How to link up my own scenarios to form a campaign?

[felixckw]

How to link up my own scenarios to form a campaign?

[El_Condoro]

Welcome to the forums.

First thing, check out the campaign.pzdat file in the Data folder in the main Panzer Corps installation. You'll see that there are entry points and then all the scenarios in a campaign are in the table. The table has columns for scenario name, briefing files and the next scenario according to victory condition (There are 3)

In 1.04 the user data folder is important. It is in My games\Panzer Corps. Create a folder structure under it something like Mods\[name of your campaign]\data\briefings. Data is where all the scenario files go (pzscn and pzloc) and Briefings is where the pzbrf files go. Your custom campaign.pzdat will go in the Mods\[name of campaign]\data folder. Create a GUID.txt file with any unique ID in it (just the name of your campaign will do).

In the game you'll see the More campaigns folder to choose your campaign from. Test it many, many times to get it right.

I use Excel to edit the pzdat file, Notepad++ to edit the others.

It takes a bit of fiddling around and it may sound complex but it's not too hard after a bit of initial frustration! Good luck and ask questions here...

[captainjack]

I have six stand alone scenarios that all work pretty much as intended and decided to merge them into a campaign.

I made a copy of the DLC39 campaign file and edited it to create a campaign structure to connect them together, along with a full set of briefing files.

When I used GME to activate the mod, the Campaign folder displayed the campaign four times above the line (up with GC39 GC40 etc). Not bad for a single campaign, except that every one of the four would run the first briefing and then crash when I pressed Proceed (requiring control+alt+del to recover).

I then checked I had a guid.txt file in the right format and right place and transferred the files to the My Games/Panzer Corps/Mods folder.
Now a single entry for the campaign appears below the line in the Player created scenarios, which is an improvement. However, it still crashes when I hit Proceed at the end of the first briefing.

I've been through most of the Scenario Design forum and haven't yet found an answer that applies, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

[captainjack]

Fixed!
Top tip - take a break when stumped. (eg dig up an old tree stump that had been annoying me for weeks).
Read a few more forum posts, which seem to indicate it really is a small (though important) error.
When fully recovered from digging, compare campaign file with one that works.
Check thoroughly for anything different.
Methodically adjust anything different (one thing at a time).
On the second attempt, as if by magic, it starts and runs through the whole thing (Side had been 4, same as Nation, but when Side was changed to 1, it worked. I still don't know what Side refers to, but this works, so I'm not too worried for now).

There's still some more work to do - it is presently displaying a Tempest icon for the Laffly AM80 armoured car. Maybe I am just fussy, but I find that a little off-putting. Fortunately I know how to fix that.

[bebro]

Side should define whether it's axis or allies IIRC.

[captainjack]

Thanks for that Bebro - every bit helps.

There are some excellent guides on how to create scenarios. Between them they cover pretty much everything. One is particularly good and I wish I'd read it before starting!. Unfortunately the advice on creating campaigns is less complete and it seems there is a bit more opportunity to get things wrong doing this. If anyone feels like writing a clear guide , it could save others (and quite possibly me) some frustration - I'd have a go myself but there's still some things I don't properly understand, so there could be a long wait.

The good thing is I can now use my campaign, though in two scenarios I still have an SE Spitfire where I expected a Renault FT17 due to saving two files in the wrong folder.