Darkest Hour - Dev Diary #29 - A Peek Inside the World of Mod Integration

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Limith

Modding for Myself
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Apr 7, 2010
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Darkest Hour - Dev Diary #29 - A Peek Inside the World of Mod Integration





Darkest Hour is a game “By fans, for the fans”. From bug reports, to endless “Yet Another Feature Request”, spreading the Internationale in Kaiserreich, and conquering the world as a Communist Germany, my relationship with the game and development team has been that of a player and modder.

Now, as patch 1.03 approaches, I am happy to announce myself as the newest member member of the DH Team! :)

So, how does being a member of the team differ from modding? More importantly, how does it affect you as a player, a modder, or a fellow developer?


As a player,

I love the historic flavor, events, and detail in Darkest Hour that make it far more interesting and fun to play compared to other sandbox-orientated games. Still, creating this content takes time. Many minor countries inside the game have less flavor events and detail compared to majors due to time constraints in researching, writing, and testing new material. Thankfully, country improvement packs such as China Improvement, Democratic Germany, and Greece Improvement step in to fill this void.

One of these mods that I work on is CCIP, which stands for Consolidated China Improvement Pack. CCIP has existed in various forms since the beginning of the Hearts of Iron 2 series, developed by duke_of_boom, clanjay, and mib. With Darkest Hour, CCIP began as a port of this previous work, but soon morphed into something of its own.

Having played the 1914 scenario, I found myself unsatisfied with the way China (and Mongolia, Tibet, Japan by extension) was represented in the game. This period of China was known as the Warlord Era. Yet, China is somehow unified. Where is Sun Zhongshan and his band of revolutionaries in Guangzhou and Shanghai? Whatever happened to Puyi and his failed Beijing restoration? And what happened to China's participation in the entente?


As a modder,

I began improving the 1914 scenario as a part of AAR. I soon discovered the reason for the lack of content in the China sphere is not due to a lack of knowledge or desire by the team, but rather, the sheer size of work needed to properly represent this period properly.

I decided to remake CCIP from scratch starting in 1914 after considering previous problems that plagued development of the 1936 CCIP port for DH:

  • Fragmented Mod Research and Development – As CCIP passed through multiple versions of HoI2 developed by different individuals, there was a notable lack of standardization, documentation, and incomplete features. Usable, but something which could be improved.
  • Fragmented and Incorrect Database – Despite great improvements in the database accuracy in Darkest Hour, there remained quite a few inaccuracies in the database for China faction. Cai E, for example, is a leader in Beiyang China inside the game, when in real life, he led the opposition National Protection Alliance in the National Protection War. (Though, this particular issue is not yet fixed in 1.03 beta, leaders is being worked on and will be ready for 1.03 final). In addition, an old complaint by China players involved a post-unification China lacking the ability to gain warlord leaders, ministers, and tech teams. As the previous database did not have this in mind when being designed, the existing system of IDs and leaders was very inconvenient to trawl through. Research was needed anyway to verify and correct missing/incorrect information in the database, why not reorganize the database as well?
  • Unoptimized Events for Darkest Hour – The Darkest Hour game engine added a considerable amount of new commands and triggers for events. As a result, a simple port of previous CCIP events does not take full advantage of these new features.

In order to resolve these problems, however, I needed to gain a grasp on the leaders personally through research.

I'd like to take some time to applaud the work that researchers, such as Kaiser Franz and Arturius, do. Research work is considerably time consuming and not necessarily apparent to the end player. Yet this work is vital toward creating correct tech teams, ministers, and leaders.


After considerable work, I was approached by the DH Team about integrating my work on China in the 1914 scenario, which I happily accepted.

The DH Team has always been very supportive of modders, even when I was still a novice modder in the early days working on a rather obscure (and still small) project. I remember asking for wakeminister and sleepminister commands for this project, and was happy to find it implemented in the next patch.


As a Developer,

Integration opened up considerable new avenues for help with events, standards, and research. I'd like to thank AC, Fernando Torres, Arturius, Martin, Falconette, Eginhard and the rest of the team with their valuable and timely help with research. Their patience and understanding while I familiarized myself with underlying game mechanics is greatly appreciated. I hope to see more mods get integrated into the great game that is Darkest Hour as we continue on toward 1.04 and beyond.


So what has been changed?

• (WIP) Unified Research and Database File for Teams, Leaders, and Ministers for all Chinese Factions.
◦ Warlord T/L/M share ID end numbers with different faction ids for ease of coding.
◦ Countless research links in documentation file for future modders
◦ Completely re-researched start dates, end dates, retirement dates, and “Cabinet Dates” (dates when the minister historically entered cabinet, used solely in research files)
◦ New tech teams, leaders, and pictures (special thanks to Kaiser Franz and Ying1978)
◦ Expanded range for leaders, techteams, and leaders for other mods: with valid ones from the 1800s to 1999.

• New China events for 1914 scenario through 1921.
◦ National Protection War, Constitutional Protection War, Zhili-Anhui War, 1st Yue-Gui War
◦ Chinese entry and participation in the Great War. The Shangdong Problem and May 4th Movement.
◦ Many many flavor events

• New pictures for new CCIP events: (almost) every new event has a picture!

• Revised OOB

• Improved tech teams for 1933 and on scenarios.

And the future....

• Alternative history events

• Improvements to 1936 scenario

• Events for Japan (why is there no Japan Improvement Mod?), Mongolia, Tibet

• ???

Patch 1.03 has been in development for a long time, and there are many more new features that have not yet been revealed yet. Look forward to the upcoming beta patch for 1.03 (and future dev diaries!).

Yes, we are almost there. In the meantime, here is a random preview picture:

Preview.png
 
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What is great is that people can create things to expand the game, the joy of mods. What is greater is that teams or the developers of the game acknowledging the work of the community, adding it to the main game so everyone who doesn't use mods can experience is a sheer delight. It gives us fans of the game a motivation to add to the game and make it better as a whole for everyone.

I'm looking forward to a renovated China, its always a Pandora's Box of potential, though not fleshed out.

Forward unto dawn!
 
I would to just congratulate you Limith on becoming an official developer for Darkest Hour, but does this mean you'll stop work on AAR?

On a side note, in the picture do I see brigades and units as selectable options in the tech tree?:cool:
 
Bread8756
I would to just congratulate you Limith on becoming an official developer for Darkest Hour,
Thanks!
but does this mean you'll stop work on AAR?
Nope, AAR will continue to be developed. I think we may have an announcement in the AAR thread once 1.03 comes out about our plans for AAR (we have quite a few new features planned)
On a side note, in the picture do I see brigades and units as selectable options in the tech tree?
Yes...but I can't confirm or deny it is what you think it is.

whatguts
will we see CCIP expand to 1911? include the xinhai revolution? the ground work for 2 balkan wars are already laid thanks to jamiroquai000
Maybe. Not in 1.03 beta though. It is a huge task to create a new scenario. There was someone else working on a 1911 battlescenario, but not sure whatever happened to it.
 
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On a side note, in the picture do I see brigades and units as selectable options in the tech tree?:cool:
We divided the overview section into 3 parts: (general) overview, units and brigades.

Congrats Limith :)

I would to just congratulate you Limith on becoming an official developer for Darkest Hour, but does this mean you'll stop work on AAR?
And I know this question was not directed to me but I also intend to start a WIF mod of my own when 1.03 is out. Just for fun. :)
 
Does that mean that ahistorical outcomes are not supported ATM?
Aside from the National Protection War, the other war peace events have at least 3 possible peace outcomes (I would be astonished if someone could win the NPW as Imperial China without major cheats). Major historical deviances is not exactly feasible (at least by the ai) until the Anhui-Zhili War, which just so happens to be the last event chain that has been finished (in 1921). There will be more event chains in the future added to expand on diverging histories after the Anhui-Zhili War. I'm sure players will find a way to achieve ahistoric outcomes the ai is unable to. It really depends on your definition of "ahistorical outcome".

I will say that the event chains support a central powers victory.
 
Good stuff. Nice pic also
 
Any other mods being currently merged into 1.03? I know minister improvement made it into DH, so what else is there? Will we be seeing Democratic/Communist Germany implemented into the patch fully?
 
Any other mods being currently merged into 1.03? I know minister improvement made it into DH, so what else is there? Will we be seeing Democratic/Communist Germany implemented into the patch fully?
I doubt CommieGer/DemoGer are in 1.03, or the beta at least. Could be in 1.04 though.

But of course since they work so well in DH Full I don't even see a reason to waste time integrating them. Let the modders make sure it runs well, and thus ensure it gets a steady flow of updates while the devs are working on the big patches.
 
I doubt CommieGer/DemoGer are in 1.03, or the beta at least. Could be in 1.04 though.

But of course since they work so well in DH Full I don't even see a reason to waste time integrating them.

Well, considering that Commie Germany is already a route in the game and was one of the selling points of 1933 scenario, it would be strange for it to not get developed further in 1.03.
 
I think that first and foremost, focus should be put on on the important stuff, i.e. the WWI, GER-SOV balance, Sino-Japanese War, the Pacific War, less OP strategic bombing, fixing problems such as unsinkable TPs and the AI not escorting TPs... Communist Germany would be rather low on my personal list TBH.
 
• Events for Japan (why is there no Japan Improvement Mod?), Mongolia, Tibet

In fact, there are some great Japan improvement mods since HoI 2 on the Japanese forums. Some of them are ported to DH, I think.
 
Could you please post a link?

The most significant mod is called "United Far East Mod (統合極東Mod)". It added a ton of events for Asia. European nations are also considered.

Here is the link (all descriptions are Japanese.)
Original version for HoI 2: DD, DDA
http://hoi-mod.sakura.ne.jp/mod_hoi2/index.php?%C5%FD%B9%E7%B6%CB%C5%EC

They can only work for the Japanese localized versions of HoI series, though. That's why there is no Japanese Improvement Mod on this forum.