how do you guys proceed between patches?

There were few changes to the actual xml in the last update. I look at each new file and decide if they changed it more or if I did. Then I either add my stuff to theirs or their stuff to mine. It's mostly copy/paste. For me, I am doing alot more content and balance than they are, so I tend to add only a few of their ideas to my mod.

For instance, in the the last update, .980, they have added new balance to city leveling on the cityhub, which is inferior to my adding it to the city levelup building. They also changed alot of labor costs that I have long since balanced. I am much better off taking note of any structural xml changes and updating my files to be compatible. Any content they add, I simply copy into my files and balance as I like. It takes some time, but makes for a much better experience. 

Of course we should all give feedback before we start chopping all their hard work to bits. The devs are very likely to listen to testers and modders know so much more about the game than light users. 

Most of my content is new, not modified core content. I basically go through the differences in files between versions using WinMerge and if there's a change that affects my mods I change it. That's one of the benefits of working on XML alone - I remember every detail in my head.

The two big exceptions is for the background unitstat mod that inserts new data into CoreMonsterUnitTypes and CoreUnits. For that purpose I built a script, so rather than go through those manually I run the script and be done with it in a second. Well, they might need a bit of tweaking like new summons and other stuff, so make that a minute.

The most tiresome bit is updates to CoreSpells.xml because I also re-write a lot of spells from there.

thnx very helpful

Heavenfall or SeanW are your mods updated for the new patch, could you let us know when they are, thanks.

Mike.

Stormworld is updated, as you can tell by looking at the title of the topic or the version history of the mod.

I first use BeyondCompare to compare the new XML files to the old to determine what the actual differences are.  As Sean stated, the differences are overall pretty small.  The biggest one for some will be that Armor and some weapons were rebalanced meaning that across the board stat changes were made.  That means that anyone who adds or modifies weapons will need to tweak theirs as well.

Also, BeyondCompare can be used to merge changes as well as long as it can match up the two files.

But I agree with you in that having to update your mod every time they come out with a new version can be frustrating.  Fortunately, at this point the changes should be minimal.

ill try beyondcompare, but can it work even if there are added lines?

i mean lets say original is

A

B

C

D

.98 is

A2

B

K

C1

D3

is the program able to understand he need to ompare C with C1 or it will just find everything different once he gets to the point the new file has an insertion ?

Beyond Compare does a really good job of matching up files as long as the changes are not huge.  The match ups are not always perfect, but it is good enough that you should always be able to identify what has changed.  I believe there is a trial version.  Give it a free try. 

We use it at work for source control.  It is a very good tool.

wow im trying this and it its VERY cool, i wasnt really fond of trying to remod again in this patch but with this tool its very fast and easy, i updated many things in few minutes and it keeps track of big differences so i can keep evaluating in the future and find the point i need fast

also while comparing i can just click old or new to update one or the other so i dont have to redo all the stuff over again

super!

Yeah, I forgot to mention how easy it makes merging code.  Whenever one of our programmers makes changes, we use Beyond Compare to identify changes and merge into the base source only those changes we want merged in.  Version control of source would be prohibitively difficult without tools like this.

One suggestion I would give is to remember that most of the XML in the game aren't file based but rather object based.

For example, when I  make quests, city improvements, techs, etc. I don't modify any existing files. I create say BradsTechs.xml or BradsMonsters.xml and go from there.  The game will pick them up automatically.  

Other than elementaldefs.xml, I don't think there's any reason to modify one of the game XML files.

Unfortunately there are all kinds of bugs that sneak up on us unless we edit the installation files. I can provide a list if you are interested, Frogboy.

well im new to this so not knowing what the game would do i just started modifying

anyway im trying to order my additions in the end of each file so it will be easy to remove them and make them standalone in the future

also, as for now, there are still few balance settings i cant live without so i rather make them permanent in base xml

 btw is the client so smart to recognize everything?

i mean if i make a scrap.xml and i put there new monster, new quests, new techs they will all go live in the right place?

The latest version of my mod is called 1.952.024. It will be 1.980.001 when it is compatible with .98.

i will be after Release. The modding is where much of my time is going post release.

Finally.  I know we have gotten alot of love over the beta process, but there is still much that we could do with some bug attention and the stuff in the mod requests thread. The whole world change thing is still sending me for a loop. I wonder what other goodies we will get come 1.0.

I would love to know if we are going to have any ability to create scripts and call them from events and triggers or if we are only getting moddablity for data and assets.

There was talk of some python, but that was for WoM. Right now we are only expecting to have xml modding.

BTW, got me some Beyond Compare and the difference is huge. It's so much better.

I don't think Python will be making a return any time soon.  

I wanted this in WOM but it proved to be too much.

A lot of what we want to do could be put into XML based scripts.  But it'll take time (and money) to do that.  

My dream is for someone to make an RPG mod. 

Frog, my dream would be to make a mod that would do the following types of things, centered mainly around the terrain. This is just one example but its pretty complex and without scripting and exposed events/triggers I don't see how its possible. Just curious if there is some creative way within the modding model currently available to do these types of things, or what your vision is for how FE will be moddable going forward.

Desert - You should last in desert for 2 turns unless you have water equipped in one of your three additional slots

*so i need an item property that once you equip an item it stays bound to that slot and OnTurnEnd the property of the instance of that item on the character gets decremented

water skins should be purchaseable in town

* this is easy enough

water degrades per turn in desert

* I need an event that has access to the property of the instanced waterskin item and at least IF-conidtional capability and an accesable terrain property

If you run out of water you take a huge penalty to all stats and lose health every turn

*This would be access to all of the above objects plus an End turn event that would allow me to decrement a players health as well as handle potential deaths or assign specific injuries

Maybe water spells that make water

*Pretty easy through the data

Random events like dust storm, mirage, etc that would effect a unit moving through desert.

A way to disallow mounts in swamps

and this is just the start of my list.

Python API would have been the best feature of FE. Really. Modder can do great job if you give their enough tools. Civ and Elder scrool are the best exemple.

King bounty have LUA script and it's work great. I hope you'll think again about it after release.