Map-to-Map Converter

[Bizon]

After doing some final checks, I feel it's time to published my recent work, namely a converter for vanilla HoI2 map scenarios to make them compatible with the new DH Full map.

Look into readme file in the ZIP file for some further details.

Notes​

WHAT IS IT FOR
This program is designed specifically for converting scenarios from vanilla HoI2 map to DH Full map. The converter takes care of merging and dividing of provinces between two maps and makes sure that the state borders and troops locations are as correct as possible. There's no magic involved and the program has an ID conversion table supplied. Theoretically however, if someone creates their own id conversion table, the program may be used to do conversions between other maps as well.

REQUIREMENTS
You have to install the latest (4.0) version of .NET Framework. If it's a really big problem, I may think of compiling the program for older versions.

THANKS TO
My biggest thanks go to ewphoenix123 who published a preliminary Id conversion table (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...help-Updating-provinces-in-HOI2-map-to-DH-map...). I used a couple of changes made by novapaddy (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?546831-Tool-ProvinceFileAutomationTool) and corrected several positions as well as filled it with more than a 100 missing conversion entries, mainly for Russia and India. Without this great starting point I wouldn't even consider making this program.

It was also great to use ID map for vanilla HoI2 made by Lord Ederon (http://maps.ederon.net/hoi2iom.aspx) and the map for DH Full made by Lucifer, (in chopped up version taken from http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?539437-Mod-Tool-Chopped-up-ID-Map.).

I hope the program may help some of cool mods to appear for the ultimate WW2 strategic game, that means Darkest Hour

Download​

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...3525&authkey=!AC1FUHB8Ob9Sd78&ithint=file,zip

 

[Lyrecryer]

Oh cool. nice to see that I helped you! and Now you have helped me too! I will be using this a lot!

How can you tell if it's working? I keep getting this:

Quote found inside left-hand side data. in file C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\darkest hour a hoi game\scenarios\GlobalWar\a.txt; Coords: Ln 1; Ch 269; Line: Strmiids.lib dinput8.lib dsound.lib dxguid.lib d3dxof.lib Winmm.lib d3d9.lib d3dx9.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib winspool.lib comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib uuid.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib /nologo /subsystem:windows /profile /map:"Debug/experimentgame.map" /debug /machine:I386 /out:"Debug/experimentgame.exe" /fixed:no

 

[MartinBG]

A great tool!

Thanks for making and sharing it.

***
A very minor nitpicking - in 1941+ converted scenarios Bulgaria owns Northern Dobruja too while only Southern Dobruja should be owned. Anyway this is just one province out of 2500+

 

[unmerged(306135)]

The scenarios keep crashing, and savedebug.txt shows that there are many land provinces without owners, or provinces that have owners but aren't land.
what do I do in this case?

 

[novapaddy]

Yes Well Done Bizon. I'm sure this will be a very useful tool for all the modders.

.. while you mention it, you say there were 100 errors in my Tool. That's a bigger number than I expected, but I did say in my post, that I found some areas of the map difficult to work out and had to make best guesses... calculating the error: that's 100 errors / 2174 land provinces = 0.05 error rate. Not bad really?

I don't have a problem if the Devs wish now to erase my Tool from the forum. Honestly! It was to help others, and if your Tool is better, well honestly, that's Great, they should use that.

Good Job!

 

[Bizon]

The scenarios keep crashing, and savedebug.txt shows that there are many land provinces without owners, or provinces that have owners but aren't land.
what do I do in this case?

What scenario do you convert? Is it from vanilla HoI2 or some mod?

Oh cool. nice to see that I helped you! and Now you have helped me too! I will be using this a lot!

How can you tell if it's working? I keep getting this:

Quote found inside left-hand side data. in file C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\darkest hour a hoi game\scenarios\GlobalWar\a.txt; Coords: Ln 1; Ch 269; Line: Strmiids.lib dinput8.lib dsound.lib dxguid.lib d3dxof.lib Winmm.lib d3d9.lib d3dx9.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib winspool.lib comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib uuid.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib /nologo /subsystem:windows /profile /map:"Debug/experimentgame.map" /debug /machine:I386 /out:"Debug/experimentgame.exe" /fixed:no

That's why I included point a) in "Possible issues", it mentions even this very file. If you look at the error message, it complains because it cannot interpret "a.txt" file as a scenario file. Just delete this useless file and see how it goes without it.

 

[Lyrecryer]

What scenario do you convert? Is it from vanilla HoI2 or some mod?



That's why I included point a) in "Possible issues", it mentions even this very file. If you look at the error message, it complains because it cannot interpret "a.txt" file as a scenario file. Just delete this useless file and see how it goes without it.

oops. Reading failure on my part. Does it convert ministers or not as I converted the Abyss scenario and the only nation with ministers are Tanna Tuva.

 

[Bizon]

No, neither ministers nor technologies are converted.

For both areas it's probably best to the manually - at least this is what I will do for NWO2. I can imagine doing an ID conversion table for technologies, if someone prepares it I can include it in the converter. But even then, it's probably easier to divide countries into separate groups by the level of development and give them appropriate techs. I could also imagine a program reading minister files and autoselecting ministers based on the starting year. But I doubt it would give correct results.

If you have some time, you can go the way I went with NWO1 - there are files in "reference" folder for this. I made one table of every tech with its historical year. Then, I made a second table where I specified how each country, approximately, was advanced in each category (Infantry, Armor, Naval, etc.). Then the macro gave each country proper techs based on my assessment and created an output to copy and paste.

About some minor misalignments like with Dobruja... There's at least three provinces I wanted to change but I lost a note and I can't remember which ones I'd like to correct. But thanks for pointing out, I expect doing such minor alterations at some point.

 

[ScaniaBus]

This converter can't use in Iron Cross?

 

[MartinBG]

No, neither ministers nor technologies are converted.

For both areas it's probably best to the manually - at least this is what I will do for NWO2. ... I could also imagine a program reading minister files and autoselecting ministers based on the starting year. But I doubt it would give correct results.

There is an ID conversion table for ministers and leaders already - check \Modding documentation\DH Full - Leaders, Ministers and TT IDs and conversion.xls

It is not up-to-date as many new leaders/ministers/TTs added in patches plus some corrections to added by DH Full entries are not recorded there, but for conversion between Armageddon scenarios and DH Full it should be 100% correct.

 

[Bizon]

What a surprise. If it can be so easy I'll have to include it. I'm busy until Thursday but then I won't miss the chance to make my converter a bit more useful!

About Iron Cross map: if there's no similar id conversion table for provinces, then I'm afraid it won't work.

 

[unmerged(306135)]

What scenario do you convert? Is it from vanilla HoI2 or some mod?

vanilla. I tried the 1938, 1941 and 1944 scenarios
same problem in all 3

 

[Bizon]

If you have error output telling you that some provinces that are reported as land are actually sea provinces, it's I'd say "the most critical" kind of error and you cannot get that by e.g. having some extra files in scenario folder.

To be sure: the "right" way of converting scenario is to set "Darkest Hour\scenarios\1938" folder as source directory and set "Darkest Hour\Mods\Darkest Hour Full\scenarios\1938" folder as destination. Beside doing conversion you have to copy Darkest Hour\scenarios\1938.eug file to "Darkest Hour\Mods\Darkest Hour Full\scenarios" folder. Then after the conversion you run the game with "DH Full" mod and choose 1938 scenario.

Sorry if it sound to you too obvious - I just suspect that maybe the converted scenario tries to use the vanilla map?

 

[Wowwars]

why bizion you could've ruled DH like a boss with only kaiserriech to be a threat

 

[unmerged(306135)]

To be sure: the "right" way of converting scenario is to set "Darkest Hour\scenarios\1938" folder as source directory and set "Darkest Hour\Mods\Darkest Hour Full\scenarios\1938" folder as destination. Beside doing conversion you have to copy Darkest Hour\scenarios\1938.eug file to "Darkest Hour\Mods\Darkest Hour Full\scenarios" folder. Then after the conversion you run the game with "DH Full" mod and choose 1938 scenario.

so that's the problem, I put the destination folder to replace the source one
now it works well, thanks

 

[fizy45]

Rather than making all of us to deal with problems happen during the conversation why dont you release your already converted working version of scenerios (1936 - 1945 ) it would be much better I guess

 

[Bizon]

OK OK, a clever idea

I really thought about this tool as a nod to people to convert their mods but of course if someone wants to play vanilla scenarios it's not a big deal. I already compiled a very much improved 1.5 version so I can use it recreate those scenario and post them here, along with the new version. I should have time today evening.

One problem is that even though there is a conversion table for tech teams, I found no way to convert starting technologies. For my mod, I'll adopt a different way, similar to what I used in NWO1. If you are interested in using it, you should find it soon in yet-to-be-created NWO2 thread and/or bug me for additional advice.

Supeerme: For your Abyss scenario, lack of techs shouldn't be a big problem. The scenario starts in 1936 and there's only 11 or so countries so I recommend copy-pasting tech sets from current 1936 Darkest Hour Full scenario.

 

[Lyrecryer]

Supeerme: For your Abyss scenario, lack of techs shouldn't be a big problem. The scenario starts in 1936 and there's only 11 or so countries so I recommend copy-pasting tech sets from current 1936 Darkest Hour Full scenario.

It was more about Tech teams than Tech itself. I hope you have updated it. (if you did then make it a bit more blatant please.)

 

[Bizon]

It was more about Tech teams than Tech itself. I hope you have updated it. (if you did then make it a bit more blatant please.)

No, I didn't do it. The teams are not mentioned anywhere in scenario files themselves, so they didn't get my attention. I looked at Armageddon scenario though and I suppose you should be able to copy all the vanilla "db\tech\teams.u**.csv" files to Darkest Hour Full moddir and update "db\teams.txt" there. Or am I missing something?

Meanwhile, as noted, I made a big update to the converter (first post). It does a lot more things, below is a rough changelog:
- [EE.dll] the endline characters should now be generated correctly so the files will appear ok in Notepad (no impact on the game)
- province improvements, dormant leaders, dormant characters, ministers and leaders are now converted
- tech advances are now erased to prevent error messages from appearing (they must be filled in by some other method)
- interface is improved
- validation can now be done manually and independent of conversion (which should be very helpful for troubleshooting)

Also, for anyone asking and waiting for this, you can download converted vanilla scenarios. Be warned about at least 3 things though:
- each country has no tech
- with conversion conflicts, divisions may appear in the capital city, not on the front line; it may have some short-term impact on gamebalancing
- there's some amount of DH Full mechanics which should be accounted for but they are not; e.g. in 1944 scenario there fires an event for 1940 union of France and UK - it should obviously be slept but there's no way for me to do this automatically.

The bottom line is that those scenarios are playable on the very basic level but need several fixes to make them really useful. I think it's still quite a head start for anyone willing to take care of this.

 

[Bizon]

Prompted by development of NWO2 mod, I updated the program with some needed features:
- [EE.dll] various internal improvements
- [EE.dll] special characters in names are no longer lost during conversion
- it's now possible to convert unit models (air/land/sea divisions and brigades), with a conversion table included
- it's possible to sort province numbers within their respective containers
- a new option to generate a province ownership table (which country owns which province)
- small interface changes