Making mods for Dominions II. [Basic editing/modding discussion.] - Page 27

Wendigo · #**261** December 12th, 2003, 09:46 AM

You can use the current mounted wraiths to represent the Ringwraiths, and Etimmu as the Witch King.

liga · #**262** December 12th, 2003, 10:39 AM

Quote:

a battle sim. 1-on-1 melee only, but it will be very useful, and give units melee power rankings.

great! but form which file(s) you get the informations ????

good luck
Liga

Gandalf Parker · #**263** December 12th, 2003, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by liga:
great! but form which file(s) you get the informations ????

Of course the official docs arent out yet. But if you download the mods already available you will see alot of the answers. Its still just tga and text with a new extension for the mod text files.

If you look at the Dom1 docs on monster editing you will see a ton of command options that will work in mod files.

And of course the AllView game will give you the units to look at and allow you to screen-capture the images you might want to edit.

Links for the above answers:
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/mods.html
http://www.illwinter.com/dom/documentation.html
http://www.freewebs.com/sunray_dom2/

liga · #**264** December 12th, 2003, 06:13 PM

thank again gandalf ... good materials to work and think on ... I have understand also that my question (is there a place in a core file where alla the units stats are coded and a way to put them out) probably has to stay without an answer ... I can quite easly understand whiy ... I was hoping in something similar to Civ2 files (good text files with all the needed infomrations) or the mods files ...

good play and work to all modders!

Gandalf Parker · #**265** December 12th, 2003, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by liga:
thank again gandalf ... good materials to work and think on ... I have understand also that my question (is there a place in a core file where alla the units stats are coded and a way to put them out) probably has to stay without an answer ... I can quite easly understand whiy ... I was hoping in something similar to Civ2 files (good text files with all the needed infomrations) or the mods files ...

good play and work to all modders!

The SunRay site has alot of that kindof information in xls (windows spreadsheet) format

Saber Cherry · #**266** December 12th, 2003, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by liga:

quote:
a battle sim. 1-on-1 melee only, but it will be very useful, and give units melee power rankings.

great! but form which file(s) you get the informations ????

good luck
Liga

I'm assuming I'll have to write them myself=) But once I finish it and people start downloading it, they can add their own units to test. I suppose there will be some master text file the program reads on initialization.

liga · #**267** December 12th, 2003, 07:45 PM

Quote:

I'm assuming I'll have to write them myself=)

yes ... it seems that the informations we are looking for modding is too close to hacking and the good gandalf can't give us ... but just a simple "OK guys, these informations aren't on a plain text file that the programs read and that you can easly access but are hard coded and you can gat them just only hacking" ... I know that there are peolple that have done a good job for us just putting (by hands, i suppose) all this information on .xls files but is not the same to just be able to get them directly form the code ...

Anyway, since my intention is just to create mod and I was really happy to buy my 4 Dominions 2 cds, hoping to help ilwinter peoples to continue this nice job, I'll do my work starting from what we are allowed to use ...

now I go for dinner ... see you later
Liga

Keir Maxwell · #**268** December 12th, 2003, 10:44 PM

Hi all,

I started work on a LotR mod a couple of nights back and yes the issues involved are huge.

My intention at present (open to change) is to basically hack the existing races to make the mod as compatibility with other mods is fairly irrelevent.

At present I'm working on Morder as it is the most difficult. The first key design question is how to represent orcs/uruks and the best idea I have had so far is to see if its possible to hack the Desert Tomb Ctis so that instead of summoning undead you breed orcs.

I am not planning on including the quest to destroy the ring in the initial mod as, while probably do-able, the added game balence question are somewhat overwhelming and likely to produce a poor product unless given the consideration necessary. Basically Gandalf will have taken Frodo and the Ring to Rivendell rather than going to see Saruman. Elrond hides the ring with enchantments and they prepare for the upcoming war. The full mod with quest can follow.

In terms of magic I'm primarily looking at priestly/unholy powers plus extra starting spells as appropriate - mainly strategic like the ability to summon an orc raiding party in a distant province. The rest of the magic system (research, site searching etc) will be left out as much as is possible.

Sauron will have an income of death gems to represent the "Will of Sauron" which he will have to choose how to spend providing alot of the strategic options for Mordor.

I'm fairly comfortable doing graphical changes, creating new images (like an eye banner) etc but I'm not strong on scripting/programming so I will certainly be asking for alot of help from those eager. Workigng out unit equipment and stats is something I am very well placed to having done the same for Middle Earth in a number of different formats.

MStavros we should discuss some sort of division of labour seeing as you are keen to participate. Let me know what you particular skills/inclinations are and what you would like to work on.

I have a few nice maps including one that arrived in the mail the other day from as an ad from NZ post (the advantage of being NZ right now re LotR). However most of the maps I have will require a reasonable amount of work editing so if anyone has a particularily appropriate map let me know.

I was thinking it would be best to start an independent LotR mod thread due to the size of the question. Unless I hear convincing dissent I will start a new thread staring with this post and followup with my initial thoughts on stats etc for the armies of Mordor.

I would like to stress that this is a big project and one I cannot guareentee to complete or do justice to alone. I am happy to make all my work available to everyone and hope that one way or another we end up with a good mod regardless of who actually pulls it all together - I would like to but I'm conscious of real life pressures and don't want to build false expectations.

Cheers

Keir

liga · #**269** December 12th, 2003, 11:10 PM

Hi,

I could try to help you with some script to generate
mod files or map files, as long as you explain me what you need ... at the present I'm just trying to get out informations and stats directly from the dom2 file ... it is easy to get all the writen infomration, name of spell/item and units ... more difficult to understan how the stats are wroten and how to get them ... anyway, as long as I have free time (not during holiday that i spent away form any PC) I'll try to help you

Keir Maxwell · #**270** December 13th, 2003, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by liga:
Hi,

I could try to help you with some script to generate
mod files or map files, as long as you explain me what you need ...

That sounds great.

The first problem I'm interested in having solved is that of changing the summoned units of desert tombs to a variety of orcs. What are the possibilities here?

This question may well be unanswerable until the mod tools come out but I think that is not far away.

cheers

Keir

[ December 14, 2003, 10:02: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]