This is going to be a rambling thread, which meanders here and there but hopefully winds up achieving the goal as stated in the the thread title. I started playing around with this several months ago and have made quite a bit of progress, but it always feels like "one step forward and two steps back". Probably because the goal isn't simply to make Cradle compatible with AE, but additionally to make use of many of the new AE features and to add some new bells and whistles. Assuming this beast can be wrangled, it will still be recognizably "Cradle", so rest easy on that count.
Anyway, first some kudos to the Source Code guys for all their great work. The more I dug into this, the more it became obvious that they've added loads of new modding functionality which - sadly - has gone largely unutilized. One exception to that rule is BureauBert's "Modern Times" mod which is worth looking at even if you don't speak German! Even more so, his CTP Bureau is a wonderful resource, and my halting progress would have been impossible without it.
That's a good segue, because my particular journey began with BureauBert's version of Cradle 3.03 which he modified so it did not require Modswapper and would run from the "Scenarios" folder. Long story short, I found several problems with that approach:
1) When you start a New Game, it ALWAYS defaults to the base game's "civilisation.txt" file (the one in ctp2_data\default\gamedata) when presenting the list of civs to choose. This has several effects, none of them good (although you can work around the problem):
- You will always see "Aborigine" first, even though that is not a "Cradle" civ
- The base game file has 72 civs while Cradle has 33
- If you choose any civ that is numbered 34 or above, the game will CTD. For example, "Aborigine" is #60 on the AE list, even though - alphabetically - it appears first on the selectable list.
- The workaround (which is not intuitive) is to select a starting civ based on the Civ number in the Cradle "civilisation.txt" file. For example, if you want to play as the Egyptians (Cradle Civ #12) you have to select the Russians (Civ#12 on the AE list).
2) The Great Library uses the file in the Scenario folder on new games, but when loading a save game it reverts to the base game's GL file (the one in ctp2_data\english\gamedata). Again there is a workaround, and again it's not intuitive. Start a new Cradle Scenario campaign and then IMMEDIATELY load your Cradle save game.
There may be more problems like those, but that was enough for me. This is supposed to be fun, not an ordeal. There had to be a better way, and in fact there is.
Anyway, first some kudos to the Source Code guys for all their great work. The more I dug into this, the more it became obvious that they've added loads of new modding functionality which - sadly - has gone largely unutilized. One exception to that rule is BureauBert's "Modern Times" mod which is worth looking at even if you don't speak German! Even more so, his CTP Bureau is a wonderful resource, and my halting progress would have been impossible without it.
That's a good segue, because my particular journey began with BureauBert's version of Cradle 3.03 which he modified so it did not require Modswapper and would run from the "Scenarios" folder. Long story short, I found several problems with that approach:
1) When you start a New Game, it ALWAYS defaults to the base game's "civilisation.txt" file (the one in ctp2_data\default\gamedata) when presenting the list of civs to choose. This has several effects, none of them good (although you can work around the problem):
- You will always see "Aborigine" first, even though that is not a "Cradle" civ
- The base game file has 72 civs while Cradle has 33
- If you choose any civ that is numbered 34 or above, the game will CTD. For example, "Aborigine" is #60 on the AE list, even though - alphabetically - it appears first on the selectable list.
- The workaround (which is not intuitive) is to select a starting civ based on the Civ number in the Cradle "civilisation.txt" file. For example, if you want to play as the Egyptians (Cradle Civ #12) you have to select the Russians (Civ#12 on the AE list).
2) The Great Library uses the file in the Scenario folder on new games, but when loading a save game it reverts to the base game's GL file (the one in ctp2_data\english\gamedata). Again there is a workaround, and again it's not intuitive. Start a new Cradle Scenario campaign and then IMMEDIATELY load your Cradle save game.
There may be more problems like those, but that was enough for me. This is supposed to be fun, not an ordeal. There had to be a better way, and in fact there is.
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