SoSayethSimon: So, don't want to be a necromancer for this thread but i agree with the title. And as aloeser has created a new map, i also found my motivation to try and fiddle with both games.
The most important part are some tools i found in my search of creating more than just a few campaigns and maps. Everything i'm about to share is not mine, it's just a collection of what i found - so please be careful with the sources.
Originally my idea was to fix a few problems of Etherlords 1 because i enjoy the overworld a lot (if it weren't for the rather bland maps compared to 2). Alas, there is no plugin for packing the .res file format of 1, so this plan will rest for a while. If anybody with knowledge about file formats wants to help, feel free to do so and be ready to be praised a lot :)
Cutting short to the most important findings: Game data The main game data lies in the regs.res file in the Resources folder. It's called "regs".res because it's actually an accumulation of multiple .reg files with different game information. Those informations include:
- Spelldata
- Decks
- Creatures
- Overworld Monsters
- Heroes
- etc.
So a lot of data, that would already enable balancing patches by changing creature attributes or spell costs and other features. Just pop up a hex editor, search for the Spell Identifier from the etherlords editor reference and edit the byte behind the corresponding Description (For example the byte behind "power" affects a creatures power).
The only thing that is not contained as far as i have found are the ability effects, which makes it hard to balance some sorceries.
Maps Both the .smp and the .map format are essentially relabeled .xml files and can be edited in any File Editor (i recommend VS Code or Notepad++). Just use the function for reformatting, so you don't have to edit in a oneliner. Both games don't care about the format btw, as long as it stays valid xml with valid elements for the game.
The most important part if anybody wants to create content for 1 or port the maps from 1 to 2 -> it's absolutely possible. Many objects kept their id between both games and can be used in both. But there are some parts that simply crash the editor or the game respectively. I'm still creating a mapping between both formats and creating a few regex for easy search and replace, so if anybody is interested in this contact me here. Or i will upload it when it's finished.
Saves Same as the .map files, the .savs files are .xml files as well and you can edit them to your liking. So if you are stuck in the early levels, you can simply edit some spells or artifacts into your spell bag to help you around the first levels. I recommend for example:
<artefact>
<name>RingOfHealing</name>
<charges>4</charges>
<is_custom>0</is_custom>
</artefact>
As the heal is pretty overvalued in later parts of the game but very strong for the earlier fights. This doesn't skew the balancing too much.
For Etherlords 1 enthusiasts another important part is, that you can also edit a heroes deck in the save file. This enables us to actually give scenario enemies something else than a starting deck. Maybe i will also create a mapping for that with some premade decks from the campaign or from 2.
Tools There is a single very important post on the Etherlords reddit forum, which contains a vault with a lot of tools for extracting the Etherlords 1 & 2 .res files as well as quite a lot of guides. Unfortunately some of this is in russian, so be prepared to get a translator if you can't read it...
As this is a fresh account, i can't post links yet - so they are just in plaintext in this post You can find the post here: www.reddit.com/r/EtherlordsDuology/comments/garysq/searching_for_knowledge/
The most important part is the MagicExtractor and the MagicPacker, especially the MagicPacker el2.dll plugin, which is hard to find. With both tools you can extract the regs.res file into the individual .reg files. The vault also contains a utility for .reg to .ini conversion, which makes it readable and editable in plain text. Unfortunately i can't seem to get it to run under Windows 10 and only the reg2ini tool contained the source code.
For MagicPacker/MagicExtractor, the current versions can be found here:wiki.xentax.com/index.php/Extraction_tools
If somebody manages to rebuild the ini2reg, those tools enable us to easily edit spells and decks in the game, or even add new ones. And as mentioned above, if somebody manages to make a plugin .dll for the Etherlords 1 format, we can do the same for 1.
I hope this helps somebody else, if there are others like me, that want to mod this game but don't know where to start.
Some time ago I started with a friend trying to rewrite Etherlords 2 from scratch in C# and Unity. We got some basic combat logic working, and managed to (partially) extract the game's 3d models, but it's faaaar from done, and kinda frozen since I started working full time recently.
Your approach sounds much more promising tho :D I'll look into the ini2reg converter, as long as there is a spec of the reg format it should not be too hard to write a parser/converter. I'll add you as friend, maybe we can switch to some other communication platform such as discord or maybe steam :)
