New (maybe) scenario: Red Star Over China

[Alinestra Covelia]

An update. I was indeed able to transfer the powers of one building to another, just like Otter had suggested. Here, I wanted to rename the "Lenin Statue" to "Chairman Statue" (as it's a Chinese scenario, Chairman Mao is more suitable than Lenin) and then I wanted to give it the same powers as a Temple would have. This is how I did it:

• Rename the Lenin Statue to Chairman Statue in the Buildingrules.xml file. (This is only for aesthetic purposes, but it will require the NAME and the TYPENAME fields to be changed. Also you need to do a find and replace of all instances of Lenin and change it to Chairman in all rules files... which shouldn't be hard for Lenin's Statue, but which might be much more tedious for buildings that see a lot more use, like the Library.)
• Change the FROM field to read Temple, so the game knows it has the same powers.
• Change the BUILD-FLAGS field to be the same as Temple (jam) and add "c" to the end, so the game knows that all Temples should convert to Chairman Statues when the relevant tech is researched. (This may cause problems if the prior building is smaller than the later building. Here, Chairman is smaller than the Temple so we're all right.) So essentially here the BUILD-FLAGS field reads "jamc".
• Change the CAT and GRID-X and GRID-Y entries to be the same as Temple. CAT becomes "e" and the grids become 3 and 0 respectively. This ensures that the new building's icon will appear in the correct place in the economic building menu.

Now it works fine in test runs. I attach a screenshot to show that the Chairman Statue gives bonuses according to a Temple.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Market volatility

Not all building powers can be replicated perfectly. Doing the same steps as above for transposing the Market's functions and powers to a "Procuratorate" building, we found that you cannot copy the Market's buy/sell resources function. The Procuratorate can be built just like a Market can, and it can create Caravans and Merchants, but there is no buy/sell interface.

From a purist's viewpoint, this is a problem. But from a rationalist's viewpoint, this actually lends itself rather well to making a Communist nation in the game. Economic inflexibility has long been a historical problem for communist and socialist nations, so it sort of makes sense that their Market type buildings would be a little weaker. If you're playing as Communist China or the Soviet Union, you must actually collect the resources you need. You cannot simply trade for them at the Market.

Screens follow, showing the new Procuratorate building and its inability to buy/sell resources.

[motter28218]

Another question. I want to implement actual changes to the interface buttons (like to change the graphics for the government types). Is there any way to make those changes to the scenario/custom/ directory and/or the mod directories?

Or do I have to make backups of the relevant files in the game root itself and replace them each time I'm done playing?

I think you will have to make backups since you are doing a campaign, as far as mod's go I've never actually done a mod as it is defined by the game, just scenario's, I think with a mod you can include your own set of .xml files which will load when the player plays your mod.

[Alinestra Covelia]

But specifically for the .tga files, I will have to do the backup? There's no way to get an "art" subdirectory to work in the given mod or scen file?

[motter28218]

But specifically for the .tga files, I will have to do the backup? There's no way to get an "art" subdirectory to work in the given mod or scen file?

Well, first like I say the word "mod" can mean different things. If you are doing a mod that a person will put in their RON mod folder and load from the single player quick battle screen I'm pretty sure you can put any edited files you want in their, art, data, whatever, and the game will load it specifically just for your mod, if you are doing a campaign as far as I know you can't "link" to a modded unitrules, or set of .tga files, there was something mentioned in the official guides released by Big Huge about including .xml's in script's but that was mostly for language translation however they hinted it could have the potential for other uses, so I'd say if you have the ambition maybe go for it, if you figure it out let me know because I'd be interested in it too. I'm actually in the process of doing a major mod for another video game right now so my RON skills aren't as good as they were 6 months ago so I'm trying to help as best I can. Glad to see there's other modder's out there tho. Also checked out your profile, you're into Martial Arts? I do MMA myself, was sposed to fight last month but got hurt when I was training 2months before the fight, really sucked cuz I worked so hard to get in shape, anyhow, let me know how your campaign goes and if I can help at all.

Otter

[Alinestra Covelia]

Heya motter! I don't do much martial arts anymore, except just for stretching and personal interest. I stopped taking directed classes with a teacher when I left China. Right now it's mostly jogging, biking, and swimming. So you might say I'm pretty well practiced at RUNNING AWAY from a fight (and over different terrain types!)

Okay, working with Bing has paid dividends. We've managed to find out how to rename units, and also how to get a working mod of a new unit! Yay!

The mod alters the "Imperial Guard" unit (used only in the Napoleon CTW) to a "Jiefangjun Infantry" unit for the Chinese. It shares the Shock Infantry's animation, and wears a special skin texture that I made. The skin is altered from the Shock Infantry - instead of a brown coat, it wears a green coat. It has exactly the same sounds, but its stats are a little different from the Shock Infantry. In keeping with the usual trend of Chinese UUs, it builds cheaply and quickly but is not otherwise different from other Assault Infantry in its combat stats. (Shock Infantry has a little extra health.)

We could easily have renamed Shock Infantry to the Jiefangjun and made it buildable by the Chinese. But the problem with that would be that we'd rob the Russians of their UU. So this little exercise has shown that we have enough technological skill to make a new UU.

There should be more interesting stuff coming up as well. We're thinking about redrawing several of the building sprites in the game, and possibly making certain Chinese landmarks into Wonders. One Wonder that comes to mind immediately is making the Colosseum into the Great Wall (which makes good sense for the border push and Fort/Tower cost bonus).

I post a few pics to show what we did with the units. If anybody is interested, Bing has uploaded a file to ron.heavengames.com and I can link to it when it comes online over there.

The following pics are: the Jiefangjun Infantry skin (JPG, although the game must use TGA), the UU list for China, and the appearance of the Jiefangjun on the normal map.

[motter28218]

Heya motter! I don't do much martial arts anymore, except just for stretching and personal interest. I stopped taking directed classes with a teacher when I left China. Right now it's mostly jogging, biking, and swimming. So you might say I'm pretty well practiced at RUNNING AWAY from a fight (and over different terrain types!)

Okay, working with Bing has paid dividends. We've managed to find out how to rename units, and also how to get a working mod of a new unit! Yay!

The mod alters the "Imperial Guard" unit (used only in the Napoleon CTW) to a "Jiefangjun Infantry" unit for the Chinese. It shares the Shock Infantry's animation, and wears a special skin texture that I made. The skin is altered from the Shock Infantry - instead of a brown coat, it wears a green coat. It has exactly the same sounds, but its stats are a little different from the Shock Infantry. In keeping with the usual trend of Chinese UUs, it builds cheaply and quickly but is not otherwise different from other Assault Infantry in its combat stats. (Shock Infantry has a little extra health.)

We could easily have renamed Shock Infantry to the Jiefangjun and made it buildable by the Chinese. But the problem with that would be that we'd rob the Russians of their UU. So this little exercise has shown that we have enough technological skill to make a new UU.

There should be more interesting stuff coming up as well. We're thinking about redrawing several of the building sprites in the game, and possibly making certain Chinese landmarks into Wonders. One Wonder that comes to mind immediately is making the Colosseum into the Great Wall (which makes good sense for the border push and Fort/Tower cost bonus).

I post a few pics to show what we did with the units. If anybody is interested, Bing has uploaded a file to ron.heavengames.com and I can link to it when it comes online over there.

The following pics are: the Jiefangjun Infantry skin (JPG, although the game must use TGA), the UU list for China, and the appearance of the Jiefangjun on the normal map.

Good work girl, let me know if I can help at all, I did see the trouble you guys were having with creating that unit, I could have done it for you as I did the same thing with Red Coats to make them unique from the Musketeers, but too I know people like to learn themself so I'm not necessarily sayin let me do all your work for ya but I can save you alot of time by helping you miss all the stupid "rookie" mistakes I made along the way. Let me know and still can't wait to play your mod, and marry you when you move to Michigan HaHa. Later Cutie.

BTW, watch FSN this summer, you might just see me fighting at the Palace of Auburn Hills, make sure you cheer for me!!!!

Otter

[Alinestra Covelia]

Michigan, eh? There's a couple I know who met and married there. (My parents )

As promised, here is the link to the little mod we made:

http://ron.heavengames.com/downloads...hp?fileid=1602

It's only baby steps so far, but hopefully it'll lead to bigger and better stuff once we get to grips with the game's workings.

One thing that gives us some pause is this: scenarios and CTW campaigns don't seem to work with mods. They are completely separate. But a lot of the stuff we want to do requires mods. It looks like we will have to release something that overwrites core game files.

But maybe we can include backup copies of those files in the zip.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yes, there is still some work being done on this, but it's coming along slowly. I'm studying for the bar, and then after that there should be more time.

[Lorizael]

Sorry to disappoint, Ali, but you were responding to a spambot.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Like right now?

[jostens]

I remember about half a year ago, looking at this mod project and wondering/hoping on when this mod might come out for my dusty old copy of rise of nations. Is this mod still under development, or am i kicking a poor dead horse?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Still under development. Somebody else in my team is doing it, I'm providing backup.

[yankeefreak127]

What is your username on the RoN Heaven forum, Alinestra?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I'm not there all that much but my username should be "Alinestra_Covelia". I read posts but I generally don't post.

[yankeefreak127]

Why not? Its much more active then the RoN Forum here?

[Alinestra Covelia]

That's true.

[yankeefreak127]

Hey Alinestra, could you help us make some picture icons for units for our mod? I'll give you some more specific information about which units and what icons should generally look like.

Also, what program did you use for the icons?