Why is file hacking required to play minor nations?

[unmerged(664)]

This question is probably a) simply answered and b) one that was much discussed months ago before I started visiting regularly, but I'd much appreciate one of the good fellows from Paradox who are so admirably visible here giving me a conclusive answer to the following:

Given the VERY positive posts I see out here all the time regarding the playability of EU as a minor nation once a wee bit (?) of file hacking is accomplished, what is the rationale for not opening the game up completely via a formal patch? I for one have both limited amounts of gameplay time AND interests in having to edit game files in order to achieve additional functionality.
Maybe the flip side of this question would be, why were minors excluded in the first place, and why is leaving it that way the better approach?

Thanks for your time.

Kurt

 

[unmerged(358)]

I'm in no way connected to Paradox (except a customer and a lover of one of their games , but if you want to play one of the minors that already exist in the game, i.e like Hannover and not one you have to make yourself like Norway or Ireland etc. that the editing is EASY. It's a matter of copying the scenariofile to a name you'll recognize (this is actually optional but advised since you then can make new copies of the original) and then opening that new file, do a text search, replace a 3 letter (pretty intuitive) code with 3 other letters, save file and that's it !!! It takes you somewhere in the vicinity of 3 minutes the first time and around 30 sec the next time when you know how to
I of course agree that a editor from within the game would be best, but compared to Paradox hiding all the files, this is pretty cool. Not many games offer this kind of customisability...

Oh well just my 2 ducats
Cobos

------------------
If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.

 

[Oranje]

Hello Kurt,

Not Paradox myself either, but I think it's like this:
Paradox probably underestimated the desire of customers to play as a minor. The original board game EU had a number of majors to choose from and that was it.
To change this now, would require a major change of the gui I think.
Maybe they'll do it as yet, maybe it's something for EU2, I don't know.

I do know that it's indeed really easy to change the thing yourself, like explained in the earlier answer.

------------------
Common sense is the set of prejudices acquired at age eighteen.
Albert Einstein

 

[unmerged(672)]

It is too bad. I imagine it would attract some more buyers for the game if it was an included feature. Someone just going down the isle looking at games doesn't know u can edit it to play most of the 75 countries in the game. If it were included, then someone going down the isles of a store looking at games and looked at this one, they might like the idea of taking William Wallace's Scotland and conquering the world with them.

One of the things that is making me want to go buy this game is knowing I can play almost any nation of that era, from the big countries, to the little small countries and try to rewrite the history books . The general public who just read boxes of games to see if they like it, doesn't know this fact.


[This message has been edited by Rastan (edited 25-01-2001).]

 

[unmerged(766)]

Thanks for posting that it is easy to edit the files. Could someone post a very explicit set of instrutions for doing this, with an example and the additional three letter codes?

Thanks,

------------------
John Fessenden
'Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read' -G. Marx

 

[unmerged(358)]

Try looking at this thread: http://www.europa-universalis.com/forums/Forum7/HTML/000256.html

that should explain it all....

Cobos

------------------
If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.

 

[unmerged(490)]

I don't believe it is hard to code. I am sure even a fan could come up with a little shell program which reads in the GC senario file, makes a copy of it, changing one of the majors into the minor of your choice (chosen on an interface screen) and starts the game with this scenario (or maybe even just writes the scenario file back in the folder as country_name.eug). Very simple stuff! I think the only reason no-one has done it is because it is so easy to do it by hand that no-one can be bothered to automate it.

Hmm, maybe even I could do that...

 

[unmerged(490)]

Now what would be useful is a scenario editor, which would allow you to change the majors and minors, change territories they own at the start, the leaders they get etc.

That would be very nice *hint* *hint*

 

[unmerged(766)]

Originally posted by Cobos:
Try looking at this thread: http://www.europa-universalis.com/forums/Forum7/HTML/000256.html

that should explain it all....

Cobos

Yes, it does. Thanks Cobos!

------------------
John Fessenden
'Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read' -G. Marx

[This message has been edited by John_Fessenden (edited 26-01-2001).]

 

[unmerged(664)]

Thanks especially to Cobos and Oranje. I had found that thread (in the FAQ section I think) but remained unclear as to why ANY manual intervention should be necessary at this point...will have to go with Oranje's speculation re the GUI, then, and assume that it would be a difficult change to supply as a fix, unless someone at Paradox is still to be heard from...

 

[Johan]

Cause playing a minor is not the original design.

/Johan