pretenders .2h file specification

[Herode]

I had on my previous PC an old exe called "Pretender Editor". It worked fine under XP but does not work under Vista (as many other things, BTW...)

I wonder if there is a reliable specification about the .2h file format for the prentenders, which I could use to code a new (and platform independant ^^) editor ?

[MaxWilson]

I've never seen one. I'm interested in .2h files because you could potentially use one to code an external AI (in theory the PBEM format is perfect for external AIs). I've never cracked the code, however.

-Max

[lch]

I believe you mean Ballbarian's God Editor: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Board=d3smm&Number=591888

I have never seen a pretender editor besides the Dom3 game itself, and I don't think that such a thing would exist.

There is no specification about the *.2h file format, too. While it would certainly be useful for lots of things, it would directly lead to hacking and cheating in MP games.

[Herode]

No, it's not the God Editor. It's called Pretender Editor. It just scans the newlords directory and when you click on one of the .2h files, it gives you the stats for this pretender : name, physical form, magic, dom &so on. Very useful. And I know such a thing exists because I still have it running on my old PC (under XP).

I uploaded it on these forums a while ago, but I am unable to find the original post...

[lch]

And you're sure that it is an editor, and not just the catgod GUI? If you still have it running on your old PC, why don't you attach it again? You can view all the posts that you made from your profile. But maybe your post/program was considered to be dangerous and removed from the forum by the moderators.

[Herode]

Out of topic, but... I'm trying to run the God Editor. I had to load and register missing ocx & dll (more VB/M$ specific stuff...) and followed the link to Ascentive. Several adware are hidden in the .exe wich installs the files.

So : keep an eye on your AV & malware hunters when you run files coming from these Ascentive guys...

[Herode]

Maybe it's a catgod GUI but it does not output the exactly the same things : no body/hit/titles informations but the points used for the design and the points left where showed.

I didn't code this editor, the work and the original post were from another guy. But if you are interested, and provided neither the guy who developped the tool (if he reads this thread) nor the moderators raise some opposition, I can attach it here one again.

[llamabeast]

I think you mean EvilDave's catgod.

[QXel]

For instance, catgod work no more since version 3.15.

I've use it before and it works perfectly, but since I have patched, it don't work anymore.
The fiel format must have been changed since this version.

QXel

[lch]

QXel said:
For instance, catgod work no more since version 3.15.


It still works on my system. Maybe you need to download the latest version.

[Herode]

Ha, here is a screen of the mystery pretender editor.
http://www.hypothese.net/jeux/Dom3/pretenderV.png

Unfortunately, I can't find what are the missing dlls for you, Ich... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

[lch]

Ah, so it is a different program, but has the same functionality like the catgod program, plus editing and saving your pretender god. This is the first time I ever saw anything about this, though. It seems to me like you're the only person knowing it.

I guess there are a number of people that would be interested in a tool like this. To edit pretender gods is really a feature that the game is missing. Fun trivia: did you know that there's code inside the game to load and edit pretender gods that you already made? It's just not active. Maybe it's from Dom:PPP days and never got included again?

[QXel]

Hum ...

Made some tests ...

Apologies: catgod works perfectly, even with 3.17, at the only condition you use it as it must be used.
In others words: don't be AS DUMB AS ME and DON'T try to view 2h files in another directory than ...\savedgames\newlords, AS IT IS SAID!

In fact, I'll try to view pretenders files in a running game subdirectory, and THEN I have something completly different as output, like KJHKHG00000fdh etc. as name, no scale and insane magic: Fire 127 Water 159 and so!!!

Well, to bad: my intentionnaly main use of it was to view my unsaved-just-for-this-game created pretenders ...

Seems that file formats are differents.

Herode: this program looks cool. What its name exactly and where have you find it (i.e. the exact thread: I've made a research on the mod forum, but since the research function isn't very 'aware', I didn't find anything ...)?

QXel

[Evil Dave]

QXel said:
In fact, I'll try to view pretenders files in a running game subdirectory, and THEN I have something completly different as output, like KJHKHG00000fdh etc. as name, no scale and insane magic: Fire 127 Water 159 and so!!!

Well, to bad: my intentionnaly main use of it was to view my unsaved-just-for-this-game created pretenders ...

Seems that file formats are differents.



Different file format for temporary pretenders? Well, now that's interesting. Thanks for finding this, QXel! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif

In case anybody's curious, I think I'll have time to update catgod for Dom3.17 this weekend. Ich found and fixed some bugs, so I need to do a little more work than usual for a new version. I gotta merge in Ich's changes and check to see if there's anything else I missed.

[lch]

Evil Dave said:
Different file format for temporary pretenders? Well, now that's interesting. Thanks for finding this, QXel! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif


He's talking about *.2h / *.trn files after the games have started. Then catgod attempts to read the files, but can't find the stuff because the pretender data is stored elsewhere.

[lch]

Herode said:
Unfortunately, I can't find what are the missing dlls for you, Ich... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif


Okay, I took another stab at this. It turned out that the problem wasn't missing DLL files. That thing is just throwing around exceptions like crazy. And there is no failure recovery in it at all. I ran the program in Microsoft's CLR Debugger and the first thing I saw was that it tried to open the directory "\Program Files\Dominions3\savedgames\newlords". Since I don't have that directory, the execution failed. Since I didn't feel like renaming / moving my Dom3 installation folder, I hex-edited the program to point to my real game folder instead. Then I could use the program successfully. Another solution would have been to create the directory structure with empty dirs, then launch and try to use the "Change Dir" button to go to the real game dir. But that is restricted to your (localized) Program Files folder and if you abort, it crashes again. Hah! Not very user-friendly, that program.

First of all, this is no God Editor. Maybe it meant to become one, but this has only display functionality. It even is titled "Dom3 Pretender Viewer". The up/down buttons are non-functional, and from decompiling the MSIL code I could see that there is no code in it to save files. And the code to load files is kind of funny, too. Very... inventive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Other things I learned: The programmer is named Tom, and his girlfriend is probably named Kel. Or those are siblings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Still, this program doesn't have much more than what catgod has, besides the pretender cost calculation, and since it doesn't seem to be maintained anymore, you better use Evil Dave's catgod instead, which is still being updated (soon).

[Frostmourne27]

lch said:
Fun trivia: did you know that there's code inside the game to load and edit pretender gods that you already made? It's just not active. Maybe it's from Dom:PPP days and never got included again?



Well, since Dom3 has pretender saving and loading, if you use the pretender creator in game tools, I suspect that it probably isn't just latent code. Unless it pertains to editing pretenders mid-game, or something. But since the newlords files aren't checked after a game starts, that would seems pointless.

[JimMorrison]

Frostmourne27 said:

lch said:
Fun trivia: did you know that there's code inside the game to load and edit pretender gods that you already made? It's just not active. Maybe it's from Dom:PPP days and never got included again?



Well, since Dom3 has pretender saving and loading, if you use the pretender creator in game tools, I suspect that it probably isn't just latent code. Unless it pertains to editing pretenders mid-game, or something. But since the newlords files aren't checked after a game starts, that would seems pointless.




Except that the Pretender Creator Tool only saves, you cannot load and modify a pretender file that you previously made through the tool.

I'd really like if you could modify saved pretenders..... Testing one and then finding you want to make ONE change, it's frustrating. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[lch]

JimMorrison said:
Except that the Pretender Creator Tool only saves, you cannot load and modify a pretender file that you previously made through the tool.

I'd really like if you could modify saved pretenders..... Testing one and then finding you want to make ONE change, it's frustrating. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


As I wrote before: The functionality is already in there in the game. But the GUI offers no way of accessing it that way.

[Tifone]

May I resurrect the thread to ask where to find Herode's so nice program?? :happy:

[Gandalf Parker]

That would be the program by Jay Thomas.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35142
Its a .net program and installs rather strangely but it is nice.
He tried to add editing capability but said he ran into CRC protections that he would rather not bypass.

I tend to prefer CatGod because it lets me save the results to a text file.

[lch]

Aha, so that's where it was from. But the program is no longer maintained, and even the published version could very easily crash in interesting ways because it assumed a few things that don't have to be that way. Your best hope is that JK will include this functionality into the game at some point.

[Tifone]

Unable to even start on my system, and I'm not so cool to hexedit it to find a solution :D

Well, seems like to look what that old pretender was, I'll need to continue opening a new game, checking the dominion effect and bless some units :cold:

Or I'll search that CatGod to see how it works ;)

[Gandalf Parker]

This one is a .net program so you have to have the .net system loaded in order to run it. Thats the problem with many of our Dom3 programs. They mostly need something else loaded in order to use them. And since we cant agree on what to program in, every programs tends to add another thing that has to be loaded to use that neat program.