves appear in game. Do I just save the changes in the respective dir/overwrite the startpos.esf using the EditSF and then Shogun2 will automatically update based on the changes? Or do I then need to move the edited startpos.esf somewhere?

[DJB_Halo]

Okay. I've been searching for an hour now, I cannot find the startpos.esf for the life of me.

This is quite irritating.

[WhiskeySykes]

I've followed Akaie's tutorial with complete sucksess. Its open season on those damn region_slots! If you need any help modding the xml's, ask via pm.

[WhiskeySykes]

I've updated all those broken links with new pics:

Editing the new startpos.esf Files

Note: Unless you are working with diplomacy factors or victory conditions, I recommend you save yourself the hassle and use EditSF!

Preamble
As of the late March 2012 patch, CA has rolled out .esf files with greater compression (around 10% of their original sizes, which is great for TWC bandwidth ). taw quickly came to our rescue, updating his esfxml tool so we can open and edit these new .esf files. Credits go to taw for both the tools and conveying how to use them .

I wrote this tutorial because there will no doubt be some lack of understanding as to how it works. It can be daunting, so hopefully this tutorial will make things clear. As a side note, this thread documents things about the .esf changes.

Firstly, you’ll need to download two things:
-taw’s tools
-lzma SDK

I also assume you have these/know how to use these:
-Windows (Specifically, I assume you’re working with Windows 7)
-A program that can open both .bz2 and .zip files (7zip works, and it’s free)
-Pack File Manager (to extract the .esf files)
-Concentration

---

Extract the first download to a place on your computer you will remember. In the file “taw-etwng-c0d4476.zip” will be a folder with the same name, minus the .zip bit, and a collection of folders inside it. The important one is “esfxml”.

To make decompressing and compressing quicker, extract all the files inside “lzma920.tar.bz2” into the “esfxml” folder as highlighted above. As a side note, if you use WinRAR, it will take you to the numerous files you’ll need. If you use 7zip, you need to open “lzma920.tar” that will show up in the 7zip window when you open "lzma920.tar.bz2" with 7zip. Just make sure you are extracting several folders and .exe files. If you did this right, the “esfxml” folder should look like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

coming soon

To be able to use any of taw’s tools, you need to install JRuby and then nokogiri. You can download Jruby here. If you don’t know what you’re doing, just download this version of JRuby. When that is done, go to your “esfxml” folder and double click on “install_nokogiri.bat”. Make sure you right-click and “Run as administrator” because UAC will most likely block it without telling you (I learnt that the frustrating way).

Now that that is all done, the tools should work. Using your keen PFM skills, extract the startpos.esf and paste it in the “esfxml” folder. Here’s where it may seem complicated. Hold your left “shift” key, right click on the window that is displaying the contents of the “esfxml” folder and select “Open command window here”. What this is doing is telling command prompt to make all of our demands relative to the “esfxml” folder, where ever on the computer you’ve placed it.

From here, you need to copy and paste a few things.

First of all, paste

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

jruby esf2xml startpos.esf startpos_dir

into the command window by right-clicking and clicking “paste”. Now hit enter. If the command worked properly, you should now see a new folder named “startpos_dir” and the command window should give you the same response as it gives me. Here’s a pic of that:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now for the second command line. Just as you did last time, paste

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

lzma d startpos_dir/compressed_data.esf.xz startpos_dir/compressed_data.esf

into the command window and hit enter. If it worked, you should be able to find a file called “compressed_data.esf” in the “startpos_dir” folder. Here is yet another pic, showing both the “compressed_data.esf” file in the “startpos_dir” and the response the command window gives after running the second line.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Lastly, enter this line in the same way as you did with the last two:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

jruby esf2xml startpos_dir/compressed_data.esf startpos_dir_nested

This one will take much longer than the other two lines. It is kind enough to give you a percentage of how much it is done every few seconds. If it worked, you should see a new folder, “startpos_dir_nested” and quite a list of things in the command prompt window. If it looks like this, keep going:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Inside the “startpos_dir_nested” folder is all the uncompressed data in a generally understandable fashion. Because this is a more lengthy process in comparison to using ESFEditor, you may not be able to find your away as well as you could with that program. As such, I’ll try to help you out there. Those who have used taw’s tools before will have a good idea where everything is, as it seems the core .esf setup is much of the same.

The last steps are re-compiling the data into what will be a modified startpos.esf file. All you have to do now is reverse the three command lines. As you did before, open the command window (if you closed it, here is the instructions: Hold your left “shift” key, right click on the window that is displaying the contents of the “esfxml” folder and select “Open command window here”).

Firstly, paste this line

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

jruby xml2esf startpos_dir_nested startpos_dir/compressed_data.esf

and wait until it is finished. There is no percentage indicator like before, so just wait until a second directory line shows up, which indicates completion.


Secondly, paste this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

lzma e startpos_dir/compressed_data.esf startpos_dir/compressed_data.esf.xz

It will be completed quickly.


Lastly, paste this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

jruby xml2esf startpos_dir startpos.esf

To make sure everything went smoothly, check the date at which the startpos.esf was last modified and cross-check it with what the time is at the moment.

If you have an issue, I need you to be specific. Before telling me you have a problem, make sure you try and go through the tutorial again with greater concentration. If you don't quite understand something, post instead of giving yourself a headache and I'll try to help .

[izzi]

Do you think you could do the same with campaign.tree_list? It's also an esf file.

[WhiskeySykes]

I think so, I'll give it a try. Where's it located, in models?

[izzi]

I think so, I'll give it a try. Where's it located, in models?

In campaign_maps/campaign(boshin for example)/display/trees

[WhiskeySykes]

In campaign_maps/campaign(boshin for example)/display/trees

Are these the files you need, izzi?

[izzi]

Are these the files you need, izzi?

Correct, the tree_lod_list. Did it work?