Wow, this has been out for a year and I've never noticed it. This is utterly stunning work mate! Downloading straight away!
Btw, is there any way for me to restore the original country political colours after I've downloaded and installed your Tripartite Pack, while leaving the reduced USSR & Japan brightness as you've done them?
Many thanks Titan.
Thank you for the compliments and for having tried this mod! It's always a pleasure to know that people enjoy it.
Edit: Got some questions now.
1) I've gone ahead and done is I deleted your country.csv file in the db folder of the mod download so it doesn't overwrite the vanilla country.csv in an attempt to retain country political colours but some odd things have happened. Persia, Dominican Republic, Poland, Manchukuo and Nationalist Spain's light tan colour has swapped with Free French Bleu de France colour. Siam and Turkey has swapped their greenish white colours with Bulgaria and Brazil's light green. Guangxi Clique has lost its previously turquoise? colour to the Siam greenish white. There might be something funny going on with Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Portugal and Ireland as well though I'm not entirely sure. USA blue has darkened considerably. The text in the vanilla csv file remains unchanged. What could be affecting the colour changes? I am running no other mod for AOD and it is patched to v1.07 prior to mod installation.
The problem lies exactly in the fact that you've deleted my country.csv file.
In an attempt to further improve the terrain map mode, I've decided to change vanilla AoD's colour for urban provinces from yellow ("light tan") to blue ("Bleu de France") to make it more similar to the colour real concrete buildings have, and also to give those provinces a bit more contrast, that is, more visibility on map. However, in order to do that, the best solution I've found was to invert the two colors, so in fact yellow became blue and vice-versa. I reverted that value in the map\colorscales.csv file.
This, of course, had an impact on the political map mode (the one you experienced), so I needed to swap all the countries which originally were yellow to blue and the blue ones to yellow. This has been done in the db\country.csv file. So, to sum it up, if you want to have blueish urban provinces you also need to copy my country.csv file to keep the original "Poland is yellow/French is blue"
setup.
2) When you said that you had changed the Waffen 'SS' symbols to show properly, did you mean so they would show in their runic form? I couldn't tell since all your Nazi screenshots had the swastika and SS symbols censored but anyway, my Waffen SS units all have the normal 'S' symbols instead of a runic 'S' so to speak. Something wrong here?
Correct. Some time ago I found a little mod for HoI2 which let write the runic SS symbol. I could mod the db\unitnames.csv file to make this appear automatically for every SS unit being created in game, but eventually I decided against it. So, in order to have your Waffen-SS divisions display the historical runic symbol in their name, you have to write it manually by simply tapping "shift" and "2" (this, provided you have a US keyboard layout).
3) I found some decent side view pics of the iconic American GMC CCKW 5.3ton 6x6 truck. I had noticed that you were already using the earlier model lend leased to the Soviets (
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS95KMnYBTDSIr4nlRGTYkeBayvEAvJCyz-FWRTqPpGf32chP0VRF10Y8lS) for SOV MOT I-V and was wondering if you'd consider updating the USA MOT I & II with this same model (
http://www.the-blueprints.com/bluep.../tanks-g-j/gmc_cckw_352_2_5_ton_6x6-25633.jpg) for accuracy since the current trucks are odd looking and unhistorical? Then for USA MOT III (1944) and IV (1947), use this same but updated truck in its post-1943 look (
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...Rp_volPVFiZ3ex41ZZprDYbxy1-m_MOpMmQSYHOeOzHWQ) possibly? I would provide a picture of the M35 truck for the MOT V (1951) for when it came into service but can't find any. Looks pretty similar anyway, so might as well use the 1943 truck. I'd do it myself but I don't know how.
Thanks for the remark! I would have probably never noticed that myself. You know, the TP features also icons done by other people and then collected, and edited one by one, by me, so I can't really grant for their historical accuracy as I can do e.g. for the aircraft (of which 100% of the icons have been done by me except 4). Also, I'm more expert at German vehicles and weaponry than at US ones.
I'll update the US trucks as you've suggested. By the way, please report any other mistakes you might spot!
4) Why do the Armoured divisions have 'COR' at the top left instead of 'ARM'? Forgive my ignorance but what does 'COR' mean?
They have a "COR" instead of an "ARM" since many years ago, when I started working on this mod, I added all the icons Italian tags, as Italian is my native language; only much later I decided to edit them and add English tags, when I thought I could share this work with the community. So, "COR" stands for "Corazzata", i.e.
(divisione) Corazzata ->
Armored (division). There was a similar problem with tactical bombers, too (which displayed a "Tat" - from "Tattici" - instead of "Tac").
I've got rid of these naming inconsistencies already some months ago, though. The reason why you still see "Cor" instead of "Arm" is that you probably didn't install the "Corrections" file which addresses many of these issues and adds as well new icons, buttons and other small improvements. Download it from the very first post in this thread; the link is just below the "Tripartite Pack" one. By the way, remember to check regularly to see if another version of the "Corrections" file has been released!
5) I'm not too sure about the sound changes but that's probably just me. For now I'll keep playing the game with them. I might go and record some sounds from Band of Brothers, The Pacific and some war movies now that this mod has got me in the mood to improve the game. My only problem is I don't understand the naming convention of the .wav files. Do they bear any specific meaning? Is there somewhere that shows what event uses which files? Are the number of files set in the sense that, for land battles for example, I can only have one file for rifle fire, one file for MG fire, one file for arty, all with different time lengths so they play together and form a decent battle background sound or can I just have a single file with all sounds combined? If so, what name would it go under? Also, are there any file size limits?
Well, to be honest, I'm not very sure about the sound files names' meaning either (
the only one's meaning I can guess is CAB1 -> Combat Artillery Bombardment, but the rest is rather cryptic to me). Anyway, this is no longer a problem in itself by the time you know what does each file "mean" in game, i.e. to which kind of battle it corresponds. In order to do this, I listened to them until I was sure enough about their use in game to draw a "map" of them.
So, to give you a view of the files in the sfx directory and their use:
cab1.wav - Artillery bombardment (
only used with this particular mission).
cba1.wav, cba2.wav, cba3.wav - Air bombardment missions (
all kinds, from logistical/airport/port strike etc. bombing to ground attack missions against enemy land units). These seem to fire always in the order they are named. I modded them to start air bombardment missions with an air siren, followed by flak shooting at incoming planes, airplane engine's roar and then falling bombs.
cgfb1.wav, cgfb2.wav, cgfb3.wav - Naval battles (
all kinds, except for the "Convoys sunk" notifier which has its own sound).
cgfi1.wav, cgfi2.wav, cgfi3.wav - Land combats (
all kinds).
cgfp1.wav, cgfp2.wav, cgfp3.wav - Land combats (
all kinds, but another set). The two sets seem both to be used by the game more or less in every battle, and their sounds fire (
pun intended ) rather randomly.
cgft1.wav, cgft2.wav - "Convoys sunk" notifier sound. Originally, the two sounds were different from each other; I've decided to make a new, single one instead (
a torpedo hitting a ship).
cnb1.wav - Nuclear attack (
not 100% sure but 99% yes).
cri1.wav - Not sure about this one, don't even know if it is used at all in game.
crta.wav- Rocket selected (
not entirely sure but it should be that).
csa1.wav, csa2.wav - Air combats (
all kinds of battles between opposing air groups).
empty.wav - Self-explanatory...
gbme.wav to
gfb1.wav - Not sure, don't even know if they're used at all in game.
gmwo.wav - Generic message.
gsb1.wav - Economic deal proposal received.
gvc1.wav - Generic mouse click.
uafm1.wav - Probably a former "Move order" for air units; it seems not to be used anymore by the game, though.
uafs1.wav - Air unit selected.
uam1.wav - Move order (
for land units only - all kinds).
uas1.wav - Land unit selected.
unm1.wav - Move order (
for naval units only - all kinds).
uns1.wav - Naval unit selected.
utfr.wav - Tech research finished.
uufb.wav - Unit upgraded (
also used for provincial upgrades, such as infrastructure, rocket sites, factories etc.).
I take the chance to highlight that I've modded many of these sounds, and that I've also made some country-specific graphic\audio packs to be used when playing with the majors (i.e. ENG-GER-ITA-JAP-SOV-USA). They add some unique sounds, e.g. FlAK 88mm gun and MG42 machine-gun fire for land combats if playing Germany, BM-13 "Katyusha" rocket launcher and Maksim 1910 machine-gun if playing USSR, and so on. They also give each country a different generic message, tech finished and unit upgraded sounds. They are optional, though, and you have to install them manually; in order to do it, please follow the instructions in the readme file contained in each sub folder in the ...\Country-specific themes\ directory.
As for your question about single rifle, MG etc. sounds, there is no such thing as specific single rifle, gun etc. .wav files: they're all treated the same way by the game, so technically there is no problem if you add e.g. 20 different combat sounds in each .wav file related to battles. That being said, please keep in mind that e.g. naval battles will always use all three .wav files (which will also be fired randomly and repeatedly, thus often overlapping themselves), so if you fill each file with too many combat sounds you'll run the risk to have too a chaotic battle sound layout. This is why I chose to mod e.g. the Land combat sounds just by swapping a couple vanilla files with different, but single, rifle
or MG
or gun fire sounds; this way they don't become too messy (don't get me wrong: I like combats to be rather loud, as they are in real life. But not
too much).
The name under which your modded file would go would be the same as vanilla, since you're not really creating new files but you're just modding the existing ones. If you'd ask me if one can create new sound files - that would be a good question and I wouldn't be able to answer for sure. One could try, I guess, e.g. by creating a "cgfi4.wav" file and see if the game recognizes it. As for file size limits: not sure about this either, but so far I've tried to never go beyond twice the size of the original files (if I remember correctly) and it always worked. Also, normally I create 44,100 kHz, 16 bit, mono files, although even 44,100 kHz, 16 bit, stereo ones work without problems; it only depends on the starting file quality I'm modding and on the file size I'm trying not to exceed.
So, my advice is to act this way but at the end of the day it's up to you to change them the way you want. Also, the best advice I can give you is to try and see if you like the results - this is what I did and I think it's the best way to go.
Questions aside, love the terrain colour change, I've always thought it should look like that. And to have flags on units is a God send when allied countries send you expeditionary forces and you can't tell from their Corps or Division name where the hell they're from. Ship models look familiar, like I've seen done like that in a game somewhere before. Either way, they look terrific, as do the aircraft models. Specialist infantry icons are top notch and the brigade colour difference for those that do and don't require fuel is a big time saver when one needs to play casually and just tell at a glance.
Thank you very much, really! You know, when I first started this work, the goal I had in mind was especially to make the game interface easier to read. In this regard, things like terrain map mode, flags on units and better icons were the most important things IMO, later followed by the other improvements (like the new counters, for example). I started playing HoI2 many years ago and I still remember how hard it was to play with Japan due to the almost undistinguishable CAs, CLs and BCs; it was something that couldn't stay that way since it just ruined the game experience, at least for me. Same thing for flags on units: it was annoying not being able to tell at a glance which countries' forces you were fighting against in the battle window, since they all looked the same way; and so on. As for ship models: they're not a creation of mine, I took them from another mod (I think CPack's one) - however, I then added a standard flag / unit tag / unit tier code for every one of them. But it might well be that his icons have been used in another game before. On the other hand, aircraft are an entire creation of mine, just like many land icons, so thanks again for the compliments
(
you can see a complete list of which icons have been done by me in the readme file). And yes - to be able to "tell at a glance" is exactly what I was (and still am, by updating the mod) aiming for!
EDIT:
New version of Corrections.rar uploaded. Contains new USA motorized infantry icons (kindly suggested by Blood Raven) as well as an enhanced vanilla HoI2 combat button (red instead of green for improved visibility), an improved symbol for Artillery Bombardment mission and a new, alternate German topbar with a different
Reichsadler, as suggested by BayesBug in
this post. Below is an attachment to show how it looks in game.
Download the Corrections file from the first post in this thread, as usual.
