Welcome to the EEC Hacker User Guide. This document explains how to install the editor, and how to use the program.
1. Installation Instructions.
Download the main setup program from my website http://www.tumelty.com/blog/post/2003/01/EEC-Hacker.aspx
Unzip the file using winzip or your favourite zip program. Run the setup.exe file, and follow the on-screen instructions.
2. Using The Program
If you downloaded the full version of the program, you should have an icon to run the program on your Start Menu. If not, go to the directory you installed the program to, and double click the executable.
When the program is loaded, you need to do the following :-
- Firstly, you need to tell the program where the nation.dat file is. Championship Manager uses this file to store information about the Nations in the game. You can do this by clicking on the "Load Nation" button. Using the file dialog box, change directory to your CM3 directory. There should be a dir called "data", inside data you can find the nation.dat file. Double click on the file to open it up
- After the file has loaded, you will be given a list of all the countries. A tick next to the country indicates that that country is marked as being in the EEC.
- Adjust the ticks as necessary, or click on "make all countries EEC" to patch all countries.
- Click on the Patch Nations.dat button to write the changes to the disc. Although this program has been tested, it might be worthwhile taking a backup of the file just in case.
- If you get an error about a Runtime File/Path access error, you can either download the patch from my website, or change the properties of the nation.dat file, and untick the read-only check.
- Thats it, start a new game and all the countries you selected will now be patched. Have fun.
3. Frequently Asked Questions
3.1 How do I uninstall the program?
EECHacker has a standard uninstallation program. Click Start, Control Panel., Add/Remove Programs, select EEC Hacker, and click uninstall.
3.2 When I try to patch the nation.dat file, I get an error message saying something about File/Access error.
This problem was fixed with version 1.3. You can download the executable from the page above, it's only about 14k. Copy the new executable into either the same directory as the original program, or your CM9900 directory.
3.3 Hang on, this program doesn't do anything that you can't do in other editors
Point taken, if you want to go through every country in the game, and change all the fields seperately, you are more than welcome :)
3.4 It doesn't work
Honestly it does, start a new game for the changes to take affect
3.5 Does making all these teams European, mess up the European Championships?
No, there are countries that aren't part of the EEC, that play in the European Championships (i.e. Romania). I believe the game uses the nations governing body (i.e. UEFA etc.) to work out which teams are eligible for the European Championships.
3.6 Why???????
Depending on which league you usually play, you may or may not be aware of the foreigners rule imposed on nations in the EEC. Basically, if you have any players in your squad that were born outside of the EEC, you need a work permit for them. This has several repercussions.
- When buying new players, they will only be granted a work permit if they are established internationals. Very very rarely, a player of exceptional ability may get a work permit, but I have never seen this in the game.
- If you have a non EEC player in your squad sitting on the bench, after a while, he will become ineligible to play for you because his work permit will expire. You therefore may have a multi-million pound player sitting in your reserves.
This program lets you make whichever countries you like be part of the EEC, therefore removing the problems listed above. You can sign any player from anywhere in the world (if you have the money) and get a work permit for them. There are some very good players in South America if you have a look about. Usually, these players will not be available becuase they are not internationals, therefore would not have got a work permit. Also, you will not have to worry about playing players that are non EEC just so they will keep their work permit.
The main reason I wrote this program is because as a Middlesbrough fan, I found it really annoying having to bring Hamilton Ricard on for the last 5 minutes of every game just so he will have enough appearances to keep his permit. With this program, a simple tick on Colombia solves this problem :)
Thanks for downloading this program. If you have a question that I have not covered, feel free to contact me via ICQ or email and I will do my best to help.
This program comes with no guarantees. Although this program has been thorougly tested and virus checked, it is used at your own risk. I will not be held responsible for anything that may happen to your computer after installing this progam