Questions from a Novice Modder

[cugel]

Hi This is my first post. I just registered with this forum and I was surprised that I couldn't post to the modding discussion over at the main forum. I assumed that it was just a problem with my server and figured that I would probably just not bother to post, when I saw that the main forum is restricted Oh, wellHopefully the administrator will post any relevant questions to the right persons over in the main hall.

I a junior novice modder and wanted information regarding modding & what some of the code sections mean. I read Giskard's fine article explaining some of the features of modding and installed Palladin's fine 1092 mod. Thanks guys for making those materials available http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
Are there any other articles on what the code sections mean?
For example, I saw a post by King David in the What is modding and how will it affect my game? topic in the Dungeon (the one I really wanted to post to). He gives as an example adding the line:

AddTitle:: ID_KHAZAR Warrior Master +6 +6 +6 0 0
I think that's a great idea After all, Subetai was probably a better general than any European of the time and it should be difficult to fight him. I am going to add this line to the startpos/early.txt file to create a greater challange from the Khan, but I wonder: what causes the Horde to appear only in 1220? IF I add this line to the addtitle section as King David suggests, will this cause the initial set-up in early to assign this title (warrior) to the general created at the beginning of the game (1087)in Khazan? That wouldn't be good. (I assume from testing that it doesn't but how does this work?)

I was also wondering what strings are called by the faction behavior? I noticed that most of the faction behaviors aren't used by the developers. For example, what does:

SetBehaviour:: FN_ALMOHAD MUSLIM_DEVOUT do?
or some of the other unused behaviors such as //ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST
//ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE, //POVERTY_STRICKEN,//DESPERATE_DEFENCE,//CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT do?

I assume (without really knowing) that the Set Behavior:: FN_PAPACY POPE calls a predefined function entitled POPE, but what is it and where is it? Is is possible to modify the Pope's behavior by changing this file? What I'd really like to be able to do is make it possible to bribe the Pope if he's excommunicated me. I don't suppose that's possible however. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Thanks guys and any help would be appreciated Modding this game really adds a lot http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Vlad The Impaler]

wellcome to this wonderful community cugel;dont worry i'm sure the moderators will soon take care of u;

[KukriKhan]

Greetings, cugel, welcome to theOrg. Sorry for the delay in responding (stupid day-job, yanno? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )

I copied your post to The Dungeon, our modder's forum. See it here:
http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....1;&#top (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=5;t=2722;r=1;&#top)

Keep posting here; you'll be 'senior patron' soon and post all over The Guild.

p.s. Thanks for the help Vlad. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[cugel]

I'm posting my response to fenir here.

Thanks fenir for answering my questions. I would really be interested in getting a copy of your guide to the .txt files if you can do it. If you need any help with testing some mods let me know. My interest is mostly in simply modifying the faction behavior (in so far as that is possible) to make the game more interesting and realistically challenging.


Thanks for the suggestion about renaming the early.txt file to create a mod file. I think this will help keep track of changes I'm making, so that if anything blows up I'll know what to reverse http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

Faction behavior. . . . This of course is all hard coded, so we can't effect a change on this. But we can change the starting behaviour. . . . all these are predefined setting which instruct the AI on how to manage the faction I suspect.

Yes pope is again a predefined setting only affecting the pope. I suspect it is all located in hard coded tables within MTW. Something we cannot, at this stage, get at :P

That's just what I was afraid of. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif What we really need is to be able to adjust the ingame faction behavior to make it more (realistically) challenging and perhaps more historically accurate as well. I don't suppose that the developers will ever take any of these files out of the hard coding? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Obviously, the reason the developers didn't do so is that most of the game buying public probably thinks this game is more than hard and complex enough already. I read an interview with a game developer (different company) who said the biggest testing flaw for developers is that they UNDERESTIMATE how difficult the game may seem to the average gamer. What I think many of us on this forum would like from the sp experience is a more realistic challenge. This is really what I'm interested in and I suspect many of you are too. I'm thinking of increasing the provincial rebellion figures in the manner suggested by Giskard (but by 1 not three to just see how it goes). Have you tried this? You shouldn't just be able to raise a large army of elites and walk across the map.

I think Giskard's idea of changing the French to Orthodox in order to make it more difficult to hold on to provinces once conquered is interesting, but I can't get past the historical anomaly http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

Just thinking about it, I could actually release guides on each actual txt? That is to say I could write up a guide and description of what each txt has in it and then what each does.
Post it here in parts like Wellington did, and then when finished compile it into a word document.
I will give this some more thought.

I personally would love to see this That's what I'm really looking for.

Bribing the Pope, I don't think it's possible yet, though someone may have just changed the pope to a default faction setting, that would allow it.

Creating the Pope as a custom FN_MINOR and assigning Rome and the Papal States to that Papish faction should make him bribable, you would just have to make all the relevant entries in the .txt files, but then the Pope would play like any minor faction which causes problems in its own right (ahistorical). I wonder what effect giving the Pope Still, I might try it.

[KukriKhan]

Copied over.