Hearts of Iron IV - Development Diary 52 - Modding

[podcat]

I think the question was more about whether the flag and name of a country could be changed to an arbitrary alternative (without tag-switching).

you cant right now, only from ideology change. I hope we might be able to solve that in a patch if not for release because I understand how important it is for modding.

 

[Havebeard]

Edit: Notepad++ is a good text editor and the one I use, if that helps, but I'm far from an experienced modder, but if you don't hear anything better, it's a good place to start .

Sublime Text is much better ;o)
So many things that suit our scripting language better than Notepad++

please tell me you can make events and such with the modtool!

Unfortunately no. The way event chains are set up can get pretty complex, so building a tool for that is a major task. It's not that we don't want it, but all Content Designers at PDS use text editors like Sublime or NP++ and get the work done. If you're lucky a community member might build one for you =)

 

[Havebeard]

Will a mod, that changes only province or unit names or corrects the translation (german in paradox games is a verry funny thing) effect the Ironman mode/the abillity to get the achivements?

Localisation and graphics should not affect Ironman.
The exception would be names that are written directly in script files. This is not how we want it, but there may be some legacy stuff left that cannot easily be changed due to reasons.
Anything in .gfx or .yml files should be fine to change as far as I know.

 

[Deleted member 471407]

Thank you BjornB & Warial


I think what threw me off is that the only experience I have with mods is in City Skylines. I just never found a place on Steam to download maps (or other things) that other people made for HOI3.


Since I have really no other experience with mods other than City Skylines all I’ve been thinking about is one day being able to go to Steam and download maps and other user made content and have it be just as simple as it is in CS. Hoping that is the case but I’m not sure.


Thanks

Mods changing the map tends to be so called "full conversion mods". Steam workshop has a limitation to how big mods can be, and these mods are usually too large. This is why I recommend you to check out the mods subforum for each title to see the really good stuff

 

[Havebeard]

How to configure this Sublime Text to paradox language (does it have a name?)?

It would be seven shades of awesome if PDS already had syntax definition files for Sublime/language definition files for Notepad++ and wanted to share them with us - any chance @Havebeard? No pressure, or worries if not, but figure it doesn't hurt to ask .

I can generate a syntax file that has most keywords for both Sublime and NP++ and put it on the mod forum when we release.

Also, if easy and you have time - how much better is Sublime Text? I'm planning to mod HoI4 for a long time, so in that context $70 isn't the end of the world, but if it's only a little better, then I'm already familiar with Notepad++. Sorry for all the questions, ignore if a pain.

There are a lot of multiline editing features and other tricks that I just really like, but you can definetly get by with NP++. Most of it is what you are used to I guess. Give Sublime a test spin, it's free to try =)

Yeah I also want to know if Japanese or Chinese are available for localisation...

Unfortunately our fonts don't support them.

 

[Havebeard]

Will it be possible to add new political parties with all this modding, or is that hard-coded? I myself, really liked the gradual parties of Hoi 3 and I'm sure history geek modders would be right up there to represent all the different parties in countries at the time. Idk if this is the right place to ask but is there also some kind of modifier that determines how easy/hard it is to influence a nation's people to accept a certain ideology? (For example the Netherlands had the pillarisation of society, which pretty much meant political opinions were set in stone, but in Hoi 3 it was pretty easy to turn into germany's little facist brother) *Thinks of all the possibillities*

You can create new parties.
Not sure about the modifier for a specific ideology. There is one that will make it harder to push ideologies in general.

 

[Havebeard]

The new flags for each ideology - ie. Norwegian communists etc - do you change these with this tool? Or is it easy to change them? I'd rather have for instance both Fascist and Democratic Norway have the same flag, but Communist not the made-up flag I have seen from screenshot.

Super easy. There is a folder with flags. Just follow the naming convention.

Will we with this tool, be able to build "static units" - ie. like coastal artillery and such - and have them demand manpower like a normal unit?

You will not be able to build units with the tool. You can change the 3D position on the map with the tool, but having something built from the start requires a little scripting in the files.

Will it be very hard to for instance create way (way way) more provinces? And text/names on these provinces? There is a tool (can't remember the name now) for HOI3 - that would let me change names for provinces and where stuff was placed, like radar, fortresses etc. For instance there was "two" provinces named "Hamar" in Norway in HOi3 - I used this tool to change those things. Will these things be doable with this tool?

Creating way way more provinces is a matter of painting more on the provinces.bmp. There is a tool in the Nudger to make sure you get unique colors. Adding them to states and strategic regions is also possible from the Nudger, but my guess is that it would take a bit of time.
You can't have names for provinces, only states. Changing the name of the states is very easy.

How easy will it be to make new units? Or is there any need? For instance different types of Recon units - or is it automatically the same as the division itself: horse, armor, infantry etc. What about "small commando" units - that could work almost like a submarine on land (destroy infrastructure, try to avoid being spotted etc.

You can make new units or change the stats of existing ones. You can't give units new mechanics, such as the stealth/infrastructure destruction you are mentioning.

I guess it would be hard too hard for unexperienced people to mod the enitre map to look like a map? Don't know the english word, but "topographic map" instead of "seeing" 3D mountains, 3D trees etc. Something like this: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topografisk_kart#/media/File:KiskaMap.jpg

It should be doable, but I don't know how difficult it is.

Will it be easy to for instance make one type of unit only available if/when certain criterias are met? Low manpower or something similar?

You could have an event trigger when certain conditions are met that unlocks an equipment type and template. I'd have to look into this a little further to see if there is a nicer way of doing it.

How hard/easy would it be to remove the sprites entirely? And replace them with standard counters? Perhaps more ecperienced modders will do that though, or you through and DLC. But if I am impatient, will it be doable if you have almost no modding ecperience? I know my way around Photoshop.

You can remove the 3D models and change how the sprite looks, which should be pretty easy. You can't make them stack.

 

[Havebeard]

@rjohansen
Norway consists of 4 big states. Vestlandet, Ostlandet, Trondelag and Nordnorge.
They have a lot of provinces, Nornorge alone has more than 40, so to accomplish what you want you can just add a lot more states, spread the appropriate provinces and name these. All should be doable in the Nudger tool we provided. This should essentially accomplish what you are looking for.

 

[Havebeard]

@Havebeard, how do you all edit te province development, ownership, etc. in EU4?

Do you have a tool for that?

I don't work with EU4, but I'm pretty sure they don't have it.

I hope we can edit the victory point provinces, where they are and how much they are worth.

You can

 

[Havebeard]

Hmm, just thinking. If you can edit how much a victory point is worth, can it be worth something like 0.0000001? That would be one way to have more city names in the map if I'd like to, just for flavor, without "breaking" the game with too many victory points → harder to capture country etc.

It has to be an integer, so no.

Or does it mean the fact that the character code describing a game does not support UTF8?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "character code describing a game", but our localisation is in UTF8, so you can use anything that it supports. You would have to make your own font though. Another issue is reading direction, where we only support left to right.

Is it possible to adjust manufacturing needs in terms of amount if factories needed? (e.g. if a unit usually takes 5 factories to be build in 1 year; Can we set this down to 4 factories/1year?)

You can adjust IC cost of various equipments.

Can we implement new "using" materials (like the "Infantry equipment") ,including how to produce this material? lets assume its medical supplies,

Yes.

Can we use this new material as sort of additional supply for specific units e.g. ships do not need medical supplies, but infantry divisions do?

Yes.

Can the AI cope with such addition?

I don't know. Stay tuned for AI DD and ask there.

Can we define a factor for the usage (e.g. in combat more , idle less, moving a lot more) and can we combine them (moving+fighting = OVER 9000)? (soldiers tripple, get wounded, etc)

I'd say no, but this is a bit more advanced and something I'd have to fiddle with myself before giving a final answer. Still have a game to finish, so it will have to wait.

Thank you everyone for the interest and all the questions. I hope I answered most of it and I hope you mod the hell out of HOI!

 

[Deleted member 471407]

YAY, ubuntu linux will be getting this mod tool,
I'm excited that my operating system is supported

The entire game with all functions is supposed to run on Ubuntu

I also got it running on my Fedora 23 machine.

 

[Guraan]

The entire game with all functions is supposed to run on Ubuntu

I also got it running on my Fedora 23 machine.

This is totally unofficial, but my home system is still a Slackware 14.1 with some modifications, and it runs beautiful with some (3-5) extra software installs (that you probably already have, since it is the same for "all" games)

 

[Guraan]

Dont know if it has been asked before but will the map itself be moddable? Like adding new provinces and land and not redistributing the provinces. Like in CK2 where you get total conversions with their new map such as from the witcher world.

Probably not. It will have to be done the hard way.

Yes but the hard way (aka standalone image editor), as all our games. Nudger will only help you with grouping provinces into states and states into supply regions or tactical areas etc (in this case).
Some parts are just not worth it to try and make more moddable since our expertise is not in the image editor part of software and thus heck of a lot more competent editors out there free/not free as it is right now O

 

[Havebeard]

How does one enable the "-debug" flag?

Set Launch Options -> -debug

 

[Havebeard]

Rightclick game in steam. Properties. Set Launch Options
Otherwise. Find .exe file, create a shortcut and add it in the target line

 

[Havebeard]

@Enescaydam
When you set the -debug flag you will still get the launcher, but when you start the game it will be in debug mode.

 

[Havebeard]

Yes you right its open as debug mode but i cant edit anythink in nudgemode . why ? its not mod tool ? i wanna mod countries , leaders ,techs ... but thanks for reply super moderator. i thinks its fix soon

Yes.. This would be nice, but that's not how it works and I don't think it ever will. Modding Paradox games still requires some text editing

 

[Havebeard]

@Sleight of Hand - Looked at it. Complex problem. Can't give you an answer.