How to change overall lethality/difficulty in S2 like in S3

[Kolvorok]

I have been playing vanilla S2 and S3 for a while, and completed both without using PK's and sci-fi weapons. I like this game very much, but I would like to squeeze a bit more replayability out of it.

I started playing S2 again on hard difficulty with "Always Critical" and "Headshot Should Kill" options on, but it would like to make the game more diffucult and the weapons more lethal (and realistic imo).

 

I would like to increase the overall difficulty in S2 like you can do in S3, to give the enemy more AP and VP, double the damage of their weapons, etc.

 

I noticed that Ishan's "Difficulty level changes"-mod had changed just the values I would like to get my hands on, but I have no idea how he did it. I downloaded the mod, but there is just a .db-file, and I'm unable to open and edit it. I installed the editor, but seems like you could only edit maps with it. I haven't really done any modding before, so don't have a clue from where to look. I found an old thread here about this same subject, but it pointed to two pages which are no longer there.

 

Could anyone help me with this? Just a hint from where to look is better than nothing.

[Knan]

You'll need to open it and edit stuff, I'm afraid. MSDE / MSSQL format, as I remember it, and you need a SQL editor in order to change stuff.

 

It's been too many years. Can't remember exactly, but stuff I found here helped.

[BlunterII]

I have been playing vanilla S2 and S3 for a while, and completed both without using PK's and sci-fi weapons. I like this game very much, but I would like to squeeze a bit more replayability out of it.

I started playing S2 again on hard difficulty with "Always Critical" and "Headshot Should Kill" options on, but it would like to make the game more diffucult and the weapons more lethal (and realistic imo).

 

I would like to increase the overall difficulty in S2 like you can do in S3, to give the enemy more AP and VP, double the damage of their weapons, etc.

 

I noticed that Ishan's "Difficulty level changes"-mod had changed just the values I would like to get my hands on, but I have no idea how he did it. I downloaded the mod, but there is just a .db-file, and I'm unable to open and edit it. I installed the editor, but seems like you could only edit maps with it. I haven't really done any modding before, so don't have a clue from where to look. I found an old thread here about this same subject, but it pointed to two pages which are no longer there.

 

Could anyone help me with this? Just a hint from where to look is better than nothing.

 

Unless you are comfortable with LUA scripting you might want to simply change the VP, AP and some other values for the enemies on each template in 'BaseValues' and 'Classes' tabs of the editor. All enemy types are found in the 'Pers' tab along with their respective weapon IDs and backpack contents.

Giving those bad guys some perks will also increase their effectiveness against the human player. Requires some scripting, though.

 

I wouldn't change the XP and Attribute values too much as it leads to some strange level up problems (i.e. going from level 5 to lvl. 178)

 

Play around with the numbers and let us know how it goes after testing.

 

Blunter

[Kolvorok]

Unless you are comfortable with LUA scripting you might want to simply change the VP, AP and some other values for the enemies on each template in 'BaseValues' and 'Classes' tabs of the editor. All enemy types are found in the 'Pers' tab along with their respective weapon IDs and backpack contents.

Giving those bad guys some perks will also increase their effectiveness against the human player. Requires some scripting, though.

 

I wouldn't change the XP and Attribute values too much as it leads to some strange level up problems (i.e. going from level 5 to lvl. 178)

 

Play around with the numbers and let us know how it goes after testing.

 

Blunter

 

So basically, if I want to make combat more lethal, I have to change the damage value for every weapon? I was wishing I could just open up some file with notepad and change one or two values to make the game harder (like in M:TW). Well, looks like I have quite a lot of typing to do.

I think I'll give perks a pass, I'm no programmer, the first time I heard about SQL was when I needed it to run the S2 editor...

 

Thanks for the help.

[Kolvorok]

...and once I actually opened the edtor again, I realised I haven't got a clue how to change the damage of the weapons in the editor. If I choose Tools -> Edit store items, I can change the quantatity of weapons in the scenario (or so it seems). Is it even possible to change tghe damage caused in the editor? I could give every enemy more weapons, that really wouldn't be the same thing.

 

Is the editor any good for this purpose, or is scripting the only way to make the weapons do more damage?

[BlunterII]

...and once I actually opened the edtor again, I realised I haven't got a clue how to change the damage of the weapons in the editor. If I choose Tools -> Edit store items, I can change the quantatity of weapons in the scenario (or so it seems). Is it even possible to change tghe damage caused in the editor? I could give every enemy more weapons, that really wouldn't be the same thing.

 

Is the editor any good for this purpose, or is scripting the only way to make the weapons do more damage?

 

For the original Silent Storm and its expansion Sentinels you'd need to use Microsoft Access to modify weapon characteristics. If you happened to have Hammer & Sickle then you can make most of the changes you seem to need right in the editor (very easy).

 

In case you need to use Microsoft Access (for S^2, S^3) here are the steps:

 

1. Hook your mod's database to SQL (so that you don't make your changes in the default/original database by mistake)

Steps:Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Data Sources(ODBC)>> SQL Server>> OK >> change the default database to [whatever your mod is called]

 

2. Find the Table you need to modify.

Steps: Start Microsoft Access >> File/ Open >> (at the bottom in the file type choose ODBC databases >> System Data Source/ Machine Data Source >> (select) SQL Server >> OK > pick the table you want to modify

 

I don't remember the names of those tables (maybe someone else will help you with that) It's somewhere in the Weapons... or RPGWeapons...

 

Good Luck

 

Blunter

[Kolvorok]

For the original Silent Storm and its expansion Sentinels you'd need to use Microsoft Access to modify weapon characteristics. If you happened to have Hammer & Sickle then you can make most of the changes you seem to need right in the editor (very easy).

 

In case you need to use Microsoft Access (for S^2, S^3) here are the steps:

 

1. Hook your mod's database to SQL (so that you don't make your changes in the default/original database by mistake)

Steps:Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Data Sources(ODBC)>> SQL Server>> OK >> change the default database to [whatever your mod is called]

 

2. Find the Table you need to modify.

Steps: Start Microsoft Access >> File/ Open >> (at the bottom in the file type choose ODBC databases >> System Data Source/ Machine Data Source >> (select) SQL Server >> OK > pick the table you want to modify

 

I don't remember the names of those tables (maybe someone else will help you with that) It's somewhere in the Weapons... or RPGWeapons...

 

Good Luck

 

Blunter

 

I don't have MS Access, so I tried Blueshell Data Guy instead. I found "DifficultyConstants" which was just the thing I was looking for, and changed damage multiplyers on impossible level for both "enemy" and "our" to 8, just to test if it works.

 

And it didn't.

 

I tried it with axis and allies, hard and impossible, but damage just didn't increase. With multiplyer like that, it should be three digits.

 

I serched the forum, and if I understood correctly, I should have run "dataimport.exe" from S2 submenu tools. I doubleclick it, but it just flashes on and back off again. I have no idea whats the problem. I tried the build-command in the editor, but the same thing happens.

 

I'm running XP Pro with SP3 and v1.2 of S2 and v1.2 S2 editor.

 

Thanks again for helping BlunterII.

 

Anybody got any ideas what's wrong?

[Kolvorok]

I read this thread again with thought, and realized I should try to make the game.db with a batch file:

 

dataimport full-mod.db -dbserver 127.0.0.1 -database a5gamemod_MyMod

dataimport game.db -diff full-mod.db original.db

@echo finish

pause

 

So I created the batch file to the tools folder and ran it. Full-mod.db was created ok, with game.db I got a following text on the prompt:

 

 

failed to open original.db for reading

 

I tried the mod with the game.db that was created, but it didn't work.

 

Since original.db was not there it had to be created and after a simple search on the forum, found the ansver from this thread.

 

Original.db can be created with this typed on the command prompt while on tools-folder:

 

dataimport original.db -dbserver 127.0.0.1 -database a5game

 

After running it original.db was created. Then I ran the batch-file again, and when I tried the game.db with S2 it worked!

 

If I hadn't been a complete newbie with this it wouldn't have taken me so long to figure this out, but before this my only "modding" has been changing the starting gold amounts on Medieval: Total War with notepad.

 

 

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this forum.

[Karstedt]

Glad you figured out what was going on. But yeah, the damage constant multiplier is what you were looking for. Setting it to 8 would probably result in one shot kills from just about any weapon.