All Mods Ineffective, my mods just don't work

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Hey all,

I've searched all over for an answer to this problem, and it seems that others have similar issues. However, I haven't yet found a thread that solved the problem.
(Given, this could mean there is no solution. But I did a thorough experiment and I want to check to see if I missed a big step.)

I modded a little in civilization 4, and I decided to learn the new gear for civ 5. I got mod buddy, world builder, etc., it all works, everything's dandy. I use Kael's guide, which taught me a ton. (Thanks, Kael!)

I'll cut to the chase. I made a beauteous civilization and finished it up, loaded the mod up on the menu, and it takes me to what is essentially the vanilla game, completely un-modded.

I took some time to look at my mod and the guide to see if I missed anything, my first impression being that I had messed up the text somewhere, but I was pretty sure it was fine. I have indeed updated the database in the actions folder (correctly), I have built the solution, and I have enabled the mod and clicked "next" (NOT back). At this point, I decided to do an experiment: I made a new mod doing all of the above, the only change in the game being in a text key; I updated the phrase "Bronze Working" to "Hooray! This worked." (Why not?) The text string looks like this:

Spoiler :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Created by ModBuddy on 7/22/2012 10:05:22 PM -->
<GameData>
<Language_en_US>
<Update>
<Where tag="TXT_KEY_TECH_BRONZE_WORKING"/>
<Set text="Hooray! This works."/>
</Update>
</Language_en_US>
</GameData>

I felt like this was a solid and basic change, so I gave it a go. Did it work? No.

I also did some troubleshooting strategies; I looked in my log folder and found little to no log activity in the hot spots. My "Modding" log doesn't even exist (I assume that means it was never created, the game never used it), my "database" log has very little activity, all of which irrelevant to my own, and my "lua" log has only startup text.

My theories:
A.) I'm silly, and I'm missing something obliviously. (If so, sorry for being crazed!)
B.) I missed one step, e.g. I'm supposed to change a value in some config file.
C.) For whatever reason my game is not able to deal with mods. Any ideas why this could happen?

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- I tried the Genghis Khan mod, and it didn't work either. HOWEVER, Khan is a leader in my standard gameplay, so a part of the mod must work.
- I do not have G&K (yet), nor do I have any additional add-ons (aside from the Mongolian mod that installed automatically)
- The only thing I have been able to gather outside this is that some people suspect mod buddy doesn't work for some people. I am hoping to come to a definite conclusion.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it a lot, and thanks for taking the time to read this!

Moderator Action: Moved to C&C.

 

[DonQuiche]

Hello.

1/ Did you ever managed to play the game with a mod? If you never did, I sugest you do no try to load your mod before you managed to load one you know it should work. Genghis Khan is a DLC, so I guess it does not count.

2/ The Kael's guide is quite old and doesn't mention an important thing: set "import into VFS" to true in the properties of every file in your solution (select a file in the solution explorer and hit F4 to see the properties window).

3/ Did you configure the project settings correctly, especially the actions list? You should have an "OnModActivated" node with "UpdateDatabase" for your XML file that changes texts.

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Thanks for the reply!

Quick amendment - I just tried the Mongol Scenario to find that it does work. I had assumed otherwise because it appears that you can play any civilization. I'm not sure why that is, but the DLC works.

I definitely did not set the "Import into VFS" before, thank you for pointing that out. But alas, after setting it to true it still doesn't seem to be modifying the game in any way .

I also have been updating the database. I was very careful to make sure of that.

I'm going to try installing a mod to see if it works, hadn't thought about doing that...

 

[Androrc the Orc]

2/ The Kael's guide is quite old and doesn't mention an important thing: set "import into VFS" to true in the properties of every file in your solution (select a file in the solution explorer and hit F4 to see the properties window).

Every? I thought setting (new) XML and SQL files to VFS made them not work.

 

[DonQuiche]

Every? I thought setting (new) XML and SQL files to VFS made them not work.

I don't know about SQL files but it definitely works with LUA and XML files. In my mods all files have "Import to VFS" to true, and all of them are new (my mods do not change any game file). On the contrary, if I remember correctly I had troubles including lua files without that setting, along with other problems.

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Update - I installed a mod off of the workshop and loaded it as well, and to my dismay I got the same result. It's possible the map worked (It was hard to tell for the short time I was looking at it), but none of the mentioned changes to the game that were in the mod summary took place.

 

[DonQuiche]

Ok, so... DO NOT CLICK BACK. ^^
Sorry for the caps, it's just it's how I used to write it on my mods pages.
When G&K was released I used to write it five times a day.

Copied from the IGE page on Steam
* Start civ5 and click *MODS*.
* Enable this mod.
* DO NOT CLICK *BACK*.
* Click *NEXT* on the bottom right, check that the mod is listed.
* DO NOT CLICK *BACK*.
* Click *SOLO* to start or reload a solo game.

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Ok, so... DO NOT CLICK BACK. ^^
Sorry for the caps, it's just it's how I used to write it on my mods pages.

I really wish I could say that I haven't been doing that, because that would probably solve the problem...
I have been following those steps, and I made sure that it said "Mods enabled:" and all that. Still no change.

* Click *SOLO* to start or reload a solo game.

I don't know what you mean by this, though. I don't see a "solo" option.

 

[DonQuiche]

I don't know what you mean by this, though. I don't see a "solo" option.

Doh! I just checked the English version of the game and it's "single player", sorry about that, I am going to update my mods' pages. Now, could you for example try IGE without any other mod enabled? And run firetuner before you do, in case there is some error. If everything went fine, you will have a IGE label on the top right corner (next to the turns number) and, in Firetuner, a bunch of lines from files prefixed with "IGE".

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

No worries! I'll try that out, I'll get back here when I do...

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Sorry, quick question - I don't use a lot of FireTuner. Where do I want to look for the IGE files? In the Lua console or table browser?

EDIT - I found what you're talking about, the files are there, and IGE seems to work. So it seems like there's something I'm doing wrong in my mod. Is there something I'm supposed to do to my mod prior to starting the XMLs and such?

 

[DonQuiche]

I am quite out of idea unfortunately. Maybe add a lua file containing a mere "print('hello world')". And restart civ5 also, sometimes files added after civ5 was started are not taken into account.

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Ah well, I'll continue to investigate it until I give up. Thanks for your input/time! (By the way, nice work on the IGE, DonQuiche!)

 

[DonQuiche]

Thank you and good luck to you.
If you still cannot figure it out, make an archive with your ModBuddy solution and post it here.

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Feel free to check it out.
(And yes, the mod is pretty much useless if it were a real effort, once I figure this little one out I think I can handle more practical ones as well...)

 

[whoward69]

XML is case-sensitive

<Where [COLOR="red"][B]T[/B][/COLOR]ag="TXT_KEY_TECH_BRONZE_WORKING"/>
<Set [B][COLOR="Red"]T[/COLOR][/B]ext="Hooray! This works."/>

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

XML is case-sensitive

Though I did that incorrectly, fixing it did not solve the issue. Still, thanks for the note.

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Problem possibly solved?
I'm not completely sure yet, but I made progress. I changed two things in my XML, the first changing the Bronze Working text key to Alexander (Just so I don't have to keep loading a game over and over), and the second is deleting the header.

<GameData>
	<Language_en_US>
		<Update>
			<Set Text="Hooray! This works."/>
			<Where Tag="TXT_KEY_LEADER_ALEXANDER"/>
		</Update>
	</Language_en_US>
</GameData>

I didn't think it would work; in fact, I thought it would cause a bug or something - it's sort of counter-intuitive.
It's also possible I did something else in the process. Perhaps it wasn't the header? I don't know, but I got one XML to work...
I'm going to experiment some more, let me know if deleting the header is a big no-no.

 

[whoward69]

There is no TXT_KEY_TECH_BRONZE_WORKING, which is why it didn't work

<Row>
  <Type>TECH_BRONZE_WORKING</Type>
  <Cost>55</Cost>
  <Description>TXT_KEY_TECH_BRONZE_WORKING_TITLE</Description>
  <Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_TECH_BRONZE_WORKING_DESC</Civilopedia>
  <Help>TXT_KEY_TECH_BRONZE_WORKING_HELP</Help>
  ...

 

[CivGeekTheGreat]

Ah. That was probably the issue.
Well, there goes trying to be simple. I actually found it off one of the game XMLs, but it must have been one of those text keys they never used. Thanks!