[NTW] Favourite DB Editor

**Ishan** · November 09, 2013, 06:05 PM

For the year 2012, there are 4 TW modders nominated as favourite DB Editors. DB editing is basically modding of database entries in warscape games like Napoleon. Quite many tweaks & changes are possible through it, like modification or re-balancing of units stats. Please review these nominees below and then vote for the one you like the most:

Steph

With his DB editing skills he has released 2 units packs and worked on the mod called masters of europe. In them he edited hundreds of line to add units with period and regional recruitment.

King Sama

With his DB editing skills King Sama contributed in the mod called WW2: Sandstorm 0.5 beta.

Originally Posted by King Sama

In 2012, we released a beta (v0.5), which was made entirely from scratch. The setting and name was changed to our theatre of interest, North Africa, and along with it the units and thematic details. It included models, textures, sounds, historical accuracy, etc - all the stuff you'd expect from a mod, really.

This World War 2 Submod is a project with the aim of simulating, within the warscape engine, the tactical and strategic decisions that a commander of this conflict would have faced, the populations and technology at his disposal, and both the grim realities of war and the terrible consequences of defeat. Aided by the resources of TGW, this mod is intended to portray the war in a historically-correct manner, but equally to create an enjoyable and tactically-challenging gameplay experience. Full details here.

Primergy

Primergy was the DB editor behind the mod called North & South, its beta version was released in Sep, 2012. The mod is a overhaul of NTW Vanilla so one could imagine the amount of DB editing involved. Read more here.

Originally Posted by Primergy

Well, I don't think the DB work of the mod is especially fancy. The hardest work was to combine my units with the dozen historic units Slyk has added to his historic battles. Here should be noted that Slyk payed attention to resemble the historic manpower in the game with a scale of 1:4.
A general guideline was to not overwrite any existing entry, but to create completely new ones to make it as stable as possible. This was a problem for the buildings, since this DB table was not editable for a long time. And only Taw made it possible.

Much more important was the coding area of other files then the DBs. To get the desired effects for North&South, like enlarged battle flags, new grass types like cornfields, the ability of some units kneeling down for firing, as well as proper fences and walls where units are able to take cover, a lot of files had to be edited for the very first time. Ranging from simple .txt files for animation, over xml files like .tai (for grass) to the most complex format of the .farm_tile_templates.
Thanks to Taw who wrote a converter for the .farm_tile_templates I was able to understand those files and utilize them for fences/walls. But this took over 8 months of converting, editing one single variable, starting up the game and then see what happens (crash, stable, change of the look of a fence?) and another 3 months of writing my own tools in 3ds Max to speed up the process.

Iutland

Iutland for a very extensive update of La montée de l'Empire (LME) version 4 including adding a year 1792 and a year 1815 campaign to the mod as well as adding more than 100 new units to the mod. An estimated 400 hours went into updating LME to version 4, which was the largest update so far.