doesnt seem to work. Help?
The reason it's not doing anything is that your XML is VERY wrong. It's failing to load the file.
(Note: if you had turned on the various logfiles, it'd tell you exactly which are wrong, with no need to ask us.)
But here are a few obvious errors:
1> Deletes are BAD. For one thing, you deleted ERA_ANCIENT, but it doesn't delete the other tables that mention ERA_ANCIENT. Things like:
- Which era techs like Agriculture are found in (i.e., mentions of ERA_ANCIENT outside of that file)
- What era to play certain soundtracks in (i.e., the secondary tables within that file)
So simply deleting something like this will often cause a crash, and at the very least will cause it to just not work.
2> You've added ERA_INDUSTRIAL, etc., but there's ALREADY an ERA_INDUSTRIAL at ID=4. So it sees two eras with the same Type, and crashes. Ditto for the other duplications. You need to be using an Update command instead of a Row command. If you're not making any other changes, then you could just do:
Code:
<GameData>
<Eras>
<Update>
<Set ID="0"/>
<Where Type="ERA_INDUSTRIAL"/>
</Update>
</Eras>
</GameData>
Except that, as mentioned above, deletions are generally bad things, especially if you're forcing ID redefines.
3> In the Eras table, there's a variable StartPercent. What it does is this:
- Take the number of turns in the entire game, by adding up all of the entries in the <GameSpeeds> table. On Standard speed, this is 500 turns. Quick is 350, Epic is 750, Marathon is 1500.
- Multiply by (StartPercent/100). For Industrial, with StartPercent=50, this is 250 on Standard speed.
- This is the turn number the game will start on. The year it'll start on will be adjusted according to the increments in the GameSpeeds file for the game speed selected.
If you want the game to start at the turn number you said in the START_YEAR entry, the StartPercent for your first era must be 0, and the rest scaling up accordingly.
But there's no reason to do any of this. If you want a game to start in the Industrial Era, that's what the Advanced Setup menu is for. And you can change the default starting era in the GlobalDefines file (STANDARD_ERA, etc.). So if the only problem is that you want the game to start in the Industrial Era but not in the year ~1700, you just need to tweak StartPercent.
So don't delete any eras.
4> Not an error, but a note on using these boards. Use the (CODE) and (SPOILER) brackets for things like this (except with [ and ] brackets instead of parentheses). (CODE) is good for posting XML, because it keeps the indentation, and the (SPOILER) tag keeps you from having a gigantic post. You can nest (CODE) inside (SPOILER), for really long posts, like so: (quote my message to see the syntax)
Like that. Much easier for people to read.
