Civilization description doesn't work the same way for modded civilizations as for regular ones

Age of Empires II: DE II - Report a Bug
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:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

:point_down: These details are CRITICAL; DO NOT skip them or your issue may not be reviewed.

  • GAME BUILD #: Current RoR
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

:point_down: DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL (below). LIMIT TO ONE BUG PER THREAD.

Trying to set up custom civilizations using the new Civilizations.json file and new strings for the Rome at War custom civs is producing a strange issue where I can’t give them a custom description without overwriting something. In the base game, the ID for a civilization description is the ID of the civilization name, + 109879. For example: Britons have a civilization name ID of 10271, and a civ description ID of 120,150. However, when trying to use a custom civilization with name ID 10551 and description ID 120,430, only the name will display ingame, and the description for Britons will be shown instead.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

:point_down: How often does the issue occur? CHOSE ONE; DELETE THE REST!

  • 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS)

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

:point_down: List CLEAR and DETAILED STEPS we can take to reproduce the issue ourselves… Be descriptive!

Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:

  1. Add a new civ string called “Test” with ID 10551
  2. Add a matching civ description with ID 120,430
  3. Change one of the civilizations in Civilizations.json to use the new civ name ID of 10551
  4. Expect it to also use the civ description, but it doesn’t.

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

:point_down: What was SUPPOSED to happen if the bug you encountered were not present?

109879 is added to the civ name ID and used to reference the civ description ID, rather than defaulting to one of the base game IDs.

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

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:arrow_forward: GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)

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Hi there,
This is currently by design. The description ID is 120149 + position of the civ in the json. Is there a situation where you would not want this to be the case? As far as I understand, mods like this have to replace original content anyway - and data mods only take effect when they get loaded.

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Very much so. I’m hoping to rework the Rome at War mod so that you never need to turn it off. As a result, it won’t work if it overwrites any of the base game graphics. Civ tips and the civ descriptions are the only blockers to me doing this that I’ve found, everything else can be given an ID totally different from the base game. R@W already requires a massive external download, and to improve player retention, it would be totally amazing if you didn’t need to turn the mod off at all, you could just swap back and forth between it and the base game by selecting the datamod. So if it was possible to choose the description ID offset, and change the civ tip that gets referenced, then that situation should become possible, which I would really appreciate. It really just offers even more flexibility to modding, on top of the amazing changes that were already made, which could help to further improve the modding scene.

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Thanks for the suggestion to have more parameters in civilizations.json, I’ll put this down for consideration

1 Like