For modders¶

CAPIE is a library any HOI4 mod can build on, so that modders get these abilities without shipping native code: text the player types into a real text field of your own window, names for countries, states, characters and parties built from that text, and a reliable way to know whether CAPIE is loaded and which version it is.

The decided shape¶

• The contract is variant B: plain HOI4 script, talking to CAPIE through variables and scripted effects. A mod that uses it parses and runs the same way with or without CAPIE. Only the branch it takes differs. See Script contract.
• Native script keywords (variant A, for example a capie_set_country_name effect the game's parser would understand) may come later as an extra layer over variant B. They need more reverse engineering and would produce parser errors whenever CAPIE is missing.
• The script SDK ships as its own Steam Workshop item with its own repository, so every mod uses one copy. Its source is sdk/capie-script-sdk/ in this repository, with a demo mod.
• CAPIE is one option among native extenders. Alternatives compares it with hoi4_lua and proxy-DLL loaders.
• Every mod built on CAPIE shows an indicator when CAPIE is missing, and the main menu shows "CAPIE loaded" or "CAPIE missing". See Indicators.
• Mods pin a minimum API level and degrade gracefully when it is not there. See Versions and fallback.

The capie_ prefix is reserved¶

Everything that starts with capie_ (or CAPIE_ in localisation) belongs to CAPIE: scripted effects and triggers, variables, temporary variables, flags, localisation keys and GUI element names. Do not define anything with that prefix in your own mod. CAPIE removes script-set copies of its reserved command records before it adds its own, so a value you set yourself would be dropped or ignored. The one exception is your editor's GUI names, which follow the grammar capie_v1_ed__<mod>__<editor> so that CAPIE can find them.

The code blocks on these pages colour capie_ names differently so that you can see at a glance which names belong to CAPIE:

my_mod_effect = {
    set_temp_variable = { capie_min_api = 1 }   # capie_ name: reserved for CAPIE
    set_temp_variable = { my_mod_counter = 1 }  # your own name
}

When you do not need CAPIE¶

Names you know while writing the mod need nothing from CAPIE. Vanilla script already handles them:

# Vanilla. Works without CAPIE.
set_cosmetic_tag = MYMOD_FREE_POLAND        # with MYMOD_FREE_POLAND, _DEF and _ADJ loc keys
set_party_name = { ideology = neutrality long_name = MYMOD_PARTY_LONG name = MYMOD_PARTY }

CAPIE is for text that exists only at run time: what the player typed, or a name your mod builds from parts while the game runs.

Pages in this section¶