Introduction
Don’t be shy to try things out. It took me a while to get where I’m now, and I’m still nowhere really. I’ve done many test to find things out the hard way, since there is virtually no information available on how to mod Cossacks. Over 4 million copies sold, and maybe many more but no modding information is just a sad story. The only tutorial on modding was written by the Cossacks Engineer Brigade, and that was in the time of The Art of War and was only like 2 or 3 pages. Meanwhile that site is no longer maintained and active.
I’ve been playing the game since it came out, and must admit, frankly have no idea why I never tried this earlier. Modding Cossacks is actually fun. Perhaps I’ve only come to a level of computer-knowledge today that only now I’m able to do so and understand what’s going on. I’ve played many games in my younger days and there aren’t many that I still play. Cossacks is one of them. I’v created many maps , scenario’s and modified many other games, just to see if I can…, but never done really a lot for Cossacks. So let’s change that today.
When I’m writing this I’m still learning and find out how it works. I hope all the tests, and information I have written down will be useful either to myself , or perhaps to someone else, and perhaps a new mod will come out that is actually played online !!!
Just browse trough the different submenu's to see how you can mod cossacks.
General modding hints & tips
Know your game. It will come in handy to quicker understand the relation between file's and entries.
Play some mods. See how other people have done things, what is possible,...It is a great learning school.
Read a lot. You never have enough information.
Try out things. Don't be shy, you will learn more from your mistake's then anything else.
Don't copy & paste, but write your own entries. This will make you think and understand what you are doing.
Don't be shy to ask questions. It is not the questions that are silly but often the answers. We all have to learn everything.
Don't try to run before you can walk. Do small changes at the time and test often. This will help you to narrow down possible problems and errors.
If you do your modifications with loving care and dedication, you are bound to succeed.
Work on a copy of your installation to avoid having to reinstall your game(s).
Back up your modifications frequently. I'v had too many computer and drive crashes to make this mistake again. Different drives, dvd & cd RW's, internet sites, anything goes...
Do not publish to soon, but test properly and get feedback.
But above all, get organized. Clean up your desktop, it is your working space, you don't need those 999 shortcuts to everything anyway. Instead put your most frequent used programms in your taskbar.