Slitherine

26 April 14 Update.

Good news! The Great Ajax Custom Armies are now fully incorporated as a mod and can be used in multiplayer campaigns. Make sure a copy of the attached folder is in your /Documents/My Games/BA2/Campaigns and Documents/My Games/BA2/Multiplayer. Thank you MikeK for the getting my IDS formats correct.

Trey



16 Mar 14 Update. The army list has been updated to include ninety eight lists from 1941 to 1945. The attachment file has been updated. I will begin work on moving this army list into a campaign/mod. Would players prefer to have all of these lists in one master campaign/mod or would you prefer to see them broken down by year with their own separate selection?

Trey





Thirty Eight custom army lists are added for your use for 1944-1945. Download the file and unzip the file in your BA2/Core folder and replace the old file. I have tested all of these lists and they all work. These lists have been built with the 2000 point totals in mind and do not exceed the sixty four unit limit. I will be working on earlier periods as well. Suggestions are welcome.

Some Examples of what is included:

Fallschirmjager Company
Panzer Aufklarungs Company
SS Armored Panzergrenadier Company
StuG Batterie
Panzergrenadier Kampfgruppe 1945
Fuehrer Panzer Company

Rifle Battalion
Partisan Brigade
Assault Sapper Battalion
Forward Detachment
Guards Heavy Tank Battalion
Medium Self Propelled Artillery Regiment

Trey

Rather than replacing the core army list (which may cause difficulties when playing multiplayer), I would recommend doing the following to play custom army lists:

In Documents\My Games\BA2\CAMPAIGNS, create a new folder for a custom campaign (ex. Great_Ajax_Armies).
Add the custom ArmyList.txt file into the new folder.
Start the game and go to the Skirmish setup screen normally.
Open the Advanced >> controls and select Change Campaign...
The folder you created should appear in the campaign list, select it and click the checkmark.
You should now be able to select the custom armies from the army list controls.

Some more technical notes on creating army lists:

When army lists are made as described above, you do not need to include a copy of the core army lists in your file.

Armies can be named by entering string tags in the NAME fields in the army list files and then defining these tags in a new text1.txt file in your campaign. See the Custom Text section of http://www.slitherinebravo.net/GameWiki ... tub_engine for more details on custom strings, the format of the string data is the same as BA 1.

To create a multiplayer army list campaign, create your campaign folder in Documents\My Games\BA2\MULTIPLAYER instead and also create an empty CAMPAIGN.TXT file in your campaign. Both players will need to have the same multiplayer campaign in order to play the challenge.

Also, thank you to Great_Ajax for sharing these army lists. I'm sorry for not getting the technical details posted earlier.

Very helpful, Andrew. I appreciate you taking the time to explain this. I have the custom campaign set up properly now. The only thing I am not fully grasping is linking the unit names properly so that the UI doesn't show MISSING in the unit name. Would you mind showing me a one line entry as an example?

Trey

AndrewGardner wrote:Some more technical notes on creating army lists:

When army lists are made as described above, you do not need to include a copy of the core army lists in your file.

Armies can be named by entering string tags in the NAME fields in the army list files and then defining these tags in a new text1.txt file in your campaign. See the Custom Text section of http://www.slitherinebravo.net/GameWiki ... tub_engine for more details on custom strings, the format of the string data is the same as BA 1.

To create a multiplayer army list campaign, create your campaign folder in Documents\My Games\BA2\MULTIPLAYER instead and also create an empty CAMPAIGN.TXT file in your campaign. Both players will need to have the same multiplayer campaign in order to play the challenge.

If you set the NAME field in ArmyList.txt to be, for example:

NAME IDS_ARMY_SAMPLE1

Then create a new text file in the same folder called text1.txt. In that file add something like:

IDS_CAMPAIGN_NAME,"My Army List Campaign",
IDS_ARMY_SAMPLE1,"Sample Army One",
IDS_ARMY_SAMPLE2,"Sample Army Two",

The text1.txt file should be saved as UNICODE (in Notepad, this is set at the bottom of the Save As dialog under Encoding). All campaigns should have an IDS_CAMPAIGN_NAME entry, the rest of the lines correspond to the tag you gave in the army lists. Each line must end with a comma, even the last one.

Perfect. I will get these edited this week after I finish the lists.

A suggestion for the skirmish is to add an option for the skirmish to pick random army lists both for the player and opponent.

Trey

AndrewGardner wrote:If you set the NAME field in ArmyList.txt to be, for example:

NAME IDS_ARMY_SAMPLE1

Then create a new text file in the same folder called text1.txt. In that file add something like:

IDS_CAMPAIGN_NAME,"My Army List Campaign",
IDS_ARMY_SAMPLE1,"Sample Army One",
IDS_ARMY_SAMPLE2,"Sample Army Two",

The text1.txt file should be saved as UNICODE (in Notepad, this is set at the bottom of the Save As dialog under Encoding). All campaigns should have an IDS_CAMPAIGN_NAME entry, the rest of the lines correspond to the tag you gave in the army lists. Each line must end with a comma, even the last one.

Hi Great_ Ajax,

thanks for the army list. I downloaded the file accepted your MP game challenge...

Just testing your list.

I missed "german panzerschreck" among the units in "Volksgrenadier Company 1944 - 45 list...

I just checked and the panzerschreks are there for the Volksgrenadiers.

Trey

I did take a look. Simple enough with the instructions above. Can AA trucks transport MG and Mortars? Otherwise armies without any trucks can't move Mortars and MGs more than a square per turn, which on offense would take the whole game. Since the attacker can't deploy in Skirmish, it is likely to be necessary to move them around where they can be used. Should all forces be allowed at least a truck or two? Or how about the commonly available horse transport - slow, but not nearly as slow as dragging equipment down the roads.

(Someday I'd like Rumanians (which is probably someone's mod) - an interesting challenge to play in most games.)

I dont think AA trucks can transport. I tried to include as many transports as possible even if it was just 2-4 trucks. The issue is that there is a 64 unit limit in the game and the designers have tied that limitation to the number of slots available in an army list. If you make an army list that has more than 64 units, the game automatically cuts slots across the board to get at the 64 limit. So even if I added more transports, I would have to decrease available combat unit slots by the same amount since almost all of my army lists are maxed out at 64 units.

It would be nice if the 64 unit limit was enforced some other way such as a unit counter on the unit purchase screen. If the player exceeds the 64 unit limit, the game would have a pop up message that would tell the player that he has to adjust his unit count to get under the 64 unit cap. Then drop the 64 unit limitation on the army list to allow for some more selections such as transports.

On another note, man-portable mortars and HMGs should not be moving at one hex per move. These weapons were. Roken down for transport. They should be able to move at half or 2/3 the movement rate of infantry and not to have to rely on transports for all movemeny.

Trey

MikeK wrote:I did take a look. Simple enough with the instructions above. Can AA trucks transport MG and Mortars? Otherwise armies without any trucks can't move Mortars and MGs more than a square per turn, which on offense would take the whole game. Since the attacker can't deploy in Skirmish, it is likely to be necessary to move them around where they can be used. Should all forces be allowed at least a truck or two? Or how about the commonly available horse transport - slow, but not nearly as slow as dragging equipment down the roads.

(Someday I'd like Rumanians (which is probably someone's mod) - an interesting challenge to play in most games.)

Do both players need to have these set up (and with the same Campaign name) to do multiplayer, or does creating the skirmish load the list already randomly or directly selected, so the accepting player just has to buy the troops?

MikeK wrote:Do both players need to have these set up (and with the same Campaign name) to do multiplayer, or does creating the skirmish load the list already randomly or directly selected, so the accepting player just has to buy the troops?

Both players need to have the same custom Multiplayer campaign.

Creating a match using the Ajax armies Missing_Mot Rifle 43 vs Missing_ Fallschirmjaeger, I get MISSING_IDS_ERROR41.

That is having the Ajax lists in their own campaign folder.

Ideas?

I have been struggling with getting the IDS names in but without success.

I went through the Ajax list and put all 98 entries in proper IDS name format following the examples and all punctuated correctly, though I don't see where I can attach it here. The IDS definitions are also in the IDS format used in text8 in another file. I have tried to include these in various permutations of included files, including as text1.txt in the My Games Campaign and/or MP directories, have tried having a blank campaign.txt as advised above (not clear whether the same files go in both MP and Campaign directories) and tried omitting it, and even tried adding the definitions to those in text8.txt in the Data directory where the current skirmish army IDS definitions are located. Crashes the game in all these permutations. It was a fair amount of work and I would attach it but I don't see an option to do so and will see if I can send it to Ajax as it is his work.

I have not tried putting the entries in a text8.txt file in the Ajax campaign folder. Oh, well, will forget about using the lists for MP for now. Resetting everything, they work in SP.

P.S. Mailbox may be full - but my message is sent and may be pending.

The recommended way to share multiplayer scenarios is to share the complete scenario so there are not minor differences between different player's versions.

When modding in BA, you should not edit files in the game installation folder, the proper location for the string entries would be a text#.txt (where # is 1 to 9) file in the folder of the custom campaign. If the game is crashing, then there is likely a formatting issue in the file.

You can find more information on the structure of custom campaigns on the modding wiki. This has not been updated with new features of BA2, but the fundamentals remain the same. The notable difference is that anywhere it refers to a folder called "BBCBA", you will now use the "BA2" folder.
http://www.slitherinebravo.net/GameWiki ... tub_engine

This is not for a campaign - just trying to use the lists for randomized MP skirmish battles - the ArmyList file alone generates that error due to missing IDS, so it seems something else more is needed to satisfy what the program expects in a NAME line.

A campaign is still required as a container for the custom army lists, in this case the campaign just has no scenarios in it.

Now that the editor is ready in the EAP version, the process for creating a new campaign to house your own custom army lists can be handled automatically.

Select Editor from the main menu, use the red map button on the lower left to create a new campaign, provide the name for the folder and the name to show in the game, check Create in Multiplayer folder if you want it to be a multiplayer campaign and click OK. As you don't require any scenarios if you just want to use the campaign for skirmishes, you can then cancel out of the editor once it prompts you to create a new scenario.

This will set up the framework for a new campaign, including a text1.txt file to define the names for your army lists.