Unit to appear in game??

[Creator]

I have downloaded some new units for ctp and ive put the files where they are supose to go but they wont appear in the game when i start a new game. what is wrong and could u help me please.

[Locutus]

Well, once you have dropped the various graphics and videos in the right folder, you have to edit some text files so the game knows where to find the graphics and what properties the unit should have. To do this, edit units.txt, spriteID.txt, uniticon.txt and gl_str.txt. How to do this should be relatively obvious once you open the files: just copy an entry of an existing unit and edit what you want to change (don't forget to update the number at the top of some files, that represents the total number of entries in the file). Optionally, you could add the unit to the Great Library and AI files as well, but that's slightly more complicated. I haven't modded CtP1 in a long time and my memory of the procedures is pretty poor, so I can't help you too much with that but there is a lot of useful info in the Modification section of this site and J Bytheway has written a very good modmakers guide, those will no doubt be very helpful. If you have further questions, feel free to at least ask...

Edit: fixed link

[Creator]

thanks for replying to the question thought no one was going to help me. I have added new units to some othe games so i have a basic nolage but this is quite different from the others more complex ile c how i do.

Thanks again

[Creator]

Where and what are the greatlibary and ai files called??

[Immortal Wombat]

The Great Library is the in-game reference thing, the file is in ctp_data/english/gamedata.

The AI files are in ctp_data/default/aidata but they take a bit of exploring to get used to. Try to locate a list of units, and add your new ones in the 'right' place.

[Locutus]

My memories of CtP1 modding are weak but I distinctly recall the Great Library to be a pain in the arse, IIRC it consisted of hundreds of individual text files in a seperate subfolder under english\gamedata actually...

Edit: the Activision FAQ in the Modification section of Apolyton (see link above) contains some info on how to add files to the GL.

[Creator]

Ive added the info for my new unit into the units.txt, spiteiID.txt, Uniticon.txt and gl_str.txt.

But now the game wont load good job i save the orignals.
What could the problem be????

[Locutus]

I can't access the files right now but I may have a look tonight or so. What exactly is going wrong? Is the game crashing? If so, do you get an error message? What does it say? When does it crash? While loading the game itself or while starting a new game?

[Creator]

It starts to load with the little load bar then about half way along the bar it just stops and cancels the load and goes to my desktop screen. Nothing major hapens just a shut down.

The unit is a swordsman.

[Creator]

It happens when I try to load the actual game eg double click on the games icon.

[Immortal Wombat]

I guess its the sounds. Try swapping on all the sound lines the word SWORDSMAN for WARRIOR or something. CtP1 has a tendancy when faced with a major file error (5 lines out roughly, or when you get the number at the top of the file wrong by more than 3ish) to not give an error message, but crash flat out.

Try different sounds, or make sure any SWORDSMAN sounds you do reference to, you actually have named in sounds.txt, and have the sound files in the right game folder (ctp_data/default/sounds).

[Locutus]

Well, did IW's advise do the trick? If not, I'll see if I can have a look tomorrow (but no promises, I'll have to reinstall the game and am quite busy with real-life)...

[Creator]

I wanted a cmpletely new unit added to the game I think it is somthing t do with the spr file. I put the name here.

#Spr96 #id string of the default sprite.

If this narrows it down a bit

if it isnt this is its ok ile figure i out eventually.

[Immortal Wombat]

Make sure the sprite is named Gu96.spr and referenced in SpriteID.txt to

UNIT_XXX    96

Where UNIT_XXX is the name of the sprite as referenced in units.txt.

[Creator]

Dont u mean Gc096.spr for the sprite name can I rename it to Gc0100.spr because te 96 is already taken.