Basic Modding Primer - Adding New Units

[Random]

Some time ago Calvinus increased the maximum number of Units available in WW1G, which opened the door to adding new units to the available force pool of all Nations. I am certainly grateful for this small change, something that made my Naval Mod possible and allows us to tinker and explore the potential of this game. Having obtained the permission of PhilThib, Pocus and Calvinus to post a tutorial on modding WW1G, I would like to thank them for taking the time to answer my questions and give their approval but must stress that all errors of commission and or omission that follow belong solely to me.

In this primer we will add a new Naval Unit to the Grand Campaign, the small Russian Pacific Fleet, based in Vladivostok.

Historically the Russian cruisers Askold and Zhemchug represented Russia outside of domestic waters and were active in hunting the German high-seas raiders. Or vice-versa as Zhemchug was sunk at anchor in Penang harbour by SMS Emden on 28 October 1914.

Adding new units in WW1G is relatively straightforward but there are some potential pitfalls that the Modder should be aware of. We will be editing several files, it is always best and cannot be overstressed that your save the original files some place safe. I will be editing files from my GC Naval Mod but this works as well with stock. If you are editing files that are part of a Mod enabled with JSGME, make sure that you roll back the mod before editing the files.

The following files will be edited and I will briefly comment on each one and where to find it. The *.csv format makes identifying what the values mean difficult so I would recommend that if you're just starting out modding WW1G, you might also have a look at the *.xls versions of the game files found in the ...\Modding folder of the main ...\World War One Gold folder.

[color="#00FF00"]...\DB\Units.csv[/color] - This file is used by all scenarios at the start of a new game and it is where all of the characteristics of the units are defined. Unit characteristics are written onto the *.SAV file when a scenario is saved so changes to the Units.csv file may not affect saved games and this should be kept in mind when testing your mods. This file seems to load from the top down so an error in syntax or punctuation may not crash the game but may result in every unit below the error not loading and so vanishing from your game. This can be somewhat disconcerting when first it happens.

[color="#00FF00"]...\GoldScenarios\GrandCampaignTwo\Detachments.csv[/color] - This file is used to define the unit that will appear on the map at the start of the scenario. Here the unit will receive its unique name, numerical ID designator and deployment location. It is vital that the numerical ID designator is absolutely unique as duplicate ID numbers can cause all sorts of mischief when you try to run the game.

[color="#00FF00"]...\GrandCampaignTwo\Fleets.csv[/color] - In WW1G, all ship units live in Fleets and those are defined in this file. Land units and Headquarters of both types are defined in the Detachments.csv file.

[color="#00FF00"]...\GrandCampaignTwo\Nations.csv[/color] - This is where all of the characteristics of all the countries in WW1G are found. It is where the numerical ID of all the defined armies, detachments and fleets are entered to so that they will appear on the map when the scenario is loaded.

DEFINING A UNIT

An entry for a naval unit, in this case the light cruiser (CL) unit Aurora from the Russian Baltic Fleet, looks something like below. Find this entry, a word search for Aurora should work to facilitate this.

[color="#00FF00"]RUS_CL_Aurora;-;-;Aurora;UT_NavalSquadron;RUS;43;0;-;NE_Slavic;-;-;-;-;NST_LightCruisers;-;-;-;3;-;-;-;2;1;1;-;-;-;-;1;1;4;4;RT_ShortRange;RT_ShortRange;"Aurora;Bogatyr;Oleg;Diana;Svetlana";0[/color]

If you want to know what the numbers mean see the Units.xls in the Modding folder. For our purposes we should note some of the features of this Unit.

Please note the following.

[color="#00FF00"]RUS[color="#FF0000"]_[/color]CL[color="#FF0000"]_[/color]Aurora[/color] - It is essential to retain or insert underscore where they appear ([color="#FF0000"]_[/color]) and not dashes (-)

Colons ([color="#FF0000"]:[/color]) cannot be used, the *.csv format requires semi-colons ([color="#FF0000"];[/color])

Dashes ([color="#FF0000"]-[/color]) are used as place-holders since the same format is used to define all types of units.

I have found it best to copy and edit an existing entry rather than creating one from scratch. There is actually an error in the Aurora unit; the cruiser Svetlana had been sunk in 1905 and so did not exist in 1914. We can correct this now by removing here so our new entry will read:

[color="#00FF00"]RUS_CL_Aurora;-;-;Aurora;UT_NavalSquadron;RUS;43;0;-;NE_Slavic;-;-;-;-;NST_LightCruisers;-;-;-;3;-;-;-;2;1;1;-;-;-;-;1;1;4;4;RT_ShortRange;RT_ShortRange;"Aurora;Bogatyr;Oleg;Diana";0[/color]

Copy the entry for Aurora and paste it directly below its current location taking care that it is inserted into a new line rather than overwriting any existing text. Your Units.csv should now resemble this:

[color="#00FF00"]RUS_CL_Aurora;-;-;Aurora;UT_NavalSquadron;RUS;43;0;-;NE_Slavic;-;-;-;-;NST_LightCruisers;-;-;-;3;-;-;-;2;1;1;-;-;-;-;1;1;4;4;RT_ShortRange;RT_ShortRange;"Aurora;Bogatyr;Oleg;Diana";0[/color]
[color="#FFD700"]RUS_CL_Aurora;-;-;Aurora;UT_NavalSquadron;RUS;43;0;-;NE_Slavic;-;-;-;-;NST_LightCruisers;-;-;-;3;-;-;-;2;1;1;-;-;-;-;1;1;4;4;RT_ShortRange;RT_ShortRange;"Aurora;Bogatyr;Oleg;Diana";0[/color]

Now we can proceed to define our new unit, which we will call Askold and the changes are noted in [color="#FF0000"]RED[/color].

[color="#FFD700"]RUS_CL_[color="#FF0000"]Askold[/color];-;-;[color="#FF0000"]Askold[/color];UT_NavalSquadron;RUS;43;0;-;NE_Slavic;-;-;-;-;NST_LightCruisers;-;-;-;[color="#FF0000"]2[/color];-;-;-;2;1;1;-;-;-;-;1;1;[color="#FF0000"]4+[/color];4;RT_ShortRange;RT_ShortRange;"[color="#FF0000"]Askold;Zhemtchug[/color]";0[/color]

Save and close, the new unit has now been defined.

Open the Detachments.csv and find the entry below. Here we define where our new unit will live. Note that the Black Sea Fleet is defined by two ID numbers, the detachment itself is ID = 599041 and the Fleet ID = 599040.

[color="#00FF00"];RUS_Black_Sea;599041;Black Sea;DT_NavalDetachment;RUS;LDS_Static;;599040;;;SEVASTOPOL;"{RUS_SS_Akula;0;0;0}";;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;[/color]

We will now add the entry for the Pacific Fleet using copy-paste similar to in the Units.csv file. The new entry that is inserted below the Black Sea Fleet line should read:

[color="#FFD700"];RUS_[color="#FF0000"]Pacific;599051;Pacific[/color];DT_NavalDetachment;RUS;LDS_Static;;[color="#FF0000"]599050[/color];;;[color="#FF0000"]SIBERIA_EAST_BOX[/color];"[color="#FF0000"]{RUS_CL_Askold;0;0;0}[/color]";;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;[/color]

Note that we the new ID is sequential as 599050 follows 599040 and 599051 is a unit of the new detachment and the deployment area is the SIBERIA_EAST_BOX retaining the underscores (_) found in the ...\GoldMaps\GrandCampaign\MapAreas.csv file.

Save and close, the new Detachment has been defined.

Now we need to add the Fleet where the new Detachment will live so open the Fleets.csv. We already have the unique ID for our new Fleet (599050) and its detachment (599051) so we can insert it directly below the Black Sea Fleet where the new Pacific Fleet becomes Russian F05:

[color="#00FF00"];599050;RUS_F05;Pacific;RUS;5;599051;;0;2;3[/color]

[color="#FF0000"];0;2;3[/color] = Cost 0;Maximum 2 Battleships;Maximum 3 ship detachments. You may set these values to taste.

Save and close, you are almost done.

Now we must include our new Fleet into the OOB of Russia by entering the unique ID in the Nations.csv file. The Nations.csv file is complex so having the easier to read Nations.xls for the scenario is handy. Open the file and find the paragraph for Russia. It looks like this with the Fleets shown in [color="#00FF00"]Green.[/color]

[color="#FFD700"]2015;RUS;1;[IDS_RUS];40;NE_Slavic;"PETROGRAD;MOSCOW";0;PS_Allies;1;NPA_SacredUnion;NWD_MovementDoctrine;GR_Autocracy;30;6;15;6;RUS_WP_Grand Duke;0;0;0;0;0;-;;0;1;"0;0;0";"0;1";"501000;502000;503000;504000;505000;506000;507000;508000;509000;510000;511000;512000;513000";[color="#00FF00"]"599010;599020;599030;599040"[/color];"500111;550027;550028;550029;550030";"RUS_L01;RUS_L02;RUS_L04;RUS_L06;RUS_L08;RUS_L09;RUS_L12;RUS_L14;RUS_L15;RUS_L16";"566010;566020;566030;566040;566050;566060;566070;566080;566090;566100;566110;566120;566130;566140;566150;566160;566170;566180";"3217;3218;3219;3220;3221;3222;3223;3224";"3411;3412;3413;3414;3415";;;"2268;2269;2270;2271;2272;2273;2274";"171;79;17";"20;5";IMG_MAP_RUSSIANS[/color]

It is essential that the unique ID for the new Leader, Fleet or Detachment be correctly added to this file otherwise it will not appear on the map when the game is run. We add the Pacific Fleet ID 599050 sequentially to the Fleet entries taking care to ensure that the text remains inside the quotation marks ("") as follows.

[color="#FFD700"]2015;RUS;1;[IDS_RUS];40;NE_Slavic;"PETROGRAD;MOSCOW";0;PS_Allies;1;NPA_SacredUnion;NWD_MovementDoctrine;GR_Autocracy;30;6;15;6;RUS_WP_Grand Duke;0;0;0;0;0;-;;0;1;"0;0;0";"0;1";"501000;502000;503000;504000;505000;506000;507000;508000;509000;510000;511000;512000;513000";[color="#00FF00"]"599010;599020;599030;599040;[/color][color="#FF0000"]599050"[/color];"500111;550027;550028;550029;550030";"RUS_L01;RUS_L02;RUS_L04;RUS_L06;RUS_L08;RUS_L09;RUS_L12;RUS_L14;RUS_L15;RUS_L16";"566010;566020;566030;566040;566050;566060;566070;566080;566090;566100;566110;566120;566130;566140;566150;566160;566170;566180";"3217;3218;3219;3220;3221;3222;3223;3224";"3411;3412;3413;3414;3415";;;"2268;2269;2270;2271;2272;2273;2274";"171;79;17";"20;5";IMG_MAP_RUSSIANS[/color]

Save and close. You're done.

Now start a new Two-Player Grand Campaign and the Russian Pacific Fleet consisting of the CL's Askold and Novik will start in the port of Vladivostok ready to hunt German raiders in the Pacific Ocean.

[ATTACH]23659[/ATTACH]

You can copy the files over to the Four-Player Grand Campaign, overwriting the originals and all should be well.

Thanks for reading and keeping this game alive, I am happy to help if I can should anyone need it and good luck modding WW1G

-C

[Panama Red]

Thank you and I hope you post more information on how to mod this excellent game.

[hellfirejet]

Excellent tutorial on adding new units to the game, I have been away from the game for quite along period of time, and I have to say its a game I really want to get into, so with this tutorial as a guide hopefully maybe now I finally will get right into the game.

Since its now possible to add more units to the game, is there an upper limit to the number that can be added ?

Anyway many thanks for doing this tutorial guide Random !

[Random]

Hope the guide helps some.

Pretty sure that starting with Patch 1.08N for November, Calvinus increased the potential number of units to 1535. Previously Stock WW1G used almost the former maximum that was just over 1020 or so. At any rate there should be room for a couple of hundred new units. My Naval Mod currently uses 1031 units.

-C

[hellfirejet]

Hi Random, Thanks to your great adding new units guide, I have managed to add a new German Fleet to Cuxhaven, This fleet contains the old Viktoria Luise class of 5 Protected Cruisers / Armoured Cruisers see photo.[ATTACH]23766[/ATTACH]

[hellfirejet]

Updated I have reclassified the Viktoria Luise class as Armoured Cruisers, I would like to call them Protected Cruisers is that possible to edit in game ?
I'm in the early stages off tweaking the naval side of the game, I have also added the Armoured Cruisers Prinz Adalbert & Yorck to the game, they are based with the Kiel Fleet.[ATTACH]23768[/ATTACH]

[hellfirejet]

Armoured Cruiser Kaiserin Augusta now added to the Cuxhaven fleet, plus I forgot to mention on previous post, that I also added the Armoured Cruiser Furst Bismarck to the Kiel Fleet, for me having the ability to now add new units to the game, is superb I'm loving it thank you Random for showing the way ! [ATTACH]23769[/ATTACH]

[hellfirejet]

OK I have been taking a closer look at the naval units in the database, and I have to say I'm a little bit bemused, at how many spelling mistakes are in the British ships list, Queen Elisabeth class Dreadnought for a start, Elisabeth has been spelled with an (s) nope Elizabeth is spelled with a (Z).So the correct name is as follows ( Queen Elizabeth ). Others that are wrong that I have seen are, Pre-Dreadnought Duncan in the database the (N) is missing, in game the ship is spelt Ducan.Then their is Malborough,Colosus. They should be Marlborough & Colossus.It looks like I'm going to have to go through, all the ship spelling in the database, in order to fix all the mistakes, I would have thought that after years since the game has been released, these errors would have been sorted by now.

[Durk]

Well, understand this is a multi-language forum for multi-language games, so spelling will differ. Not an issue, unless you are an English only specialist and empiricist. Variations are part of learning, and part of the fun. So, not errors at all, just variations.

[Random]

OK I have been taking a closer look at the naval units in the database, and I have to say I'm a little bit bemused, at how many spelling mistakes are in the British ships list, Queen Elisabeth class Dreadnought for a start, Elisabeth has been spelled with an (s) nope Elizabeth is spelled with a (Z).So the correct name is as follows ( Queen Elizabeth ). Others that are wrong that I have seen are, Pre-Dreadnought Duncan in the database the (N) is missing, in game the ship is spelt Ducan.Then their is Malborough,Colosus. They should be Marlborough & Colossus.It looks like I'm going to have to go through, all the ship spelling in the database, in order to fix all the mistakes, I would have thought that after years since the game has been released, these errors would have been sorted by now.

Old issue and You're still using Stock. My Naval Mod fixes all of these.

Naval-Mods-and-Generic-Mod-Enabler

-C

[hellfirejet]

Well, understand this is a multi-language forum for multi-language games, so spelling will differ. Not an issue, unless you are an English only specialist and empiricist. Variations are part of learning, and part of the fun. So, not errors at all, just variations.

Not errors just variations, good excuse well in my variation I will have the correct spelling used for all ships.

[hellfirejet]

Yes you are correct I'm still using the stock version and not your naval mod at the present time, in fact I have gone further than that, I have the game installed in 2 versions, I have a new install in a new Game Directory, and its this version that I alter. I note that your naval mod does not add any new ships to the German navy?

On a side note about Admirals, how come the British Admirals all have very poor stats?

[Random]

I note that your naval mod does not add any new ships to the German navy?

This was intentional since, in my opinion, there were no additional ships or ship units to add. The cruisers that you mention, and the obsolete Riskflotte battleships of the Wittlesbach and Kaiser Barbarossa classes may have saw brief service in the Baltic before being laid up and demilitarized. The OOB for the front-line ships on foreign service is pretty complete (and CL Karlsruhe will not self-destruct on you) so since I place a premium on the history (or at least as I interpret it) the German navy was essentially complete.

On a side note about Admirals, how come the British Admirals all have very poor stats?

Agreed, I have written elsewhere that the selection of British leaders in particular is perplexing as is their game statistics. It's why I created a mod adding additional leaders.

New-WW1G-Leaders

Leaders are easy to mod to taste though, see the [color="#00FF00"]...\DB\Leaders.csv[/color] file. Adding new leaders is pretty straight forward and to include new leaders in a scenario it is necessary to add them to the [color="#00FF00"]Detachments.csv[/color] and [color="#00FF00"]Nations.csv[/color] files for the selected scenario.

As to why the leader ratings are what they are, I would not like to speculate other than to acknowledge that historical game design and development is subject to the same sort of subjective analysis as the history itself with the added caveat that the game's design team also try to achieve some specific effects for the Players. A tremendous amount of thought went into WW1G, the attention to detail is phenomenal and if not everything works as intended (like Entente supply through neutral Greece), much can be edited to taste by the Player.

-C

[hellfirejet]

I will check out your additional leaders, regarding leaders I have attempted to change the stats for some of these, but when I run the game they are still at there old settings, is there another file that needs to be adjusted so that the new stats will show up in game.

[hellfirejet]

Hi Random there is another thing I noticed while looking through the different files within the database, there is a fleet costs file, and Britain is the only Country that has a cost off 4 all the other Nations have a cost of 0 ?

[Random]

I will check out your additional leaders, regarding leaders I have attempted to change the stats for some of these, but when I run the game they are still at there old settings, is there another file that needs to be adjusted so that the new stats will show up in game.

From what I can tell, the [color="#00FF00"]...\DB\Leaders.csv[/color] file only loads at the start of a scenario after which the leader characteristics are written to the [LEADERS] paragraph in the [color="#00FF00"]*.SAV[/color] file when the game is saved and that is probably why you're not seeing the changes.

-C

[Random]

Hi Random there is another thing I noticed while looking through the different files within the database, there is a fleet costs file, and Britain is the only Country that has a cost off 4 all the other Nations have a cost of 0 ?

This is intentional and my interpretation is that it was done to absorb some of the excess British wealth that can accumulate and it also reflects the historical record in that only the RN was held at a high degree of readiness in its entirety from first day to last. This was not the case with any other navy and even the German fleet generally had only a single battle squadron, one large cruiser and a DD flotilla, in game terms a single unit plus a DD, on alert at any one time. Other navies general degree of readiness was even lower and so the costs in resources required far less than those needed for the RN in relative and absolute terms.

This is actually a good example of the attention to detail by the designers and developer that I wrote about above. In itself it is a very small detail but it serves to impose minor yet realistic considerations and limitations upon the Player. As the Allied Player, you always need to save enough cash to keep the Fleet at sea.

In WW1G the devil is in the details...

-C

[hellfirejet]

Ahh Ok I will save the scenario and see if the new Admiral stats update, altering the files within the database is a bit confusing to do, but once you start to tinker with stuff it gets easier, I guess it's just getting used to tweaking things.

[hellfirejet]

Only to be expected since Britain was a naval super power during that period in history, and her fleet expenditure was a huge concern during the war years.

[Random]

Just discovered another potential pitfall when editing *.csv files particularly the Units.csv file when adding new units.

Always make sure that there is at least one blank line left below the last line of the file. What seems to happen is that when the game reads the file, it requires at least one carriage-return (Enter) after completion of the last entry. Otherwise it only reads to the next-to-last entry and chances are your new units may not appear OR the poor Japanese, who's units and detachments seem to be at the bottom of the Units.csv and Detachments.csv files, start to vanish.

Working on the 1915 Scenario, just spent probably six-hours trying to figure out why I could not get the Japanese 2nd Fleet to show up in the game. All data was complete and correct and eventually tumbled onto this nasty little editing foible. Once you know it's there it ceases to be a problem so thought to pass it on.

-C

[hellfirejet]

Good to know cheers !

[Shri]

This was intentional since, in my opinion, there were no additional ships or ship units to add. The cruisers that you mention, and the obsolete Riskflotte battleships of the Wittlesbach and Kaiser Barbarossa classes may have saw brief service in the Baltic before being laid up and demilitarized. The OOB for the front-line ships on foreign service is pretty complete (and CL Karlsruhe will not self-destruct on you) so since I place a premium on the history (or at least as I interpret it) the German navy was essentially complete.


Agreed, I have written elsewhere that the selection of British leaders in particular is perplexing as is their game statistics. It's why I created a mod adding additional leaders.

New-WW1G-Leaders

Leaders are easy to mod to taste though, see the [color="#00FF00"]...\DB\Leaders.csv[/color] file. Adding new leaders is pretty straight forward and to include new leaders in a scenario it is necessary to add them to the [color="#00FF00"]Detachments.csv[/color] and [color="#00FF00"]Nations.csv[/color] files for the selected scenario.

As to why the leader ratings are what they are, I would not like to speculate other than to acknowledge that historical game design and development is subject to the same sort of subjective analysis as the history itself with the added caveat that the game's design team also try to achieve some specific effects for the Players. A tremendous amount of thought went into WW1G, the attention to detail is phenomenal and if not everything works as intended (like Entente supply through neutral Greece), much can be edited to taste by the Player.

-C

Yes the leaders question sometimes has perplexed me too..

BTW i downloaded your leaders file..
Some takes on it-

1. Why is SAMSONOV having a Def 1 Star??
2. In general- Crown Prince Wilhelm has better stats than Crown Prince Ruprecht (in Gold as well as your mod) - quirk, as Ludendorff and other senior generals held Ruprecht in high esteem in offensive, defensive and counterattacking operations.. even to the extent that he was the only Royal Commander deserving his place as a Field Marshall.
3. British Admirals should have better stats and Austria should not have Horothy as admiral so early. (only in 1917+)
4. Gen Kritac of Austria has better stats than Gen. Borojevic (Only South Slav Field Marshall and excellent defensive general).