How to Add/Use These New Units

Lots of newbie posters have posted threads in this forum asking the same question: 'How to add these units to the game". It's getting quiet tedious to move them to the main creation forum all the time. I hope this sticky thread would reduce the number of those threads.

Can someone post a detailed "HOW TO" post below? Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by Thunderfall
Can someone post a detailed "HOW TO" post below? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

I can.

Please note that for more information about adding units to PTW, please read further down this thread, or click this link....

>> Adding Units to Civ3 Conquests: Thorough Guide for the Newbie by Colonel Kraken

>> Tutorial: Adding new civs and UUs in PTW by Bamspeedy

There is also some useful information in this link....

my short explanation of the ANIM_NAME PTW feature

>> The text file attachment below is ONLY for adding new units to the 'vanilla' version of Civ3, pre PTW....

Some information that Kryten is missing:
When you download the units make sure you get all the files and check the thread for information.
If the unit has a Read me, Read it.
As Kryten said the Unit, the Folder, and the INI must have the same name this includes spaces and case, when creating a new folder for the unit it is easiest to copy the name from the INI.
Civ3MultiTool can do most of the work adding for you, and it has a Civilopeda editor.
When using a different name it is best to create a new folder with the name you want to use and copy just the INI into it, rename the new INI to the same name as the folder, and edit the INI to point to the original files like this: ..\Unit Name\Animation.flc.
It is best not to save as Civ3Mod.bic, save the BIC in the Scenario folder with a different name.
To test it is best to not have any requirements.

The above posts were very useful in adding units to a scenario (*.bic) file. But is there a way to add units to an already in-progress game or do you have to start all over when you add or edit a new unit???

Sorry to have taken so long to reply Boris Bandinov, but I've only just noticed your post.

Unfortunately, you are right. You cannot add new units or even change any stats in the Civ3 Editor and then reload and continue with a saved game.

This may change with the PTW expansion disk....but to be honest, I really don't know.
Sorry.

Thanks for the help in adding units to the game. I used your guide to make a scenario with the American Flamethrower unit from the PTW World War 2 unit pack. The only thing is I was getting errors when I initially did it, it kept saying that I was missing entries in PediaIcons.txt, so I had to go in there and add a few things. I added the entry for the civilopedia, and then I had to add this entry...
"#ANIMNAME_PRTO_American_Flamethrower
American Flamethrower"
After that, it worked fine, and the unit looks so cool! Do you know why I was getting those errors? Because in your guide it said you dont have to do that.

"#ANIMNAME_PRTO_American_Flamethrower
American Flamethrower"


#ANIMNAME_PRTO_ is actully a new thing that shipped with play the world, I know it sure surprized me the first time I seen it.

What this part does is tell the game the name of the .ini file to look for. Just another added section, and converting all your currently added units shouldn't be to hard sense under the old system the .ini had to have the same name as the unit.

A break down of it is

"#ANIMNAME_" Is what tells the game that this is the animation files for this unit.

"PRTO_American_Flamethrower" - You guessed it, this is the civilopedia entry. You now need a civilopedia area for all units (Even if theres no text for it in the civilopedia).

"American Flamethrower" This is simply the name of the .ini files


Now bare in mind, I've only been playing with everything for afew days but I'm pretty certain that I'm right, if I'm not or if I have afew things wrong I'd love to hear about it but for now I think this should help you out, Orion52.

Kyle

Yeah, I actually started figuring it out. To make a new unit in PTW you have to add two entries to PediaIcons.txt, one for the civilopedia and one for the ANIMNAME. For example, for the German Anti-Tank I added this..

#ICON_PRTO_German_Anti-tank
art\civilopedia\icons\units\x_princess civpedia lg.pcx
art\civilopedia\icons\units\x_princess civpedia sm.pcx

#ANIMNAME_PRTO_German_Anti-tank
German Anti-tank

For the civilopedia, I just gave it the icon for the princess because it doesn't have one. Using this, I've added the flame throwers, anti-tanks, and the heavy machinegunners to a generic senerio I made. Let me say that they all look sweet! One of the hard parts is matching up the unit with its icon because some look similar. I think I'm going to view all the flc files and match them up with their icons, maybe write a guide or something. We'll see. Its going to take a while to add all these WW2 units, but it'll be worth it!!!

Jeez, I thought they were bragging about how "easy" it was going to be to do mods and switch back and forth between mods. Sounds like it got harder. I never did figure out how to add new units before PTW came out. I always get some kind of error. Usually INI errors. I have even used the multitool and still had no success. Maybe I'm just a dumbass, but I can never get it to work. I can put things in the build queue, but when they actually are bulit and should show up on the main screen, I crash.

I have Flicster and have checked to make sure that all the graphics are not corrupted. My best guess is thst there is something wrong with the sounds. I tried to install the Harrier and give it the same sounds as the Jet fighter, but it wouldn't work.

I have scoured the forums for info on adding units, but haven't found a tutorial made for dumbasses. If someone could create or point me to a walk-thorugh appropriate for a third grader, I would be eternally grateful. I have been dying to make my own WWII/Modern era mod, but never figured it all out. I was overjoyed to hear that PTW had these units already in it, but after reading posts here, I have put off buying it. It seems that it will be even harder to make my mod.

HI

MY PROBLEM IS MY INTERNET CONNECTION, WICH IS VERY VERY SLOW . IS PATCH 1.29 REALLY USEFULL TO ADD A NEW UNIT?
CAN I ADD A NEW UNIT WITHOUT IT?


THANKS TO ALL

First post, and he shouts...

Yes, you can add a new unit with out - now go and learn to post w/o shouting...

ok, i'm sorry for my post, i didnt want to hurt anyone!

But now my question is how to add new units with out patches?

Thank you in advance

I´m having some problems. I´ve done all this with the new units_32 file that it sais in Kryten´s guide (below).

"If the creator has NOT supplied a new units_32 file, or if you wish to have one with just about ALL the new
units on it (which I recommend), then go to the Units Graphics Forum in the Civfanatics Centre and look for
a thread by kittenOFchaos called "My Units_32 file with 51 unit icons added to it". Inside this thread you will find
that three very nice people called kittenOFchaos, MOON and Zulu9812 have kept an updated units_32 file with lots of
new units already in it. Just download this into Program Files/Infrogrames Interactive/Civilization III/Art/units instead.Now repeat steps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 above, but this time keep clicking the icon box untill you get the picture you want. "

But when I´m using the editor (v 1.29) I can only see the old icons. When I try to go above icon 83 it says "please enter an integer between 0 and 83" Could someone help me.
I have no problems with rest I got the unit into the Civilopedia with its icons.

Go to your Units folder and backup your current (original) Units_32 file. Then go to this thread and grab Zulu's new Units_32 file (well, you might have to get a different one if you don't have PtW --I'm not sure). Next, put that new Units_32 file in your Units folder (...\Civiii\Art\Units\), replacing the original one. Now, when you open the editor, you'll have all the new icons available.

Hope this helps.

Well I found out what the problem was. I installed CIV3 two times and I only changed one of the unit_32 files. But I had to change the one at Infogrames Interactive. But thanks anyway

It might also be a good idea to make a backup of all the affected files and folders to a Zip file (would likely be huge) or burnt to a CDR/RW.

Then if your OS dies (sure, that ~never~ happens in OSX or XP) or Civ3 get bit-rot, you can put back all the customized jobbies and continue to play in your own special style.

Are they ever going to improve the ability to add units so that it can be done easily by a total idiot like me? I see the PTW scenarios some of them mention "A Patch" (eg the Ancient Meditteranean Scenario) but www.civ3.com has no such patch yet.
That is what I need, patch style installation.

I for the life of me can not get units to work (or get their icons to show up) in ptw world. i've read though the posts here and would like it if someone could give me easy, and thourgh directions of how to do this.


(remember how incredibly easy this was in civ2...?)

Edit: Never mind. In the Editor, you have to specify the tag that you are using in the PediaIcons file, ie. it won't know automatically that ICON_PRTO_blah refers to the unit called blah.

I can't seem to be able to add new units either. I get the same error message as Orion52, about missing entries in the PediaIcons.txt file. I did add both the ICON_PRTO_ and the ANIMNAME_PRTO_ entries, and still. I can even see the unit in civilopedia, but as soon as I try to add it (using Shift+F1 in a debug-enabled scenario) the game crashes.

Any suggestions? Is it possible that the entries I added are not correct?

Where do I put these new units? In the PtW unit section or the Civ3 unit folder?