Has anyone else found C3C really difficult to mod?

[zulu9812]

Okay, dipping my toes back into full-time modding, I set about adding a single unit. A simple task, you might think. I added the unit in the C3C editor, saved it as X-Mod into Conquests\Scenarios. I created a folder in Scenarios by the name of X-Mod, and put directories Art\Civilopedia\Icons\Units, Art\Units, and Text. I copy & pasted the pediaicons.txt into the Conquests\Scenarios\X-Mod\Text directory and added the necessary bits for pedia icons and animname. Copy & pasted the C3C units_32.pcx into X-Mod\Art\Units and added the unit icon to it. Put X-Mod in the Scenario Search Folders box of Scenario Properties in the .biq file. Started up the game. The fonts and text in the game set-up screens were fine, but in-game no text was displayed in the pop-up boxes. And I couldn't build any more cities after the first one. WTF!?

(the unit worked fine by the way)

 

[Kal-el]

sorry, haven't had that problem. I redid a lot of the Sengoku Conquest and had no problems.

 

[zulu9812]

Could it be something to do with labels.txt?

 

[Exel]

I don't know about other modding, but they certainly made adding units more difficult. The requirement for individual civilopedia entries for each and every unit is not only unnecessary, but it makes adding flavor units a pain in the ass. Why oh why does every flavor unit need its own setups, pedia icons and civilopedia entries and has to be manually included in the upgrade path, if the only purpose is to have some nation specific graphical variation to the game?

Firaxis should add a sub-function to the unit setup page that would allow adding different animation sets for different nations for the same unit, without any further modifications. And at minimum they should remove the requirement for the civilopedia entries.

 

[embryodead]

Unit adding havent changed at all since PTW. And you don't (and never did) need civilopedia entries for units to work.
Actually I see that nothing changed, except the buildings that are now linked to pediaicons.txt entries in the editor, which is quite annoying. I don't know if it was supposed to speed up the work or what, but it actually slows it down, since you have to re-open the mod in order to refresh the building list.

 

[embryodead]

BTW, on topic zulu - about the pop-up boxes - where did you copy the Text files from? If you did from your PTW mod/version then that's the deal (I did that and got the same - empty popup boxes). C3C text files have more information in, so you should use C3C texts as a base, esp. script and labels.txt

 

[Exel]

Originally posted by embryodead
Unit adding havent changed at all since PTW. And you don't (and never did) need civilopedia entries for units to work.

Yes you do, and yes it changed since PTW. There is the #ANIMNAME_PRTO function that is required for all units, and it requires a civilopedia entry (of course you don't have to write anything in the civilopedia.txt, but then it looks just ugly). It's no longer possible to link the flavor units to the "mother" unit's civilopedia entry.

 

[zulu9812]

I used the C3C text files

 

[embryodead]

Originally posted by Exel


Yes you do, and yes it changed since PTW. There is the #ANIMNAME_PRTO function that is required for all units, and it requires a civilopedia entry (of course you don't have to write anything in the civilopedia.txt, but then it looks just ugly). It's no longer possible to link the flavor units to the "mother" unit's civilopedia entry.

#ANIMNAME_PRTO is in PediaIcons not Civilopedia, and it was in PTW already Civilopedia entry is not needed and never was. Period. Make a test if you want.

@zulu

Do you have "old" X-Mod folder in Civ3PTW/Scenarios too? just guessing.
EDIT: and what do you mean by "I couldn't build any more cities after the first one"?

 

[Exel]

Originally posted by embryodead
#ANIMNAME_PRTO is in PediaIcons not Civilopedia, and it was in PTW already Civilopedia entry is not needed and never was. Period. Make a test if you want.

It is in pediaicons.txt, but it has nothing to do with PediaIcons. At least according to the tutorial on these forums. AFAIK it defines the name of the folder where the unit animations are located, and it uses the Civilopedia entry name as reference. Thus a Civilopedia entry is required. I know that in PTW the #ANIMNAME_PRTO function was optional, but that doesn't seem to be the case in C3C.

I tested it without the #ANIMNAME_PRTO entry, and as soon as the unit became available, the game whined about a lacking entry in pediaicons.txt and crashed.

 

[embryodead]

Originally posted by Exel
It is in pediaicons.txt, but it has nothing to do with PediaIcons. At least according to the tutorial on these forums. AFAIK it defines the name of the folder where the unit animations are located, and it uses the Civilopedia entry name as reference. Thus a Civilopedia entry is required. I know that in PTW the #ANIMNAME_PRTO function was optional, but that doesn't seem to be the case in C3C.

I tested it without the #ANIMNAME_PRTO entry, and as soon as the unit became available, the game whined about a lacking entry in pediaicons.txt and crashed.

I didn't told you to test for #ANIMNAME_PRTO entry which is of course obligatory (and it was since PTW, again no change). I told you to test it without civilopedia entry. And I don't mean the box in units tab, but the actualy entry which is just not needed.
And really, unit adding is exactly the same as in PTW. I converted a mod with ca. 200 units to C3C, then added new ones just like in PTW. It all works as it should, sorry

 

[Exel]

Originally posted by embryodead
And I don't mean the box in units tab, but the actualy entry which is just not needed.

I know that. Like I said in the earlier post; of course you don't have to write anything in the civilopedia.txt, but then it looks just ugly

And really, unit adding is exactly the same as in PTW.

Well that's strange now. I never bothered with the #ANIMNAME_PRTO stuff when adding new units in PTW, and yet they all worked fine. That's why I assumed I didn't have to do it with C3C either, and was surprised when the game crashed and found out that it's obligatory.

Anyway, the point was that they should make it easier. The current system (whether it has been the same since PTW is irrelevant) is unnecessarily complicated. There definitely should be a separate system for flavor units integrated to the unit setup tab in the editor.

 

[Sinapus]

For units, I found you didn't have to move the unit graphics into a directory under Conquests if they were already added to the correct art folders for Civ3 vanilla or PTW. You do have to add the appropriate entries into Conquest's Civilopedia.txt and PediaIcons.txt, but it isn't too difficult.

 

[embryodead]

Sinapus: no, you don't have to add anything to Civilopedia.txt how many times I have to repeat that?

@Exel that interesting since without #ANIMNAME_PRTO stuff in PTW game crashes, at least on my computer I'm pretty sure it is obligatory, unless you just used existing unit's ID... which you can do in C3C too.

Seriously I like the current system and find it simple. Additional flavor units handling would be nice addition but I can live without it.

 

[zulu9812]

Here is the biq and the scenario folder, as well as a series of chronological screenshots with descriptive names. Can anyone figure out the problem?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/X-Mod_Problem_Screenshots_1.zip (1.8MB)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/X-Mod_Problem_Screenshots_2.zip (2.3MB)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/X-Mod_Problem_Files_&_Screenshots_3.zip (2.9MB)

 

[Exel]

Originally posted by embryodead
@Exel that interesting since without #ANIMNAME_PRTO stuff in PTW game crashes, at least on my computer I'm pretty sure it is obligatory, unless you just used existing unit's ID... which you can do in C3C too.

That's interesting indeed. I never had my PTW games crash because of unit errors, and I never bothered with the #ANIMNAME_PRTO stuff (obviously, since all worked well without it).

 

[embryodead]

@zulu
Your mod works without any problems on my comp. Everything is in place.
The pop-up texts that are missing in your screenshots come from script.txt file. Go to Conquests/Text and check if the file is in place, not renamed, deleted, modified by accident or corrupted.. Also make sure that there is no X-Mod folder in CIV3PTW/Scenarios. That's all I think, again, it works perfectly here.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

I had some problems with the diplomatic messages not appearing at all- that was the only problem so far...

Oh, and- does anyone know how to mod the new "popheads" file with the added Police and Constructor ???

 

[zulu9812]

embryodead, I looked in Conquests\Text, and indeed there was no script.txt. Which is odd, because it was a fresh install. I'll reinstall and see what happens.