Custom Campaign

[hecose]

In one of my earlier posts (just a few days ago) I suggested someone build a campaign editor, so that in addition to creating battlefield maps, the Total War community can also create campaign maps (the full map of Japan). Fans will be able to create different scenarios / starting positions. Unfortunately I have zero replies to that suggestion.

Then yesterday I found out something interesting. Creating custom campaigns MIGHT be easier than I thought. I found a few files in the directory below quite interesting:

C:\Program Files\Total War\Shogun - Total War - Warlord Edition\campmap\startpos

The files seem to dictate starting positions (province ownership, number of troops, buildings present etc). I wonder whether we can create custom campaigns by editing these files. I haven't had time to do any fiddling with them yet though. Anyone interested to try it out? If not then I'll report back of any findings when I get around doing it.

[Swoosh So]

Sounds interesting bumP!!

[Kraellin]

hecose,

yes, tosa and i were just talking about that this morning. he also found the same files you did apparently and informed me of them. sounds like a winner. tosa said pretty much the same thing you're saying about them. i asked him also if it looked like they would be exportable the same way that maps are and he seemed to think they were. and that would mean that folks could not only just create them, they could also post them on web sites for others to play.

so, this is one more thing the dev guys included that we asked for...just gets better and better :)

K.


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I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[hecose]

This is great! The files should be easily exportable and shared with others since they are just text files. Now I'm really torn between getting my hands dirty testing them out and actually playing the game. Aarrgghh... I think I'll be playing the game... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[The Daimyo]

I'm only having one problem here. There's two file types present in the Campaigns folder for the Mongol/Od/Uesugi/etc. folders. They are compiled files that I believe are responsible for controlling the progress of the campaign battles from one to the next.
We need to be able to do this is we're going to make linear campaigns like those. We don't have to, but I'd rather be able to than not!
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
Otherwise if we make a special campaign that has chapters, we'll have to do it the old way and then have to tell people which one to go to next, and so on.
Bah!


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The Daimyo
Miaowara "Kakizaki" Tomokato
@ http://www.planettotalwar.com

[hecose]

The Daimyo, I don't understand. What I mean is to create customised scenarios, e.g. in year 1500, who has which province, who has what troops, what buildings etc. This is the big Japan map. So players just have new scenarios to start playing the full campaign, in addition to the existing Sengoku Jida, 1530, 1550, 1580 ones.

Maybe you are referring to Historical Campaigns? (which is basically a series of Historical Battles, but not a full campaign)

[celtiberoijontychi]

Hm, that sounds interesting ...

Do you think it would be possible to have more Clans added? I mean, play the sengoku game with some 30 clans, each having 2 provinces? That'd be really great!

Add this to the seamingly endless possibilities of unit editing and you have an entire new game. STW will live forever!!

It looks like the dev team have opened the game to editing and moding with almost no limits!!! After so much ranting on them now they deserve a big THANK YOU!! With this new features they have given us much more than we expected.

[Kraellin]

jontichi,

i agree. someone suggested that it was just a mistake that ca had left these files in place, but i dont think so. i think it was intentional because we had asked for it. so, i too cheer them!

the downside is that it somewhat suggests there isnt going to be another stw sequel, but we sorta knew that already with the announcement of crusaders.

what we have now is access to many new dev toys and teams and individual mod folks are already shaping up in different areas of interest. i'm working with maps, yuuki is tearing the unit stats apart, hecose seems interested in the campaign stuff, magy is starting a stat/mod team for his advanced log file/stat editor thing and i'm sure others are jumping in here and there as well. we've got new maps posted and folks are sending them around to me and tosa to have a look at. i like it. we're getting a nice mods group going and i'm sure some good things are going to come out of this.

now, if we could just get players to try something besides last man standing on totomi we'll have it whipped ;)

hecose, you might wanna get ahold of tosa about the campaign stuff. i know he's interested in this aspect of the game also.

i see no great reason to try and formalize this group either. we're more or less working independently, but cooperatively, with this forum being the clearinghouse for news and updates. i think this will work pretty well for the time being. we can 'publish' our findings here and i'm thinking that the .org will provide space for any actual mods we come up with.

once again, i thank ca and look forward to seeing the mod squad's actual results.

K.


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I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[celtiberoijontychi]

hehe, of course there won't be a sequel. But there will be more "releases" in the next 1 1/2 year:
online and LAN campaign
editing of unit sprites
release of code elements from the campaign and battle engines, so we can make customized campaigns.

By the time Crusader is released, STW will be a fully modable game.

I don't care if it takes months till next element is made available for moding ... it will take months anyway just to cope with what we already have.

They won't release the code to soon, cos' it's not only us who are interested in getting our hands on it, it's also the other game companies... we won't see a line of the game engine until Crusader is out

[The Daimyo]

Yep yep, I'm already drawing out my game design docs for the many many mods and add-on campaigns that I plan on contributing! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I would like some help with it. As I have it now I will need to produce no less than 60 maps for just the first few linear campaigns, and the mini-campaigns I have drawn up. On top of that, I have some conversions I'd like to do and a slew of other things that will take a lot of man hours to complete all together.

Perhaps we should start a bit of a "Mod Team" or a coalition of sorts.
Four,6, or 8+ guys can get a hell of a lot more done than just 1 guy doing everything!

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif


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The Daimyo
Miaowara "Kakizaki" Tomokato
@ http://www.planettotalwar.com

[Swoosh So]

Great news guys!! now if we could only edit those bif files!! sheesh im never happy.

Swoooooooooooooooooooosh

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

I've 'quickly' assembled 3 custom campaigns for STW WE. Two are set in the Mongol area, 1 is set in sengoku jidai. The main purpose of these files is to show how campaigns can be made, but all 3 are playable and you might enjoy them. I haven't invested 1 sec in balancing the campaigns.

There seems to be more options and not everything has been reveiled yet. But you can set startingprovinces, units (incl bonusses) and startingbuildings, and you can set them either in mongol or in sengoku area.

I guess it's also possible to give mongols an emissary or priest, no idea though what they should have to do with it.

It's all textediting for now, but it shouldn't be too hard to make your own campaign.

P.S.
If you want a campaign in the mongol era it seems to be a prequisite to have the Hojo in. Once the Hojo are 'out' the mongols have won and the game is over (their are a lot of things to consider if you play another clan ;-) )
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net

[This message has been edited by TosaInu (edited 08-21-2001).]

[TosaInu]

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