Graphic files

A lot of the graphics you see ingame are editable. Country shields, flags and soldier uniforms are possible to change if you are handy with a graphic editor. I am however not, and will not elaborate on this... But the least I can do is to explain a bit how it works, and provide some links:

There are several types of graphics files, of which the flags and shields are the most commonly edited.:

Flags

The flag files are located in the .\Gfx\Map\Flags folder, and are standard windows bitmap (*.bmp) files. One file for each country, named flag_TAG.bmp (e.g. flag_ENG.bmp for England). The file consist of 25 smaller images, like this:

(etc)

For more information about flag editing see the primer made by James "Mad King" Dahl at his site.

Shields

The shields are located in the .\Gfx\Map\Shields folder, and are standard windows bitmap (*.bmp) files. There are three files for each country, where the main golden shield file is named shield_TAG.bmp (e.g. shield_ENG.bmp for England). In addition to this there is a silver framed shield in the .\Gfx\Map\Shields\silver folder named shieldsilver_TAG.bmp and a small unframed shield in the .\Gfx\Map\Shields\small folder named smallshield_TAG.bmp.

Each file consist of 4 smaller images, like this:

(shield_ENG, 224*57 pixels)

(shieldsilver_ENG, 224*57 pixels)

(smallshield_ENG, 112*28 pixels)

For more information about shield editing see the primer made by James "Mad King" Dahl at his site.

Military units

The army and navy sprites definitions (*.spr files) are located in the .\Gfx\Map\Units folder, with the sprite images in the .\Gfx\Map\Units\bmp folder. The type of uniforms used is defined with a tag in country.csv. Each tag have 44 sprite definitions, 11 for each of the uniform levels:

• Standing
• Walking north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west and northwest (8)
• Fireing northeast and southwest (2)

The four uniform levels are defined in the column nSprite in land.csv. This column defines levels 0-3, which corresponds to 1-4 here. Unless edited the uniforms change at level 11 (renaissance), 31 (war of maneuver) and 51 (revoltiutionary).

The sprite definitions are text files containing information about the graphic files. The names consist of five parts: Type (T), Country (C), Action (A), Direction (D) and Level (L). The order of these parts does not seem to be fixed. If you look at the files you will notice that all the walking sprite definitions for level 4 have a different order than the rest.

Thus, a level 1 army sprite for England marching eastward will have the name T-ARMY C-ENG A-WALK D-E L-1.spr while a French napoleonic (level 4) army standing still is T-ARMY C-FRA A-STAND L-4.spr.

The last file looks like this:

Sprite = {
   Bitmap = "T-ARMY C-FRA A-STAND L-4.bmp"
   Origin = { x = 8 y = 48 }
   Frames = 12
   palette = "armypalette 2.bmp"
   Speed = 10
   }

I will not try to explain much about this, but the bitmap filename must point to a valid bitmap file in the folder .\Gfx\Map\Units\bmp.

Links

Here are some places you should visit:

Jeremy McGuinn The original EU mod graphics artist	Mad King James Shields and flags, templates to create your own set of shields and flags	Paradox Entertainment Graphics forum

More flags and shields by:

Birger Jarl	Fate	Korath	Leprechaun	Sylvain d'Anjou	Txini