Modding Empire Earth 2 AI

[Cory1985]

Hi everyone ,
has anyone tried modding the AI and is it possible like in AOE2?

[Dr.MonaLisa]

Hi. I don't know how modding AOE2 looks like, since I didn't even play that game, but in EE2 you can not modify the engine that AI is using. It's hardcoded.

You can however change the order in which AI builds buildings / produces units. You can also tweak values of required units/buildings and decide if AI should wait for finishing it before proceeding to the next thing.

Files to modify are in folders:
EE2: aips
AOS: aips_ee2x

You can open them with Notepad++.
Unfortunately, you would need to edit like 21 files to see changes in game, since each time AI is using a different .aip file, depending on civilization, epochs, region, difficulty, Eco/Imp/Mili play style, etc.
Any mistake in those files will result in Unhandled Exception crashes, at random times, so it's pretty hard to detect what causes the problem.

I personally wouldn't like to mod it, as it was a reason of many problems in Unofficial Patch 1.5 before, and required a lot of updates to fix it fully. But if you have the time and needs to play with it, that's the only way to go.

[Cory1985]

Thanks Mate,

Much appreciated. One more question How do I change the population number for certain units? such as tanks = 3 population. I would like all units to = 1 population.

[Dr.MonaLisa]

Check .ddf files in db.zip and db_155.zip. There's a variable for it which can be set for each unit type.

[Cory1985]

thank you

[Cory1985]

Check .ddf files in db.zip and db_155.zip. There's a variable for it which can be set for each unit type.

Hi Again,
thanks for all your help.

I want to change the HP of the outposts and the fortresses. I want to see how it affect game balance when i drop the HP for those buildings by half . I edited the upgrade unit types csv file in the tech tree folder but I got an error starting the game ( see screenshot). When I change the HP for a fortress in that file , do I have to change it to any other file?

[Dr.MonaLisa]

Please use "DontReportCrashes=1" in UP1.5 Settings if you mod on the normal 1.5 installation, otherwise you ruin our crash statistics: https://www.ee2.eu/statistics/?period=7d#launchstats and it gives a false information about the reliability of the normal version of UP1.5.

I won't be able to help with crashes. There are billions of possibilities "what went wrong". Did you edit the file with Notepad++? If you edited with Excel then it most likely ruined this file. Always use Notepad++ to edit any game files.

To detect what cause those crashes, you should add changes one-by-one. This is how EE2 modding works, and I also spend/waste a lot of time on things like this. The crash errors don't show anything useful that any of us would understand.

[EE2Fan89]

Hello.

Monalisa i sent u a private message but it is stuck in the outbox instead of going to the sent message's.

Ill post it here if you like :

Language change
Sent: 15 Feb 2021, 12:11
From: EE2Fan89
Recipient: Dr.MonaLisa

Hello.

I want to change the language from EE2 AND EE2 expansion to dutch. Now i downloaded the german package and i found a map called 'text' in the 'db' folder. It is listed as extension utf8. I can open them and change the german phrases to dutch. Are the files in the text map the only files to change or are there other files to i should do?

Greetings John

[Dr.MonaLisa]

Private messages work fine.

The message is in the Outbox folder until the recipient (me in this case) opens it.

However, I prefer when questions and answers are posted on the forum, so anybody who is looking for the same information can find it in the future.

Yes, editing:
EE2: zips\db.zip\db\Text
AOS: zips_ee2x\EE2X_db.zip\EE2X_db\Text
is the correct method. However, Unofficial Patch 1.5 also uses the "New Texts Source Translation System" for the stuff / options added by UP1.5. You can read more about it here: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=5266 Unfortunately EE2 wasn't released in Dutch, so we can not recognize the Dutch language by myconfig.cfg, therefore the 1.5 translation wouldn't automatically work.

Quick note, not to cause any disappointment:
As mentioned on: https://www.ee2.eu/download/languagecha ... nformation

EE2, EE2X - Language Changer, created by Dr.MonaLisa allows you to use an official game language (released by the game publisher in 2005-2006) for 3 separate components: Text, Audio, Video. We do not provide fan-translations. It's designed for Empire Earth II & Empire Earth II: The Art of Supremacy and is compatible with and without Unofficial Patch 1.5.

So you will be able to share your translations in a forum topic, but it won't be included to the Language Changer as it wasn't the language that was officially released. This is to keep the highest possible standards. Fan-translations usually are not that good as when they're created by the professional studio.
Anyway, if the translation is good enough, and many Dutch players test it, then we can re-think this statement, but I just mentioned it now to not cause any disappointment.

[EE2Fan89]

I am very sorry. I didn't know. I Just assumed it wasn't working correctly.
In the future I will open a new topic if I want to ask questions. I didn't mean to bother you in pm with this.

I am very good in translating from dutch to English and the other way around. Also I can even try to change the audio files as I have a music studio and I can record dutch phrases for the game. Just to make an optional dutch patch as complete as possible.

Greetings John