[Utility] EU3Chooser - Random Country/Date Utility

**MTXperience** · 08-04-2012 06:06

Background

One of the hardest aspects of any Paradox game for me has been deciding what date to start a new game, and whom to play. I created one of these utilities for CK2, and (after having played a total of 4 hours of EU3) decided to create one for EU3 as well.

What It Does

After loading up EU3Chooser (and telling it where your game is installed), you select a date to load into the utility. You can manually enter a date, choose one of the game's standard bookmarked dates, or randomly generate a date.

Once your date is entered, EU3Chooser will load up the relevant historical data, and create a database of playable countries available at that time. Push the "Pick a Country" button, and there you go. EU3Chooser will pick an appropriate country and display it to you.

You can also generate a in-game bookmark once you've selected a country, that will let you go directly to the date and country you've chosen.

Installation

You will need the .NET runtime for this utility. You can get it here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa569263

Past that, just put the attached executable wherever you want, and run it.

Disclaimer and Compatibility

This is an initial version I put together in a matter of hours, using code I developed for the CK2 version. So far, it seems to work fine, but I anticipate issues. That said, the only damage this thing should not damage your game install.

I haven't tested this with any mods, but it should work with them as far as I know (assuming your mod data is in the same place as the "standard" EU3 data when you run this utility).

Conclusion

Hope you enjoy it. I intend to make future improvements if there is sufficient community enthusiasm (particularly filters and more info about the selected country). More than anything, I just wanted something like this for my own use, and didn't see a similar utility out there already.

Version History

0.6
=====
- Attempt to fix parsing error some users are experiencing.
- More informative error message.

0.5
=====
- Initial

**Alpha Zeke** · 08-04-2012 06:19

Good job sir, good job!

**generalolaf** · 11-04-2012 04:39

I guess I'll be using this for my next game. Most excellent work

**thewalrii** · 14-04-2012 18:03

For some reason it's not working for me. I have the game through steam, and pointed the utility to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\europa universalis iii - complete. When I go to choose date, pick a date, then click OK, I get an error saying "Error loading EU3 data."

Any idea why this would happen? Your CK2Chooser utility works fine for me.

**ChippoTheHippo** · 14-04-2012 22:35

Originally Posted by thewalrii

For some reason it's not working for me. I have the game through steam, and pointed the utility to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\europa universalis iii - complete. When I go to choose date, pick a date, then click OK, I get an error saying "Error loading EU3 data."

Any idea why this would happen? Your CK2Chooser utility works fine for me.

I also have this error and mine isn't even from steam.

**extox** · 15-04-2012 01:21

ditto

**MTXperience** · 15-04-2012 23:05

To any of you experiencing the issue with loading the data, can you tell me what date(s) you are trying, and I'll troubleshoot.

**thewalrii** · 17-04-2012 02:50

I've tried all of the preset dates, and they all give the same error.

**MTXperience** · 17-04-2012 23:48

I've uploaded an updated version, to hopefully help combat some of the issues you all are experiencing.

The introduction of CK2 1.05 today brought an error in the parsing engine to my attention. Since CK2Chooser and EU3Chooser use the same parsing engine, I'm hopeful this change will resolve people's issues.

I also added a little more info to the "Error loading EU3 data" message, that specifies precisely what data the program is having trouble loading. If anyone still experiences issues with this build, please let me know; and let me know what aspect of the data the app seems to be having issues with.

I developed and tested this using a "vanilla" version of the 5.2 beta data. I'm guessing the issues others are having are due to "quirks" in the data from mods or previous versions of the game. Again though, hopefully this latest version will fix these (or at least make them easier for me to identify).

**thewalrii** · 18-04-2012 00:56

Upgrading to the 5.2 beta fixed my issue. Using 5.1, it had an error with translations. I'm not able to get the utility to pick up any info from mods, though. The mod data lives in the "mod" folder, separate from the rest of the eu3 data. Is that why? Is it something that can be added?

thanks for the good work

**MTXperience** · 18-04-2012 01:06

Thanks for the feedback! Adding support for pulling data from the mods folder is definitely something I intend to add in the next month or two.

In the next few days though, I'll snag a copy of 5.1, and see if I can't sort the issue there with reading the localization data.