The -mod Command - Battle for Middle Earth II Heaven Forum

Topic Subject: The -mod Command

Victor von Doom
Dúnadan

posted 04-28-06 05:57 PM EDT (US)

So You Want to Play Online Normal, but You Have Mods Installed?
A tutorial on how to create a mod only shortcut to play with and without mods, without the hassles.

Step One: Creating the 'Mod' Folder

Go to C:\ and create a folder. Name this folder whatever you want, ranging from 'Mod' to 'Duck'. The name doesn't matter. This is where we are going to put all of our files.

Step Two: Extract the Files

Now go into FinalBIG. Open the folder you want to open (INI.big, Textures0.big etc). Go to Edit -> Extract All. Put them in the folder you created before this step. So now there should be a bunch of notepad files in your folder.

Step Three: The Shortcut

Go to C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battle For Middle Earth 2 (whatever the directory is. Now find the file called 'lortbfme2.exe'. Right click on it and create a shortcut. Now that we have our short cut right click on it and go to properties. Under 'Target' add this:

 -mod "C:\Mod"

Your file should know look like this:

"C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Battle for Middle-earth (tm) II\lotrbfme2.exe" -mod "C:\Mod"

Step Four: Edit the Files/You're Done!

Now that you have created your shortcut, go into the extracted INIs and edit away. If you use the shortcut without -mod and etc, there won't be any mods to the game. If you use the -mod shortcut, there will be mods. It is alot easier this way then the normal editing process.

Credits:

the3rdage.net : teaching me about this command
Me : for writing this

Victor von Doom
Winner of the Boromir Award

Author

Replies:

Youngy0
Dúnadan

posted 04-28-06 06:01 PM EDT (US) 1 / 10

Wow, thanx for that. Got annoying changing the .ini file when i wanted to play online

Not so good with signatures... i guess anyways

Blood Phoenix
Redshirt

posted 04-29-06 08:41 AM EDT (US) 2 / 10

Thats a really neat little guide VVD! However... I've already covered this in my installing mods guide (primitively though), however I'm sure this will be excellent for the modders rather than the downloaders! I'll add it to mod central now

B L O O D P H O E N I X
Lurking at HG since 2004

Victor von Doom
Dúnadan

posted 04-29-06 08:55 AM EDT (US) 3 / 10

Where'd you cover it?

Victor von Doom
Winner of the Boromir Award

Nazzie
Dúnadan

posted 04-29-06 05:55 PM EDT (US) 4 / 10

people really didnt know about this >_<

<img>http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3108/nazzman3ak.jpg</img>

LedMirage
Dúnadan

posted 05-05-06 10:09 AM EDT (US) 5 / 10

I have a question for you guys, if the -mod command is used, will the game use the files on your mod folder first and then anything not found from the default game files? or do you still need to include, say for example, all the contents of ini.big for the ..\ini\ folder?

Also I have had a LOT of trouble getting custom textures to work, I understand the whole INI side of it (or at least most of it), but I am having no luck getting the game to use one without replacing a .big file. Will the -mod command allow the use of modified textures? (same filename already in game but modified).

I'll try and go test myself, just being a bit lazy and hoping to find some help on getting custom textures to work.

Thanks in advance!

"To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light." -- Benjamin Franklin

Victor von Doom
Dúnadan

posted 05-05-06 10:28 AM EDT (US) 6 / 10

Quote:

I'm pretty sure you don't need all of the files (although I use them cause its easier for me that way). So if you only want Boromir you just extract his INI. Although you must have the proper setup (data\ini\... etc).

Quote:

Yes it will. I have replaced the Mouth of Sauron's command button before so that it uses his picture from the movies, instead of the one that game uses. So I'll asume it works for other textures.

Victor von Doom
Winner of the Boromir Award

LedMirage
Dúnadan

posted 05-05-06 05:11 PM EDT (US) 7 / 10

Most excellent, thanks for the quick reply :-)

"To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light." -- Benjamin Franklin

LedMirage
Dúnadan

posted 05-10-06 03:25 PM EDT (US) 8 / 10

You guys may want to add this as an addendum:

My mod adds a new unit to the game, with it's own ini file and it referenced it's statistics to strings added and matched in the gamedata.ini file; the problem I ran into was that using the -mod command the game would crash because it would not identify these new strings in gamedata.ini, the only way to fix it was to remove all my new unit strings from gamedata.ini and definite the new unit values in it's own ini file.

In other words, GameData.ini does NOT like new data strings when using the -mod command, you can modify existing values and strings in GameData.ini all you want but adding a new one will cause problems. Note: This DID work with the clumsier *.big file replacement method for mods, just not with the -mod command.

"To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light." -- Benjamin Franklin

[This message has been edited by LedMirage (edited 05-10-2006 @ 03:26 PM).]

Victor von Doom
Dúnadan

posted 05-10-06 03:47 PM EDT (US) 9 / 10

All changes in Gamedata.ini aren't read anyway. Add the ghanges you want to water.ini, it gets read before gamedata. Also, using edit in the units own INI is smarter as it only effects that unit, not all of them.

Victor von Doom
Winner of the Boromir Award

LedMirage
Dúnadan

posted 05-11-06 02:04 PM EDT (US) 10 / 10

Quoted from Victor von Doom:

Changes to existing values in GameData.ini DO work with both methods of loading a mod, I am doing this with a number of stat tweaks in my mod.

The issue was adding new strings to GameData.ini and that was only there when using the -mod command, the previous override method allowed them to work just fine.

Using GameData.ini as a global statistic value file for designers is what that file was created for, I don't consider modifying values there instead of the individual INI's something not smart, though I was forced to do so for my new unit since it is not replacing an existing one and it just wouldn't work with the -mod method.

"To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light." -- Benjamin Franklin

Battle for Middle Earth II Heaven » Forums » Grey Havens (World Builder & Game Mods) » The -mod Command

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