How can I customize leaders?

[Interweb]

I'm wondering if it's possible to create custom leaders, or edit current ones. Rome is my all-time favourite civilization, and only having Caesar to me is a travesty. Anyway, I'd like to play as the Romans, but use a leader with Culture trait. Is there any way to do this?

 

[Saarlaender]

Actually, it's quite easy until you get to the visuals (I think, but that's because I suck at that.) From newbie to newbie:
The CIV4CivilizationsInfos.xml has the leaders for each civ, wrapped in the <Leader> tag:

<Leader>
					<LeaderName>LEADER_SALADIN</LeaderName>
					<bLeaderAvailability>1</bLeaderAvailability>
				</Leader>

CIV4LeaderHeadInfos has te leader code, and lots of this is overwhelming, but much of it is only needed if the AI should be able to play him (it informs the AI how fast he forgets that you didn't help him etc.) - if you make the civ non-ai playable, you get around this.

in CivilizationInfos, you can set

<bAIPlayable>0</bAIPlayable>

otherwise, you can just copy an existing leaders code that's similar to, say, Nero if you wish.
The traits are easy. in the CIV4LeaderHeadInfos file, you can then change the tags <traits> to whatever you wish.

<Traits>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_PHILOSOPHICAL</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_AGGRESSIVE</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
			</Traits>

you can even define new ones, in CIV4TraitInfos.

Then, the artwork. I'm a newbie there. it's defined in the art_def tag and gets you to the file
CIV4ArtDefinesLeaderhead (in the Art folder). That's where the ART_DEF_LEADER_SALOMON in the Leader file points to.
There, we have:

<LeaderheadArtInfo>
			<Type>ART_DEF_LEADER_SALADIN</Type>
			<Button>,Art/interface/LeaderHeads/Btn_LH_Arabia_Saladin.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/Actions_Builds_LeaderHeads_Specialists_Atlas.dds,6,11</Button>
			<NIF>art/LeaderHeads/Saladin/saladin.nif</NIF>
			<KFM>art/LeaderHeads/Saladin/saladin.kfm</KFM>
			<NoShaderNIF>art/LeaderHeads/Saladin/saladin_noshader.nif</NoShaderNIF>
			<BackgroundKFM>art/LeaderHeads/Saladin/saladin_BG.kfm</BackgroundKFM>
		</LeaderheadArtInfo>

The dds file is the static one, the nif ans kfm (I believe) are the 3d moving heads (?) but I think you can replace those with static pictures in dds too, just that I would still like to know how.

 

[Interweb]

So, I'm not quite sure how to do this editing. Can I edit the files with notepad and get it working okay? I've tried using notepad but it doesn't seem to work.

 

[Haarbal]

it works perfect with notepad, but you have to make sure that all you open/close tags are correct

 

[Saarlaender]

notepad is great. However, you have to watch that tags you *invent* come up in the other files that use them as well.
for instance, add

<Leader>
	<LeaderName>LEADER_NERO</LeaderName>
	<bLeaderAvailability>1</bLeaderAvailability>
</Leader>

to rome, under caesar, in CIV4CivilizationInfos.
Then, this Leader_Nero has to appear somwhere for civ to load him.
go to CIV4LeaderHeadInfos and copy everything of, say, caesar, ( from <LeaderHeadInfo> to </LeaderHeadInfo> add it (making it two caesars), but in the edit, change

<Type>LEADER_JULIUS_CAESAR</Type>

to

<Type>LEADER_NERO</Type>

you just got a second leader, who looks, smells, and acts just like the first one.
Now, in his <traits> column, you can make him cultural. change

			<Traits>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_EXPANSIVE</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_ORGANIZED</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
			</Traits>

to

			<Traits>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_PHILOSOPHICAL</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_ORGANIZED</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
			</Traits>

you would have made this one philosophical.
now, there is no trait_cultural, but you can make one in CIV4TraitInfos and define what that means.

 

[Interweb]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did all that. It's not trait_cultural, it's trait_creative. I did all that, and yet still, no Nero.

I did it in the my programs/firaxis/civ 4 folder, instead of the my documents/my games/civ 4 folder. Does that make a difference?

 

[NeverMind]

He-he, Saarlaender wrote some sort of "The easiest way of adding a new leader " tutorial.

 

[Interweb]

...all right, it's cool that he did that tutorial and all, but it doesn't seem to work! I would be eternally indebted to anyone who could help me out, here

 

[Robo Magic Man]

So is the problem that the second leader simply isn't available to choose in the civ selection screen? If you're specific about what's going wrong, there are a lot of people here who can help.

 

[Interweb]

Well, I don't actually know what the problem is. I mean, if I'm just looking at the game, I wouldn't say anything has changed so far... so it's hard to tell where I'm going wrong.

So, yeah, I guess you could say the main problem is that I can't select the second leader in the selection screen. Let's get to that first. I trust you pro's will help a poor brother out!

 

[Saarlaender]

ok. did you change the original files then or did you do what all good mod pages here tell you to do and placed it under "mods"? You said you placed it in "civ4", now that wouldn't come up: it has to be where it was (assets/xml/civilizations) OR in /mods/[modname]\assets/xml/civilizations. In the latter case, you have to load the mod first, since civ will load the unmodded default version if not told otherwise. (forgive me if this is too easy and you did that and still no nero.. ) IF its in the mods folder, you have to go to extended / load mod on the first screen after it loaded and then load your mod.


Another thing - if you did all that (or if you edited the original files? never do that, there's an uninstall waiting to happen) - clear the cache. Maybe CIV gets the file from cache and never noticed that you changed it. That's in:
C:\documents and seeting\[your logon]\application data\my games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\cache.
delete everything that's in there.

Does that help?

 

[Mr_Jayjay]

Hi.
Ive been using your guide to try to place King George the 3rd (in the American Revolution Mod) into the normal game, so that i may play a male character for the British, but im not having much look in doing so.
Do you have any ideas??
These would be appreciated,
Thanks

 

[Saarlaender]

Well.. have you copied over all files, including the artwork ones? Do you get popups when loading the mod? What do they say?