Slitherine

As promised on another thread I intend to write a basic guide to modding GS2.0 - I mod the game to make life more interesting for me when playing against the AI. I don't like setting an advantage to either side as one down side is that you get out teched really early on and that just bugs me so thats why I mod it instead! I really really like the Mod (expansion is probbaly a better description) and take my hat of to the team that develpoed it - A great game made even better by its fans.

DISCLAIMER: I am not and never have been part of the GS modding team, I do not claim to be an expert and everything I write here are things I've worked out through trial and error and testing. If anyone knows something that I have written is wrong please post and let me know.

I intend to write this guide in 5 further posts so I will ask people not to post until after I've done them all so as to keep them all together and stop others from having to scroll through the pages to find all of the guide due to conversations inbetween (I can't see myself completing it all in one sitting, but who knows!)

Step 1 IMPORTANT!
Find the files you intend to alter and copy and paste them to a safe location, this is a back up incase you really mess up and cant run the game, if this happens you can just replace the modded files with the original and start over!

In most files countrys are listed by a number, in the scenario files it would appear there are a potential 37 different countries....I'll list now what number each country represents.
0 - Germany
1 - Italy
2 - UK
3 - France
4 - USA
5 - Russia
6 - Holland
7 - Belgium
8 - Denmark*
9 - Norway
10 - Sweden
11 - Finland
12 - Hungary
13 - Romania
14 - Bulgaria
15 - Yugoslavia
16 - Greece
17 - Turkey
18 - Persia
19 - Iraq
20 - Spain
21 - Portugal
22 - Ireland
23 - Poland
24 - Vichy France
25 - Switzerland
26 - unknown**
27 - Estonia
28 - Latvia
29 - Lithuania
30 - Libya
31 - Egypt
32 - Syria
33 - Canada
34 - Free France
35 - Ukraine
36 - Spare country

*= I'm not 100% certain on this one but am 99% certain its right..it would be easy to test and thats some thing I will do at some point.
**=Folowing a little play around with the terrain section of the scenario files I'm now pretty sure that country 26 is used for out of play squares!

If a friendly member of the GS mod team wants to PM me (or post on the thread once I have the other 5 parts up) to confirm theese findings please feel free, I wont take offence

EDIT:Thanks to Stauffenberg I've filled in most of the blanks, so thank you to that man

27 - Estonia
28 - Latvia
29 - Lithuania
30 - Libya
31 - Egypt
32 - Syria
33 - Canada
34 - Free France
35 - Ukraine
36 - Spare country

Part 2
Ok on to the actuall modding!
1st of all find the scenario file you wish to edit (I'll be using 1939 in my examples) please note that due to certain scripting I think you can only have scenarios named 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944 so you will need to replace the existing file but see the important bit in 1st post about copying and pasting back ups!
Open it using a basic text editor (I use Notepad) and scroll right to the bottom and you'll see a chunk of text that looks like this

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
1 0 215 150 0 358 1 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 100 true true 1940 5 7
2 15 371 600 0 570 10 45 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 1 true false 200 true true 2090 11 31
3 0 315 200 0 420 5 30 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 true false 200 true true 2090 11 31
4 0 290 200 10 646 40 4 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 false false 200 true true 1941 10 29
5 0 1200 50 20 1941 0 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 false false 200 true true 1942 4 8
6 0 87 0 0 87 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
7 0 83 0 0 83 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
8 0 38 0 0 38 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
9 0 29 0 0 29 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
10 0 63 0 0 63 0 20 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
11 0 76 0 0 76 0 20 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 false false 100 false true 1941 5 22
12 0 90 0 0 100 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 false false 100 false true 1940 9 5
13 0 177 0 0 196 0 20 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 100 false true 1940 10 14
14 0 63 0 0 63 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 100 false true 1941 1 22
15 0 154 0 0 154 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
16 0 70 0 0 70 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
17 0 175 0 0 175 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
18 0 130 0 0 130 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 200 false true 2090 11 31
19 0 41 0 0 41 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 200 false true 1941 4 13
20 0 255 0 0 255 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
21 0 76 0 0 76 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
22 0 29 0 0 29 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
23 0 333 0 0 348 0 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 false false 200 false true 1939 8 1
24 0 89 0 0 89 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false true 300 false true 2090 11 31
25 0 42 0 0 42 0 20 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
26 0 50 5 0 50 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false false 2090 11 31
27 0 11 0 0 11 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
28 0 27 0 0 27 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
29 0 31 0 0 31 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 300 false true 2090 11 31
30 0 9 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false true 300 false false 2090 11 31
31 0 200 0 0 200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false false 200 false true 1940 7 6
32 0 35 0 0 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false true 300 false true 2090 11 31
33 0 115 0 0 115 0 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false true 300 false false 2090 11 31
34 0 200 0 0 200 0 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 0 3 2 false false 200 false true 2090 11 31
35 0 368 0 0 368 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false true 300 false false 2090 11 31
36 0 150 5 0 150 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 false true 300 false false 2090 11 31

Now this may look a little daunting to read but once you know how its actually pretty simple to understand. The numbers on the far left colum correspond to the country (0-36) and if you read the 1st post you'll understand which country is which! So using Germany as an example I'll go through what each part means.

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
Country number so 0=Germany

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
This is the number of PPs the country will start with

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
This is how many manpower points the country starts with

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
How much oil the country starts with

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
Thanks to Stauffenberg I now know that this denotes off map PP production

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
This is the figure for 100% manpower

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
Thanks once again to Stauffenberg I now know this denotes off map oil production

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
Starting war effort (note that germany also starts with industry level 1 so actually has a war effort of 110 to start)

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
These are the starting levels of each tech for the country in order they appear in the research screen in game so the 3 Infantry then the 3 tank, the 3 air, the 3 naval and then the 3 general. AFAIK these figures do nothing for the major countries as their starting techs are determined in another file but they do effect the minor countries.

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
This figure denotes sides - 100=Pro Axis 200=Pro Allied 300=neutral. Being pro one side or the other does not make them join the war...if you for example set switzerland to pro Axis then all that will change is that the Axis side will not (can not) declare war on them

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
This is the date the country will join the war unless activated earlier (plus or minus 1 turn) To join of their own accord they must also be set to pro Axis or Allies so they know which side to join.....those with dates like the one for Germany will never join the war unless attacked (or are already at war) Though some may have special activations set with the scripting (Spain & Turkey)

0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
The 4 true/false statements are not so clear to me. I think I have worked them out but could be wrong and have never really tested my assumptions or played around with changing them.
1st - True=At war scenario start. False=Not at war scenario start
2nd - True=Already conquered scenario start. False=Still free scenario start!
3rd - True=Major country. False=Minor country
4th - Following some further information from Stauffenberg its clear my guess as to what this means is totally wrong! Will need to explore some more

So there you go you can alter these figures, make minor units better teched to start, increase starting War effort, PPs, Oil or Manpower (or indeed decrease them) Make minor countries pro Allied/Axis bring their join dates forward or make it so they never join unless atacked.

Once you've made the changes you want to, do not go to the file menu and press save as you'll end up with an unusable text file, instead just click the X in the upper right corner to close the file and it will prompt you to save changes or not, choose to save changes then fire up the game to check your alterations work OK

NOTE-Its normally best to test changes with no advantage to either side because some of the figures will be altered by the difficulty setting

The values you don't understand are
0: Offmap production
11: Offmap oil

Part 3
OK back to the sceanario file, this time we're going to look at units. Like countries each unit has a number assigned to represent it so heres the list.
1 - Garrison
2 - Corps
3 - Mech
4 - Armour
5 - Not used, would probbaly have been the unused heavy armour
6 - Fighter
7 - Tac bomber
8 - Strat bomber
9 - Sub
10 - Destroyer
11 - Battleship
12 - Carrier

So open the scenario file and scroll down till you get to this bit

0 -1 -1 -1
1 -1 -1 -1
2 -1 -1 -1
3 -1 -1 -1
4 -1 -1 -1
5 -1 -1 -1
6 -1 -1 -1
7 -1 -1 -1
8 -1 -1 -1
9 -1 -1 -1
10 -1 -1 -1
11 -1 -1 -1
12 -1 -1 -1
13 -1 -1 -1
14 -1 -1 -1
15 -1 -1 -1
16 -1 -1 -1
17 -1 -1 -1
18 -1 -1 -1
19 -1 -1 -1
20 -1 -1 -1
21 -1 -1 -1
22 -1 -1 -1
23 2 1 Canadian_HG_Quebec

So we have 4 colums to contend with, the 1st on the far left is the hex number with the top left hex on the map hex 1 and then working down the colum and then onto next colum starting at the top and so on. I'm sure there is some really clever way of working out the hex number but I generally just find a unit already on the map on the colum I want to deploy a unit to and work from there (so if I was going to add a unit in the hex north of Berlin I'd look up the Berlin garrison unit 1st then work from there.
The 2nd colum denotes the country - use the country number.
The 3rd Colum is the unit type
The 4th colum is the unit name and will appear exactly as is in game except use underscores to denote spaces (you can't leave a space in the unit name)
-1 in the 2nd and 3rd colums indicate no unit present

So in the example above we see that there are no units until hex number 23. Its a UK (country 2) Garrison (unit 1) called 'Canadian HG Quebec'

If you place a ground or air unit in a sea hex it will deploy in a transport, I have no idea what happens if you put a naval unit on the ground but I can't imagine it'll be good!

As before make your changes save as before (by closing and not by using the file menu) fire up the game and test your changes!

EDIT: I forgot to add in how to start with special units (Para's, partisans, Russian guards and SS)

To do this use the base unit number (1 for garriosn, 2 for corps etc) but make sure you name it correctly. So for Russian guards use the word 'Guard' in their name (in some scenarios they also have 'Shock army' that also appears to work) German SS to have 'SS' in the name, partisans to just be called 'Partisan' I can't remember the exact names of the various paras but if you lok in some of the later scenario files you'll see how they're named. I've not tried to deploy any specials to start with yet but this is how it appears to be done in later scenarios.

Part 4
And one last time back to the Scenario file.

This section is going to be work in progress!!
open the file and this time dont scroll because its the 1st part we're looking at!

LandHex 26 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
WaterHex -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
WaterHex -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0
LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 2

So what do all these numbers mean? Well to be honest I've never messed around with this bit and thats why this section will be a work in progress!!!
What I can tell you is that its listed the same as units so the 1st line is the upper left hex on the map working down.
You can se where its a sea hex or a land hex clearly and at this point its worth noting that changing the type of hex here will not change the map graphic, thats done else where and won't be covered by this guide. So you could make a sea hex a clear hex but on the map it wouldn't be clear (you'd have to click on the square to get the details!)
EDIT to make this last bit more clear - Its only the graphic that wont change the actual hex type will change in regards to effect. for an example look at the 1st hex, its denoted here to be an out of play land hex but if you load the game and look at the map it shows as a sea hex.

So what can I tell you?
Well the 1st number is the hex owner by country....that 1st hex is out of play so that answers an earlier question on who is country 26! The sea hex's show as -1 which is consistant to having no owner and the rest show as country 2 (UK) which is consistant with them being Canadian!

The next 7 hex's after the sea are all clear followed by 4 rough hex's then an Oil field, theres not a lot of differnce with the numbers but I'd guess the 4 on the rough hex's indicate the terrain type (rough!) and is consistant with the oil field also being on the rough which leaves 2 other numbers unaccounted for on the oil field so lets compare them with Ottawa (several hexes lower)

Oil Field LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 2
Ottawa LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2

Just from comparing those 2 values I'd assume the last number is the PPs produced (both squares have PP production value of 2) and the 1 and the 3 denote the type of resource square 1=Capital and 3=Oil field

Thats pretty much all I can tell you about this part of the scenario file but Ive included it to show how it is I work, so far on this bit I've made many assumptions, the next job is to test the assumptions by finding other resource hex's and comparing the values in a methodical way.

Like I said at the begining this part is a work in progress and at some point in the near future I'll edit my post to share my findings.

Edit2- I've had a little play around and managed to change the oil field to a fortress! So thats do able, i did not manage to change a clear to a rough hex so all those 4's in the rough hex's seem to be pointless, I also failed to change the production value.....yup this section is definately a work in progress!

Part 5
If you remember earlier I showed you how to change the starting tech levels for minor countries but stated that it wouldn't work for the major countries? Well heres how to do it for the Majors!
open text file research_progress and you'll see the chart, I'm not going to go into much detail past this as a quick look in the file shows that its pretty much self explanatory!

You have the 5 country numbers (for the 5 major countries!) and 5 scenario numbers....

Just note at the bottom of the page it shows that the values are expressed in percentages so for level 1 you'd put in 100, for level 2, 200 etc. You can even put in a value of 250 to give them 2 levels and halfway to the 3rd.

Once done here open up labs_bought text file. Much the same as above you just put in how many labs you want the country to start with of each given type for the chosen scenario. You can exceed the normal limits here though I don't know just how many labs you can give but I do know you can give for example the Italians 10 starting labs (2 in each field) in 1939 even with thier very low war effort.

If anyone is struggling with these files let me know and I'll go more in to depth.

EDIT: Just in case people were wondering I was intending to go into more detail for these but when I opened them I realised they were quite self explanatory and I'd just be repeating the instructions in the files themselves!
I was intending to do a section on the General file too but after going through it again I realised that what I know how to change in it is all self explanatory (far more so than the scenario file!) So I'm going to leave it here for now.

Hopefully I'll be editing part 4 at some point with more solid ways to mod terrain, please feel fre to post your own suggestions/improvements/questions!

This is helpful. Thank you Horseman.

But seriously, couldn't this "special" editor and some basic guidance from the developers and/or the GS 2.0 community folks simply be provided to modders? It cannot be that big of a deal at this point.

pzgndr wrote:This is helpful. Thank you Horseman.

But seriously, couldn't this "special" editor and some basic guidance from the developers and/or the GS 2.0 community folks simply be provided to modders? It cannot be that big of a deal at this point.

I would like to see the edidtor too but something inside my head says that it wont be over easy to use and may prove quite complex so maybe we're better off not getting it!

So until we do get it all we can do is poke around a bit and find out what we can change

This is more than helpful, it looks to be a superb piece of work for which sincere congratulations are in order.

Bern

Bern wrote:This is more than helpful, it looks to be a superb piece of work for which sincere congratulations are in order.

Bern

Thanks bern, sadly my play around with the terrain section of the scenario file is not looking hopeful on how much we can change here, still I shall continue to test in a methodical manner until I know exactly what can be altered!

The issue with the terrain is that you would have to redo the map tiles to match

the terrain that was changed. We went to a lot of going back and forth looking at maps to get the map as close as possible considering the scale.

There will always be trade offs. Take a look at the differences between the vanilla and the GS map.

Horseman wrote:

Bern wrote:This is more than helpful, it looks to be a superb piece of work for which sincere congratulations are in order.

Bern

Thanks bern, sadly my play around with the terrain section of the scenario file is not looking hopeful on how much we can change here, still I shall continue to test in a methodical manner until I know exactly what can be altered!

My pleasure. I can't imagine how many hours you must have put in to produce this and it is much appreciated.

At the moment, I've been able to slightly improve the Axis AI by only restricting the strengths of the minor powers and, of course, keeping the Swiss out of harms way. With a bit more work, I can now see a chance for further improvement.

Bern

pk867 wrote:The issue with the terrain is that you would have to redo the map tiles to match

the terrain that was changed. We went to a lot of going back and forth looking at maps to get the map as close as possible considering the scale.

There will always be trade offs. Take a look at the differences between the vanilla and the GS map.

I've never really worried to much about changing the map, I'm looking into how to do this puely for completeness...just to see how much we can change!

You can change the map , it is a lot of work.
Rather large file sizes. Suggestions about the map is welcome
to discuss and how does it impact the game.

So until we do get it all we can do is poke around a bit and find out what we can change

We can also ask questions to clarify what is already obviously available to modders for editing and hopefully get some helpful guidance from the folks with the answers. That's a reasonable expectation here on the Modders Corner forum, yes?

Stauffenberg has been very helpful here. More help from others and some answers to questions would be nice. I have been patiently waiting over a week for answers to three questions about editing the general.txt file. Waiting and wondering...

LandHex 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 2

First is either LandHex or WaterHex. Actual hex number is the line in the hex. First is 0 down to last which is 10800. Hex coordinate can be found by
diving hex number by 72 and use the integer as the column and use the remainder as the row.

First number is core hex owner. This won't change when a hex is conquered.
Next 6 numbers are hexsides with borders (n, ne, se, s, sw, n). 0 = no border. 1 = border
Next 6 numbers are hexsides with river (n, ne, se, s, sw, n). 0 = no river. 1 = river
Third from last is special feature in hex
Second from last is terrain in hex
Last is production in hex

Special feature can have the following numbers:
0: Nothing
1: Capital
2: City
3: Oilfield
4: Mine
6: Fortress
12: Airfield

Terrain can have the following numbers:
0: Clear
1: Mountain
2: Swamp
3: Forest
4: Rough
5: Desert
6: Dune
7: DesertHills

There are some related GS modding tips in these threads - some already covered here but some additional info I think:
- Date based triggers
- Some tips for manually editing the various game files using a text editor

Horseman wrote: 0 20 875 150 0 1058 11 100 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 true false 100 true true 2090 11 30
The 4 true/false statements are not so clear to me. I think I have worked them out but could be wrong and have never really tested my assumptions or played around with changing them.
1st - True=At war scenario start. False=Not at war scenario start
2nd - True=Already conquered scenario start. False=Still free scenario start!
3rd - True=Major country. False=Minor country
4th - Following some further information from Stauffenberg its clear my guess as to what this means is totally wrong! Will need to explore some more

I was editing with the old 1.04 tool and there were 4 options that are alright like how you write them....4º was the DOW option....so with true, you can declare the war to another country and false for allways "neutral" countries...

ps: sorry if i wrote something wrong...(spanish) xD

Good find