Post by mattem on Mar 10, 2015 17:45:45 GMT
Greetings!
As you probably have noted, there are no real military leaders in the current version of EvW, I'm guessing for the Beta-ver they were really busy
with working on the mechanics of the game and felt that historical immersion would have to wait, the same goes for most models of units
and other things (spies also maybe?).
I feel other people are doing an excellent job on making the game playable from a mechanics point of view so I figured I'd start on adding
real historical military leaders to put in command of the units. I have started on Sweden, and I think it will be finished by April at least.
So here is the tutorial for how to go about it, so please let's all start working on the historical immersion, there are loads of countries and while
I have plenty of info and literature on Sweden (I am a history-nerd after all) others might have more information on other countries, and everything is not on the web to find.
Find information on the historical military leaders for the country in question, of course. There are a few thing you need info on at least:
What rank the officer had at what time, and when they retired, this needs to entered into the text file (see below). It is also good to know if they had any special skills or abilities, had shown their abilities in combat potentially, since this would be traits and skill level for the leader.
Now, for example I will add Torsten Rapp as a leader for the Swedish Air Force:
First I locate the country text file containing all the military leaders, in this case SWE.txt, you will find it in the history\leaders folder:
Now add the leader in the text file, I simply overwrite the placeholder fictional leaders with the historical correct ones,
so instead of "Torsten Magnusson", I will put Torsten Rapp there:
Now, I have plenty of info on this particular leader, so I don't have to "guesstimate" about much, in many cases you might not have
very much background to go on. First important thing is to enter what date he is active from, that is what date rank = 1, rank 1 is
major general, and is the lowest rank in the game. Nevertheless for the Air Force I will be adding leaders who were historically only
colonels (because otherwise I have to cut down on the number of available leaders too much), but I will try to add a new leader trait
called "Air Force colonel" which might have some negative modifier to it, or, possible change the ranking system. I do have the dates
for when he was promoted to lieutenant general (rank 2), and finally general (rank 3), and when he retires (rank 0) so I enter these.
I also know he has a background in naval aviation and attended the naval war college, so I give him the trait "fleet destroyer". Now as the
final important step I decide that the file name for the portrait I will give him will be torsten_rapp, hence picture = torsten_rapp
Save the file!
After this I will create the portrait for the military leader, I use Paint.net which is an easy and simple application, excellent for these
purposes, and free, www.getpaint.net, I have found a good picture of Torsten on the web, and open it up in paint.net. Now select a
good area to use for the portrait, the pictures in game are really tiny (36x50) so make sure the face is visible if possible:
Now after you have cropped it, change the size (under image\resize) to 36x50 (width=36, height=50). Then copy the the whole picture (under "edit" choose "select all", then ctrl+c) and open up the file called leader_test.dds, in the folder "gfx\pictures\portraits" this is the folder where all your leader pictures will be, now when you have opened up the leader_test.dds you will notice there is a picture of Douglas MacArthur there, now paste over
his picture with the one you cropped and resized!
Now after this I make sure I save the file as exactly the name I gave it in SWE.txt, that is torsten_rapp.dds, then start the game
and see your leader show up!
I don't have a screenshot of Rapp in game because he doesn't enter into the picture until 1955, and I haven't played that long
choosing the "Vietnam war" scenario will mean no leaders at all I noticed, for some reason, bug?
Well this is really easy, I will begin to add models of units later on also, with pictures. But first some officers!
As you probably have noted, there are no real military leaders in the current version of EvW, I'm guessing for the Beta-ver they were really busy
with working on the mechanics of the game and felt that historical immersion would have to wait, the same goes for most models of units
and other things (spies also maybe?).
I feel other people are doing an excellent job on making the game playable from a mechanics point of view so I figured I'd start on adding
real historical military leaders to put in command of the units. I have started on Sweden, and I think it will be finished by April at least.
So here is the tutorial for how to go about it, so please let's all start working on the historical immersion, there are loads of countries and while
I have plenty of info and literature on Sweden (I am a history-nerd after all) others might have more information on other countries, and everything is not on the web to find.
Find information on the historical military leaders for the country in question, of course. There are a few thing you need info on at least:
What rank the officer had at what time, and when they retired, this needs to entered into the text file (see below). It is also good to know if they had any special skills or abilities, had shown their abilities in combat potentially, since this would be traits and skill level for the leader.
Now, for example I will add Torsten Rapp as a leader for the Swedish Air Force:
First I locate the country text file containing all the military leaders, in this case SWE.txt, you will find it in the history\leaders folder:
Now add the leader in the text file, I simply overwrite the placeholder fictional leaders with the historical correct ones,
so instead of "Torsten Magnusson", I will put Torsten Rapp there:
Now, I have plenty of info on this particular leader, so I don't have to "guesstimate" about much, in many cases you might not have
very much background to go on. First important thing is to enter what date he is active from, that is what date rank = 1, rank 1 is
major general, and is the lowest rank in the game. Nevertheless for the Air Force I will be adding leaders who were historically only
colonels (because otherwise I have to cut down on the number of available leaders too much), but I will try to add a new leader trait
called "Air Force colonel" which might have some negative modifier to it, or, possible change the ranking system. I do have the dates
for when he was promoted to lieutenant general (rank 2), and finally general (rank 3), and when he retires (rank 0) so I enter these.
I also know he has a background in naval aviation and attended the naval war college, so I give him the trait "fleet destroyer". Now as the
final important step I decide that the file name for the portrait I will give him will be torsten_rapp, hence picture = torsten_rapp
Save the file!
After this I will create the portrait for the military leader, I use Paint.net which is an easy and simple application, excellent for these
purposes, and free, www.getpaint.net, I have found a good picture of Torsten on the web, and open it up in paint.net. Now select a
good area to use for the portrait, the pictures in game are really tiny (36x50) so make sure the face is visible if possible:
Now after you have cropped it, change the size (under image\resize) to 36x50 (width=36, height=50). Then copy the the whole picture (under "edit" choose "select all", then ctrl+c) and open up the file called leader_test.dds, in the folder "gfx\pictures\portraits" this is the folder where all your leader pictures will be, now when you have opened up the leader_test.dds you will notice there is a picture of Douglas MacArthur there, now paste over
his picture with the one you cropped and resized!
Now after this I make sure I save the file as exactly the name I gave it in SWE.txt, that is torsten_rapp.dds, then start the game
and see your leader show up!
I don't have a screenshot of Rapp in game because he doesn't enter into the picture until 1955, and I haven't played that long
choosing the "Vietnam war" scenario will mean no leaders at all I noticed, for some reason, bug?
Well this is really easy, I will begin to add models of units later on also, with pictures. But first some officers!