Getting started with modding

Hi everyone, As podcat mentioned in last weeks diary he would attempt to trick into writing a little something about modding. It didn’t work, I wanted to do it all along, hah! This week I will talk a bit about how to get into modding and how we work with requests from modders. Next week I will go into some of the new stuff modders can expect in 1.3.3. Getting into modding can seem like a pretty daunting task and we’ve received some questions about how to get started. A good first step is going to the User Mods forum and take a look at the Useful threads/information for modders. and the wiki . The Hearts of Iron Modding Discussion subreddit is another good place to find resources. Ask others in the Modding - Quick Questions thread. It’s a great place to ask specific questions once you’ve gone through some of the tutorials. If no one else can help, I might even show up to answer a few questions. Starting the game with the -debug enabled gives you access to the console, where you can write trigger_docs. This will print a list of possible trigger and effect with some sparse (programmer made) documentation to the game.log. Sometimes you can find things here that have not yet been documented on the wiki . From there, it all depends on what you want to achieve. Another useful launch option is start_tag=GER, which loads up the game as the specified tag, skipping launcher and country selector. Starting in debug mode also enables the glorious error dog, who will show up and bark your mistakes at you, like a mad drill sergeant. The dog is your friend, do as it says and strive to fix all your mistakes before committing your mod to steam. Start from the top and work your way down. Here I’ve done something horribly wrong in the Centre state file, so I CTRL+ALT+Right-Click, open the file and fix my mistake.

Once you’ve gotten into it a bit you will most likely stumble across issues that cannot be solved with the current script features. This is where I come in… maybe! Go to the wishlist thread see if there is already a request for what you are trying to attempt and if there isn’t, make a post describing what you want to achieve. Most of the things in this thread end up in the document below, aptly named by podcat. We then go over the requests with the tech lead and decide what is possible to do. A lot of the requests we have gotten are for new triggers, basic effects, which is great. Other are basically new features, major core system changes or UI rework on a scale that is not modding, but making a new game.

A request could be

‘I need a trigger for army experience’ (I can’t believe we don’t have this.). ‘I want to set state names with an effect’ ‘I want the dynamic script flags EU4 has’ Etc etc. Some will be implemented. Some will be rejected based on technical limitations. Some may even be planned for a future feature, in which case it really is worth waiting for the proper implementation by a team of programmers instead of just me.

Some of the recent additions include

-Added console command: set_ruling_party - ideology group has shortcuts d f n c for vanilla HOI groups -Added console command: add_party_popularity - ideology group has shortcuts d f n c for vanilla HOI groups -Added trigger has_full_control_of_state -Added has_army_experience has_air_experience has_navy_experience triggers -Dynamic state, country and global flags effect. set_global_flag = test_flag_@ROOT -Added triggers for date days and value to flags -Added modify_global_flag modify_country_flag modify_state_flag effects. Clearing script flags now removed them completely instead of setting value to zero -Added timed script flags.

Exampletime: You want to make a series of events where the German scientists goes celebrating after the fall of France.

set_country_flag = { flag = GER_drunk_scientists days = 120 value = 1 }

This sets a flag