Need a national modding for idiots tutorial.

[JThur]

Hello.

Is there a step by step tutorial for making new nations? I'm thinking about creating a new early era nation with existing units and could use a tutorial like that.

I've read the mod pdf but I'm afraid I'm to new at this to understand most of it.

[Endoperez]

I don't think so. However, it basically goes like this:


1) Creating units
1A - you write down the stats in the format given in the mod pdf - #att, #def, #weapon "short bow" etc etc
1B - you create new sprites (base and attack) or choose which in-game unit your new creature looks like
1C - there's no difference between units and commanders at this point, you use the exact same mechanics to do both, just remember to make commanders more expensive

2) Creating starting sites
2A - much easier, you basically just choose path, name and type of income

3) Creating the nation
3A - you give it a name and description
3B - you use #addrecunit and #addreccom commands to add the units you created to the nation's recruitment list (you can also use existing units)
3C - you use #startsite to choose which sites the nation starts with
3D - you make and define what flag the nation uses
3E - you define heroes, if you made any, and national spells, if you made any, etc etc


In my opinion, the difficult things are:
* descriptions and theme - the existing nations are very well written
* creating the unit sprites/flag - if you can use this forum, you can use a text editor, but drawing is a different skill. This has been discussed previously, and there are tutorials. It's much easier now that every unit's both sprites have been extracted and you can base your units on them.
* balance. Basing your units/mages on existing commanders will probably work.

[Saulot]

As to the difficult parts, I pretty much concur with Endoperez.

My suggestion to make things easier is to carefully examine other nation mods. There are plenty of good ones to choose from, and each may have something cool or new to educate you in modding ways.

There are also a couple of things which make a modder's life easier; The dom 3 database (To examine different weapons and units, and if you plan on copying already existing unit sprites), Or a graphic editing program (if you plan to make your own unit sprites) such as GIMP.

On a slightly different note, if there truly is no 'modding for dummies' tuturial, and the information available is insufficient, and there is demand, I'd be willing to contribute towards one (though there are others better suited to the task).

[JThur]

Thanks for the tips. I guess I'll just have to dive into it and see how much I can mess up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I'll let you know how it goes.

[Sombre]

Do what I did when I first started, jump in at the deep end by messing around with other people's mods, seeing how they've done what they've done.

A nice trick is to start with an existing mod then work backwards, simplifying it by removing chunks. If it breaks, put the last chunk back in.

[Molotov98]

hi, kinda new, but less about me.

try the modding guide in the dominions program files. the file is labelled doc.

fairly simple

molov