beginner needs some help

Hi 

I am new to modding and have a question.

I thought I would try to mod the custom race trait points.

So opened the GalCiv3GlobalDefs file and changed the defaults to this

<CustomFactionTraitPoints>500</CustomFactionTraitPoints>
<CustomFactionAbilityPoints>200</CustomFactionAbilityPoints>

When I started a new game, the custom race traits remained unchanged.

Any ideas why or what I need to do?

Thanks