GUIDE: Multiple theatres of war

[nikivdd]

I'm sure that programming several theatres of war is a modder's dream and it saves a lot of work to the e-file. So you could have a different camo for your units in Europe, Africa, Winter, Summer, Autumn and so on and so on WITHOUT having to upgrade/update your units in the purchase menu.

What do you need to do to make this work:

1) Use the Beta Panzercorps.exe. Backup the original Panzercorps.exe!!!! Also backup all other files that i discuss underneath.

Beta Panzercorps.exe: https://www.sendspace.com/file/dzoi4e

2) Files that must be updated in order to make the new theatres of war work:

- In the data folder: Strings.pzdat : you need to define the new theatres of war. Standard there is already:

IDS_THEATRE0 Europe
IDS_THEATRE1 Africa

So for example you can add underneath those two lines:

IDS_THEATRE2 Winter
IDS_THEATRE3 Summer

- In the UI folder: editor_scnparams.htm: This file allows you to chose theatre of war in the scenario editor.
This is already present:

<td style="text-align:right">IDS_LABEL_THEATRE</td>
<td><select id="Theatre">
<option value="0">IDS_THEATRE0</option>
<option value="1">IDS_THEATRE1</option>

Underneath this you have to add, depending how many new theatres of war you introduce, with my example from above:

<option value="2">IDS_THEATRE2</option>
<option value="3">IDS_THEATRE3</option>

3) Where do i place the units with a different camo?

In the folder graphics/units/

The units in the main directory have Theatre 0, the units in the folder Desert contain the units with the desert camo (Theatre 1). Theatre 0 and 1 should NOT be altered. Theatre 0 remains Europe and Theatre 1 remains Africa (desert camo); you can add more Theatre 0 and Theatre 1 units, as long the names for those units in theatre 0 and 1 are identical and naturally as well in the equipment file. To be completely clear, Panzer_IA.png in the e-file has its icons for the different theatres of war in their corresponding folders with the same name Panzer_IA.png.

4) How to add folders and units for your great looking units with a different camo?
Here i will use my example again. Remember that i called Theatre 2 Winter and Theatre 3 Summer.

Folder to put the units with a winter camo is called theatre2, not theatre2 winter or winter camo, just plain and easy theatre2 for reasons of hard coding in the beta panzercorps.exe.
Folder to put the units with a summer camo is called theatre3, not theatre3 summer or summer camo, just plain and easy theatre3



If you for example have no winter camo for unit X, it will always use by default the icon of this unit for Theatre0.

You can define the theatre of war for each and every scenario in the scenario editor. Scenario one can be in summer and scenario two can be in winter, the units will automatically change their graphic to the different theatre of war.

EDIT: Hopefully is the beta exe of PzC no longer required, and has this feature been implemented with patch v1.24.

[Hanny]

Just what i was looking for , only better!

Thank you.

[bebro]

Good guide, thanks. Did use a modded Africa theatre setting for winter in my Sov campiagn, but always wondered whether there can be multiple different theatres

[Mark50]

Thank you for writing this guide!

I have just tested this in game (v1.24) though and it doesn`t quite work. Somehow the engine does not recognize the new theatre. The option to add the Pacific theatre (in my case) appears in the editor, but after I click the ok button of the Scenario Params screen, the theatre field reverts to Africa. Either I`m missing something or they haven`t implemented this in v1.24 after all.

The link above is no longer valid btw, but even if it were it raises a number of questions for a public mod. Is this supported/accepted by the developers? Does it have everything the v1.24 file has?

[nikivdd]

Let's assume you have defined the theatre Pacific.

This is what you need to do:

Strings.pzdat
Add under IDS_THEATRE1 Africa:
IDS_THEATRE2 Pacific

editor_scnparams.htm
Add under <option value="1">IDS_THEATRE1</option>:
<option value="2">IDS_THEATRE2</option>

Where do you place the custom units, specifically for the Pacific theatre?
Create the folder with the name theatre2 (not pacific!) in the folder graphics/units/

[Mark50]

<option value="2">IDS_THEATRE2</option>

That`s the part I`ve managed to overlook. I had kept it to 1. Changing it to 2 solved the issue in the editor and the scenario loads fine with the specific skins. Thanks alot!

Btw, does it matter that the next line in strings-pzdat also mentions value 2?

<option value="2">Theatre 2</option>

I know that the two sets of theatres work differently, but it`s odd that the developers thought to start from 2 with the ones needed for Allied Corps.

EDIT: I think it matters. I gave a unit the value 2 for theatre in equipment.pzdat and the effect was that it disappeared from the recruitment panel.

EDIT#2: I`ve tried using theatre 9 with the value 9 since none of them is used in the original game. The same result. Units coded with the value 9 for theatre are not tied to that theatre; they are excluded from it. Does that mean that any new theatre will actually work like the ones from Allied Corps (excluding units from them) instead of like the Africa/Europe ones (which restrict units to them)?

[Mark50]

I should add that the other silly thing is that the game uses the theatre values in the column of equipment.pzdat without any sort of separation. That means that once you get to double digits it will not read the number correctly. For example, in the case of theatre 10 the engine will not recognize it as 10, but as 1 and 0. This means that a unit with 10 for theatre in equipment.pzdat will disappear from the recruitment line of scenarios set in Africa (1) and Europe (0), but will still be available in scenarios set in Theatre10. With 11 as a theatre the unit will disappear from African Scenarios (1), but be available in Europe (0) and Theatre11. I`ve just tested this in game.

Also, this issue seems to be aggravated by the fact that vanilla Allied Corps uses theatres from 2 to 8 to deny units from appearing in some of its scenarios. Unfortunately, the theatre value they use goes into the same column of equipment.pzdat and is not set differently from the Europe/Africa theatres that tie units to them. Basically two system of theatres that have different effects use the same column and same value settings. That would mean for example that if you create a new theatre and use 2 as the value you will interfere with the vanilla Allied Corps. Units set to not appear in the AC scenario with theatre 2 (scenario Border Raids according to ThvN) will also not appear in your new scenarios that use a new theatre with the value 2. And because of the two digits issue mentioned above we basically are left with only the unused value 9 to influence what units appear or not in a scenario.

Either I`m missing something or someone really did not think this through before implementing this feature. I do hope someone can contradict me successfully because it`s been a rather frustrating experience. Otherwise, I hope this can be refined for the next release, because the feature, if done correctly, opens up great possibilities to extend the scope of the game.

In lack of other opinions, my conclusion is that, presently, adding new theatres:

1. works fine if the only thing you want is to add a different set of camouflage for your units. Like adding a winter camo that will only appear in scenarios set with a winter theatre.
2. is worthless if you actually want to use it in equipment.pzdat to tie a unit to a theatre so that it won`t appear in other theatres. For example, as the setting is now, it seems you can`t avoid that a dutch plane of the East Indies will appear in the vanilla battle of the Low Countries and vice-versa.