Advices needed on core dll edit.

[Ninakoru]

Hi there,

I'm working on a core DLL mod, editing the C++ code to modify AI combat behaviour. It's a pain to test and would be great to have some advices to do the testing.

I can't save games, because everytime I compile the DLL the loaded game won't accept it. So I have to start a new game every time I want to test it.

Also the only way to see the changes other than watching automated games, is to log everything and read log results.

It takes a huge amount of time to test changes, any shortcut or advice to make this less time-consuming would be great.

 

[Ninakoru]

Wow, no help for this? I guess I will go for public beta testing then

 

[whoward69]

I can't save games, because everytime I compile the DLL the loaded game won't accept it. So I have to start a new game every time I want to test it.

This should only be the case if you are changing the serialization methods (usually involving kstream) between compiles, otherwise I've had no problems redeploying a recompiled DLL and reloading a saved game.

 

[Ninakoru]

This should only be the case if you are changing the serialization methods (usually involving kstream) between compiles, otherwise I've had no problems redeploying a recompiled DLL and reloading a saved game.

Yep, thanks, I guess I only have to replace the mod dll instead of recompile from modbuddy. I'll try it out, thanks!

 

[Pazyryk]

You also should be able to rebuild from Modbuddy and still reload a save, as long as you didn't change any tables. (Well, you can change some table things but easiest to assume that all are lethal for a save.)

I often use the same test saves for dozens of rebuilds of both dll and the rest of the mod. (I have VS2010 output the dll to the Modbuddy project. So no need to ever drag/drop any files.)

 

[Ninakoru]

Heh, can't just replace the dll on the mod, and re-run as the file md5 is needed to hook the file. If I rebuild the save don't get the dll for some reason. I will test a bit more.

Thanks on the build output advice, didn't think about that.

I found another way to test some specific situations: making an scenario that emulate those conditions, given to civs I will not use in such scenario, then go autoplay

 

[whoward69]

Heh, can't just replace the dll on the mod, and re-run as the file md5 is needed to hook the file.

MD5 was only used when uploading a mod to the old GameSpy ModHub - it's not needed and certainly doesn't need to be correct if you are loading a mod locally