Mod doesn't seem to have any effect on game

from GalCiv3 Forums

OK, this is driving me crazy.    I've created a simple mod in the past and played some games using it.    I kind of remember having trouble getting the mod to actually do anything, but unfortunately I don't recall what, if anything, I did to get it to work.

But the bottom line is that the mod DID work for what little I wanted it to do.   In fact, the last game I played a few months ago was using this mod, so it was all in place in the proper directories.

Now I tried to start the game up and I guess since there were some updates to the game in that time my mod didn't seem to have any effect.    I've spent all evening making sure that the XML files are in the correct directories (c:/user/MyName/Documents/My Games/GalCiv3/Mods/ModName/Game) and loaded and reloaded the game multiple times, even rebooting my PC.    No matter what I do, the mod doesn't seem to do anything.   I am sure I have mods enabled in the options screen as well.

I kind of think I ran into something like this one of the previous times I installed the mod, and it sort of mysteriously started working without me being able to identify anything I did to fix it.

Does anyone have any thoughts or have you seen anything like this before?

17,071 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

What's the mod supposed to do? That's critical information.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

All I was attempting to do was add another high-level planet to my initial solar system.   My custom faction (defined in-game, not through the mod) uses Sol as it's home star so I modified StarSystemsDef.xml and changed the definition of SolSystem - putting all the planets into the HabitableZone OrbitLane.   Then I modified PlanetDefs.xml to change PlanetClass and set PlanetType to Habitable.   I also have the PlanetTraitDefs.xml file in the same folder, but I don't think I've made any changes to it.    It was just still hanging around from when I was originally tinkering with the mod.

The weird thing is, this WORKED before.   I still have my save game from August where I clearly started a game and my home system has the planets in it that I defined in the mod.   And when I tried to start a game yesterday it wasn't working.   I assumed that it stopped working because Steam installed updates to the game, but nothing I've been able to do seems to be able to get it to work again.

Also - I verified that all of the files I modified do not seem to have been changed since the last time the mod worked.   I thought maybe if there was a newer version of any of these three files it might require me to re-modify the new versions.   But that wouldn't seem to be necessary.   And besides, I would expect to get some kind of error message if that were the case.

In fact, I even got so exasperated that I put the modified files in the 'source' directory under /games/Steam/.... and it still didn't seem to have any effect.   That's what makes me think I'm missing something fundamental here.   I'd buy that I did something wrong with the mod except for the fact that it worked just a few months ago.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

OK, I'm digging into this even further since I'm stubborn.   I narrowed it down to just the two files in my mode - PlanetDefs.xml and StarSystemDefs.xml.    These are the only two xml files in the /user/MyName/Documents/My Games/GalCiv3/mods directories.   Whenever I start up a new game it still acts like there is no mod present.

So my next step was to delete PlanetDefs.xml and StarSystemDefs.xml from the /Games/Steam/SteamApps/common/Galactic Civilizations III/data/Game directory.   Of course, this is not the best of ideas, but I was trying to make sure that the ONLY version of those xml files that could be found was in my mod directory.   The game started just fine, but a new game still started as if no mod was present.

As a final test, just to see if I had any idea what was actually happening, was to DELETE my mod from the /user/MyName/Documents/My Games/GalCiv3/mods directory.    Now at this point I figured that there would not be any version of PlanetDefs.xml and StarSystemDefs.xml available to the game when it started.   It should die ugly, shouldn't it?   But the game started up just fine and as usual, a new game started up just fine as though there was no mod in effect.    I guess that makes a little sense in this case, because I deleted the mod, but where in the world did the game get the xml from that was supposed to be in PlanetDefs.xml and StarSystemDefs.xml?   

I didn't completely delete the mod, but I did copy the two xml files to /MyDocuments.   I can't imagine that GalCiv3 would pull xml files from there.    I'm thinking there must be another version of all these files somewhere, or maybe a cached version somehow.   I tried deleting my Steam cache, but I was only able to delete my Steam download cache, to no avail.    There is also a Steam http web browser cache.   I didn't delete that because it really didn't sound like it would have anything to do with the execution of the games.

Now I'm REALLY scratching my head trying to figure where the game is pulling those two xml files from.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

OK, situation resolved - sort of.    It appears I was running version 1.90, which is the beta version of the new release.   I'm not sure, but I think it is safe to assume that mods were 'turned off' for the beta.   I went into steam and opted out of the beta and that re-installed the 1.8 version of the game, and my mod immediately started working again.

It doesn't explain how the game was working when I deleted the two xml files from the Steam folders.   Maybe the beta pulls these files from somewhere else or something, or has the same xml code elsewhere.   I have no idea on that, but I suppose it doesn't especially matter.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Moda are not turned off.  I have two mods active, both cosmetic, but both working.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm constantly experiencing issues with modding.  The 1st attempt will show up (if it works properly); but any changes after that seem to be moot.

So, it seems I have to do 2 things: 1 is disable my virus protection (as it doesn't like things being changed: created is fine; but not changed); and 2nd, I have to (re)verify the local files (via Steam; especially if I'm "on-line" at the time).

Hope that helps.

 

SK

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

When you say "changed" it makes me think you are changing the actual core files.  That will not work.  Crusade uses pre-compiled bin files to load faster.  This means all modding has to happen in the mods folder.  You copy core files to mods folder and then mod them there, with proper formatting and such.  If you are doing things in the mod folder, I can't see your antivirus complaining about changes in data files.

I don't know what the game is doing to cause it,  but any time you run the game and re-verify the files, there will be failures.  It happens every time.  The re-verify does not check the mods folder.  So re-verify should not be affected by anything you do to your mods, and I don't think that part of your results is telling you anything meaningful.

Starting at the beginning and just to be clear, what do you mean by "first attempt will show up"?  Does it display some visible change on the screen?  Show up in some log?  Appear in a vision on your breakfast toast?  All three possibilities could be very informative.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I tried tinkering around with the files in the steam directory at one point, but that was only to see if I could 'force' it to use my mod.    That didn't work.

Now I am running into the same thing.    After I downloaded Crusade, I tried to re-install my mod by changing the new versions of the xml files.    I had a few missteps where the XML was bad and I was prompted with the errors.    I eventually got past that, but apparently whatever I had at that point would cause the game to crash when it was in the 'galaxy creation' steps. 

And I'm back to the same place I was before.    Right now, ANYTHING I do to my mod files doesn't seem to make a difference.    I understand that there could be something fundamentally wrong with my xml files, but even so, if I go out and change all three xml files' extensions from '.xml' to '.xmlsave', that should basically disable my mod, right?    There aren't any '.xml' files in the /mods subdirectory.    But it still crashes.

It is as though the first 'working' version of the mod that got past the syntax checking is somehow locked into place and no matter what I do, it will not refresh.

I am trying the 'verify files' option in steam.    The first try it told me there were 22 files that needed to be re-acquired.   The second attempt it said that all the files verified successfully.   Renamed all the '.xmlsave' files back to '.xml', restarted the game, and it crashed again.   

The only way i can get a game to start is if I go into the options and turn off all mods.    

Next I tried moving all three mod files out of the c:\users\.....\game directory into c:\temp.     When I do that, the game will start.   That is with all of the \Mods folders completely empty.

Then I tried copying the xml files from \temp back into the \Mods\MyMod\Game folder one at a time.    It seems like the game still crashes if any of them are there.

As a last resort, I kept just two of the xml files in the \Mods\MyMod\Game folder and copied the 'distribution' copy of the files out of the steam directories where the game is installed into the \Users\....\Mods\MyMods\Game folder.    So what is actually in the \Mods folder should be unchanged.    It still crashes.   As a last resort I tried turning off my anti-virus program, and that didn't make any difference either.

Once you create a mod or make a change to an existing mod, is there something else you need to do - some other program you have to run - to enable it, or verify it or something?

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Did you buy and install Crusade?  If so, are you using the old Mod path?  Crusade has it's own Mod directory.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes, I am putting my mod in c:\Users\MyName\Documents\My Games\GC3Crusade\Mods\MyMod\Game.

I noticed that I still had an old version of the mod, along with a mod I downloaded in c:\Users\MyName\Documents\My Games\GalCiv3\Mods.    I deleted all of them, but it still didn't make a difference.

 

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Okay. Post a link to the mod and or mods (zip them up and upload them to dropbox and post the link)

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'd be glad to do so, but I'm not sure it's really necessary.    Here's what I have right now.    Three files I copied from E:/Games/Steam/SteamApps/common/Galactic Civilizations III/data/Game into C:/Users/MyName/Documents/My Games/GC3Crusade/Mods/MyMod.    The three files have not been changed from their original state.   So as I understand it, I basically have a mod in place that contains three xml files with no changes.    Basically, a mod that does nothing.    And it still causes the game to crash.

However, I just looked a little closer into the Steam directories.    There appears to be a E:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\DLC\EXP2_Crusade\Game subdirectory that contains some familiar-looking XML files.    Let me try copying those versions of the XML files into my mod directory and see what happens....

And, it works.   Or at least, the game starts in an un-modded state.    So I guess all this time I was modifying the wrong xml files.   I guess we can chalk this up as an ID-10-T error.

Thanks for your help everyone!

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

If you check you will realize that the game modding instructions specify that you should structure your mod directory similarly to the games directory structure, so files from

E:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\DLC\EXP2_Crusade\Game

should be referenced in

mods\MyMod\Game

directory

you are also better off not modding the existing files directly but rather adding your own race, star system, planets, in new files with different names, you can use existing in game names if you want or put your custom names into the the

MyMod\English\Text

directory

Some warnings, I have not been able to add a custom home system to the game that you can select in the race customize, it does not show up in the home system list, but if you have made a copy of a race with the home system as your new system that works and you can customize that and use the new system that way.  Also Modding the mercenaries did not seem to work for me, until it changed the source files , but also the game sometimes will use original game mercenaries in crusade, which can be cool as they are a bit nerfed in crusade, and the choice of which mercenary is used seems random, you can have some form the \EXP2_Crusade\DLC\ directory and some from the original mixed in which can be cool one of the original survey ships gives 100gold per anomaly searched and the crusade version is only 25 gold per, but it is an either or proposition you do not seem to be able to have both at the same time.