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Duke John
10-13-2004, 08:32
A friend of Midnight cracked the campaignmap. He suggested that the RWM file is made out of the TGAs located in the campaign directory. I immediately tried it out and found the following necessary things to make simple changes (we might get advanced later on):

Step 1
Make a backup copy of the sons_of_mars folder. In the original folder delete:

map.rwm
map_heights.hgt
The RWM file is automatically generated as soon you start a campaign. The HGT doesn't seem to be necessary as of yet.

Step 2
To add a simple island edit the following:

map_ground_types.tga
map_heights.tga
map_regions.tga
Use the existing colours and common sense. Use temporary layers to get the island at exactly the same spot for all images. Resize a layer if necessary. Save the files.

Step 3
Start the campaign and you might see something like this:
http://chronicles.metw.net/dungeon/smile.jpg

Now we only need to research how to make complete new campaign maps.

Cheers,
DJ

Various things:

height.tga
dictates the height of a tile

groundtype.tga
assigns textures to a tile, including mountain objects

Needed factions
Always include the Senate. Otherwise the game CTD when pressing on the faction emblem when viewing the strategic map.

Midnight
10-13-2004, 09:17
How to edit provinces and settlements:

Open descr_strat.txt. If you changed the campaign name at the top, you'll need to create a new file called [campaign_name]_regions_and_settlement_names.txt in data\text. Copy the content of imperial_campaign_regions_and_settlement_names.txt and edit the names of the regions and provinces you want changing. This is the file the game will look to for its province and settlement name information.

In descr_strat.txt, descr_regions.txt, descr_regions_and_settlements.txt and descr_mercenaries.txt, alter the name of the province and settlement to whatever you want, adjusting other factors here if you wish (it's mostly explained in the files themselves).

Open map_regions.tga, and as long the the outline of the various lands don't change, you can easily edit the size and shape of the province. If you want to move the port, shift the white dot. If you want to move the settlement, shift the black dot.

Thoros of Myr
10-13-2004, 09:23
I messed up a bit but it works! Awesome work guys ~D ~D

http://members.cox.net/brybo92/cmp2.jpg

komninos
10-13-2004, 09:41
Apparently progress is way to dificalt to follow .... at least with my time table ~:(

Any way are there any max and mins in the number of Regions or there size in a map?

when most is worked out ... and I have some free time to work with I plan on pressing in the BATW on the RTW engine ... got to know this stuff along with other thinks.

Duke John
10-13-2004, 15:46
Please post only research/discoveries in this thread.

Suggestions, questions and "oh that is cool" will be either deleted or split from this thread. There is alot to discover and I don't want any info being delved under uninformative posts.

Darkmoor_Dragon
10-14-2004, 02:27
Just wanted to highlight that when adding NEW provinces to the map you must use a NEW RGB value for that province, if its being used for another province already you will simply CTD the game every time you try to run that campaign.

You then use that RGB value to reference the province in the descr_regions.txt

Midnight
10-14-2004, 08:10
Well, I can edit the main map fine, create new island provinces, new towns, etc

However, when I try to create my own new map, using seven factions (britons, gauls, germans, carthage, spain, thrace, dacia), the game CTDs. I have no idea why this is.

I can think of several things which require investigating:

are Roman factions required?
is a province minimum of 50 required (my map has 32)?

For the moment I'm going to try starting again with a copy of the imperial_campaign, and modding things one-by-one until I end up with my map. I'll let you know if it works.

JeromeGrasdyke
10-14-2004, 08:38
However, when I try to create my own new map, using seven factions (britons, gauls, germans, carthage, spain, thrace, dacia), the game CTDs. I have no idea why this is.

Note that the image files are not all of the same resolution - some are quarter size.

Midnight
10-14-2004, 08:53
I know - I got a square island-province in the NE corner of the imperial_campaign to appear.

AFAIK, all my map files should be working, but evidently something's still wrong.

I've tried running with -show_err, and the game still CTDs without an explanation. Also, can you tell me exactly what map_trade_routes.tga does?

Any help would be hugely appreciated.

Midnight
10-14-2004, 09:50
Hmm - I created a copy of imperial_campaign and removed romans_senate, giving Latium and Rome to the Scipii. The campaign began loading (I don't even get as far as the loading bar in my own campaign), then I got a CTD. Once again, -show_err didn't help.

Is the Senate a required faction? If so, can this be altered?

Darkmoor_Dragon
10-14-2004, 15:20
Note that the image files are not all of the same resolution - some are quarter size.


WOuldnt mind knowing exactly what files MUST be updated to add a new province to the existing imperial map - having updated the map_regions.tga with a new province area in britain (unique rgb value) and then updated map_regions.txt, ***regions_settlments**lookup.txt and desr_strat.txt the game returns to the chose campaign screen (after creating a new rwm file). Trying to load the cmapaign again just CTDs.

Obviously missing something, be handy if someone could help out.

MonocerosDragon
10-15-2004, 00:19
I have now managed to increase the size of the campaign map to add extra space at the north and east edges. Adding extra space to the south and west should also be possible but will be more complicated as it will require modifying the x and y co-ordinates of every army and every resource in the campaign desc_strat.txt file as well as the procedure detailed here. So far I've taken the map up to 266 x 196. I'm not yet sure how big it can be made, Trying to create a 256 x 256 map crashed the game.

The following procedure will leave you with additional sea at the top
To increase the maps size, first create a new directory under data\world\maps\campaign so you don't mess up the original files. I called this directory imperial_enlarge. Then copy all the files from data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign and data\world\maps\base into this directory.

If you run RTW at this point you should get a Provincial Campaign option which will allow you to start your new campaign map.

Remove map.rwm so that it will be regenerated the next time you start the campaign. If you want you can also delete map_heights.hgt and map_trade_routes.tga at this point - they are not required to generate the map.rwm file.

Start by editing desc_terrain.txt and modify the width and height to the required values - i.e. width 266, height 196

Then, open the following files in your favourite picture editor
map_climates.tga
map_features.tga
map_ground_types.tga
map_heights.tga
map_regions.tga
map_roughness.tga

Each of the files needs to be extended at the top and right hand sided to be the required size.

map_features and map_regions should be the width and height specified in desc_terrain.
map_features fill the new area in black (RGB 0,0,0).
map_regions fill the new area in the sea region colour (RGB 41,140,233).

map_roughness should be twice the size specified in desc_terrain (i.e. 532 x 392). Fill the new area in black (RGB 0,0,0)

map_ground_types, map_heights, map_climates all need to be twice the size specified in desc_terrain plus 1 (i.e. 533 x 393)
map_ground_types fill the new area in as deep sea (RGB 128, 0, 0)
map_heights fill the new area in as sea (RGB 0, 0, 253)
map_climates fill the new area in as your favourite climate - I used RGB 57, 181, 74

Save all the files - start the campaign and you should find a large area of sea to the north and east sides of the map. You can then add in your own new land masses and provinces in these areas.

MonocerosDragon
10-15-2004, 00:46
Forgot to mention the fact that you may also want to modify radar_map1.tga and radar_map2.tga

Note: this don't need to be edited for the campaign to load and work but do need to be edited if you don't want the mini-map to look odd!

radar_map1 should be the width and height specified in desc_terrain
radar_map2 should be twice the width and height specified in desc_terrain

OriginalCheeseSpread
10-16-2004, 20:48
Does anybody know why the game returns to the campaign selection screen for me, I've followed all the steps to the letter. I can add little islands to the prologue map but can't create another seperate campaign at all.

thanks

MonocerosDragon
10-16-2004, 23:33
Does anybody know why the game returns to the campaign selection screen for me, I've followed all the steps to the letter. I can add little islands to the prologue map but can't create another seperate campaign at all.

thanks

Could be any number of things - you're lucky it doesn't just crash. Try adding -show_err to the command line. Then when the game returns to the campaign screen, go back to the main menu and quit the game. Usually when a campaign fails to load but doesn't crash - it will show you an error dialog when you quit the game. It would make life much simplier if it would just show the error dialog when the error happens rather than having to exit the game to find out.

OriginalCheeseSpread
10-17-2004, 01:18
~:cheers: thanks MonocerosDragon thats a handy little thing, I had a navy on some land :embarassed:

MonocerosDragon
10-17-2004, 13:50
Midnight and I have created the first entirely new loadable map. It's currently very flat and featureless and still needs a lot of work to make it playable - it currently crashes when you end the first turn - but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we figure out exactly what is required to create a entirely new playable map. More details to follow.

Here's a screenshot...

http://www.freewebs.com/ultimatw/images/ultima_001_small.jpg
(http://www.freewebs.com/ultimatw/images/ultima_001.jpg)

Thoros of Myr
10-17-2004, 14:12
Vey nice MonocerosDragon and Midnight. Looking forward to the tutorial :)

Alrowan
10-17-2004, 14:31
ive actually figured out an aweful lot of the stuff by browsing through the files, im pretty confident i could wqhip something up, but ive never been good at the coding behind these things, so id need help there

Alrowan
10-17-2004, 14:33
btw, the game uses height gradients to make the height levels, i used to make maps and stuff for sim city 4, they used the same idea, and there is a website where u can get a lot of these black and white maps from, of anywhere in the US. I guess you could chop and change bits to suit you after that.

Also try programs like terragen that can create greyscale heightmaps.

Duronal
10-19-2004, 02:09
hi there,

Whilst in my current state of imsomnia i've decided to take a look into the provincial campaign menu.

For those that don't know the menu is activated when you copy either the sons of mars campaign or imperial campaign within their parent directory. e.g
Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alexander.cooke1/RTW/prov.jpg
This then provides you with the ability to either campaign without risking any saved games etc.

by manipulating the contained files we should in theory be able to change almost every parameter...

here's a run down on what files do what

descr_strat.txt
---------------

this file appears to control playable factions, start date, initial settlement stats, win conditions, landmarks and faction characters.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alexander.cooke1/RTW/date.jpgnote start date


descr_events.txt
----------------

pre-programmed major events reside here e.g plagues, info triggers etc. events are directly linked to the number of turns played. (therefore you could trigger any event from any point during the game...unfortunately this would appear not to include the marius reforms)

descr_mercenaries.txt
---------------------

By altering this file you can change what mercs appear in what regions and with what statistics. Of course this could provide huge balancing issues if not carefully used.

leader_pic_(faction name).tga
-----------------------------
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alexander.cooke1/RTW/photo.jpg

Changes the face of the first faction leader that is chosen by the player. By converting files to the correct size of 69x96 and tga format it is possible to sub any picture in you like. It is also possible to add pictures for factions that wouldn't normally have them e.g carthage,britannia etc...

description files of the roman factions also reside in this folder but i have yet to get them working. i know that they're linked to the file "lookup_campaign_descriptions.txt" in the data directory and the "descr_strat.txt " in the campaign dir but i've yet to succeed in getting the descriptions to appear.

Hopefully these discoveries albeit small ones will help.

Thanks for your time

Duronal

Duke John
10-19-2004, 10:29
My Japan campaign map loads perfectly, but as MonocerosDragon also experiences it crashes after the first turn. Luckily I have made loads of backups so I traced back when it went wrong. Apparently it goes wrong when the heightmap and/or groundtypes images do not correspond with the regions image. MonocerosDragon and Midnight, are you sure that you have edited them correctly?

MonocerosDragon
10-19-2004, 11:07
My Japan campaign map loads perfectly, but as MonocerosDragon also experiences it crashes after the first turn. Luckily I have made loads of backups so I traced back when it went wrong. Apparently it goes wrong when the heightmap and/or groundtypes images do not correspond with the regions image. MonocerosDragon and Midnight, are you sure that you have edited them correctly?

Yeah - they correspond fine. Game now ends turn ok. We'd cut back everything to the minimum to get the map loading (we were pretty sure it wasn't the map itself but the desc_strat and we were right) - so we ended up with only 2 factions (gauls and slave) in the desc_strat. The game appears to need at least 2 non slave factions for end turn to work - although trying to open up the faction info / diplomacy screen currently causes a crash. Hopefully, once we've added in all the needed factions - this will no longer be the case. Still trying to figure out the absolute minimum required to make a working campaign. We've also added heights and features (rivers etc. to the map).

Sorry for not posting more earlier - this weird thing called work is taking up too much time and getting in the way of modding stuff this week. :cry:

Duke John
10-19-2004, 11:17
The thing is that I have 10 non-slave factions but it is still causing troubles. I have tackled the campmap by slowly taking away regions and replacing them by small rectangular provinces in 1 corner. The result is an empty sea in which I could easily make the new map. Then it crashed so I went back to when it did work. I only deleted 10 provinces at that point. But it works. Whenever I move up another provinces it crashes after ending the turn.

But you said it works once you have 2 non-slave factions + 1 slave faction?

Duke John
10-19-2004, 11:59
Tricky program R:TW is. I thought that you could Alt+Tab to replace the campaign files, but there is a catch.

You test a game, if it works great. Exit campaign to return to menu. Then Alt+Tab to get into PSP and edit the files. Delete map.rwm and go back to R:TW. Start the campaign and everythings seems fine.

However (!) if there is a slight mistake in the changes then R:TW sometimes doesn't CTD but works with no problems. When you entirely exit R:TW and start it up and select the new campaign it will load, but when you end the turn it will CTD!

Apparently R:TW remembers something that will make a changed appear to be bugless. When restarting R:TW entirely it forgets that something and will CTD.

So when you are testing your campaign always play for several turns and always restart R:TW.

MonocerosDragon
10-19-2004, 12:59
Thanks Duke_John - I hadn't put my finger on that one yet - knew there was something weird in that when I went back to things the following day that I was sure were working they suddenly weren't.

Currently the campaign will run for several turns without problems (well apart from not being able to open the faction summary window). It's interesting to note that you don't have to specify details for every province/settlement. Anything unspecified will default to being a rebel village with very low population and no buildings - although they will quickly start to build things.

Every faction needs a minimum of one settlement and one named character (the faction leader to work) - although you're better off putting in at least a wife and an heir if you don't want the faction to be very precarious at the start. If you don't give a faction any settlements at the start all it's armies / family members will immediately become rebel - causing instant defeat if you try to play as that faction and that faction not to exist if you play as any others - intriguingly this now means I have a playable campaign map where my faction owns 1 settlement and all others are rebel! End turn works ok - faction summary CTD!

Currently trying to figure out the cause of the faction summary CTD!

Duke John
10-19-2004, 13:09
I got that CTD when pressing the faction summary button (the emblem) when I didn't include the senate. Did you include the senate?

MonocerosDragon
10-19-2004, 14:02
Yeah - currently no senate - I was hoping it wouldn't be neccesary to include the senate but was rapidly reaching the conclusion that it was. However, even if I put the senate in I still get a CTD when selecting faction summary.

JeromeGrasdyke
10-19-2004, 14:08
Tricky program R:TW is. I thought that you could Alt+Tab to replace the campaign files, but there is a catch.

When Alt-Tabbing the game only reloads the display resources, and doesn't reinitialise the rest of the world. That means that everything may look fine, even though you may have positioned a character on a sea tile, for example.

When you're testing the campaign map you might want to run with -ne and -nm on the command line, for a quicker load time, and you can also specify -strat to jump directly to a named campaign map, bypassing the front end menu system. For example, -strat:imperial_campaign will take you directly to turn 0 of the imperial campaign, although you will always end up playing the Julii (the first playable faction listed in descr_start.txt).

Duke John
10-19-2004, 14:14
Thanks alot Jerome, this will indeed speed up progress, I'm half the time waiting for R:TW to finish loading.

But you misread me. I didn't Alt+Tab straight from the campaign to Windows. I first exited from the campaign into the Main Menu. I thought the R:TW then started from a clean sheet as map.rwm is generated when starting up a campaign and not when the program starts. However it does remember a few things from the campaign even though you have exited the campaign and deleted map.rwm.

JeromeGrasdyke
10-19-2004, 16:55
But you misread me. I didn't Alt+Tab straight from the campaign to Windows. I first exited from the campaign into the Main Menu. I thought the R:TW then started from a clean sheet as map.rwm is generated when starting up a campaign and not when the program starts. However it does remember a few things from the campaign even though you have exited the campaign and deleted map.rwm.

Hm. That's interesting. In theory, all the game does at startup time is load a subset of the loading scripts (tech tree, unit database, weather, sounds, and so on), while the world is re-initialised when you start play. There may be a few things in the menu's which refer to world/maps/base, but other than that it should be clean. If you could make a quick note of what hasn't changed and pm it to me, I'll get somebody to look into it.

Encaitar
10-20-2004, 15:33
I've got a question about the different dimensions of the various campaign-map tga files:

Some of them (map_features, map_regions, map_trade_routes) have the same dimensions as the campaign map (in pixels). Makes sense, 1 pixel = 1 'tile' on the campaign map.

map_roughness is twice the dimensions of the campaign map. This also works fine for me. 1 tile = a 4 pixel square. Easy.

But map_heights, map_climates, map_ground_types are twice the dimensions of the campaign map +1. Why the extra pixel? And where does this extra row and column of pixels come in? Are they added to the top and right? If so, what 'data' is input into them?

What I'm asking I guess is this:
When editing the tga files, I do it all at the dimensions of the campaign map so that I keep consistency. When I go to save the map_roughness file, I just double the image size (with Resampling set to 'nearest neighbour'). But I'm not 100% sure what to do with map_heights, map_climates, and map_ground_types. At the moment I just do the doubling of image size, and then increase the canvas size by 1 pixel at the top and right, and copy the colours from the row and column immediately next to the new row and column of pixels. Should I instead be doing that entirely through image size (i.e. a 100, 200 dimension image would be resized to 201, 401, rather than resizing to 200, 400, and then increasing the canvas size)?

Hope that makes sense.

Duke John
10-21-2004, 05:39
This thread is not for posting your problems without the intent of solving how to edit the campmap. So just posting something doesn't work isn't worth the effort of posting as I will either delete or split it from this thread.

Encaitar
10-21-2004, 10:51
Could you split it for me then please DJ? ~:)
Edit (in response to DJ's following post):ah okay, thought your previous post was directed at mine. All good then.

In the meantime, some things that I've picked up while working with the various tga files:

map_features.tga
There are 5 different features you can have here, each of which has a corresponding colour:

River - Blue (0,0,255)
Volcano - Red (255,0,0)
Cliff - Yellow (255,255,0)
River Crossing - Light Blue (0,255,255)
River Source - White (255,255,255)
Some notes re rivers:
For a river tile to show up on the campaign map, it must be able to trace a path back through touching pixels (i.e. side-by-side or above-below. If the corners of two pixels are touching, this is not sufficient) to a river source. A river can 'end' anywhere though.
If a river 'rejoins itself' (e.g. if you try to create an island in a river by surrounding a non-river tile with river tiles), it will cause a CTD.
A solid block of river tiles (i.e. 2x2 pixels or greater) will cause a CTD.
Edit:Contrary to what I initially posted, rivers can be placed on any ground type (no CTDs or other problems). Although if you have a river running through a dense forest, you won't be able to see the river for the trees...

Cliffs I assume mean that you can't move troops over them, but I haven't checked this yet.

map_ground_types.tga
There are 14 different ground types that you can use (the colour names are just my best 'description' of them):

Fertile Low - Grey-Blue (0, 128, 128)
Fertile Medium - Light Green (96, 160, 64)
Fertile High - Olive (101, 124, 0)
Wilderness - Black (0, 0, 0)
Mountains High - Light Brown (196, 128, 128)
Mountains Low - Brown (98, 65, 65)
Hills - Olive-Brown (128, 128, 64)
Forest Dense - Dark Green (0, 64, 0)
Forest Sparse - Green (0, 128, 0)
Swamp - Bright Green (0, 255, 128)
Ocean - Dark Maroon (64, 0, 0)
Sea Deep - Dark Red (128, 0, 0)
Sea Shallow - Red (196, 0, 0)
Beach - White (0, 0, 0)

map_climate.tga
There are 12 different climates:

Sub-Arctic - Dark Green (0, 166, 81)
Alpine - Green (57, 181, 74)
Highland - Light Green (141, 198, 63)
Swamp - Yellow (255, 242, 0)
Deep Temperate Forest - Light Orange (247, 148, 29)
Light Temperate Forest - Orange (242, 101, 34)
Infertile Temperate Grassland - Red (237, 28, 36)
Fertile Temperate Grassland - Dark Pink (237, 20, 91)
Mediterranean - Pink (236, 0, 140)
Semi-Arid - Blue (0, 114, 188)
Sandy Desert - Dark Purple (102, 45, 145)
Rocky Desert - Mauve (146, 39, 143)

Duke John
10-21-2004, 14:17
Encaitar, I will not split your post as it got background information and as such it can be helpfull. Posting that a campmap doesn't work and help is needed are the kind of posts that will removed.

Required landmass
The engine requires a certain amount of landmass that is relative to the size of the campaign map. If that amount is not present than the campaign will crash before loading.

For more info: see this thread. (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38504)

Jerome posted:

A few other caveats about regions:
- they should be 'convex' (one landmass, no inaccessible areas)*
- they should have only one settlement and only one port
- all land tiles should be part of a known region
- each non-sea region should contain at least some fertile tiles
- continuous sea surfaces should form one region
- the maximum number of regions supported is 200
- the distance between the centers of any two adjacent regions should not exceed 50 tiles*

*: not doing these things shouldn't cause a crash, but it may cause the AI to break (and yes, the problems which result can be seen in some places on the Imperial Campaign - the Balearics or Greek Isles for example).

Duke John
10-22-2004, 08:11
map_regions.tga
Size: x, y
Edit using the RGB values as assigned in descr_regions.txt.
Each province must at least a city. This pixel may not touch or corner a different province.
single pixel with R:0 G:0 B:0

Ports are not necessary, even for coast provinces.
single pixel with R:255 G:255 B:255

map_heights.tga
Size: 2x+1, 2y+1
Start with only editing landmass:
R:1 G:1 B:1

And sea:
R:0 G:0 B:253

map_ground_type.tga
Size: 2x+1, 2y+1
R:101 G:124 B:0

map_climates.tga
Size: 2x+1, 2y+1
R:237 G:20 B:91

map_roughness.tga
Size: 2x, 2y
R:0 G:0 B:0

map_disasters.tga
Size: x, y
R:3 G:3 B:3

map_features.tga
Size: x, y
R:0 G:0 B:0

map_trade_routes.tga
Size: x, y
R:0 G:0 B:0

water_surface.tga
Size: 256, 256
R:60 G:132 B:159

radar_map1.tga
Size: x, y
This is the minimap for the campaign.

radar_map2.tga
Size: 2x, 2y
This is the minimap for campaignselection. Don't know yet if it's used.

Silver Rusher
10-22-2004, 15:02
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out already, but you can edit the Imperial campaign map as well by going to world/maps/base. Just commenting.

themonkey
10-22-2004, 18:18
also i found an interesting thing in the game's Menu's and UI - Something About a Strategy Editor??

Could this be a built in Campaign Editor???
Here's one of the values in menu_english.txt:
STRAT_EDITOR_BUTTON LAUNCH STRATEGY EDITOR

Maybe this could be a tool for powerfully editing the Campiagn Map?

Encaitar
10-23-2004, 02:53
You can enable the Campaign Map Editor menu interface, but when you click the 'begin editing' button, it hangs or crashes. So unfortunately no, we need CA to enable the Campaign Map Editor (which hopefully they will do).

Encaitar
10-24-2004, 03:38
It seems some RGB values cannot be used in the map_regions.tga/descr_regions.txt files. I've made a basic campaign map, which has about 50 regions. When I was making it though, I kept getting an inexplicable error when I tried adding certain regions. I was doing nothing different than anywhere else, but it was just a specific couple of regions that wouldn't work. The error message that I would get (it would appear when the campaign map tried to start to load) was:

Script Error in data/world/maps/campaign/test_campaign/descr_strat.txt, at line 1036, column 2.

You have chosen an invalid tile(0, 0) for the settlement of
The line number given was whatever the last line in the descr_strat.txt file was. So that didn't help at all.

Eventually I tried using a different colour for the problematic regions, and hey presto, it worked fine. I have no idea why this was the case, but here are the RGB values that weren't working for me:
253 198 137
122 204 200
242 108 78
68 140 203
0 174 239

JeromeGrasdyke
10-24-2004, 18:39
It seems some RGB values cannot be used in the map_regions.tga/descr_regions.txt files.

This is probably due to a data mismatch somewhere else. You might have had a region in the .rwm or elsewhere which was still using a colour which was no longer assigned in the regions list, and so when it parses the descr_strat.txt file and tries to place a settlement into the now invalid region it triggers an error.

Midnight
10-24-2004, 20:28
Jerome, any information on those victory conditions yet?

Thanks.

Encaitar
10-26-2004, 07:39
This is probably due to a data mismatch somewhere else. You might have had a region in the .rwm or elsewhere which was still using a colour which was no longer assigned in the regions list, and so when it parses the descr_strat.txt file and tries to place a settlement into the now invalid region it triggers an error.
Testing with another campaign, it would seem you are correct. That's actually what I'd assumed was the problem to begin with, but after spending several days triple- and quadruple-checking the descr_strat.txt, descr_regions.txt and map_regions.tga files, I couldn't find any conflicts (not even stray pixels in the map_regions.tga file). Every time I'd load up the game, I'd delete the .rwm file, so that shouldn't have been causing any issues, and the descr_strat.txt, descr_regions.txt and map_regions.tga files I'd done from scratch, so there was nothing in there left over from the imperial campaign.

Basically the whole thing seems extremely odd to me. My campaign is working fine now, but I can still get the error back by simply changing the rgb code of one of the regions in the descr_regions.txt file, and changing the corresponding colour in the map_regions.tga file.

As I said at the start though, I've tried these rgb values in another campaign and they worked fine there.

Midnight
10-26-2004, 09:16
Hmm... my stratch-built capmaign is working well, except for one (very) annoying thing - it's still CTDing if I click on the Faction Summary button!

Everything else works fine - can anyone shed some light on what's going wrong? Jerome?

Duke John
10-26-2004, 09:42
Did you include the Senate? Oh wait, I'm not Jerome :wink:

Midnight
10-26-2004, 09:49
MonocerosDragon tried including them, and it still didn't work. Have you got Faction Summaries working on scratch-built campaign maps?

PROMETHEUS
10-28-2004, 22:15
Well i followed instructions to the word , enlarged the screen , created a new campaign , copied all the files of the normal campaign and edited lall the maps in the new size , colours etc .... i start the game but the radar looks messed up and the main map doesn't show any sign of modification.....WHY???

MonocerosDragon
10-29-2004, 11:08
Well i followed instructions to the word , enlarged the screen , created a new campaign , copied all the files of the normal campaign and edited lall the maps in the new size , colours etc .... i start the game but the radar looks messed up and the main map doesn't show any sign of modification.....WHY???
Best guess - you didn't delete map.rwm - so it's picking up the old map but the new radar - so the radar looks screwball since it has the new radar map but is overlaying the regions from the old map_regions.

PROMETHEUS
10-29-2004, 11:16
no i didn't delete the map in the base one , but should i ??? Shouldn't the maps in the campaign folder take the first priority???

MonocerosDragon
10-29-2004, 12:40
No, you shouldn't need to! Do you get a map.rwm file generated in the campaign directory?

PROMETHEUS
10-29-2004, 17:10
what i get is that the new map in the radar is fuzzy and blurred , the campaign big map has no shoq of any modification i did on all the maps that are in the folder...

tailkickusmaximus
10-29-2004, 21:50
what i get is that the new map in the radar is fuzzy and blurred , the campaign big map has no shoq of any modification i did on all the maps that are in the folder...

Your demensions for the map_radar1.tga and map_radar2.tga are wrong then Prometheus.

As a side note there is another tga (name escapes me at the moment.. I'll edit this post when I get home) that allows you to change the premap display when your in the faction selection screen for the custom campaign.

tailkickusmaximus
10-30-2004, 03:25
Your demensions for the map_radar1.tga and map_radar2.tga are wrong then Prometheus.

As a side note there is another tga (name escapes me at the moment.. I'll edit this post when I get home) that allows you to change the premap display when your in the faction selection screen for the custom campaign.

OKay

map_FE.tga in the /data/world/maps/base directory.

Take that out.. keep the demensions the same and inset your campaign map and make it look pretty.

Now place that in your campaign directory and now when you get to the faction selection screen, you'll see that map.

PROMETHEUS
10-30-2004, 11:44
well are right the same as the originals , the only modified are the bigger ones, well could you post any example i could work on so that i will adapt what did to how should it work.....

Vorbis
10-31-2004, 07:05
Is there a width limit to the map, or a certain area limit? I'd like to move the map westward and include the westernmost part of the Bactrian Empire, but I see it's at 255 pixels in width already, and I'm not sure if I should even waste my time trying to exceed that if the game won't be able to support it.

MonocerosDragon
10-31-2004, 11:12
It's possible to make the map wider than 255 - I've had a map 266 wide. I'm not sure how much wider it's possible to make it though.

Vorbis
10-31-2004, 16:15
Thanks, I guess I'll start working on it, and hope we can extend it quite a ways.

PacPomarnacki
11-07-2004, 18:22
I was wondering does anyone know how to make a new campaign map?
We made a simple replacement one but it repeatedly does the error which originalcheesespread mentioned. :help:

Duke John
11-17-2004, 12:50
Marsh climate conflicts with trees
Where ever there is marsh/swamp climate (yellow) the engine will not display trees and in the case of dense trees it will display black tiles. So when you apply marsh climate do not place trees in that area.

Encaitar
11-17-2004, 14:08
That also goes for dense forest in Sandy Desert and Rocky Desert climates.

Actually on this subject, I've got a bit of a screenshot (http://encaitar.metw.net/romescreens/climate-groundtypes.jpg) of what all the different ground types look like in each different climate. It looks a bit odd because it's actually 4 screenshots merged together (it was too big to fit on one screen). (That's also why the 'grid' is a bit off). Tiles with a white dot mean they get covered in snow in winter. Hope it's useful.

5000
01-06-2005, 05:10
i was recently able to get a completely remodeled campaign map up and running
and would like to thank everyone for the help they've offered and all the guides ppl are putting up.

i found something that might be of interest, in the data dir there is a file called template.txt, it seems like it shows how the desc_strat.txt file should look and operate, down at the bottm of template.txt, there are road and wall commands that would go in the rgions section of the descr_strat file, that i suppose would make predefined roads and walls to appear across the campaign map, i haven't been able to get either one to work, but if any body else can let me know.


-5000

Encaitar
01-07-2005, 06:22
The template.txt file is unfortunately hopelessly out of date. Many of the features you can see there (such as walls, roads, and including dead ex-faction-leaders in the starting family tree) do not seem to still be compatable with the game. Perhaps the syntax has merely changed, but I suspect in many of the cases they have been abandoned. Which is a real shame, because many of them (such as those I mentioned) would be very useful.

sunsmountain
01-21-2005, 02:02
I have a tip that some of you may use. Creating a new map from scratch can be challenging, so if you can find a .jpg or .gif from the internet of a beautiful, you can convert it into a (24-bits) bitmap using Paint. Then resize so there are a maximum of 256 pixels in the longest direction (horizontal or vertical) and that can give you a head start in modding.

5000
02-04-2005, 21:38
i have a problem, i was hopin that someone here might know what it might be.
here are two pictures i want you to notice the ground this is supposed to be just plain desert, but it looks patchy
http://img65.exs.cx/img65/9466/capture242005123400pm1ds.jpg


this next one shows you a differnce between two side by side provinces, some areas seem to be fine while others get this patchy look, it seems to vary by faction.

http://img219.exs.cx/img219/1302/capture242005121928pm9ys.jpg

i have no clue whats goin on


-5000 :help:

Myrddraal
02-04-2005, 23:52
Very wierd, are all the climates set right?

Could you post a jpg of your ground types and climates. This would help greatly.

5000
02-05-2005, 01:06
http://img212.exs.cx/img212/1046/mapgroundtypes0zh.jpg

http://img212.exs.cx/img212/3647/mapclimates5ie.jpg


you know i don't think it has anything to do with these,

the one area in that second pic i sent prior, where the ground looks normal, i extended that faction's borders and the normal ground followed the newly defined borders.


-5000

Encaitar
02-05-2005, 01:47
Do the provinces that look patchy have farms built in them? Because the patchiness looks to me like parts of the farm texture being overlayed on top of the base climate/groundtype texture.

5000
02-05-2005, 02:09
thanks guys

i shoulda known better than to try and put farms in my provinces.

why is that a problem, and how would i go about solving it other than just having no farms.


-5000

Dead Moroz
02-07-2005, 09:43
This patchy ground is result of farming. These regions have lots of "fertile" ground. Without farms this ground looks like empty. When you build farms, you'll see that motley which actually imitates farming area "from bird's eye view". If you don't want any motley, just replace "fertile" ground type with "wilderness". But remember to keep at least small amount of fertility somewhere in every province.

5000
02-08-2005, 04:38
If you don't want any motley, just replace "fertile" ground type with "wilderness". But remember to keep at least small amount of fertility somewhere in every province.

cool thanks man, i will give it a try.


-5000

thelordskinner
04-07-2005, 04:45
Hi The Lords Skinner Here :bow:


I am starting to learn campaing map editing and this is a great tutorial But if or when i get eras i will post them here for....you to figure out ~D
Thanks for this great tutorial!

Myrddraal
04-07-2005, 11:37
Hi Lords Skinner, I've actually condensed all the research done here into a tutorial:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=39456

thelordskinner
04-07-2005, 14:11
Yer thanx....I read that like a month ago and came up with all these eras so i will post them here.

thelordskinner
04-08-2005, 10:56
Script Error in Data/world/maps/campaing/mod Descr_regions.,txt at line 482 colum 5 Could not find settlment name of Rome in Stringtable


Was The Error Message But I have Rome In The mod_regions_settlments.txt thingy in the Data/text folder! ~:confused: ~:confused:

Mirconus the Great
08-21-2006, 09:27
Please help me!! I've got a problem which will soon make end up in a swamp of nerves... It sounds like that: I made a totally new campaign map. I've written show_err at my shortcut oin the desktop of RTW 1.5. But when I tried to run my campaign, it returned to the menu (usual when there's a problem). I got out of RTW and I saw the message the settlement "blablabla" x **, y ** is on an invalid tile... I tried everything, I enshured myself that everything is all right... Please give me the main reasons for this error...

Monkwarrior
08-21-2006, 09:38
Please help me!! I've got a problem which will soon make end up in a swamp of nerves... It sounds like that: I made a totally new campaign map. I've written show_err at my shortcut oin the desktop of RTW 1.5. But when I tried to run my campaign, it returned to the menu (usual when there's a problem). I got out of RTW and I saw the message the settlement "blablabla" x **, y ** is on an invalid tile... I tried everything, I enshured myself that everything is all right... Please give me the main reasons for this error...
I found the same error when the settlement was placed in an invalid terrain (mountains or deep forest, for example). You can roughly check this by looking in map_ground_types.tga, using double coordinates (2x, 2y). Look for a free place and move the tile of the settlement in map_regions.tga accordingly (be careful with the double scale of map_ground_types).

I usually solved those problems in this way.

Mirconus the Great
08-22-2006, 10:05
Well, I thought about this the first time it appeared to me. But this happened when I tried to add 3 more provinces on the bi campaign map...
So it's not about forest, mountains, sea or any other invalid ground type. I also checked that map_regions fits roughly with map_ground_types. Looks like I'm unlucky. Eachtime I modify provinces this appears. There's something wrong...
Any other reasons?

Monkwarrior
08-22-2006, 11:32
Well, I thought about this the first time it appeared to me. But this happened when I tried to add 3 more provinces on the bi campaign map...
So it's not about forest, mountains, sea or any other invalid ground type. I also checked that map_regions fits roughly with map_ground_types. Looks like I'm unlucky. Eachtime I modify provinces this appears. There's something wrong...
Any other reasons?
Did you check rivers in map_features?
If so, I cannot think in other reason. :embarassed:

Mirconus the Great
08-22-2006, 17:35
I found the same error when the settlement was placed in an invalid terrain (mountains or deep forest, for example). You can roughly check this by looking in map_ground_types.tga, using double coordinates (2x, 2y). Look for a free place and move the tile of the settlement in map_regions.tga accordingly (be careful with the double scale of map_ground_types).

I usually solved those problems in this way.

Well, this is the main problem: the bug doesn't look to be on that specific tile; the province with the problem is the first one in the region least in descr_regions.txt. Maybe the bug is somewhere else...

Myrddraal
08-23-2006, 02:31
Thread necromancy! Get back to the abyiss of page 3 foul shade! :skull:

Uranos
08-27-2006, 23:07
Well, this is the main problem: the bug doesn't look to be on that specific tile; the province with the problem is the first one in the region least in descr_regions.txt. Maybe the bug is somewhere else...

I had that many times :dizzy2: Not shure now what was the cause of that but but if i remember correctly it was because in map_regions.tga there was an additional colout not matching to any province RGB value.

stilgar
07-04-2007, 09:59
hello

I've a question, when you make a new map, we must put the roman senate?

Makanyane
07-04-2007, 18:12
You do not have to include the romans_senate faction in descr_strat.txt (eg in a campaign) in RTW 1.5.

I think in some earlier patch versions you did need them.

Does that answer your question? I'm not quite sure what you are trying to do...

Myrddraal
07-05-2007, 15:11
If you have a general question, you'd be better off posting a thread to ask it. How do people find this thread anyway, however many times it pops off the 1st page, it somehow comes back. Like a weed.

It's an interesting document though. Those of you complaining about working out how to mod M2TW, think of the problems there were with RTW.