Newbie modding questions

[palpatine]

Hello guys,

Here I am, new player for RTW2 (and already excited for the planned extension and hoping for another one aiming either at an earlier start or a later end!). 
Discovered the game with some AARs' and discussion about it and its brothers like SaI on a french wargaming board.

Already hooked, even if I haven't played much yet. 

I kinda lika to mod my games so I have a few questions: 

- Where can I temper with the starting nations and their flags? I would just like to change some governments for starters.

- Do flags change according to revolutions or regime change? If so, can I add some alternate flags in such cases? Like, I don't know, changing France or Italy's flag after a revolution. 

- I would like to create a scenario with the CSA as an AI, as I am a sucker for alternate history (hence my first question) And possibly other powers and/or minors. Is this possible? 

- I've seen in some AARs and threads here very, very nice pictures of ships with flags and so on... Care to share?  

And also, if you have any "must-have" mod with a huge community consensus to advise, I am all hears!


Thanks in advance! 

[nimrod]

Welcome Palpatine!

I can't answer a number of your questions, but I might be able to point you in a good direction.

For editing governments, you'll need to open a save game file ".bcs" in notepad or other txt editor. Under each nation - nation 1 is you, nation 2 will be the first nation on the left on the main interface screen, etc - their will be national data such as the nation type, the ruler's and Admiral's title, base resources, available funds, technology, etc. I don't know what each type of government is connected to which number, but it should be easy to figure out with some experimentation. When you are done editing, save the file. If you are used to modding, it should be fairly simple / self explanatory once you open up a save file and poke edit for a bit. Will take some trial and error though to figure out what numbers correlate to what in-game effect.

Flags can and do change with revolutions and I'm pretty sure you can change out the alternative flags.

Wiggy might be a good resource on your flag questions as he came up with the following - nws-online.proboards.com/thread/5683/extra-flags. Additionally good pointers are found at: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/3842/create-flags.

Upgrading your images work by - "To install, copy your Images folder for safety, then unpack pictures from archives into it." from nws-online.proboards.com/thread/5236/mod-release-color-images-rtw. So that might work for the flags as well...

Generally the HP mod is good - nws-online.proboards.com/thread/3349/release-tonnage-speed-based-quadratic. If you want historical fleets SeaWolfs mods are awesome.

A new approach to images particularly relevant to SeaWolf's images / mods can be found at: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/5748/handy-relocate-files. Info might help with uploading flags, etc.

Wish I could help on the CSA as an AI nation... I don't think this would work; but have you started a game as the CSA and copied over the saved nation 1 data into a different save and nation slot?

Again welcome.

[tornado1555]

I have a moment or so, but just to add to nimrod's reply...

-----------------------------------------
Base game files are found in the "Data" folder. All .dat files can be opened with notepad.
BNat1900.dat controls the non-hardcoded traits for base game nations.

For changing coountry flags, using Germany as an example, you have

FlagFileName=Ge.bmp
FlagFileNameF=GEKM.bmp
FlagFileNameC=VM.bmp\
FlagFileNameR=GeRM.bmp

Each of these point to .bmp files found in the "Images" folder and are labelled based on the type of government in power [C= Communist for example]. So you can adjust these that way without having to edit a save game file (just remember to not be me -- always back stuff up!).
-------------------------------------

Adding custom countries and having them playable as AI is not too difficult but is a bit involved and requires a basic understanding of how some of the files in the Data folder interact with eachother.

For a custom nation you have
[Custom Nation].nat - contains the same sort of national attributes found in BNat1900.dat for the base game countries
[Custom Nation]ShipNames.dat - contains a list of names for the game to choose from for a given hull type
[Custom Nation]WarInfo.dat - contains, I believe, a list of battles against other major powers that share a home region with the given country.

For a base nation [Germany, Britain, Italy, USA, etc.] you have
BNat1900.dat - each country has a section with national attributes
[Base Nation]ShipNames.dat
[Base Nation]WarInfo.dat

>>I have to go so I can't describe this as well as I would like, but there it is. You need the custom nation's base files and then you need to replace one of the countries in your own nation's WarInfo.dat with the custom nation, which is made easier if you do not share the same starting region with the custom nation because the WarInfo file primarily deals (assuming I'm not massively incorrect) with countries that share the same region as their home. If all else fails I could simply send you a file where I have a custom West Coast American nation as an AI faction in my game as Great Britain.

Possessions and possession battles, to my recollection, are found in "MapData.dat", though ownership of a given possession is overwritten by BNat1900.dat or the custom nation .nat file. It's worth playing around a bit with it.

[palpatine]

Hello Nimrod & Tornado,

Thanks a lot for these insights.

I'll try my tampering and will most probably come again with new questions!

[nimrod]

Sounds good and enjoy!

[palpatine]

GovernmentType=3
GovernmentChange=4
Hello guys,

Any idea what the governementchange line is about in the BNat file?
I guess under some circumstances, some countries change government, but when?

Also, where are hidden the government types?

I would like to know in order to check if the game has dynamic revolutions/regime changes or if my efforts of doing naval ensigns for alternate governments is useless.

[seawolf]

Apr 1, 2021 8:55:22 GMT -6 palpatine said:

GovernmentType=3
GovernmentChange=4
Hello guys,

Any idea what the governementchange line is about in the BNat file?
I guess under some circumstances, some countries change government, but when?

Also, where are hidden the government types?

I would like to know in order to check if the game has dynamic revolutions/regime changes or if my efforts of doing naval ensigns for alternate governments is useless.

That's the government it changes to if the country collapses in revolution.  For example Russia will turn communist and Germany will turn Fascist

[palpatine]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the insight Seawolf.
So, I guess that country without that line keep the same government or do not experience revolution? (Not sure, there is already a communist germany flag in game and I am pretty sure I saw a player fighting red germans in an AAR, so this is not automatic? )

Side question : - would it be possible to set different outcomes or random ones? Given the code, I guess not but someone may have experienced it?

Also, another one : - Where are the alliances? I would like to mod some starting alliances. If this is not possible, what has to be tampered with in the savegame? And the bonus one : is it possible to set alliances between AIs and to have more than one partner?

Thanks!

[nimrod]

Palpatine,

I might be a bit late to the party and I'm away from my gaming machine. As such I can only comment on editing the .bcs save files.

1. Sort-of, I think a country could still experience revolution; it shouldn't change government types when it happens if that is blank and or set to the existing GovernmentType. There is also a coup event, which I think operates as a RNG for governmentchange / governmenttype. I've never seen liberal democracy come out of it, I believe autocracy, fascist and communist can come from it.

As an aside, regarding the red in the AAR. I'm not sure if you were seeing the red on the ships or if it was the flag or just using red as slang for communist... If it was ship color, in the battle preferences you can set a countries default ship color. I generally don't touch it much but black is how I setup Germany and sometimes I'll do green for Italy or blue of France. For me the reds and browns tend to blend in with the red hit icons on the ships.

2. I'll refer you to Aeson at: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1484/modifying-government-type. This was for RTW1 and I think the instructions are still relevant for RTW2, both for the .bcs and Bnat.dat files. The numbers are off a little, I think 4 Fascist and 5 is communist; but I could be way off on that. Again, I think the coup event generates a random government type; so if you can find that event and parse-it it may help your modding efforts.

3. In the save file, each country has a field titled (I think) "Alliance". Set it to 1 for them to ally with you. I can't help on the AI countries allying with each other. I have seen multi-way alliances by the AI - "GB and France ally to contain German aggression.". I think the way it works is their can be one AI alliance against the player and one player alliance. There is no AI-wars mod / game play at the moment, so the value of entangling AI alliances is pretty moot.

[palpatine]

A few other questions :

- Main one : how do you edit "active" countries? I've seen that playing France, Russia is on the map but is inactive. What if I would like them to be active instead of, let's say Austria-Hungary?

- How do you edit possessions in a basic scenario?

Thanks!

[aeson]

May 7, 2021 2:28:40 GMT -6 palpatine said:

- Main one : how do you edit "active" countries? I've seen that playing France, Russia is on the map but is inactive. What if I would like them to be active instead of, let's say Austria-Hungary?

Opponents are determined by which countries appear in the player nation's WarInfo file.

- How do you edit possessions in a basic scenario?

I don't understand the question. Could you elaborate on what it is that you're asking?

[palpatine]

Thanks for your answer!

As for my 2nd question : let's say for instance I want to switch Tunisia from France to Italy at basic 1900 game start, which line(s)/file(s) should I temper with?

[tornado1555]

It's been a while and I might be incorrect, but go to the save game's folder, copy the MapData file (to make a backup incase I'm horribly wrong), open the nonbackup MapData file with notepad.

Then, press keys ctrl+f, then enter "tunisia" into the search box. This will bring you to "MapArea1Possession5Name=Tunisia".

[So, Tunisia is Possession 5 for MapArea1, which is the Mediterranean Sea.]

Above this line is MapArea1Possession5Owner=France. Change "France" to "Italy" and see if that switches the possession without breaking anything.

[aeson]

tornado1555's answer will work if you want to change who controls a possession in an existing game. If you want to change who has control over a possession at game start without having to edit the MapData file for the save, then you want to do the same thing, but for the MapData file in your RTW2\Data directory rather than for the MapData file in the RTW2\Save\Game# directory. Note that there are several MapData files in the Data directory; one is for the 1900 start, one is for the 1920 start, and I think the third is unused. I do not recall off the top of my head if the names of custom nations can be used in the Data directory's MapData files without causing errors.

Another way to change possession ownership, if you're playing a custom nation, is to open the nation file with a text editor, go to the bottom of the file, and modify the Possession#= lines (# should be an Arabic numeral; I believe you can use 0 through 9, and the numerals used should be in sequential order starting at 0). This will make that custom nation the owner of that possession when you start a game as them regardless of who owns the possession normally. A custom nation can also have one additional possession, defined by the line HomePossession=Possession Name, though it should be noted that this will make that possession a home possession regardless of whether or not it would normally be one (this is how you would make a home possession for e.g. the Kingdom of Hawaii without editing the MapData file to give the Hawaii possession a value of 200). Note that while having multiple HomePossession lines will not cause errors, only the first-listed HomePossession line will have an effect in-game (e.g. if I give the Kingdom of Hawaii HomePossession=Hawaii and HomePossession=Midway, with HomePossession=Hawaii being the first-listed, then the Kingdom of Hawaii will have Hawaii as a home possession but the USA will retain Midway as a colonial possession, with Midway retaining its normal characteristics as defined in the MapData file).

It is advisable to create a backup copy of any file you intend to edit before you mess around with its contents.