World map, My Delusions of grandure.

[Taros]

Ok so i'm just thinking out loud here and maybe just hinting at a faint proposal of co-operation :cheers:

Err oh yes, introductions. I am Taros, though there is a very slim chance of this, some of you may have heard of me if you are involved in a little game called "The Movies" as i am the (supposed) super moddeller at The movies workshop. (I was very much involved in creating the tools wich allowed The Movies to be modded to it's fullest extent) So i have some modding background.


Anyways that's not what i wanted to talk about, This site recently came to my attention when i reinstalled KOH only a few days ago and though "Hey there's bound to be some mods by now" and this site popped up. I've been playing around with changing minor things in the game so far though nothing big. But i have been thinking :scratch: and i have long wanted to play on a map wich is not Europe, after looking through the game files i came to the conclusion that it must be possible, however unlikley. so i was curious as to your thoughts on the subject.

Would it be possible (do you think) to create an entirley new world to play on, if not a geographical reigon of the world then perhaps an original one?

Im asking this becouse of my usually profound delusions of grandure giving me the idea to make a HUGE mod, well map wize anyway. As a moddeller it would probobly not be hard to create alot of new graphics for the game like new buildings, units (if need be) battle fields, castles etc. I guess we just have to crack the RLE file format.


So all i want is a 'Hello' and a simple 'yes' or 'no' with any additionally evil conspiracy's you might come up with.

/cheers
Taros.

[Angryminer]

Welcome to the forum. :halloha:

If someone could provide the necessary information to the format the KoH map is stored in then there would be a good chance that we might be able to modify the world map.
There are several people around with great knowledge in their respective areas (like Elvain, who created an absolutely awesome - and historically correct - map of provinces all over europe, africa, the middle east and into the ural) so a project like this would eventually lead to success.
By the way, I don't think a world-map would be good due to the topic of KoH, but expanding and correcting the current map would surely be a great achievement.

So if you are able to extract knowledge of the world-map storage format please do so. We will assist you in any way possible.

Angryminer

[Taros]

thanks for the welcome

Yup it seems more and more like it's a possibility to edit the world map, you just have to figure out how. an interesting note on that is that i've found numerous referance to a Map editor wich seems to be hidden and inert within the game, it is possible it was just toggled off prior to release becouse it had bugs, although i imagine that a work around and restoration of the map editor might be possible. oh yeah i wasnt actually talking about making the whole world :lol: "world map" referances to the map in wich the game world exists so to speak :rolleyes: so my suggestion would be more like make a map of Asia for example in a mod that would basically be like Koh but with Asian units and kingdoms instead, just an example. another example would be a big o'le fantasy mod (wich wouldnt really be hard at all) and create an entirley original map with fictitious kingdoms, units and so on, considering the game's structure that should be a peice of cake once all the formats are sorted.

the biggest issue i can find is the dt files wich appear to referance most of the other files, unlocking them would probobly lead to unlimited modding capabilites within the game's engine. I have asked a wiz coder friend to take a look at them and considering that he unlocked the about 25 times more complicated files for The movies i think he might shed some insight that will later prove to be invaluable and allow for alot to be changed and even created.

speaking of wich, i just today tried to create an entirley new kingdom (with success i might add) even got names of kings and princes all sorted as well as unit lists, the only thing i havnt been able to do is change the title of the marshals, i pretty much understand how the referance table works for the diferent regions etc but i havnt been able to get it to work with a new file, of course i could cheat it and use an existing file and have my new kingdom referance to it but that isnt at all as fun :angel: Might the region referancing perhaps be located in the .dt files? or have i just missed something?


btw creating new units (from scratch) should be a peice of cake, it's essentially just modelling, creating animatinos and looping them in about 6 - 10 frames and rendering in an isometric view with a 45 degree tilt, then doing the same in a rotary fashion in 45 degree intervals. essentially a peice of cake. wich brings me to my next question, any luck on the img and rle files?


/Taros

[Angryminer]

There's a well done insight on creating unit-animations here (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=7740) in the forum.
Also new units have been created script-wise (to that time the animation-files were unusable, so the created units reused old andimations, but it proves that KoH can accept new units).
Elvain created new kingdoms and new titles for Marshalls. See his mod "Holy Rome" for the script files (in that mod he has new units and new kingdoms and new titles). Elvain also wrote something about creating kingdoms here in the modding section.
Here (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=3898) is an older overview over many editable things.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

Hi Taros

thanks for enlarging the possibilities of our modding community

I would be very interested in such project. If you look into my signature you could see a projesct I do and my work is now one of major sources for a map for Arabia Universalis mod for Europa Universalis II. (http://europauniversalis2.myfreeforum.org)

about the titles. I know it definitely is possible. But Unfortunately I haven't touched the game for over a month and forgot almost everything about it. If you look into what can you edit and where thread in this forum section it should be described there (most probably by me) how to make it

good luck in your efforts, I would be the first one who would welcome expansion of the map further to east (to include at least most of Middle East)

[Taros]

Well Hello there Elvain, as far i can tell you're like a local celebrity on these forums :wink:

i have effectivley managed to understand just about everything we are capable of modding at present (fast learner) and im hopeful my mysterious friend can figure out the .dt files.

on the subject of the map, one thing i've been able to think of is so far i think we can change province bounderies and thus borders, however on a large scale change things will be a little harder at least as we dont have a map editor to work with. However the best place to start experimenting seems to be on the tutorial map wich is just Ireland i believe. im going to try my hand at it and making totally new unit's, how does some steam-punk sound? (im not a big fan of realizm :rolleyes:) as in steampunk'd seige units. sure it totally unbalaces things but what the hay, it's the best way to experiment :P

Anyhoo yes i'd like to see the middle east in the game too actually, always was a big fan of the whole nights of arabia thing :cool:

[Doux]

Good idea Taros, I hope you'll be succesful!

There's only this, that I know of, that might just maybe help you:

KoH debugger (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=5732)