Custom Start Date Patch / ArtMoney Development Thread

[nino33]

Bravo to everyone who is figuring this out!

Amen!

To complicated for me

Amen!

[B. Stinson]

I tired setting the date to 1974 and not using real players, but it didn't work

That would have been really cool if it worked and generated players of the appropriate age.

[nino33]

I tired setting the date to 1974 and not using real players, but it didn't work

Did you start with an age modified db? Otherwise all players would be in their 40s and 50s and 60s and the game may have a hard time with that....

and generated players of the appropriate age.

I wonder if ongoing player generation might be an additional hurdle...

How about going back to 2000? I've been thinking of a db going back to when the NHL first expanded to the current (hardcoded) 30 teams...

[archibalduk]

Excellent news: I used your table of 25 values, and three consecutive tests were successful in getting through October 1st.

This was with a normal-sized 3.0.4 default database, and only the NHL selected.

Fantastic!

I'm going to try it with just those thirteen 00C addresses tonight to see what happens (hopefully this will allow it to work with any/all playable leagues selected). If I can successfully get past two season with all leagues selected then I'll write a patch and will upload it here with instructions for everybody. The patch will make it very easy for anybody even without any technical knowledge to alter the start date.

ArtMoney seems to allow comments to be added to each address and so I'll add comments to the patch - this might make it seem a little less imposing.

I tired setting the date to 1974 and not using real players, but it didn't work

That would have been really cool if it worked and generated players of the appropriate age.

I wonder if the wrong DOBs upset EHM (we can just adjust them in the Pre Game Editor). Another possible issue is that a historic start date will pre-date the player career and league histories in the game. I wonder how EHM would handle this? Would it overwrite the histories or would it simply crash???

Wow, have you tried changing just 00C69BFE?

I just started a game now, and accidentally searched in ArtMoney at the start screen, rather than after starting a new game. 00C69BFE was the only hit within 00C00000 - 00CFFFFF, and I wondered what if I change just this. It did change the date to 2010, but it I also spit out a 70-game NHL schedule, all crammed into three months. The season runs from August 4th to October 15th

It seems to have also obliterated the rosters, too, as most teams barely have enough for a full line. Many don't have any players at all - just "grays".

Wow! I've searched using ArtMoney at the start screen before too. I found that changing 007D11C0 affects the start year but it also changes the actual league starting date - e.g. it changed North America to 1 Sept (whereas it should be 30 Aug). I also found that changing 007C99DA ticks the "use fantasy draft" box when you go to the New Game Screen.

If you don't restrict the range of addresses you search you'll see there's actually only 179 instances of 2006. I changed each of these in batches of 20 the other day and that's how I found those two codes beginning 007.

Congrats. I keep promising Arch I'll post my hex knowledge but I never end up doing it '-.-, but this is really cool. If I remember, I'll post the named directories and areas of where you can make changes to roster rules sometime tonight or tomorrow (it's really easy). The changes never take place for a year though, so you have to wait a bit .

That'll be really useful - thank you! If we can change league rules using ArtMoney then we won't have to worry about poking around inside the exe. Also, we could create patches to include with roster updates that update the relevant league rules.

If we could swap league rules and change the scheduling using ArtMoney, I wonder if we could switch playable leagues (e.g. replace a league with a non-playable league)... Probably quite ambitious but you never know.

[archibalduk]

It seems we're not quite there in respect of getting every single league to work. I've tried selecting all leagues on Standard and with the NHL and Great Britain to Enhanced. I've set the start date to that of Great Britain's (as it's the earliest in the game) and used ArtMoney to set the year to 2010.

I've tried the following three configurations:
- Setting the 25 00C addresses as detailed in my recent post;
- Setting the 13 00C addresses that appear to correspond to a nation;
- Setting 27 of the 29 00C addresses (I set all but the first two addresses - 00C69BFE and 00C6A848).

Each time, I get two errors when halfway through starting the game. Firstly I get "v3.0.4 fin_suomi.cpp 1333" and then straight after I get "v3.0.4 fin_suomi.cpp 1559" and then it crashes.

More experimentation required...

[B. Stinson]

I got that fin_suomi.cpp 1333, too. I think that was when I tried the 25 addresses, and started a game with all leagues selected.

Did you start with an age modified db? Otherwise all players would be in their 40s and 50s and 60s and the game may have a hard time with that....

I used the default 3.0.4. My hope, though, was that un-ticking "use real players" would generate players with appropriate birth-dates. I'm not sure how this feature generates players, though - the players come up in the game as if they were regens, but a lot of their info is still loosely based on the real players.

[archibalduk]

I got that fin_suomi.cpp 1333, too. I think that was when I tried the 25 addresses, and started a game with all leagues selected..

I'm going to go through league by league to see what does and doesn't work.

When I hadn't narrowed it down to just the 00C addresses (and I was getting the 1 Oct error) I could select all leagues (other than the ECHL - which would cause it to crash without any error) without getting any such error message.

I used the default 3.0.4. My hope, though, was that un-ticking "use real players" would generate players with appropriate birth-dates. I'm not sure how this feature generates players, though - the players come up in the game as if they were regens, but a lot of their info is still loosely based on the real players.

All the "use real players" box does is randomise player names. It doesn't change any other data (i.e. DOBs, nationalities, attributes, etc all remain the same).

[visualdarkness]

I can just barely understand anything you talk about but it's really awesome. Though I don't find this more than a niche solution that won't do anything or us a bit more stupid. I still hope that SI sometime gives the permission to crack the game or release an open source version. One can dream!

[archibalduk]

Right, the solution I posted earlier doesn't quite work. If you look at the news item announcing the new schedule it mentions the 2014/15 (despite the fact that I set the start year to 2010). Also, if you look at the NHL records it also mentions 2014/15 instead of 2010/11.

I've done a number of tests which I've summarised in the table below. A "Y" means that I changed that value to 2010 whereas a blank means I just left it as default. Below the table there is a summary of each test to say what did and didn't work.

The reason I've been concentrating on 00C6A8C4 and 00C6A8D0 because I think these are both related to the North American start date.

[table][tr][th][/th][th]Test 1[/th][th]Test 2[/th][th]Test 3[/th][th]Test 4[/th][th]Test 5[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]00C69BFE[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A848[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A854[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A886[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A892[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A8C4[/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A8D0[/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A902[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A90E[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A940[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A94C[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A97E[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A98A[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A9BC[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A9C8[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A9FA[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA06[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA38[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA44[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA76[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA82[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAB4[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAC0[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAF2[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAFE[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB30[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB3C[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB6E[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB7A[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td]Y[/td][td]Y[/td][/tr][/table]

Test 1
The news item announcing the new season schedule referred to 2014/15 - as did the NHL league records. However, the player career history correctly listed the 2010/11 season. Calendar dates correctly said 2010 however.
The game seemed to progress slowly but went back to normal speed around late Sept / early Oct.

Test 2
The news item announcing the new season schedule referred to 2014/15 - as did the NHL league records. However, the player career history correctly listed the 2010/11 season. Calendar dates correctly said 2010 however.

Test 3
No problem with the dates (i.e. no reference to 2014/15). However it crashed on 1 October.

Test 4
The news item announcing the new season schedule referred to 2014/15 - as did the NHL league records. However, the player career history correctly listed the 2010/11 season. Calendar dates correctly said 2010 however.

Test 5
The news item announcing the new season schedule referred to 2014/15 - as did the NHL league records. However, the player career history correctly listed the 2010/11 season. Calendar dates correctly said 2010 however.


General Observations
Once the game had been successfully created and you've added GMs, I noticed that some of the values that I changed to 2010 changed to a new value (this didn't seem to happen if I left the values to their original 2006):

00C6A8C4: 2010 -> 50333658
00C6A8D0: 2010 -> 251660251

I think this may have happened to all of 2010 values between 00C6A8C4 to 00C6AB7A - I cannot remember off the top of my head. I wonder what would happen if rather than changing the values to 2010, I used 50333658 and 251660251 instead...

Regardless of whether or not I changed them, I noticed that the following addresses changed upon the game being successfully created:

00C6A848: 2006 -> 16779226
00C6A854: 2006 -> 16779226

Another interesting point is that upon the game being generated, the value in 00C69BFE would change to 2010 without me doing anything.

[archibalduk]

Sorry for constantly posting in this thread. It's just that I'm posting things as I find them so as not to forget them and also in case they are helpful to Brian and any others poking around using ArtMoney.

If in ArtMoney you click on Process -> Process Map, it seems to show which addresses relate to what. It indicates that 0040000 through to 01431000 relate to ehm2007.exe. I wonder if it's within that range that we should be concentrating.

Searching within this range for "2006" brings up 198 addresses.

[visualdarkness]

Even though I don't understand most of the things, I find this extremely interesting. Keep posting!

[archibalduk]

I mentioned above that some of the addresses changed from 2010 to other values once the new game had started; for example 00C6A8C4 becomes 50333658. Well I started a new vanilla 06/07 game (i.e. I didn't change any values when the game was loading) and these changing numbers are four less than when I changed the start date to 2010. Clearly 2010 minus 2006 = 4. Thus it looks like there is some sort of direct relationship.

Below I've made a table showing the values for each address when you start a new vanilla 06/07 game with every league selected as Enhanced. In the right hand column I've added 4 to each value which I think might be what we need to use:

[table][tr][th][/th][th]2006[/th][th]2010[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A848[/td][td]16779222[/td][td]16779226[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A854[/td][td]16779222[/td][td]16779226[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A886[/td][td]100665302[/td][td]100665306[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A892[/td][td]234883031[/td][td]234883035[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A8C4[/td][td]50333654[/td][td]50333658[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A8D0[/td][td]251660247[/td][td]251660251[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A902[/td][td]251660246[/td][td]251660250[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A90E[/td][td]234883031[/td][td]234883035[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A940[/td][td]251660246[/td][td]251660250[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A94C[/td][td]234883031[/td][td]234883035[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A97E[/td][td]16779222[/td][td]16779226[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A98A[/td][td]503318487[/td][td]503318491[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A9BC[/td][td]251660246[/td][td]251660250[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A9C8[/td][td]301991895[/td][td]301991899[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A9FA[/td][td]335546326[/td][td]335546330[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA06[/td][td]234883031[/td][td]234883035[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA38[/td][td]251660246[/td][td]251660250[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA44[/td][td]503318487[/td][td]503318491[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA76[/td][td]436209622[/td][td]436209626[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AA82[/td][td]503318487[/td][td]503318491[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAB4[/td][td]201328598[/td][td]201328602[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAC0[/td][td]503318487[/td][td]503318491[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAF2[/td][td]167774166[/td][td]167774170[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AAFE[/td][td]251660247[/td][td]251660251[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB30[/td][td]251660246[/td][td]251660250[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB3C[/td][td]234883031[/td][td]234883035[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB6E[/td][td]134219734[/td][td]134219738[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6AB7A[/td][td]301991895[/td][td]301991899[/td][/tr][/table]

Now that seems like a crazy list of meaningless numbers, but it seems all you need to worry about are the two numbers that relate to each active league. So if you're just loading the NHL then all you need to worry about is:

[table][tr][th][/th][th]2006[/th][th]2010[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A8C4[/td][td]50333654[/td][td]50333658[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00C6A8D0[/td][td]251660247[/td][td]251660251[/td][/tr][/table]

Although you can use those numbers, it doesn't seem to make any difference to simply using 2010. I still get the weird mentions of 2014/15 when I've set the start date to 2010/11. However, I've found a couple of references which appear to be relevant:

[table][tr][td]00DFB4D9[/td][td]2014[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]00E97419[/td][td]2015[/td][/tr][/table]
I wonder if I can change them to 2010 and 2011 respectively before I start the game...

Even though I don't understand most of the things, I find this extremely interesting. Keep posting!

Oh don't worry, I will!

[archibalduk]

Excellent news: I used your table of 25 values, and three consecutive tests were successful in getting through October 1st.

This was with a normal-sized 3.0.4 default database, and only the NHL selected.

Seems my table of 25 values doesn't work afterall. I've been experimenting editing the 25 values and editing just a few of the 25 values but I keep running into two problems:

1) Parts of the game refer to the wrong season. For example, if I set the start date as 2010 then parts of the game refer to the 2014/15 season - in particular if you look at the league records it records the 2010/11 records as taking place in 2014/15. Also, there's the news item you get announcing the new season's schedule at the beginning of a new game; this also refers to 2014/15. There's also the NHL League Overview screen which provides an overview of the schedule - this refers to dates in 2014 and 2015 rather than 2010 and 2015.

If I set the start date to 2011 then the aforementioned examples refer to 2016/17.

The anomaly seems to reflect the amount by which you change the start year. E.g. if you set the start year as 2010 (i.e. four years after the original 2006 start year) then the aforementioned examples refer to the season four years after the 2010/11 season (i.e. 2014/15). If I set the start year as 2011 (i.e. five years after 2006) then it refers to the 2016/17 season which is five years after 2011/12.

2) Unfortunately the game crashes towards the end of April (IIRC it's the 28th April). This is midway through the Playoffs.

When I look back at the one game where I got the NHL fully working (the saved game I uploaded recently and posted in this thread) I can see that I didn't encounter any of the errors mentioned above. One thing I did notice is that it appears in my saved game that the NHL season commences on 9 October (at least it does in 2012/13 - the third season of the sim) whereas normally in EHM it starts on 4 Oct (or at least it does in 2006/07).

I mentioned before that if you change 007D11C0 to 2010 (or whatever start year you want) when you're on the opening Main Menu screen (before you click on the New Game button) it modifies the start year. However, it also changes the actual starting date (e.g. the North America start date changes from 30 Aug to 1 Sept). It also seems to change the first round of games in the NHL season to 9 Oct (similar to the successful game I mentioned in the paragraph above). Unfortunately the game crashes on 1 Oct. However I do remember that for my successful saved game I didn't change any values on the Main Menu screen (I did it all from the New Game screen).

The reason I mention this similarity between my successful game and the 007D11C0 modification method is because I've just created a new game in EHM by modifying a wider range of addresses than just the OOC values and it has changed the first round of NHL games to 9 October. This is likely to be a good sign. In addition, I haven't encountered mention of the wrong season anywhere (i.e. like problem number 1 in the red text above) and I've managed to get past 1 Oct without issue. Currently the game is simming through the 2010/11 season (I'm in mid February 2011 at the moment). If I can get past April 2011 and complete the season then I may just have figured it out (for the NHL at least)...

[archibalduk]

The new game is going well (no crashes as of mid August 2011 - the beginning the of the second season). However, I noticed as the game results flashed past the screen some rather unusual teams playing in the World Champs such as Aruba and Afghanistan... Seems the game has taken the first 16 nations in the alphabet and added them to the competition!!!



It seems in amongst the values I changed there were some that affected the World Champs; thereby creating a rather twisted world of international hockey!

Still, it's great that I've managed to generate an almost bug-free game now. I'm going to try and create a further game with the NHL selected to ensure that this success wasn't a one-off. Then I'll look at fixing the issue with the World Champs as well as getting the other leagues to work.

This is certainly a step in the right direction.

[archibalduk]

The test game successfully started the second season. I'll try a new game just to check that it works.

I mentioned before that the NHL season seems to commence on 9th Oct rather than 4th Oct. Actually it does start on 4th Oct - it's just that the NHL League Overview states that it begins on 9th Oct...

[archibalduk]

I've made quite a lot of progress today. I've managed to change the start date for all leagues other than the ECHL and can simulate past the 1 Oct. In case anybody would like to test this out, I've uploaded the first beta version of my Custom Start Date Patch (aka CSD Patch) to this post along with instructions (see below).

Here's a list of the current issues which I'll now be working on resolving:

• Selecting the ECHL causes the game to crash when creating the game;
• For many of the leagues, the League Overview screen incorrectly states the season start date. This appears to be purely cosmetic as the seasons still start on the correct date.
• The teams in the World Championships have been mixed up. It seems to select the first 16 nations of the alphabet (e.g. Afghanistan, American Samoa, Antigua, etc).
• I encountered a crash whilst testing the Finnish league when I clicked on Game Log from a player's profile screen. I need to investigate this further. It might have been simply because I should have quit EHM after starting the game and then restarted EHM. The Game Log worked when I tested in a different league.
• I haven't yet tested whether it's possible to add post 2005/06 player career history via the Pre Game Editor.

Before downloading the patch, please keep in mind that I'm only providing this for TESTING PURPOSES. I cannot guarantee the stability of any game you create. This is a work in progress and I will be working at further refining it. Thus far I have been able to successfully holiday sim through to the second season of the NHL. I haven't however tried testing quite this far into the season for any of the other leagues (I have only simmed all of the other leagues as far as early October). I have also only tested changing the starting year to 2010 (but plan on now trying it with 2011). With this in mind, download the attached file and follow the instructions below:

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Download and install ArtMoney (you just need the freeware special edition): http://www.artmoney.ru/e_download.htm

2) Download the attached CSD Patch file. For ease of use you may want to save it to your ArtMoney\Tables folder (but it doesn't matter where you save it).

3) Run ArtMoney with Admin Privileges. To set admin privileges, right-click on the shortcut to ArtMoney (or the ArtMoney exe itself), click on the Compatibility tab and tick the box entitled "Run this program as an administrator". ArtMoney won't load EHM if you don't run with Admin Privileges. When you load ArtMoney, it'll display a splash screen advertising the Pro version, just click on the Continue button to ignore this.

4) Load EHM and click on the usual New Game button so that you're presented with the list of leagues to choose.

5) In ArtMoney, click on the drop down menu near the top of the screen entitled "Select Process" (click on the downwards arrow button and not the "..." button) and select EHM from the list (it'll be something like "NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007 - 3.0.4").

6) In ArtMoney, click on the Load button at the bottom of the window and select the CSD Patch file (and obviously click on the Open button to open it). This will load the relevant addresses in the right hand column.

7) Click on Edit -> Select all. This will select all of the addresses listed in the right hand column.

8) Click on Edit -> Set value. This will bring up the Set Value pop-up window.

9) In the Set Value pop-up window there are two boxes. In the Value box enter the start year you would like (e.g. 2011). In the Step box enter 0 (zero). Then click on OK.

10) In EHM, select the leagues you would like and choose whether you want to use real player names, attribute masking, etc. Note that the "Game Start Date" setting at the bottom of the Start New Game screen might still say 2006 but this doesn’t matter. The “Game Start Date” doesn't update unless you modify your choice of leagues or change the fantasy draft / use real player names / fog of war tick boxes. It doesn't matter whether the setting at the bottom does or does not update - it'll still work either way.

11) In EHM, click on OK to start your new game. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems as though the game loads slightly slowler than normal. I guess this is because ArtMoney is monitoring the data in the RAM. Just be patient and it’ll get there. Once you have created your game and exited ArtMoney you’ll find that it runs at normal speed.

12) Once the game has loaded, add however many General Managers you want. Click on Finish to finish adding GMs and this will take you to the News Front Page screen. EHM will prompt you to save your game - save your game as you usually would.

13) Exit ArtMoney.

14) Do NOT exit EHM until the game has reached 1 October of the first season. If you do then it is likely you will encounter a crash on 1 October of the first season. I'll investigate a possible solution to this.

15) Once you have reached 1 Oct you are able to exit EHM. When you reload your game, you do NOT need to run ArtMoney (you only need ArtMoney when you want to create a new game).


OPTIONAL:

Before testing out the CSD Patch, you might want to make a new copy of the Lidas v3.2 Rosters in your EHM database folder. Then open your copy of the rosters using the Pre Game Editor and change all of the players' years of birth so that they are correct. To do this, click on Tools -> Change all staff ages, enter 5 into the pop-up window, and then save the database (make sure you run the Editor with Admin Privileges otherwise your changes may not be saved).

I've attached below an amended extra_config.cfg for use with the Lidas 3.2 rosters when testing the CSD Patch. The changes I've made to the file are to correct all of the dates of the draft switches, future transfers, cap penalties, etc. Please note that this is entirely optional.

[YZG]

This, gentleman, is what I call an awesome job

I've recently started working on a fantasy database that attempts to predict what the hockey world could be like in 2050. Needless to say, the progresses made here are very pertinent to my work...

- YZG

[Alessandro]

Archi, congrats (did you get my mail btw?) I will try this in the next couple of days among the modifications we did so to have a wider sample.
Thanks!!

[archibalduk]

Archi, congrats (did you get my mail btw?) I will try this in the next couple of days among the modifications we did so to have a wider sample.
Thanks!!

I got your mail this morning. Thank you! Once I've finished work on the start date, I'll take a look at those league rules.

[archibalduk]

So the patch isn't working anymore. It's crashing on 1 Oct. I'm completely stumped; I had quite a number of test games yesterday which successfully went beyon 1 Oct.

I'll keep on experimenting...

[archibalduk]

The solution to prevent the crash is to not quit EHM until after the game reaches 1 Oct. I'll update the instructions in my earlier post.

I'll see if there's a work-around using ArtMoney (perhaps the patch has to be reapplied if you want to exit EHM and reload the game before 1 Oct of the first season)...

[Tasku]

Good to see progress is being made! Keep doing what you're doing!

[archibalduk]

After some extensive experimenting today, I have refined and improved the CSD Patch.I have attached version 0.02 beta to this post for testing. I have tried a test season with v0.02 using just the NHL and with a start year of 2011 without any difficulties (I've simmed as far as January 2012).

I've put together a new set of information which includes a changelist, the usual disclaimer, a list of issues and some slightly updated instructions. If you're interested in testing this then please read below:


Version 0.02 Beta


Disclaimer / Warning

Before downloading the patch, please keep in mind that I'm only providing this for TESTING PURPOSES. I cannot guarantee the stability of any game you create. This is a work in progress and I will be working at further refining it. Thus far I have been able to successfully holiday sim through to the second season of the NHL. I haven't however tried testing quite this far into the season for any of the other leagues.


Changelist

Version 0.20 beta

• Number of addresses in the .AMT file have been reduced from 198 in version 0.01 to 104;
• The game no longer crashes when viewing a player's Game Log in the Player Profile Screen (this was only an issue upon starting the game and seemed to resolve itself once you have quit EHM and reloaded the game);
• The NHL League Overview screen no longer states that the Eastern Conference Playoffs Quarter Final will take place on 4 October five years later than it should (this appeared only to be a cosmetic issue).

Issues / Bugs

The list below merely lists the issues that I have encountered during testing. If you find an issue or bug whilst testing that isn't on the list below then please let me know. I am working on resolving the issues identified below.

• The game crashes on 1 October of the first season if you quit the game before this date;
• Selecting the ECHL when creating a new game causes a crash;
• When setting the start year 2011 it is not possible to view Player Profile screens until you exit and restart EHM (but this is not an issue when setting the start year to 2010);
• No testing has been done to check that v0.02 is compatible with leagues other than the NHL (although I've checked that the ECHL still causes a crash). However v0.01 was compatible with all leagues other than the ECHL (but I haven't simmed beyond early October for any leagues other than the NHL);
• The teams in the World Championships have become mixed up. EHM simply selects the first 16 nations of the alphabet for the competition.
• The number of addresses included in the .AMT file could most likely be reduced further. I am currrently testing each address to check whether it is essential.

It seems as though the game progresses more slowly through September of the first season than usual (but perhaps I'm wrong). Let me know if you agree with this.


Instructions

1) Download and install ArtMoney (you just need the freeware special edition): http://www.artmoney.ru/e_download.htm

2) Download the attached CSD Patch file. For ease of use you may want to save it to your ArtMoney\Tables folder (but it doesn't matter where you save it).

3) Run ArtMoney with Admin Privileges. To set admin privileges, right-click on the shortcut to ArtMoney (or the ArtMoney exe itself), click on the Compatibility tab and tick the box entitled "Run this program as an administrator". ArtMoney won't load EHM if you don't run with Admin Privileges. When you load ArtMoney, it'll display a splash screen advertising the Pro version, just click on the Continue button to ignore this.

4) Load EHM and click on the usual New Game button so that you're presented with the list of leagues to choose.

5) In ArtMoney, click on the Load button at the bottom of the window and select the CSD Patch file (and obviously click on the Open button to open it). This will load the relevant addresses in the right hand column.

6) Click on Edit -> Select all. This will select all of the addresses listed in the right hand column.

7) Click on Edit -> Set value. This will bring up the Set Value pop-up window.

8) In the Set Value pop-up window there are two boxes. In the Value box enter the start year you would like (e.g. 2011). In the Step box enter 0 (zero). Then click on OK.

9) In EHM, select the leagues you would like and choose whether you want to use real player names, attribute masking, etc. Note that the "Game Start Date" setting at the bottom of the Start New Game screen might still say 2006 but this doesn’t matter. The “Game Start Date” doesn't update unless you modify your choice of leagues or change the fantasy draft / use real player names / fog of war tick boxes. It doesn't matter whether the setting at the bottom does or does not update - it'll still work either way.

10) In EHM, click on OK to start your new game. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems as though the game loads slightly slower than normal. I guess this is because ArtMoney is monitoring the data in the RAM. Just be patient and it’ll get there. Once you have created your game and exited ArtMoney you’ll find that it runs at normal speed.

11) Once the game has loaded, add however many General Managers you want. Click on Finish to finish adding GMs and this will take you to the News Front Page screen. EHM will prompt you to save your game - save your game as you usually would.

12) Exit ArtMoney.

13) Do NOT exit EHM until the game has reached 1 October of the first season. If you do then it is likely you will encounter a crash on 1 October of the first season. I'll investigate a possible solution to this.

14) Once you have reached 1 Oct you are able to exit EHM. When you reload your game, you do NOT need to run ArtMoney (you only need ArtMoney when you want to create a new game).


OPTIONAL:

Before testing out the CSD Patch, you might want to make a new copy of the Lidas v3.2 Rosters in your EHM database folder. Then open your copy of the rosters using the Pre Game Editor and change all of the players' years of birth so that they are correct. To do this, click on Tools -> Change all staff ages, enter 5 into the pop-up window, and then save the database (make sure you run the Editor with Admin Privileges otherwise your changes may not be saved).

I've created an amended extra_config.cfg (click here to download) for use with the Lidas 3.2 rosters when testing the CSD Patch. The changes I've made to the file are to correct all of the dates of the draft switches, future transfers, cap penalties, etc. Please note that this is entirely optional.

[JakeTheSnake]

Oh man! I've been away for a while and coming back to browse the forums i find this?!
Fantastic work so far and good luck with it!

[archibalduk]

I've just be checking out a standard game of EHM (i.e. unmodified and starting in the 06/07 season). It seems the NHL League Overview Screen erroneously states that the season starts on 9 Oct 2006 (whereas the actual schedule starts on 4 Oct). So it's not my patch that's causing this - it's a pre-existing "issue" in EHM.