So you did return, welcome back!
I'm not sure you should bother with the separate CBD project now - Inioch figured out how to do a lot of hex editing, by comparing the base game to AoW+ files in PE Explorer and HxD (I'm following in his footsteps too), so we can make our own CBDs (he already has, called AoWx) as far as simple numerical changes are concerned.

Would be great if you'd have a look at the more complex ideas raised in that thread though. Also I'm trying to make an exhaustive list of offsets in a spreadsheet, with description, function, and location.

Looking forward to mainline AoW+'s next versions - our MP-oriented mods won't make for a difficult and interesting campaign like AoW+ does. Still thinking of making a new campaign? I may've said this before, but if you like I could do the boring parts of mapmaking, like if there's 100 towns on a map and you want them named according to a set of ethno-linguistic rubricks, I could do that for you.

You probably already know this, but you can use the Dev-editor's export text/ import text feature to edit all of the city names from a .txt file. It would be handy if someone made a simple program to autogenerate and autopopulate these.

Looking more at the export /import text tool, it's clear that these are related to hex addresses with value references. e.g. [12] for city names. The tool looks at the addresses in the hsm file and replace the values. My hunch is that you could use this to replace more than just name texts. If you had the format down-pat, I wonder if you could inject anything you want (e.g. change the number of days that a rebuilding teleporter takes to finish).

But isn't AoWx for MP, while CBDs was for fine tuning the SP experience of AoW+?

Oh, was it? Well, perhaps I spoke too soon; arrogant of me to speak for everyone on that anyway.
I never even looked at import/export text, in fact I assumed it was something never fully implemented and ignored it. Those possibilities are very interesting.

Something interesting I came across. The bottom of the text export is [:0:] which has some values for the map settings tab.

[:0:]
[7]=~ncbe|fq
[11]=Map description
[25]=Map name

That [7] value is some kind of obscured version of the map password (in this case I set it to "password").

If you set it to "qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm" it appears as "QVGQP\SNGYKXHKIGZZ^ILV@UVT" which looks very familiar to some of the garbled output when looking at it with a hex editor. "abcdefghijklmno" shows up as "ttt||||ttttLLLL". "1234567890" shows up as "!#!'!#!/!)". "1111111111" shows up as "! #"%$'&)(". A bunch of zeros shows up as: "
pqrstuvwxyz{|}~`abcdefghijklmnoPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]" (I think the first symbol is an <enter> key).

Many many zeros comes out as "hijklmnoPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO°±²³Žµ¶·ž¹º»&O Elig;œŸ¿ ¡¢£€¥Š§š©ª«¬­®¯‘’“”•–—˜™" (it has a different start point in the string).

The number of characters remains the same, and it seems to be one of those shifting cyphers. It probably means most of the obscured text seen with a hex editor follows this pattern. I feel like I've seen that "mnoPQR" jump from lower to upper somewhere. Maybe someone can make heads or tails of all of this.

That "abc..." to "ttt||||ttttLLLL" is peculiar because if t is the 8th symbol in the series, and the "abc..." pattern follows the cycle +1 increment each character. It's (8)(8)(8)(16)(16)(16)(16)(8)(8)(8)(8)(64)(64)(64)(64) or if it's written 2^n, it's 333 4444 3333 6666. If it's only a coincidence it's an interesting one. "t" in hex is 74, "|" in hex is 7C, "L" in hex is 4C

Hi And G!

Just so you know, the workload for the CBD workload has been GREATLY reduced. Inioch (using your lessons and comparing original vs modified files) has figured most of it out already.

That said, Inioch has mentioned he still doesn't know how to:
-have Life Steal ability work for both attack AND defense AND Round Attack.
-how to repair Leadership in order to make use of the multiple upgrade levels it seems to have been intended for
-how to change the ability point cost of Leadership

Hey Inioch, was there anything else you were having trouble figuring out? That's all I can remember from what you told me.

Leadership levelup cost might be found at:
5576616C, AoWE.TLeadershipAbility.Create@23EDC2EF:
I see a few 'C's there (ie 10, the cost of the ability)

I'd like to know how to modify upkeep - I saw And G's extra code, but don't understand it. Also, the extra terrain vision.

Inioch and I have put together a list of offsets in a google docs apreadsheet
It's nicely formatted with column for descriptions, annotation within the .dpl file, and function, plus the doc auto-calculates the offsets to look at in the hex editor.
I can PM you a link to it, don't want to post it out on the net in case some rando comes in and messes with it, though I guess I'm too paranoid

Yeah, Lifestealing in particular is what I've been focused on next. I've been comparing engine files with AoW 1.0, but the few changes I've found so far that seem to reference Lifestealing haven't had any effect whether I simply change them or zero them out completely. Leadership multi-level ability is also high on my list.

There are a few others I want, like Build Road cost and Marksmanship stats especially, that have eluded me completely so far. But I haven't put as much time into those yet. I really want Lifestealing and Leadership lol.

If you're going to upload an alternate version just remember to update the changelog! If you're interested at some point down the road, I'll even help playtest a PBEM using your mod. My local PBEM group used 18.04 to say "2018 April", if you're going to keep the name, Molzy mod A20.11 would be a good way to say it's a fork of the original while still keeping the version numbering (just a suggestion, name it however you like!)

I think I added an html file with the mod to show the changes from TS1.36... I think I added one? If you tell me the changes, I can update a version of that for you too

Any chance of getting a version without the nerfed archery? I would think it would make dragons even more overwhelming for the AI to deal with.
Replaying the campaigns recently, with the Molzy (sp?) mod, dragons and PI units were the two things the AI had most problems with.

Random thought for those not fond of PI

For the Physically Immune units, you could give them the Decay Mind handicap at gold (the unit dies at the end of combat regardless of health). This would mean that PI units are still valuable (a wraith without PI is useless), but it softens the threat and forces players to change composition/investment choices.

Hmm...never heard about that handicap. Do any units have it?

It would be interesting, though, with PI units being one combat units if I understand it correctly. A unit for special occasions, so to speak.

Very cool idea, will it persist on the world map?