Making campaigns

[alan123]

Hello,

I have been making some simple missions with the mission generator. I wanted to link the missions into a campaign. The trouble is I do not know and cannot find out how to actually create the campaign for the missions to go into.

Can you send me some info on how to do this?

I have read through the readmes, searched the forum and of course spent hours trying different things in the mission editor but cannot do it.

Thanks

Alan

[Arzok]

first you can make your mission as single missions.

When they are OK, create a new folder in :

F:\programme\Theatre of War 2\Missions

with the nam of your campaign, for exemple :

F:\programme\Theatre of War 2\Missions\mycampaign

Copy all the single missions in this folder.

then you need 2 files in this folder :

campaig.xml

text.utf8.

you can copy a campaign.xml from another campaign, and modify it with notepad.

You will have something like this :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<Campaign>

<Type>CAMPAIGN</Type>

<SID>NLC_fr</SID>

<UserCampaign>True</UserCampaign>

<Mission>

<Number>1</Number>

<SID>NLC01</SID>

<Name>NLC_01</Name>

<Country>UK</Country>

<Layer>NLC_01.mat</Layer>

<Success>NLC02</Success>

<Failed>MENU</Failed>

</Mission>

<Mission>

<Number>2</Number>

<SID>NLC02</SID>

<Name>NLC_02</Name>

<Country>UK</Country>

<Layer>NLC_02.mat</Layer>

<Success>NLC03</Success>

<Failed>END</Failed>

</Mission>

name is the name of the folder of the mission.

layer in not necessary I think.

Success is the id name of the next mission.

then open the first mission with the mission editor

in the properties of the mission, you can select the campaign.

Hope it will help !

[alan123]

Thanks that was exactly what I needed. This sort of thing should be an automated feature in the mission builder programme so that anyone can do it.

No wonder I was not able to do it myself.

I am going to do a monster campaign that uses all the maps in TOW2! roughly in date order of when the battles actually occurred but really purely fictional.

It will be like a Close Combat 3 The Russian Front Campaign where you fight from map to map in a big long linear line over the course of the whole war from 39 to 43 in Afrika.

Thanks again.

Alan

[alan123]

I discovered a little trick that gets the computer to write that file for you.

What I did was make a copy of the in game German campaign folder, copied my missions into the folder, disassociated and then removed the stock missions from the folder, renamed the folder, restarted the editor and low and behold the computer had written the campaig.xml for me. Plus when I edit the text in the missions using the editor the computer also updates the text.utf8. as it goes along.

This gets around writing boring pedantic code.

Cheers

Alan.

[alan123]

Well I made about 8 missions linked them up as a campaign and all was going well until the 8th mission. Now no matter what I make with the mission generator it freezes and crashes on startup when I test it.

When I examine that mission in the mission editor I can see that the placeholders and crews have become seperated and spread themselves over the map in places where I did not place them when I created the mission.

I do not know how to fix it and have had about 6 goes at creating new missions and each one freezes on startup, this is despite the use of different units, maps, support etc etc. Somehow I think my mission generator has become corrupted.

Is this a known problem? Is there anything I can do?

Lettuce no!

Alan

[Arzok]

I have not seen this type of pb.

Can you test your mission as a solo mission ?

You will see if it can work outside of the campaign.

Sometimes, some units can create problems. Try to suppress special units (from mod JSH).

Then , I can test your mission, but only in three weeks, as I will be in holidays, without my computer !

[alan123]

Hello,

Yes I am testing them as a solo mission before adding them to the campaign. Still they do not work.

The campaign is now 7 missions long and works fine.

The problems began with the 8th mission (which I have now tried to redo about a dozen times now plus some other completely different mission examples just in case the problem was with the map).

This pretty much ends my mission and campaign writing career in TOW2 Afrika, as far as I can see I am using only stock units nothing fancy.

I even reinstalled the mission editor files from a backup that I have, thinking that perhaps they were corrupt, but it did not help: I made another mission and it crashed on test startup, interesting is that sometimes even the deployment zones get moved around as well, all by themselves.

All these problems and crashes etc are the equivalent of having not been able to make about 10 missions. Now it has entered the no fun zone of endless repetition and frustration. Such a shame.

Cheers

AL

[Knokke]

Alan,

You should try to start again with a fresh install of the game, and try to add your missions folders back into the game one by one, testing them as single missions first, to check if everything is working.

There is probably a file left in your install that is either corrupted or where there is a mistake, that is not replaced by your backup files.

[alan123]

Dear Knokke,

Thanks for your help, I have coincidentally just bought the game again as part of the bundle offer with Steam (I only wanted the Kursk game as I have all the others however to get all the games plus the new one for 40euros was too good to go past, especially if they start adding the campaign packs etc as they go, which has been suggested) this then means that I have fresh install to work from that will hopefully be steadily (automatically) updated by Steam and also allow me to keep going with my campaign.

Will give it a go. As Winnie said: "Never ever give up".

Cheers

Alan