Changing starter buildings on the Freeform Campaign

[Cimar_of_Turalis]

I've been playing this mod for a little over a year and a half now and have been very happy with all of the work put into it (thank you Neph!!). I heard through this forum that you can change how things begin in the freeform campaign through the "descr_strat" file in the "World" folder and have tried to make changes to the initial buildings in the campaign to little success; i.e such as adding in a milk bar to Lon Lon settlement at the start of the campaign and give Hyrule the ability to build public baths like the Zora's have; those hylians are dirtying up my beautiful settlements haha.

I have had little success in this venture and the only building I have been able to change is in Hyrule Prime and it was to change its starting settlement to a metropolis by changing its settlement number to a 7.

building
{
type hinterland_issettlement issettlement_7
}

I believe I can do the same thing to add other buildings (such as the milk bar) to other settlements, however, I'm not sure what the actual name to add to the settlement to place it in. I've tried adding the milk bar, roads, castles, and even a leather tanner like this to a Hyrule Prime in the descr_strat file to see what works....

building
{
type leather_tanner (or) "milkbar" (or) "paved_roads_desc" etc
}

...each made it so I couldn't begin a new campaign and the old campaign file crashed upon loading. I've made a backup to the descr_strat file so I don't permanently crash the game. I'm a bad modder, but not bad enough not to remember that golden rule haha.

I thought I found the right names to add in those buildings under the "export_descr_buildings" and export_descr_buildings_enums" documents in the "data" file, but apparently I haven't as nothing in there works besides changing the level of the settlement. Is there a list that has the names of all the buildings to make modding the freeform campaign easier? I found a forum post that taught me how to add in units here...
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?559005-Buildings/page4 (thank you HeroofTime!!!)
...so does the same principle work with buildings as units or am I doing this all wrong?

I hope someone can help me with this and thank you for your time in advance.

[Zalanum]

Try this



settlement castle
{
level large_town
region North_Hyrule_Field


year_founded 0
population 500
plan_set default_set
faction_creator hylian
building
{
type hinterland_issettlement issettlement_3
}
building
{
type core_castle_building castle
}
building
{
type hinterland_lonlon lon_lon
}
building
{
type milk_bar
}
}

[Zalanum]

Try this



settlement castle
{
level large_town
region North_Hyrule_Field


year_founded 0
population 500
plan_set default_set
faction_creator hylian
building
{
type hinterland_issettlement issettlement_3
}
building
{
type core_castle_building castle
}
building
{
type hinterland_lonlon lon_lon
}
building
{
type milk_bar
}
}

[Cimar_of_Turalis]

I tried that and it sadly didn't work. Does anyone know of a list of building names that are usable for modding the descr_strat file or where I could find them?

[Zalanum]

well that didn't paste right but descr_buildings is the right place to look

[TheHylianJuggalo]

I was about to ask all this, because 80% of the console commands don't do anymore. I'm scared I'll butcher something which is why I don't do this.

Edit: Actually, this doesn't help much. I'm trying to rewrite the files to give settlements to a faction at the START of the game, and also to set up starting alliances. Where exactly do I go for these and what do I need to edit?

[Cimar_of_Turalis]

Edit: Actually, this doesn't help much. I'm trying to rewrite the files to give settlements to a faction at the START of the game, and also to set up starting alliances. Where exactly do I go for these and what do I need to edit?

You could try messing around with the descr_strat file under the world folder located in this file...
mods\Hyrule\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign

First save the "descry_strat" file somewhere else on your computer before you touch it. You don't want to glitch anything accidentally and destroy your game. If you want to add settlements to one faction or another, my best guess would be to copy the entire settlement info of an unaligned settlement, say Snowpeak's information....

settlement castle
{
level city
region Peak_Province
year_founded 0
population 400
plan_set default_set
faction_creator sheikah
building
{
type hinterland_issettlement issettlement_7
}
building
{
type iscastle iscastle_6
}
building
{
type core_castle_building fortress
}
building
{
type hinterland_temple_snowpeak snowpeaktemple
}
building
{
type ruins ancient_ruins
}
}

So copy this, then paste it at the end of the settlements owned by whatever faction you'd like to own it. Then delete the unaligned settlement and see if that works. If the game doesn't load, you didn't do it correctly so you can then retry it to see if a different method works. I don't know if that is the correct way of doing it, and I would have tried it to test it for you, however, I'm on turn 105 of my campaign and don't want to accidentally mess up that game save file lol.

By the way, I learned the sad way that you don't want to mod your game at all when you are playing a campaign...it doesn't end well.

[Cimar_of_Turalis]

I finally figured out how to add buildings onto the Campaign mode and thought I'd share how to do it with everyone. So for my example of a milk bar you would do thus.

1. Head into the Data folder and scroll down until you see the text document, "export descr_buildings". Open it.
2. Scroll down (or search "milkbar") to find a line which says this...

building milkbar
{
levels milk_bar

3. Now open the world folder and follow it through, "World" -> "maps" -> "campaign" -> "imperial campaign" and look for the document that says, "descr_strat". Create a back up of this document on your computer, then open it.
4. Let's say you want to add it to Lon Lon Ranch (makes sense). Scroll down and look for the settlement...

settlement castle
{
level large_town
region North_Hyrule_Field

This is Lon Lon Ranch. You'll notice that it has several buildings underneath it, ending with...
building
{
type hinterland_lonlon lon_lon
}

Remember that export descr_buildings file? This is where it comes into play. You'll want to enter in...

building
{
type milkbar milk_bar
}

The "type" is simply the next words after that first "building" in the export descr_building file while the second part "milk_bar" comes from the levels portion of that file. So whatever level you want to insert, you'll type in that after the initial building type.

And there you go! Lon Lon now has a milk bar. Hopefully that is useful to somebody, and I'll see if I can make a list of buildings so if people want to add buildings to campaigns to make it feel more realistic (a capital should at least start off more advanced than a mere hamlet building wise for balance) they'll have a place to find the information for it. Meanwhile, I'll figure out how to post that list once I find out how to insert a "spoiler alert" tab into a post lol.

[VictorAYorke]

@Cimar
Sounds like a great idea! With a little forethought we could use these starter buildings to add little hints of backstory to various locations, help build the sense of lore even more...

And about the spoiler tabs, click 'go advanced' and look at the bottom row of formatting buttons; spoiler tags are the left one, collapsible list (very similar effect) are the right one. Alternatively, use {spoiler}{/spoiler} but with square brackets instead of curly.

Spoiler for extra note: 

To give your spoiler tags a warning/name/summary/thing such as this, put an = after the word spoiler in the opening tag, then what you want it to say. Like {spoiler=example} but, again, with the square brackets.

[Cimar_of_Turalis]

@Cimar
Sounds like a great idea! With a little forethought we could use these starter buildings to add little hints of backstory to various locations, help build the sense of lore even more...

And about the spoiler tabs, click 'go advanced' and look at the bottom row of formatting buttons; spoiler tags are the left one, collapsible list (very similar effect) are the right one. Alternatively, use {spoiler}{/spoiler} but with square brackets instead of curly.

Spoiler for extra note: 

To give your spoiler tags a warning/name/summary/thing such as this, put an = after the word spoiler in the opening tag, then what you want it to say. Like {spoiler=example} but, again, with the square brackets.

Thank you, and I'm starting to look at the different settlements to see which ones would be good to add buildings too. When Hyrule Castle is as developed as Malkariko, there's an issue haha. I'm working off of the older version of the game, before the latest update so I'm not sure if the changes I make on this version would work on the latest one. Don't want to download it as it is too buggy at the moment and still want to be able to play around with the older version at the same time.

And thank you for letting me know how to use the spoiler's tag. It has been frustrating not knowing how to do it so my posts end up being giant paragraphs of doom, which nobody likes to see.

For which buildings to add to which areas...I know Lon Lon should start with an animal ranch and a Milk Bar. Zora Prime should have a public bath to start with but I'm still working from there.