EasyTech Engine Editor

A visual editor for the native engine of EasyTech strategy games: add and edit general skills, unit perks and engine behaviour without hex editing.

EasyTech games keep most of their rules inside one native library (libworld-conqueror-4.so, libiron.so), not in the json files. The json tables only hold numbers; what a skill does is code. This editor reads that code, shows where each skill, perk and effect is implemented, lets you add new ones, and writes the result into a mod package.

By ReactionaryGod. Companion to the EasyTech BTL Editor (battle maps). Pick the game in the top bar; both live in the same window.

What it does

World Conqueror 4 (1.30.0)

WC4 hard-codes each general skill and unit perk in the damage code (a switch case per Type). The editor therefore extends the engine itself:

• New skill and perk Types. The engine's tables stopped at skill Type 191 and perk Type 166; anything higher overwrote other memory. A code cave (+64 KiB, new .bss tables) lifts the limit to Type 511.
• "Behaves like". A custom skill can also trigger the hard-coded effect of existing skills (it keeps its own name, icon, levels and numbers). A custom perk can run an existing perk's behaviour.
• Stat effects for any skill or perk: crit chance, crit damage, defence, mobility, attack %, max HP %, range, limited to unit classes.
• Engine usage list: every place the engine checks a given Type, one click from the code browser.
• Existing known patches (challenge-conquest caps, Mysterious Forces picker, General Bank seats, data-driven elite-skin effects) as switches.

Glory of Generals 3

GoG3 is data-driven: a skill or perk is a list of buffs (condition, chance, effect Type, value, range, chained buff). Conditions are defined in config/def_buff.xml; only each effect Type is code. So most new content needs no code:

• Skills, perks, buffs, conditions: create, edit, clone, delete; assign to generals and units; names and texts in all 5 languages; icons (new ones go into their own atlas, registered in image_resource.xml).
• Conditions: build new ones with AND / OR / NOT over the 73 shipped conditions.
• Buff types: all 67 Types the engine implements (including 15 that no game data uses yet), what each does, and the code address of each, decoded from libiron.so.

Both

• Code browser: functions, strings, disassembly, cross references, "original" vs "built" library, and an assemble-and-patch panel (keystone) that records patches in the project.
• Safe builds: always start from the original library, verify every patch site against the expected instructions, back up replaced files, append to CHANGES.txt.

Run it

python -m venv .venv && .venv\Scripts\pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv\Scripts\python app.py            # or run.bat

The app lists the projects it knows in the top bar. On first start it looks for:

• a WC4 mod package under ..\mods\<name>\ (a folder with assets\, lib\, stringtables);
• a GoG3 folder named by the GOG3_DIR environment variable (the unpacked APK: assets\, lib\).

Or open any package directly: python app.py path\to\package. A package keeps its settings in engine_project.json:

{ "game": "wc4",
  "paths": { "base_so": "...\\lib\\arm64-v8a\\libworld-conqueror-4.so",
             "assets": "...\\assets", "backups": "...\\backups" } }

base_so must be the original library from the APK; the editor writes its output into the package, never over the original.

How it is built

Part	What
wc4engine/elf.py, arm64.py	ELF64 editor (segment growth), capstone + keystone wrappers
wc4engine/framework.py	the WC4 engine extension: ~2 KB of hand-written AArch64, 39 hook sites
wc4engine/catalog.py, gog3/catalog.py	where each skill / perk / buff Type is implemented
wc4engine/rtti.py	C++ RTTI: class names to vtables to virtual functions
wc4engine/gog3/	GoG3 data model, buff conditions, buff types
wc4engine/gamedata.py, atlas.py	format-preserving json / stringtable / atlas I/O
wc4engine/ui/	the Flet screens

Details: docs/wc4-engine-extension.md, docs/gog3-engine.md.

Tests

They need the (unpacked) game files, which are not in this repository. Set WC4_BASE_SO / WC4_GAME_DIR and GOG3_DIR, then:

python tests/test_framework.py              # emulates the new WC4 routines (Unicorn), incl. the engine's own max-HP routine
python tests/test_build.py <scratch dir>    # WC4 end-to-end build into a scratch package
python tests/test_gog3.py  <scratch dir>    # GoG3 data model; deleting everything restores the original bytes

Status: the engine extension is verified by emulation and by byte-level checks, not yet by playing the game on a device. Treat WC4 builds as experimental until you have tested them in game.

Adding another EasyTech game

The games share one engine design; only the library name and the data tables differ. A new game needs: a Game entry in projects.py, a project class like gog3/project.py (paths, patches, build), a data store like gog3/store.py, and a catalog of where its skills/buffs are implemented (rtti.py + switch decoding in catalog.py do most of that work).

Legal

An independent modding tool. It contains no game code or assets; you supply your own copy of the game. Not affiliated with EasyTech.