Author: Shadowhawke
Mod Website: Spellhold Studios
Mod Forum: Yoshimo Friendship

📄 Read the mod's readme | Français

📥 Download the mod at Spellhold Studios

One of the things many find sorely lacking in the Bioware NPCs are the more complex relationships presented by modern NPC mods - especially in regards to "friendships" -, the relationships NPCs have with the PC when not romancing them.

This mod adds a series of dialogues with Yoshimo, our favourite charming knave whom we meet in Irenicus Chateau at the beginning of the game. Spanning the length of the time he's in the party, the Yoshimo Friendship expands on the humorous rogue, adding to his story and giving the player a new perspective on the character..

Written by Shadowhawke, author of many popular BGII fan-fiction stories and contributor to the Khadion NPC mod, the Yoshimo friendship is a must-install for anyone with a fondness for him.

Visit the website or forum for all the latest updates.

This mod is designed to work on the following Infinity Engine games: the original Baldur's Gate II (BG2 or just SoA) with the Throne of Bhaal (ToB) expansion, Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (BG2EE), the conversion projects Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT) and Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET).

The Yoshimo Friendship mod is a WeiDU mod, and therefore should be compatible with all WeiDU mods. However, we cannot test every single one. It is only compatible with BGII: ToB. If you do encounter an error, please let us know by reporting it on the forum.

Although it is not required for the Yoshimo Friendship mod to function properly, classical game players are strongly recommended to download and install the latest version of the BG2 Fixpack before proceeding with the installation of this mod.

Here is the recommended installation order:

• Please install Yoshimo Friendship after TobEx, BG2 Fixpack, and EET.
• Please install Yoshimo Friendship before EET_End, and any final "biffing" routines.

If you've previously installed the mod, remove it before extracting the new version. To do this, run setup-yoshimo.exe, un-install the previously installed main component and delete the 📁 yoshimo folder.

When installing or un-installing, do not close the DOS window by clicking on the X button! Instead, press the Enter key whenever instructed to do so.

Disable any antivirus or other memory-resident software before installing this or any other mod. Some (particularly avast and Norton!) have a tendency to report false positives with mod activity, resulting in failed installs.

The Enhanced Editions are actively supported games. Please note that every patch update will wipe your current mod setup! If in the middle of a modded game you might want to delay the patch update (if possible) as even after reinstalling the mods, you might not be able to continue with your old savegames. Alternatively, copy the whole game's folder into a new one that can be modded and will stay untouched by game patches. It is important that you install the mod to the language version you are playing the game in. Otherwise, the dialogues of the mod will not show but give error messages.

The Yoshimo Friendship for Windows is distributed as an extractable compressed archive and includes a WeiDU installer.

Extract the contents of the mod archive into the folder of the game you wish to modify (the folder which contains the "CHITIN.KEY" file), using 7zip, WinRAR, or another file compression utility that handles .zip files. On successful extraction, there should be a 📁 yoshimo folder and a setup-yoshimo.exe file in your game folder. To install, simply double-click setup-yoshimo.exe and follow the instructions on screen.

Run setup-yoshimo.exe in your game folder to reinstall, un-install or otherwise change the component settings.

The Yoshimo Friendship for macOS is distributed in the same compressed archive and includes a WeiDU installer.

First, extract the files from the archive into your game directory. On successful extraction, there should be a 📁 yoshimo folder, setup-yoshimo and setup-yoshimo.command files in your game folder. To install, simply double-click setup-yoshimo.command and follow the instructions on screen.

Run setup-rolles.yoshimo in your game folder to reinstall, un-install or otherwise change the components settings.

The Yoshimo Friendship for Linux is distributed in the same compressed archive and does not include a WeiDU installer.

Extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify.

Download the latest version of WeiDU for Linux from WeiDU.org and copy weidu and weinstall to /usr/bin. Following that, open a terminal, cd to your game installation directory, run tolower and answer 'Y' to both queries. You can avoid running the second option (linux.ini) if you've already ran it once in the same directory. To save time, the archive is already tolowered, so there's no need to run the first option (lowercasing file names) either if you've extracted only this mod since the last time you lowercased file names. If you're unsure, running tolower and choosing both options is the safe bet.

To install, run weinstall setup-yoshimo in your game folder. Then run wine bgmain.exe (or wine baldur.exe for EE games) and start playing.

In addition to the methods above for removing individual components, you can completely un-install the mod using setup-yoshimo --uninstall at the command line to remove all components without wading through prompts.

Q: Is the Yoshimo Friendship compatible with XYZ mod?
A: It most certainly should be, but we have not tested it with every single mod available. If you do encounter an error, please contact K'aeloree or alternatively post on the forums.

Q: When will the friendship start?
A: It will begin after Yoshimo has his canon PC dialogues, of which there are 3. Expect the first of these around an hour after Yoshimo joins the party.

Q: This mod isn't in character at all.
A: We're always looking for ways to improve the characterisation in this mod, so please post any suggestions or constructive criticism on the forums.

Q: Have you got any plans to expand the mod by adding more dialogues in future?
A: There are no current plans to add to the mod, no.

Q: How many dialogues are there added in total?
A: There are a total of 9 new dialogues added by the mod, on top of the 3 existing dialogues in the game. Some of these do have particular circumstances in which they occur--for more information feel free to ask on the forum.

Q: Does this mod change the game in any way besides adding more dialogue to Yoshimo?
A: No, it shouldn't.

Q: Is there any chance that player initiated dialogue will be added in future?
A: There are currently no plans for it, but if players are interested in it we would be happy to consider adding some in future versions.

Q: I would like to translate the Yoshimo friendship into another language. Any chance you could TRAify the mod?
A: Sure, we'd be happy to. If you are interested in translating, just send us a line and I'll see what I can do for the next version.

Author: Shadowhawke
Coder: K'aeloree
Editors and Proofreaders: K'aeloree

• Thank you to everyone on the Interaction Expansion project team, and everyone who has contributed to the mod!
• AL|EN: Wrote process which automatically provides Windows, Linux and Mac versions in the same archive file.
• Polish translation: Lava Del'Vortel, Neysa (proofreading).
• French translation: Isaya, Ixyon, Graoumf (proofreading) and The d'Oghmatiques.
• Chinese translation: Merzbau.
• Russian translation: Arkie.
• Version 5 fix code: CamDawg.

• WeiDU by Wes Weimer, Valerio Bigiani (the bigg) and Wisp.
• Near Infinity, by Jon Olav Hauglid, FredSRichardson, and Argent77.
• IESDP maintained by igi and lynx.
• WinRAR, by Eugene Roshal/Alexander Roshal.

• Replaced the previous fix for the original talks with a new one, the same as in EE Fixpack, thus improving compatibility with other mods that also fix the issue (EE Fixpack, Yoshimo Romance)

• Added dynamic install order syntax and global labels to support AL|EN's "Project Infinity".
• Added Russian translation by Arkie.
• Proofread French translation and English strrefs.
• Re-formated, updated and moved readme files into new 📁 "readme" folder..
• Removed useless 📁 "backup" folder.
• Added archive libiconv-1.9.2-1-src.7z with iconv licence info.
• Updated WeiDU installer to v247.

• Fixed an issue with Auto-Package Generator tool: new version of macOS (Catalina) prevented the mod to be installed.
• Replaced AUTHOR keyword with SUPPORT.

• Added yoshimo.ini metadata file to support AL|EN's "Project Infinity".
• tp2 file: added credits for translations and replaced old-school DECOMPILE_DLG_TO_D plus COMPILE_D_TO_DLG process with more accurate DECOMPILE_AND_PATCH command.
• Added REQUIRE_PREDICATE process to avoid installing the mod in inaccurate games.
• Added component DESIGNATED number and "yoshimo_friendship" LABEL.
• README command now accepts translated files.
• Updated deprecated modding tools links.
• Lower cased files.
• Updated and renamed readme files to yoshimofriendship-readme-%LANGUAGE%.html.
• Included Linux and macOS versions in the same package (thanks AL|EN!).
• Updated WeiDU installer to v246.
• Transfered mod to Spellhold Studios GitHub account.

• Added Chinese translation by Merzbau.

• Isaya's .tra fixes.

• Shadow Thieves talks won't appear if working for Bodhi.

• Added French translation provided by Isaya.
• Added better EE/EET compatibility, along with UTF-8 converter.

• Updated WeiDU to make mod compatible with BGII:EE.

• Some fixes in Yoshimo.baf.
• Polish translation by yarpen, with thanks to Lava Del'Vortel.

• A few minor bug fixes.
• Restructured the basic code.
• TRAified the mod.

• Initial release.