Modifying Eagle Warrior

[Oberon4278]

Hi, I've got ModBuddy downloaded but I'm finding the lack of documentation pretty discouraging. (Okay, I'm actually pretty pissed off at the lack of documentation. Is this seriously how a world class game studio operates?) I'd like to change the Aztec's Eagle Warrior to Eagle Scout, have it replace the Scout instead of Warrior, and make the Aztecs start the game with an Eagle Scout instead of a Warrior. Here's the default XML for the Eagle Warrior:

<Units>
            <Row UnitType="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" BaseMoves="2" Cost="65" BaseSightRange="2" ZoneOfControl="true" Domain="DOMAIN_LAND" FormationClass="FORMATION_CLASS_LAND_COMBAT" Name="LOC_UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR_NAME" Description="LOC_UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR_DESCRIPTION" PurchaseYield="YIELD_GOLD" PromotionClass="PROMOTION_CLASS_MELEE" Combat="28" TraitType="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR"/>
        </Units>
        <UnitAiInfos>
            <Row UnitType="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" AiType="UNITAI_COMBAT"/>
            <Row UnitType="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" AiType="UNITAI_EXPLORE"/>
            <Row UnitType="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" AiType="UNITTYPE_MELEE"/>
            <Row UnitType="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" AiType="UNITTYPE_LAND_COMBAT"/>
        </UnitAiInfos>
        <UnitReplaces>
            <Row CivUniqueUnitType="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" ReplacesUnitType="UNIT_WARRIOR"/>
        </UnitReplaces>
        <UnitUpgrades>
            <Row Unit="UNIT_AZTEC_EAGLE_WARRIOR" UpgradeUnit="UNIT_SWORDSMAN"/>
        </UnitUpgrades>

So presumably I need to change PromotionClass, some UnitAiInfos, ReplacesUnitType and UpgradeUnit. However, I don't know what to change these values to. I could guess; "UNIT_RANGER" seems like a pretty good guess for what a scout upgrades to, but I have a hard time believing that everyone who makes mods is just doing guesswork.

I did poke around the normal game files to try to find a list of standard units so I can see their attributes, but I didn't have much luck.

 

[CivilizationAce]

As a start, take a look at Units.xml and Aztec_Montezuma_GameplayData.xml.

It might be best to change your system's search indexing to text search the XML format files so that you can find just about anything without having to know which files to look in first. Note that the .xml files themselves may already be indexed this way, but other file extensions including .artdef, .xlp and .tex won't by default. If you're unsure which file extensions to index this way try opening them in notepad. If they look like xml then it's best to index them as text.

 

[Oberon4278]

Okay, I've examined those files and they're interesting but they don't really say what all of the tags do. Surely there is some actual documentation of all this, right? Somewhere?

 

[Aldollin]

What you call guesswork id call reverse engineering.

Sure its a lot of searching through files, but you can find what you need most of the time

You want a unit that operates like a scout, so you should have a look at the scout unit, see what it upgrades to (UNIT_RANGER) and use that for your unit. You want your unit to replace a scout, so in ReplacesUnitType you put UNIT_SCOUT and so on.

 

[CivilizationAce]

Surely there is some actual documentation of all this

Sorry, but there isn't. Fortunately some of us mushrooms reverse engineer some of the stuff, creating mods that others can crib from. Some of us have worked on Civ V mods and not everything has changed between V and VI, giving them a healthy head start, so modding VI didn't start from scratch. Better, some of us create guides from stuff we work out, and some of us answer questions here. That's all there is. Good luck.