Slitherine

Hi folks,

I realize I'm probably one of three forum users playing Legion Arena on a Mac, but I thought this info might be helpful for the other two of you. The Legion Arena area on the Freeverse forum is pretty much non-existent.

I've found that Legion Arena for the Macintosh is a bundle/package. So, there's no special directory in your applications or user folder for LA files. In order to get at the various text and other files for LA, I used BBEdit and dragged the LA app icon. From there, I get a "Contents" folder, which continues expanding until I get the data folder with MapPurses.txt, etc. So, if you're looking to make basic modifications to any of those files, this is one way to do it.

Great game, and I'm SOOOO very happy it's available on the Mac. Thanks for working with Freeverse to allow us "other people" to enjoy it too!

Eric (scipio_americanus)

Thanks Eric - I'll sticky this post so other Mac users can see this too.

On the Mac, you can actually secondary-click to reveal a menu which says "Show Package Contents" which will allow u to see all the files within...

I've tried the difficulty mod on the Mac version... it rocks...

Hi mac legion arena players.

The game is very good to play, and easy to hack.
The only problem are the DDS texture files.
Graphic converter (the last one) as problem to open the dds files, and exactly with the Alpha map. The only way to see the texture is to delete the alpha map. javascript:emoticon(':(')

Do you know a programm, pluglin (possibly for mac) to open', convert,... dds files?

Where I have to do the mod folder? inside the data folder? or inside the english folder?

PS: if you copy the language folder contents (es: German.lproj) to the language folder who your game is played and remplace it you can play the game in an other language.

sorry for my english....

You can read dds files in Photoshop if you download the correct plugin.

':D'What for a pluglin? Its mac compatible? ':D'
I know there is a nvidia pluglin for photoshop, but its for window only ':?'(http://developer.nvidia.com/object/phot ... ugins.html)

Ah I see, in that case you might have a problem. We develop on windows

Hi, modding with PC is just adding in the Legion Arena folder a Mod folder with new versions of what you want.
As you can indeed open the package easily by right-clicking, can you also add a modfolder? And if yes, at which level?
Or can you only open and hack the existing files?

Great game anyway, my best buy on my Mac for a loooonng time.

If it works the same as on the PC the mod folder should look like this:
LegionArena/mod/yourmodname/data/ and all your modified files need to follow the same dir structure as the original game.

Hi there,

I own the Mac and the Windows version of Legion Arena by now (and both on my MacBook Pro ).

As far as I can tell there is NO mod implementation in Legion Arena for Mac. I found a similar folder structure within the Mac OSX Legion Arena Application (Yes, a mac-osx application is in fact a folder ending with ".app"), but the functionality seems to be missing. I added different mod-files, on different location and I tried to check file access. No success.

Still, the port to Mac OSX is stable and nice to play.

(One little problem: when I changed the difficulty setting in a campaign I ended up being locked at a battle planning screen, make sure you start with "Hard" at least since "Normal" is way too easy)

Hope this helps.

sciplo wrote:As far as I can tell there is NO mod implementation in Legion Arena for Mac. I found a similar folder structure within the Mac OSX Legion Arena Application (Yes, a mac-osx application is in fact a folder ending with ".app"), but the functionality seems to be missing. I added different mod-files, on different location and I tried to check file access. No success.

merde alors

A couple of work-arounds that I've found that might help some of us get through some of the more difficult battles, FYI...

These work arounds can be set back to original values as needed, however.

(A) You'll need this:
http://netzreport.googlepages.com/onlin ... c_hex.html

(B) And this:
www.ridiculousfish.com

LOSSES REPLACED
As reported elsewhere, you can get all replacements everytime if you modify a Tweaks.text (to get there, right click on the LA Mithras icon, open the "Contents" folder, open the "Resources" folder, open the "English.lprog" folder, open the "data" folder) line to: LOSSLIMIT 100 (instead of LOSSLIMIT 020
This can be done using TextEdit.

DENARI INCREASED
If you don't want to start over and you have a reasonable amount of troups, you can modify any saved game data (.dat) file to increase denari (these .dat files are found in:Hard Disk/Users/Username/Library/Application Support/Legion Arena/Save Games), as follows (in Current.dat):

(1 Make a copy of your untouched/unmodified Current.dat file, just in case you need to go back to it (or copy any file you are about to modify before using a Hex editor).
(2 Launch Legion Arena Mithras (LA CoM) and record the exact amount of Fame and Denari you have in your current game (the one that comes up automatically).
(3 Close LA CoM.
(3 Using (A) above, convert these two numbers into Hex and make notes of both, keeping track of which is which.
(4 Using (A) above, convert the desired amount of Denari you would like to have, into Hex. Make a note of the Hex number.
(6 Using (B) above, dowload Hex Fiend.
(7 Launch Hex Fiend and from the File Menu, open Current.dat
(8 From the Edit Menu, launch Find.
(9 In the "Search For" field, enter the Hex value for the exact amount of Fame you have (make zero the first entry if your Hex value here is an odd number of digits).
(10 Use the Next button and you most likely will find yourself at a place in the Current.dat file Hex dump right next to your current Hex Denari value (next field) which you will see (as a check) is the same as the Denari Hex value you made note of earlier.
(11 Your task now will be to replace the existing Denari Hex value amount with your desired Denari Hex value amount using Hex Fiend (i.e., making the last four numbers of the field next to the Fame amount field - the Denari field - 27 10 will give you 10,000 Denari).
(12 Using the File Menu in Hex Fiend, Save your new version of Current.dat.

Implementing this work around, the next time you start LA CoM you will notice that your you'll have a whole new Denari budget to work from...

NOTE: Hex editing can be very dangerous and while this approach works with this version of LA CoM on the Mac, it may not work with other versions...

So, please copy any file you are about to edit beforehand so you can always go back to your original unmodified file if you need to...

Hope this helps!

Al (tyvol)

My apologies for my ignorance, I am new to modding on the mac. I opened up the Legions package as described above. I can see now how I could replace music files. I'm curious about the Brittanicus scenarios. They have the same file format, so it would seem like they should work just by dumping the files into the DB folder. But won't they overwrite existing scenarios? Do I just take out those files and put them in a dummy folder somewhere until I want them again?

Or am completing off base in thinking that the Britannicus mod will work for Mac?

hello, kongming

I am the author of the Britannicus mod, which is a replacement for the existing celtic campaign.

I know nothing about macs, but it seems to me that what you have suggested should work. I would say go for it

In a worst-case scenario, if nothing works at all, you can always just delete it all and re-install.

Possum, thanks for the reply. I'll give it a try and post what happens.

kongming -

OK, cool!

I am rather proud of the britannicus mod. In retrospect, it could have benefitted from more pre-release playtesting, but there were no volunteers for the job.

I hope it works for you, and I hope you enjoy it

Salvete!

Wow, this sticky hasn't been updated in a while - in my quest to skin for my mac version, I found a .dds file converter for Macs:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/263

Now I just have to figure out why I can't get the edited files to show up as anything other than a void of dark-matter-unit.

My apologies for my ignorance, I am new to modding on the mac. I opened up the Legions package as described above. I can see now how I could replace music files. I'm curious about the Brittanicus scenarios. They have the same file format, so it would seem like they should work just by dumping the files into the DB folder. But won't they overwrite existing scenarios? Do I just take out those files and put them in a dummy folder somewhere until I want them again?

Or am completing off base in thinking that the Britannicus mod will work for Mac?

Salut Possum, after a long hiatus from Legion Arena, I finally got around to loading up the Britannicus mod. I did exactly as described above and it seems to be working fine. I just finished the bandits battle with no glitches. Well done! Good to know modded campaigns can work on both platforms.

Congratulations for the excellent work!

It is probably also helpful to link in the site for the patch that seems to be the key. Freeverse has published update 1.1.1 on its website, http://www.freeverse.com/games/game/?id=6001. According to other posts this must be installed to allow modding. Every Mac user should install it anyways since it allows you to finally rollover the terrain and other units and see their attributed on the key tips rather than just guessing.