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Kalaina

29 Mar, 2019 @ 9:36am

Custom challenges and v2 files

I primarily play this game solo, and I really love the challenges. They're a great way to augment the gameplay experience by adjusting rules in interesting ways.

However, I'd really like to be able to tweak these challenges beyond what's already there and try out new things. While this isn't a feature I have any hope of being added, it would be cool if I could mod it in myself.

I've located the challenge files (they're just in /scenarios), which is promising, but unfortunately they're in a ".v2" file format which I think utilizes some nonstandard form of encryption. All the v2 files start with the bytes "1e 77" and I don't know what to do with that.

It's a bit of a long shot to ask here, but can anyone give me some insight on how to open these files?

Update, two years later if anyone stumbles onto this: You can do this now! As of the Nov 2020 update, alongside each .v2 file is a .yaml file. If you delete (aka rename to .v2.bak) the .v2 file, then the game defaults to using the .yaml file instead. YAML is a plaintext format and it's pretty easy to see all the flags they use for the challenges. So if you want to play an ULTRA EPIC GAME, you can! Or if you want to play a game where everything is free (or double cost!), or you just want to play one of the existing challenges with a different number of opponents, etc. You can't do much that the challenges don't already do, but you can freely combine.

Word of warning, if you edit an existing challenge it will track your highscore on your custom challenge in place of the actual challenge, so before you play it make sure to turn off the offline sync in the game and then copy over your profile data (...\Through the Ages\data_ram\profiles\YourName). Doing the entire saves folder is easiest. After you finish, you can restore your save to what it was before, and then you should freely be able to turn the online sync back on without impacting your actual records.

There's probably a more seamless way to actually add challenges rather than just editing existing ones, but this suffices for my purposes.

Last edited by Kalaina; 23 Jun, 2021 @ 4:42pm

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Showing 1-5 of 5 comments

CalvinHobbes has Through the Ages

21 Apr, 2019 @ 9:23pm

I agree that the challenges are a great feature of the game. I play solo all the time, the challenges provide a great deal of play value. I think more strategy games should have this feature.

I believe there is some DLC coming. From what I have read the DLC consists of new cards, which would be great and a must buy for me. Adding new challenges would also be a great feature for the upcoming DLC.

If there are new challenges in the DLC I hope they are at varying difficulty levels. Despite loving the game I'm not that good at it. I can win easy and average challenges but so far the hard level are too much for me (but I intend to keep on trying).

Firnefex 31 Aug, 2019 @ 9:50am

Finally cleared all challenges (spent so much time on this ♥♥♥♥ ^^) and hope they add the same amount in the expansion and also the option to play with different modes in multiplayer instead of just normal all the time...

sAiNtgOtEn has Through the Ages

28 Dec, 2022 @ 3:05pm

omfg thank you so much, it has been doing my head in wondering how to mod this game and why the yaml files do nothing. I've been dying to play the epic game mode but with the updated card ruleset instead of the badly imbalanced old set.