Links to basic 'how to' guides for new modders

[Alwyn]

I posted some basic guides for new modders in different parts of the Mod Workshop. It might be helpful to have an index of them:-

Editing the startpos.esf (the file which the game uses to create the world at the start of the campaign)

- How to remove city forts from the startpos, here

- How to edit the startpos so that cities are fortified at the start of the game, here

- How to remove a trade route from the startpos, here

- How to change which faction is emergent in a region, here

- How to edit a faction description (the description which appears in the faction selection screen), here

Editing units and unit recruitment

- How to unlock a unit, here

- How to create a new unit, here. Also, this discussion on this thread might help people who are learning to make new units.

- How to create a new naval unit, here

- How to mod the AOR (areas of recruitment) of a unit, here

- How to mod unit experience (the benefits of chevrons and how quickly units get chevrons), here

- How to unlock and edit Fourth Rate Frigates, with historical research by Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, here

- How to edit the range of weapons (an example of a mini-mod which you can edit), here

- how to allow a faction to recruit a unit which it normally cannot recruit unless it has a particular type of government (an example of a mini-mod which you can edit), here

- How to change the statistics of ships back to before the 1.4 version of ETW (includes examples of mini-mods which you can edit), here

- How to convert an infantry unit from using swords to using muskets, here

- My guides to editing units, above, use Pack File Manager. You can also use DB Editor to edit units. Hammeredalways provided a guide to using DB Editor and a download link for the tool itself here.

Other editing/modding

- How to activate mods for Empire Total War, here

- How to prevent Britain, France and Spain from taking over their protectorates (so that Louisiana, New Spain and the Thirteen Colonies remain), here

- How to edit the names of units, names of provinces etc (editing the localisation file), here

- How to unpatch Empire Total War (one way to fix siege lag), here


How to recover from save game corruption / if the game keeps crashing

If you continue to edit mod files, putting each new version in your data folder and continuing an existing campaign (rather than starting a new campaign every time you make a small edit) - as I do - then eventually Empire Total War will become 'broken'. The game will crash, no matter what you do. You might find that the game crashes whenever you try to start it, or when you load a saved game, or when you start a battle.

Normally, this would probably mean that there was an error (or unexpected side-effect) caused by the new version of the mod. However, if you remove the new version of the mod, and return to a version which you know does not cause crashes, and if the game crashes anyway, then the game has become 'broken'. I explain how I recover from this problem in the second half of this post, under the heading 'How to recover when the game becomes 'broken'.

My mods for Empire Total War

If you would like to see examples of mods which use some of the methods explained above, there is a list of my mods for Empire Total War here.

Guides for new modders by modding experts

I am a relatively inexperienced modder. You will find tutorials by more experienced modders here in the 'Tools, Tutorials and Resources' part of the Mod Workshop. There are some guides by expert modders, which I find very useful and which are not in the Mod Workshop for Empire Total War, so you might not find them. They are:-

- husserlTW, My Modding Work; this is an essential guide for anyone interested in modding the startpos (especially the 'STARTPOS.ESF analysis and modifications') here

- erasmus777, How to create a mod; this is for Napoleon Total War but it also works for Empire Total War, here

Would you like to provide links to tutorials and information around this forum?

If you find tutorials or useful information on modding around this forum and if you would like to provide a link to them, feel free to post on this thread.

For example:-

- husserlTW explained how to fix the 'Ivory Coast camera bug' (a bug which occurs when we edit the startpos, causing the camera to show the player the Ivory Coast instead of your faction's home regions when you start the game) here.

- argonian68 explained how to add slaves as a commodity here (of course, I'm not endorsing slavery or the treatment of human beings as commodities - and I'm sure that argonian68 isn't either - this is simply a way to represent something in the game which, tragically for the lives of millions of people, existed in the 18th century time period).

These are examples of the valuable information around the forum which can be difficult to find, since there are so many threads.

[Bavarian Grenadier]

excellent accumulation @Alwyn very useful as for editing the localisation.loc file it was very helpfull the only problem is nobody explain how to uncheck this damn boxes ,which are for synchronisation i think,manually it would take ages ,maybe you have a tipp how is it possible to deactivate in a an cloned localisation file all boxe at once ?

but otherwise very helpfull many to read next weekend hehe

[Alwyn]

Thank you, Bavarian Grenadier. You mentioned the boxes which you want to uncheck. I am wondering which boxes they are. Below is what I see when I open a modded pack file containing the localisation table in Pack File Manager 1.9. (This is from a 'work in progress' version of my These United Colonies mod). There are boxes on the right hand side but they are already unchecked.

[Bavarian Grenadier]

Thank you, Bavarian Grenadier. You mentioned the boxes which you want to uncheck. I am wondering which boxes they are. Below is what I see when I open a modded pack file containing the localisation table in Pack File Manager 1.9. (This is from a 'work in progress' version of my These United Colonies mod). There are boxes on the right hand side but they are already unchecked.

yes these boxes i mean in every tut about loc file is mentioned that in a copy they must be unchecked in my ge_loc they are always activated even in an extracted pack file or I´m missing something ?

thx in advance

[Alwyn]

I see what you mean. Yes, unchecking all of those boxes would take forever. I don't know of a way to uncheck all of the boxes at once - the boxes are unchecked when I make the pack file.

The only difference I notice is that you are using Pack File Manager 3.5.0. I use Pack File Manager 1.5.9 to extract database tables from patch files, to make a new pack file and to add files to it. Then I save the modded pack file and open it in a different Pack File Manager. I normally use PFM 1.5.3 to modify the entries in the database tables, except when I'm editing a pack file containing the localisation table - then I use PFM 1.9 (also, if PFM 1.5.3 cannot edit a database tables, I use PFM 3.5.0 instead). So perhaps the difference is that I use PFM 1.5.9 to make the modded pack.

So I suggest trying using PFM 1.5.9 to create a pack file containing the localisation file (You can get PFM 1.5.9 from the Tools, Tutorial and Resources page of the Mod Workshop for Napoleon Total War) - I would be interested to hear whether, if you do that, the boxes are unchecked.

[Leonardo]

This list of links to tutorials for new modders should be a sticky, just to make it easier to find relevant information for any modder.

[Nordlaender]

Hi Alwyn,

This is a great listing of what's out there. Good job.

I would like to add my own tiny mod for improving the fire rate and effectiveness of star fort guns. It is attached hereto.

Also, to make it even more effective, you need to create a special "Fort Garrison" unit by cloning a militia or armed peasant (eastern/india) unit to man the guns on the fort by raising their reloading rate to 70 or 80. I just settled for a smaller militia unit of 60 men whose accuracy was reduced to 10, but with a reloading rate of 80 in order to man the star forts. It is the reloading rate of the unit manning the guns that matters. The accuracy and damage of the guns (all 12 lbers by default) which only fire round shot, is modified to be more effective as the enemy moves closer. This is in the attached file for those who want a really effective star fort or artillery fort, which are kind of expensive to build.

The attachment and discussion about it can also be found under the Post named "Fort Gun Projectiles?".