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Jonnan001
Jonnan001
Join Date 05/2008
+37

Pulling a campaign into a Mod

Updating Previous Campaigns

July 7, 2008 2:56:35 AM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
My apologies - I've done some searching, and not pulled this up, so my apologies in advanced if I just missed it.

Okay I have (I think) successfully played around and (With copious use of [url=http://winmerge.org/]Winmerge[/url] , a program for highlighting the changes in text files) updated the XML files from Dread Lords and Dark Avatar so one can play as the previous techtrees and improvements under the Twilight engine - at least it seems to work at first blush, much checking things and making sure the modded files are in the correct spots and being read yet to be done. But I seem to have the tech tree and files working anyway, and it seemed a good way to dig into files and figure out what does what.

That said - How does one update the campaigns into a mod?. My *assumption* was that they needed to be added to the "Campaign" folder under the mod directory, however the system doesn't seem to read them as an additional campaign from there. It *does* read them added directly to the Twilight campaign folder in the main  program directory, but I presume that would be unbalanced if it was run from the main Twilight campaign folder without a mod in it - I'd like to make it available only if running the actual mods with the tech tree and so on.

Am I doing something obviously wrong in here somewhere?

Thank you  - Jonnan
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Jonnan001
Zyxpsilon
Join Date 02/2006
+80
Reply #1 July 8, 2008 12:21:15 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
And i was using another type of program (Compare it) to inspect my files... gotta give this WinMerge stuff a run for its FREE money too - thanks.

Campaigns, i suppose, have a hard-coded wire tied with expected default path location(s) and a loop-hole check within the usual setup screen which would make it much more complex to alter anything to fit in a MOD accessing process. I'm almost sure it can be done though by overriding either the scripting calls or possibly editing the "GalaxyWnd,dxpack" file itself.

What is strange also is that a freshly created MOD folder ***DOES*** have a dir for Campaigns - implying the wanted detection of these files should work as long as all other resources (Maps, Scenarios, etc) are made available also.

I have yet to start working on this feature for X-Worlds (Maps being entirely incompatible with DA, being just one important issue, btw) but i will eventually - so let us know what you come up with or if you found an "easy" solution.
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Jonnan001
Jonnan001
Join Date 05/2008
+37
Reply #2 July 8, 2008 8:02:50 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well, I was rather hoping this might be a "Oh - you need to add a setting in the .ini" or something equally newbie-ish, but evidently not. This was mostly a way for me to dig into the XML files and see stuff, if they may just get copied into the TA campaign folder, I will survive the emotional distress - {G}.

Not familiar with 'Compare It', but I found Winmerge to be pretty intuitively obvious - it is (I think) just a GUI on the Linux 'diff' tools behind the scenes - load two files, hit "[alt]- down arrow" to go to the next difference between the files, "[alt]-Left/Right arrow" copies the changes from right to left or vice versa.

Make sure you toggle *off* the comparisons of whitespace/tabs - the whitespace was evidently changed to tabs in the TA versions of some files, which created a lot of false 'differences' in the files before I figured that out.

Good luck anyway - This week will be busy, but if I at least introduced a useful tool, I'll ask 'em to double my salary - {G}.

Jonnan
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Jonnan001
Zyxpsilon
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #3 July 9, 2008 12:07:00 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
if they may just get copied into the TA campaign folder...


That's not what i said; any OTHER campaign(s) than the defaults must reside in a MOD folder along with all necessary assets for it to work as it should.

Got WinMerge, btw. Looks alright, it's only a matter of exploring the "new" functions and see if it works better than Compare_It.

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Jonnan001
Jonnan001
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #4 July 9, 2008 8:00:05 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Okay - what exactly would I need to change in order for the Twilight engine to recognize the campaign in the mod campaigns folder then? Just change the name?

Sorry goofing off at work, but I can't really test options here - {G}

Jonnan
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Jonnan001
Zyxpsilon
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #5 July 9, 2008 11:51:50 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well, i would guess you'd still need a reference 'call' file in the appropriate location that defines and ties the core assets with the Mod folder exactly as how the default campaigns (..DATA\English\Campaigns, btw) work since the code must detect any new ones wherever they'd be.
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