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unmerged(176743)

Corporal
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Nov 3, 2009
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  • Rome Gold
I wanted to change the start date for the 27 B.C. scenario, to (presumably) make the scenario last longer. (I know the dates won't be accurate, but obviously that's necessary). Anyway, I can't find which program file this is done in, despite looking through the files today.
 
Changing the start date to a date after 730 AUC requires editing of the exe file. That means all technical support is forfeited. Also, it's pretty complicated to do it correctly, since the positions you need to change are 1) hard to find and 2) change place with every patch. Search for Seboden's old thread for more information.
 
Changing the start date to a date after 730 AUC requires editing of the exe file. That means all technical support is forfeited. Also, it's pretty complicated to do it correctly, since the positions you need to change are 1) hard to find and 2) change place with every patch. Search for Seboden's old thread for more information.

Actually, what I mean is making the start date earlier than 730. I understand that that IS possible?
 
That's almost as hard, you'd have to edit a whole bunch of history files. You could edit the bookmark.txt file, but all that does is make the game start at a specific date which is only half the problem.
 
Thinking outside the box, could the following be done to increase the game timeframe to include 27BC to 727AD. Firstly three things need to be done:

1) create a Mod running from 728AUC to to 754AUC - this is the hard bit what you actually do is have it running from 28AUC to 54AUC and Descartes uses his interface modding skills to physically insert the missing 7XX :D
2) create a Mod running from 1AUC to 727AUC (but from a player perspective this is AD or Descartes uses his interface modding skills to physically insert AD :D)
3) Someone creates on of those convertors like where you can transfer from Crusader Kings to EU - in this case it should convert seamlessly or perhaps by modding the save game file

The game plays as follows:
a) Play vanilla to the 727AUC and save
b) Apply convertor so that you can play the "Mod running from 728AUC to to 754AUC"
c) Play the Mod running from 728AUC to to 754AUC until the end ie around about 1BC
d) Apply convertor so that you can play the "Mod running from 1AUC to 727AUC"
c) Play the Mod running from 1AUC to 727AUC until the end ie around about 727AD

Would this be possible ?
 
Hehe, that really is thinking outside the box. :D Yes, I think it would be possible. The transition from AUC to AD would be pretty hard to manage, though. Also, as I found out when modding Imperium, characters with negative birth dates don't die as they're supposed to. We'd have to start the AD mod somewhere around year 75 to avoid that. Now for the big question: If you already have extended the time frame in the first mod, why would you switch over to the second mod?

Renaming AUC to AD really is an interesting idea. It would be a piece of cake to place a little icon saying "AD" in front of "AUC" on the topbar, and voilà, we have a mod running almost until the days of Charlemagne - without any editing of the exe file at all! :D
 
Sorry, I mixed up. I was actually referring to end date in my post. Because that's what you want, right?

Maybe I need to clarify, sorry. What I'm wanting to do is to change the 27 B.C. so that it starts at, for example 275 AUC, or whenever the Pyrrhic war scenario starts. My goal is to retain all the content of the 730 scenario, but make it last longer by having it start much earlier (assuming it would still end at the hard-coded date). I'm assuming that if all I did was change the start date, then all the characters, and who controlled what provinces, etc. would stay the same?
 
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Thinking outside the box [...]

I still think the real question is why do we need to think outside this stupid box in the first place ;)

However in the MARE NOSTRVM mod we changed the time keeping system so year 1 was the birth year of Philip II and starting the mod around year 80 on that scale giving a good 650 years of gameplay.

It works well (in theory) but it does give major balancing issues.

Maybe I need to clarify, sorry. What I'm wanting to do is to change the 27 B.C. so that it starts at, for example 275 AUC, or whenever the Pyrrhic war scenario starts. My goal is to retain all the content of the 730 scenario, but make it last longer by having it start much earlier (assuming it would still end at the hard-coded date). I'm assuming that if all I did was change the start date, then all the characters, and who controlled what provinces, etc. would stay the same?

Province ownership would not change (much) as they have a defined owner without a time frame however the characters will not show up until their AVC date so you would have to change them all as mentioned above to correspond with the earlier year you intend to use. Maybe you could turn the clock back 200 years and make some sort of clever search and replace function or something ;)
 
Hehe, that really is thinking outside the box. :D Yes, I think it would be possible. The transition from AUC to AD would be pretty hard to manage, though. Also, as I found out when modding Imperium, characters with negative birth dates don't die as they're supposed to. We'd have to start the AD mod somewhere around year 75 to avoid that.

Ah, I see, they cant have a negative birth date. So could you start it at 101AUC and drop the 1xx via interface modding ?

Now for the big question: If you already have extended the time frame in the first mod, why would you switch over to the second mod?

I thought you would need the second mod so that you can restart the AUC clock at 1AUC (or ~ 75AUC) so that the it counts up correctly in AD terms. You are switching from AUC to AD at 754AUC or 1BC.

Renaming AUC to AD really is an interesting idea. It would be a piece of cake to place a little icon saying "AD" in front of "AUC" on the topbar, and voilà, we have a mod running almost until the days of Charlemagne - without any editing of the exe file at all! :D

Yes, but we just need to figure out how to bridge the gap between AUC to AD.:rolleyes:
 
Renaming AUC to AD really is an interesting idea. It would be a piece of cake to place a little icon saying "AD" in front of "AUC" on the topbar...

This really was a brilliant idea, so I tried it out. However there seems to be no way of getting iconType or guiButtonType to show on top of textBoxType. The engine seems to be hard wired to show text boxes on top of graphics, which sort of makes sense but does spoil the idea somewhat.

If what ever you put behind is white though, it does hide AVC :)
 
Don't worry, I have another idea. If we move the speed buttons (^, + and -) to the left and the outline button downwards, we can put the date in the upper right corner. Without "AUC", that is. :D Sure, there won't be any "AD" either, but we can live without that.
 
Alright, not a criminal then. Thinking about it, he didn't advice you to do anything illegal after all. :)
It does apply to a lot of things in life, including modding.
 
Don't worry, I have another idea. If we move the speed buttons (^, + and -) to the left and the outline button downwards, we can put the date in the upper right corner. Without "AUC", that is. :D Sure, there won't be any "AD" either, but we can live without that.

Nice idea, now we just need to figure out what to do with the BC mouse over :)

This also gives an excuse to tinker with the outliner, so it holds more than five lines of text before you have to scroll...
 
Another possible idea for 'extending' your game is to just edit the savegame to move the date backwards a bit. Only problem is that this would probably affect character ages and may cause problems with characters being born after the current date...
 
I still think the real question is why do we need to think outside this stupid box in the first place ;)

However in the MARE NOSTRVM mod we changed the time keeping system so year 1 was the birth year of Philip II and starting the mod around year 80 on that scale giving a good 650 years of gameplay.

It works well (in theory) but it does give major balancing issues.



Province ownership would not change (much) as they have a defined owner without a time frame however the characters will not show up until their AVC date so you would have to change them all as mentioned above to correspond with the earlier year you intend to use. Maybe you could turn the clock back 200 years and make some sort of clever search and replace function or something ;)

Thanks. So what program file would I use to change the start date for the right scenario?

Also with what you've said about the characters, would it simply change to the historically accurate characters, or create randomly generated characters?
 
Thanks. So what program file would I use to change the start date for the right scenario?

Basically you change the start date in defines.txt in the common folder (but you should make a small mod and change it there in stead).

If you want to go all out you can also change it in bookmarks.txt but that is only cosmetic and has no effect on the game as such.

Also with what you've said about the characters, would it simply change to the historically accurate characters, or create randomly generated characters?

The historical characters will only show up if you adjust their birthdays etc. in the respective history files to account for the change you made in defines.txt as mentioned above. However the game will generate random characters for you so if you can live with that the only change you need is the one in defines.txt.