The Beginners Tutorials Programme

Description
Introduction into AoE3 modding
Thank to Argalius and BilboBeutlin at HG for there work with the tutorials which tought me how to mod.

\'Modding\' is a usual short word for mod\'ing, modifying - that means changing existing stuff (espec. for games) to get a new outlook, other behavior, adapt on individual requirements or to add new features.

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Modder\'s first rule: Never touch a non-backup\'ed file!
That can\'t be told often enough. A failure in an edited file can ruin the program - if you have no possibility to restore the previous (last running) state, a new installation is required. A backup is nothing else than copying and saving the file(s) to a safe place.

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How to backup files

As mentioned above, a backup is a safety-copy of the whole program or particular, certain files. It is not needed, to backup the whole program directory - though it\'s easy .. and if you have space abounding on harddisk or perhaps a CD/DVD writing drive. But merely the files you\'re actually going to change need a backup.

manually saving the file(s)
For this you use the \'copy and paste\' method from Windows. If you\'re unsure how to use, consider to read the appropriate Windows help. You select a file with left mouseclick (or multiple files with Ctrl-leftclick) within Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), rightclick -> Copy, go to a separate directory (which you perhaps created before) and place the stuff with rightclick -> Paste.
Hint: hotkey for copy is \"Ctrl-c\", for paste \"Ctrl-v\".

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The basic modding tools

1) The most important tool is a text editor

2) For deeper modding you need access to the datas in the .bar files. Though there are some other bar readers, a \'must-have\' is AoE3Ed. For download and usage read carefully the whole topic.
This tool package comes with an ArchiveViewer, which lets you preview and extract certain files. Hint: when unpacking, the user given path + bar file path is used. It\'s recommanded, to unpack to a work directory, not directly into AoE3\'s.
The AoE3Ed FileConverter transforms xmb xml and ddt tga.
The link for it is http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,23622,,all

3)3) For working on the graphics files (like textures or images) you need an image processing software which is capable to handle .tga (Targa) files. Gimp is a good example http://gimp.org/

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Where are the important files?

In a standard installation usually C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Games\\Age Of Empires 3\\
After a fresh installation, most files are write protected = read-only. If you want to change something, you have to delete the read-only flag: right-click on the file, select \'properties\' and disable the \'read only\' flag.

So lets begin start with the proto(x) tutorial