EK2: New Men-At-Arms NO Art mod required patch+manual

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Author: polko

Last revision: 11 Feb, 2023 at 17:24 UTC

File size: 8.39 MB

On Steam Workshop

Description:

Allows use of EK2: New Men-At-Arms mod without use of any of Jimmywhite’s "Art mods" + manual how to make such patches yourself at any time

This patch was made by simply stripping Jimmywhite’s "Submod for EK2 – IMPERIAL ART" down to what necessary for EK2: New Men-At-Arms to play nice aka have all the necessary arts which Jimmywhite hides in different mods for God knows what reason.

This mods doesn’t need updating every time EK2: New Men-At-Arms gets updated (well only if you see some blank art windows) and I highly doubt I will be updating it myself.

However, you can make such patch yourself at any time with minimal hussle using this…

1. You’ll need free and awesome program called WinMerge [winmerge.org](pic 1). Of course you can do all of this by hand, but you aint hating yourself that much, are you?
   
2. You’ll need to be subscribed to Elder Kings 2 , EK2: New Men-At-Arms and Submod for EK2 – IMPERIAL ART on Steam. No worries, you don’t need to include "IMPERIAL ART" into your actual playset, it siply needs to be downloaded on your computer so you can get those files. You can also use any other Jimmywhite’s art submod but be aware of it’s workshop ID, it’s crucial for the process (you can see these IDs right in the workshop page URL, like in pic 2).
   
3. Now you should locate folders for your CK3’s "gfx" folder and corresponding folders in all of these 3 mods, it depends on where on your computer is your Steam installed, but it generally should be like this:

   Game’s folder:
   C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonCrusader Kings IIIgamegfx

   Elder Kings 2’s folder:
   C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent11583102887120253gfx

   Submod for EK2 – IMPERIAL ART’s folder:
   C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent11583102893455918gfx

   EK2: New Men-At-Arms’s folder:
   C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent11583102922050163gfx

   Note that workshop ID of the mod defines its folder in Steam’s directory, so if you want to use this process for other mods, you need to know their IDs.

4. Now magic begins. Open WinMerge, click File->Open, paste your paths to the CK3’s, EK2’s and IMPERIAL ART’s "gfx" folders in this exact order, from top to bottom, so your top would be CK3’s path, then EK2’s path in the middle and ART’s path at the bottom (see pic 3). It’s crucial to not flip this up!
   
5. Click "Compare" at the bottom, wait a couple seconds for comparison to finish.
6. Now click "View" and make sure you have "Show Righ Unique Items" and "Show Binary Files" checked like in pic 4. It’s important! You can and probably should uncheck other setting there tho.
   
7. Now sort the output by "Comparison result". Scroll down to the section of files with "Right only" in "Comparison result" column. It will be closer to the bottom, but not at the very bottom.
8. Create a folder anywhere on your computer and call it whatever you like, it will be used as temporal storage for those art files we are hunting for, lets call it "staging folder".
9. Now you should be somewhat carefull. You’ll need to select almost every file out of that "Right only"ies, but only those, which have such in their "Folder" column:

   interfaceiconsculture_innovations
   interfaceiconsregimenttypes
   interfaceillustrationsmen_at_arms_big
   interfaceillustrationsmen_at_arms_small

   !!!Dont select these!!!:

   interfaceiconscharacter_interactions
   interfaceillustrationsdecisions
   interfaceskinsiberiancomponent_decoration

10. Right click on selected files and choose Copy -> Right to (like on pic 5). Choose that "staging folder" you created earlier.
    
11. Open "staging folder". You should have at least "interface" folder there. Now open EK2: New Men-At-Arms’s "gfx" folder (we located it earlier in step 3, remember?). Paste everything from your "staging folder" into EK2: New Men-At-Arms’s "gfx" folder (like in pic 6).
    
12. PROFIT

Now these files will stay there even if you unsubscribe from the EK2: New Men-At-Arms for whatever reason and will be deleted only if you uninstall CK3 completely.

When using this process for second and later times, dont forget to create new "staging folder" each time.