Suggestion for Nation Modders...

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, this is a good time to bring this up - since I used to recover old code (in an academic context, not professionally), it'd be pretty easy for me to fix everyone's mods so that they run together by renumbering stuff.

I wasn't going to do this until it became feasible to add nations without replacing existing nations at all - the Mod I've been working on has to remove mid-period Ermor, which is my favorite position.

Anyway, I was going to (with the permission of the other modders) produce a single "Seven Nation Army" mod, with every expansion nation included at once, along with more spells, more sites and more independent units. If there were numbering collisions (as inevitably there would be) I'd just fix them.

Do people think this is a good idea or no?

[FrankTrollman]

What I think would be a good idea is to have a separate mod file for each of the three eras. You load up the era mod and it throws in all the mod nations for that era. Right now, the only way that a nation can get National spells is to plunder an existing nation - if the nations in question were always robbed from a different era you might not notice.

So the "Early Mod" would torch a bunch of late and mid-era nations and give out fully functional early positions. The "Late Mod" would plunder middle and early positions to get appropriate nations in the late period.

Since you select your mods and your era before you even see the nations, it wouldn't cause any hardship.

-Frank

[Singularity24601]

<list updated>

Although I can find the modding numbers myself, I'm rather busy at the moment, so thanks Amos and Twan (and therefore, the critical thing is that I be kept aware of new versions).

I'm sure the current nation slots won't be enough for all of us, so eventually, either users will need to know how to edit slots, or modders will need to distribute multiple versions of their mod for different slots, allowing for various combinations.

[Turin]

I´m using monster numbers 2800+ for my new worthy heroes mod. I guess I will end up with ~30 new heroes.

[Daynarr]

Ballbarian, stop reading my mind.

Actually, soon we will need a way to easily access what nation, weapon, monster, etc. numbers are used so that moders can be sure their mod won't be conflicting with another.

Personally I was thinking of making a sticky thread where everyone would post numbers they used in their mod. It should make Singularities job easier too (big thanks from me for that effort!).

If anyone has better idea or objection, speak up. I'll probably wait a day or two before I make that thread.

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe we could set a system where the unit numbers coincide with the nation number. So nation 72 would use 7200-7299.

It would make it easy to keep track of, not have to look it up all the time, and easy to automate renumbering mods if needed.

[Singularity24601]

Daynarr said:
Ballbarian, stop reading my mind.

Actually, soon we will need a way to easily access what nation, weapon, monster, etc. numbers are used so that moders can be sure their mod won't be conflicting with another.

Personally I was thinking of making a sticky thread where everyone would post numbers they used in their mod. It should make Singularities job easier too (big thanks from me for that effort!).

If anyone has better idea or objection, speak up. I'll probably wait a day or two before I make that thread.

Good idea. And perhaps have a summary table as the top post (URL or a regularly updated attachment might be better) for easy access?

<table updated>

[Nerfix]

Sar Elad as of version 0.9:
Nation number: 68
Units and commanders: 2998 to 2975
Weapons: 998 to 996, will most likely change in future
Armor: None at the moment but will change
Site numbers: 780 and 781

[DrPraetorious]

Does anyone know what the maximum value for a nation ID or unit ID is? (nation #)*100 ought to work, but I believe that there are 256 nation slots and if there are less than 25,000 unit ID available.....