Modding Leader Traits In Beyond The Sword

[Matress_of_evil]

Hi, I only just got BTS, and i'm trying to get some of my old mods to play nice with it, but i'm having difficulties in getting them to work.

I'm trying to mod the leader traits to change some of the bonuses, such as giving the Industrial leader trait extra hammers on tiles that already produce two. I loaded up the BTS Civilizations folder, but I noticed that CIV4TraitInfos.xml wasn't in there. In fact a couple of files that are in the Civ4 folders aren't in the BTS folders. Is that normal?

Anyways, I went back to the Civ4 folder and checked CIV4TraitInfos.xml - and my mods were still in that file! So I checked the game hoping to see my mod, but the Industrial leader trait was still showing vanilla stats.

I then decided to copy the CIV4TraitInfos.xml file into my BTS Civilizations foldee, but that just results in an error message when the game loads now. Here's what it says:

Failed Loading XML file xml\Civilizations/Civ4TraitInfos.xml. [.\FXml.cpp:133] Error parsing XML File -
File: xml\Civilization/Civ4TraitInfos.xml
Reason: Element content is invalid according to the DTD/Schema.
Line: 14,17
Source: <iMaxAnarchy.-1</iMaxAnarchy.

Does anyone know why my mods aren't working in the game?

 

[Munch]

It's normal that CIV4TraitInfos.xml is not in your Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Civilizations folder.

By the looks of your error message it could be a simple syntax error:

<iMaxAnarchy.-1</iMaxAnarchy.
should be
<iMaxAnarchy>-1</iMaxAnarchy>

but it's likely that it is just a typo in creating your thread here. I don't know if putting CIV4TraitInfos.xml into Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Civilizations will work (I presume it will but can't be sure) so try creating a mod for your alternate traits, and put your .xml file in Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\myModName\Assets\XML\Civilizations

That should work!

 

[Munch]

PS. +1 on 2 is very powerful, I've tried it myself. Unless you are improving the other traits as well be aware that this could be an overpowered trait.

 

[Matress_of_evil]

It WAS a typo in my post. *ahem*

I've tried a few more things with the iMaxAnarchy line now. I first got rid of all of the minus signs, but that didn't work. I then deleted the entire entry for each of the traits - and the error message stopped appearing!

...But when I loaded the game, the traits STILL showed as vanilla.

I'm modding the actualy game files rather than doing it as a mod - that's how i've always done mods until now. I heard that creating a mod folder and doing it than way increased the chances the game would crash and would slow the game down, that's why i've done it that way. I've never had problems like this until now, but i've kept backups of all of the files that I modded so I can just them back as they were.

...

The increase in hammers is just an example of the changes i'm making. I've made changes to all of the traits. I haven't even tried balancing it yet coz it isn't working in the game. Anyways, this was really just a mod I was making for myself, but I noticed there weren't any mods for the leader trait bonuses for Beyond the Sword yet so you never know, maybe I will release it one day. Anyways, thanks for your help, i'll try what you said and let you know if it works or not.

 

[deanej]

You need the one from the Warlords folder. The traits did not change from Warlords to BtS, so that's why there is no file there. You will also want to think about if/how you want to change Charismatic, Protective, and Imperialistic.

 

[Matress_of_evil]

I just made a mod and I got the same error message. It looks like it's impossible to mod the Leader Traits in Beyond the Sword.

 

[deanej]

Use the Warlords file, not vanilla. New traits were added in Warlords, as well as a schema change. You will have a Warlords directory even if you never bought Warlords.

Contrary to what Firaxis says, BtS does not include Warlords. Instead, it installs Warlords (minus the scenarios) when it installs BtS. When you load the game, you load vanilla, Warlords, and BtS.

 

[Munch]

I just made a mod and I got the same error message. It looks like it's impossible to mod the Leader Traits in Beyond the Sword.

That is not true, I and many others have done it. Like deanej said, make sure you are editing the Warlords version of the traits - i.e. the file that has Charismatic, Protective and Imperialistic in it!

I then deleted the entire entry for each of the traits - and the error message stopped appearing!

I wouldn't do that, I don't know the effect it has upon the game.

Once you get it working I'd be interested to hear what kind of trait changes you are going to make. I play around with them now and then but it's difficult to get them to balance.

 

[Matress_of_evil]

That was the problem afterall.

Thanks for your help guys. I didn't realise that Beyond the Sword installed Warlords as well - i've got Warlords separately and tried to install Beyond the Sword on top of Warlords. Doing that completely screws up my game. The audio and other screen in options are completely blank and you can only exit the options screen by going back to the first screen - the other screens don't have an exit button. The game also crashes to a black screen when you try to play a game even though the sound continues (It was interesting listening to Lenard Nimoy talking about the creation of the world with a blank screen lol) and the game was unable to update coz it couldn't find any updates even though I knew there were some available. In the end I just assumed it couldn't be done and uninstalled Warlords. I didn't bother looking in my Warlords folder coz I thought it was just a leftover from uninstalling Warlords.

Anyways, the game is working properly now and i've managed to update it to version 3.17 and even mod the (Correct) file. Again, thanks for all your help guys.