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Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour - Bonus Dev Diary: Modding

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New Expansion Format
One of the big things we have done is make sure that installing the new expansion doesn’t stop you from accessing the old expansions and DLC. This means you can still play For the Motherland with Dies Irae - Götterdämmerung and Stars and Stripes etc if you so wish. The expansion is now installed in a sub-folder named "tfh" which contains all the new files and ensures it doesn’t mess up any of the old files.
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Great idea.
 
CSABadass said:
If the TFH files are all in a new sub-folder, does this mean we need to have the FtM 3.05 patch installed prior to adding TFH?

Thanks in advance for the info!
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nah, like always it includes patches etc

Torakka said:
If I recall correctly, in CK2 that sort of thing was handled by replacing file with folder (I.E. folder called "religion" instead of religion.txt) and you could then add files to that folder in same fashion like adding new events, decisions or localisations. That sort of system would work for files like event_modifiers, as long as you only ever added new stuff. Editing existing ones would cause similar issues like having two events share same ID. However, files with fixed entries, like defines.lua or static_modifiers.txt could not really be handled that way.

In any case, changing that for TFH is probably a bit late by now...
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yeah, to do that in HoI3 the databases have to be constructed that way so you would basically have to code them again pretty much from scratch. its a better way of doing things and how we try to solve things in newer games.
 
Torakka said:
If I recall correctly, in CK2 that sort of thing was handled by replacing file with folder (I.E. folder called "religion" instead of religion.txt) and you could then add files to that folder in same fashion like adding new events, decisions or localisations. That sort of system would work for files like event_modifiers, as long as you only ever added new stuff. Editing existing ones would cause similar issues like having two events share same ID. However, files with fixed entries, like defines.lua or static_modifiers.txt could not really be handled that way.
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Sounds good to me. If CK2 modders satisfied with that solution, same can be true for HoI community )

podcat said:
Code: 
archive = "mod/EXAMPLE.zip" # if you want to put your mod files in an archive instead (wont load path)
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Another great feature for mod distribution/installation. Also, does it reduces loading time, when you put many small files into archive?
 
SeriousDude said:
Another great feature for mod distribution/installation. Also, does it reduces loading time, when you put many small files into archive?
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in theory it should, but I havent really noticed a big difference. it is MUCH MUCH faster to copy things around though. windows is very slow at copying thousands of files. The option is mostly there to make managing mod files easier
 
Peter81 said:
podcat, is it WAD, that a mod for TFH needs to have 'tfh/mod/ModName' set as a path?
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did mod/ModName not work? I would think that both should work. are you using the launcher to start the mod?
 
podcat said:
replace_path = "events" # this replaces whole path instead of just adding files as normal. useful for directories where the game just loads everything
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Can you expend on this please? am I right to assume that by default the whole mod folder is treated as extend in FTM, unless the 'replace_path' is set, in which case that folder is replaced?

podcat said:
user_dir = "EXAMPLE" # optional. creates a sub directory where settings/map cache/savegames etc can be safely written for your mod and not get mixed up
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Just to confirm, in the OP example it will create this folder in:
mod/EXAMPLE/EXAMPLE/..
or
path/user_dir/...

podcat said:
in theory it should, but I havent really noticed a big difference. it is MUCH MUCH faster to copy things around though. windows is very slow at copying thousands of files. The option is mostly there to make managing mod files easier
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Wouldnt it also make fixes more problematic?

EDITED.
 
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mor2 said:
Can you expend on this please? am I right to assume that by default the whole mod folder is treated as extend in FTM, unless the 'replace_path' is set, in which case that folder is replaced?
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What are you wanting to know? it's the same as {replace = "events"} in 3.05 as opposed to {extend = "events"}
 
New Expansion Format
One of the big things we have done is make sure that installing the new expansion doesn’t stop you from accessing the old expansions and DLC. This means you can still play For the Motherland with Dies Irae - Götterdämmerung and Stars and Stripes etc if you so wish. The expansion is now installed in a sub-folder named "tfh" which contains all the new files and ensures it doesn’t mess up any of the old files.
Click to expand...

I installed TFH from GamersGate. Running the launcher, in the lower left is an empty white box labeled "Select mod to play". Is this where I am able to access FtM and DI:G? If so, how? My old desktop icon to run HoI now also brings up the new launcher.

Wait - found ftm_launcher.exe in Hearts of Iron III subdirectory. Set old icon to point to that instead of hoi.exe, and it works. So two different launchers are needed, correct?
 
mor2 said:
if everything else is extended by default, because I see no option to extend, unlike TFM where you specifically had to either extend or replace every folder.
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extend is implied unless you use the replace command
 
so things like
Code: 
extend = "events"
is not needed anymore when i just want to add or overwrite files in the main events directory with the ones in my mod/events directory? edit: ok this seems to be answered in the post over mine.

And another question, is it true that TFH do not have all the needed files in their own directory structure? files like countries.csv and events.csv are not in the localisation directory of TFH. Are not they needed anymore or are they just not changed and so got loaded from the parent directory?

i tried to add a new country.csv (i just took the original file from the HoI3 directory and changed a few names) in my mod directory, i started the mod over the launcher but nothing changed!
 
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When using the replace command, what is the syntax? So if I would like to replace all the decisions from hoi3 with the one from my mod?
Tried setting up tfh/mod/modname and corresponding modname.mod. Can load with the launcher.
Set up a text file with a test decision in tfh/mod/modname/decisions.
Tried different paths with replace_path in modname.mod. (pointing to the one in tfh/mod/modname, decisions
However, I can always fire my test decision AND the vanilla ones.
 
Please, please fix the replace_path command... you still get the vanilla code if you haven't changed it, for example I still get vanilla Technologies and Units I am not using. To make my mod work as it is I would have to overwrite the vanilla folders, which I really don't want to do. Did I say please :)
 
This expansion has ruined any kind of sense when it comes to modding the game.

I mean seriously, if you could avoid using the mod directory which was half baked in the previous game now you can't even do that since the game is broken between two directories and now you have to figure our if its using the FTM files or the new TFH files.

Trying to use the mod directory is even worst. For example setting "history" on replace in the .mod file will replace the history files but when it comes to provinces it will only do that if they are in the exact folders as the base game is in. Why should we be limited in such a way? is it really so hard to tell the game to ignore the base folders and just look for the provinces in their respected folders inside the mod folder?

Not only that but trying to overwrite the provinces in the "tfh" folder is also not enough since it uses some provinces there and others from the FTM folders. The issues with editing interface files is also the same one that was, you just cannot change them simply by dropping files but you also have to alter paths and I ask what for? is this really supposed to be easy modding? do we really need more things to waste time on?

Bottom line, the mod directory is still screwed up just as it was with FTM and now to make things better we have "tfh" directory to make things even more complicated.

Edit: And ohh, if the devs haven't build the provinces folder in such a messy way I wouldn't have bothered with it but imagine how fun it is to look for all those provinces spread between "Soviet Union" and "Siberia" folders. Not to mention all those African provinces which are stuck in "France", "United Kingdom" and so on...
 
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