Adding new factions in VI

[flip]

Saving bifs with 2.2 Bif Reader:

the file you save goes, dont know why, inside the bmp that you imported.save with whatever name.go to the bmp in question and change the extension bmp to bif. Bizarre, but it works.It may be important to create a copy of the same bmp before saving.

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Ah ha

That also explains why my bmp's no longer work Thank you Flip

Wow that is very good to know

Remind me to buy you a beer (or other drink) next I see you

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Ah and better still I hit another stroke of luck

If you creat a new bif the right dimensions/frames for what you want, when you import the bmp it imports the palette too. Before, I was importing them into the same bif template, which kept its palette.

Damn all that trouble for nothing

*stumbles along making foolish mod*

[Grell]

Are you sure it imports the palette, I just tried it and when I tested the bif it screwed up the colours and went greeny/bluey as it has always done when not using an exisitng template (i.e. official bif which came with the game).

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

(from memory - not at home)

What I did was edit the SHLD files. First opened up the reader then went into new file. IIRC the dimensions for them are 34*57? Plus also needs 3 frames.
All I did next was to import the bmp and the palette loaded also. Then save this and (thanks to Flip) change the bmp file you imported to bif. After you save, if you want to edit another you have to create a new bif again and do the same over again.

One thing to note, for all 3 frames I've only used 1 bmp. If I used more they would all be using the same palette and I'd be running out of colours in some cases.

Also, remember that the First and Last colours in the palette CANNOT be changed because these are required by the game. The first should be green, the last is required to represent the other colours (explained in the 2.1 readme.)

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

One thing I'd love to be able to do is make flags, shields, castleflags and uniticons bifs. I have PSP5 but haven't used it. When people talk about importing and extracting I've no idea. I want to be able to take the template of a shield (the shape) and draw something new inside it. People like Grell have made fantastic shields but I want to make some new ones also. I've seen two bif readers. One seems to have more options (file is on this one) but the palette seems difficult to work with. The other one (which I use when editing colours) seems very basic but it's easier to change the colours for each square. Could someone give me a guide on how to make new bifs and make them look like the ones in the game, i.e. have the same shield/flag/icon template? It only has to be short so long as I get the jist of it. Thanks in advance.

[Turbo]

Quote[/b] (GilJaysmith @ June 01 2003,04:21)]I've downloaded it but Sarah and I are decorating at the moment so my home servers are out of action for a while... so I'll look at it at work next week.

Gil,

It will be interesting to see what you come with. Concensus here is that the problem resides with the shields and hardcoding.

[MiniKiller]

Couldn't go through all 7 pages, to tires, so have you been able to get more factions? Would be cool to see all land owned by a faction however small

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

MiniKiller: simple answer is yes


To all: Looks like that problem with the palette's still exists. I managed to get all the bmp's done for 14 new factions... but it took me hours of work to manually input the palettes for each bmp/bif conversion

I've noticed a couple of things, the Red value is always correct, it is only the Blue and Green ones that don't seem to be read properly - and this isn't always the case. Sometimes the colour is loaded fine, other times Blue, Green or both these two have the wrong values. There seems to be a trend to the wrong values but I don't see it - perhaps writing them down... but hell that'd take too long.

Other than that, all is going well - just FacShields to do which aren't bif thank god

[MiniKiller]

Sweet Could someone post some pics? maybe of..the map, a battle the kings etc? thanks

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Download some of the mods around here. Not sure exactly which ones though... I think most add new factions.

The Kekvit mod doesn't though, this add's new units - but you still should check it out...

[MiniKiller]

What I'm looking for is real factions of the time with their own units, or own versions u know? But nothing else, no changes to the game itself you know?

[pyhhricvictory]

Has the CTD problem in battles been fixed yet? I am stuck on my own mod with getting the battles with created factions woprking in SP. MP I get fine battles, but not the SP. Any help at all will be appreciated.

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

I think that was a problem with the faction colours, the game seems to ind it difficult if you try using new colours schemes (definded in the startpos line SetFactionColour.) Try using colours that are already in the game but mix them up a little bit.

[Grell]

No its nothing to do with the fation colours (at least not in the SP campaign). I am positive it is a facshield problem. My new Carolingian Mod has 10 new factions working fine with no battle CTD as the new factions use untis which either dont require facshields or for some bizarre reason have units which do but remain stable. i.e. experimenting has shown High Royal Knights cause a CTD but Late Royal Knights are OK. Anyway my mod is all done but i am working on a few balancing issues to stop the development of super factions which after 100 years dominate too much. For now its Egypt and GHRE. I will be releasing this for testing once i have fully tested it myself

[pyhhricvictory]

Thanks Everyone. Grell, I am looking forward to seeing your mod. Sounds Great

[Gregoshi]

New patron Lysander provided the following (new?) information on this issue in the Entrance Hall:

-----

ok, I have been having a lot of trouble adding a new faction (e.g., FN_FREE21 //Welsh )without a game crash; however, I have figured out the secret to this miserable little task...

Now, the problem was that game crashes occured as the newly defined faction left the campaign map for the battle map--oddly this crash would only occur with certain units (e.g., peasants, highland clansmen, kerns, etc.). I discovered that only those units which were culled from texture folders associated with face-shields caused the crash. Units drawn from texture folders which are not associated with face-shields (e.g., archers--which use the texture folder "Pestunic")do not cause a battle crash. Therefore newly defined factions, such as FN_FREE21 //WELSH, cannot utilize units which are drawn from the following bif texture folders, as they are associated with face-shields:
"Peasant"
"ChainHlm"
"HlPlArSH"
"LArmWCav"
"MKnight"
"MSHelm"
"PlateS"
Since Mtw/Vi can utilize 10 new customizable bif folders, the above texture folders can be copied and renamed "Custom0" through "Custom6" respectively--just make sure the bif images inside the folders are also renamed (e.g., Custom0_H.bif to replace Peasant_H.bif, etc.). After this, one only needs to open the CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11 file and change the texture body type (e.g., from "Peasant" to "Custom0") for each unit that used the troublesome textures. Now new factions can use all available units without experiencing a crash-to-desktop on the battle map--although face-shields will not be used in the game.
Yet, if one wishes to retain face-shields in the game then only those units which specificaly use face-shields should be drawn from the old texture folders and used only by the original factions. New factions must be denied access to those specific units. This is easily done if new factions are muslim or pagan, however loyalist revolts might unexpectedly add such units as feudal-men-at-arms or feudal sergeants to newly added catholic factions--therefore care must be taken if face-shields are included in a game with new factions.

Well, this system has worked well for me and as of this moment I have built a grand Welsh kingdom stretching across much of Europe. I have fought all the battles myself, and, although not all have been victories, I have yet to experiance a game crash.
I hope this information can be of help to those intrested.

-----

[komninos]

I am posting this here just in case anyone of you has seen this behavior and has an answer to it. It is also posted at ODD game crush … but I did not have much response.

I have started a HTW mod and used the English map as test bed. The units are new and redistributed among the factions many of which have the new Hellenic units while two have a mixture of Celtic / Irish units. Though I have no problem in single battles not in loading the campaign there is a CDT when in campaign map the cursor reaches the edge of the screen … instead of scrolling the game crushes.

Factions, flags, colors, and building production used same as VI.
You can start to build units, buildings, attack or defend provinces as long as you don’t move your pointer to the edge of the map.

The strange thing is that while in the “end turn” the map scrolls fine showing the other factions moving????????????

If any one can help on this one please do cause I am in despair with this. You can download the files for the test bed from the beta section of the orgs downloads (links are in the thread of Hellenic Total War)

Thanks

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I think Lysander should be promoted to legend status. It works. Alright the factions don't have the prebattle shields but it doesn't matter, they're just plain grey. I now have a fully working Super High with 10 new factions (Welsh, Irish, Scots, Portuguese, Bohemians, Lithuanians, Teutonic Knights, Crusader States, Serbians and Croatians), plus the Swiss, Novgorod, papacy, mongols and Burgundians added.

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Grell, I didn't believe what I typed exactly either, since I've added my own new factions colours with no crashes. I just remember others saying it was the colours.

Lysander's solution is great Maybe this will solve/stop a lot of CTD's

[Grell]

Lysander you are an absolute legend, I have tested this and it works??

It is now possible to add new factions without getting the battle CTD.

Not a bad effort for a first post Your single post is worth more than some who have 1,000+ posts but as Welly says talk "bullshit". My full admiration to you who managed to work this out AND offer a solution, when myself and others have been flailing around for months, and even the bloody programmers of the game were not able to even offer an explanation as to what was casuign the crash (or couldnt be bothered ). This is excellent news for all modders. I will re-work my Carolinger mod to adapt to this, which will require more testing, work , etc so probably another week or so before I will release it. However my mod The First Crusade with the Kigdom of Jerusalem, etc will now be playable without the battle CTD. If i was a chick i would offer t have your babies you bloody champion

[Grell]

Actually i think this excellent news deserves a thread of its own

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to put up a mod for people to download. Also,i have added the korean units from Mongol invasion to VI with the warrior monks as persian fanatics just for the hell of it. So i was wondering if there is a way to do the same thing with the Mongol music and speech. Any ideas?

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

This what you mean BKB?

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

God bless ya,ithasker.

[starkhorn]

Greetings,

I'm starting to get interested in performing some modding on this great game to personalise it somewhat. I think it's a good time to begin modding as it looks like from this thread that people have solved most of the problems already.

My goal is a fairly simple one for my first attempt. I wish to add a new faction in the main european campaign. The new faction will be a Celtic one based on the regions where Celtic languages still exist, i.e. Ireland, Wales and Scotland (and possibly Brittany ). Note that I have VI installed but I want to do this campaign on the main european map and not the VI one.

I've read ECS's simple guide to adding a new faction and I've downloaded several campaigns done by other people as examples to follow. The Crusader mod in particular was really useful.

I just had a few basic questions to help me get started.

(a)In the declarefactions section. I've noticed from other mods that people declare their new factions as FN_FREE21. Does it absolutely need to be 21 or call I leave it 01 ? I notice that in ECS's guide that he called it FN_new which suggestions you can call it anything you want.

(b)In the DEFAULT_FACTION_SPECIFIC.TXT, I noticed several sections like @["faction_leaders_xzy"] and ["factions_posessive_xzy"]which obviously I need to update in order for my new faction. However I noticed the same two sections in names.txt as well. Do I need to update both files or is the default one sufficient ?

c) Hmmm. I really don't understand the SetFactionCol section all. Can anyone help explain what the below means ?

SetFactionCol:: FN_ALMOHAD 255 138 0 32 32 32

(d)I want to keep this mod simple until I get more experienced, thus I just intend to use the VI irish shield for my new faction. So I'm assuming that I can just use the SetShieldImage line for the Irish faction from thevikings.txt file ? i.e. in my txt file (assuming my I declare my faction as FN_FREE21, can I use the below line ?

SetShieldImage:: FN_FREE21 "Irish_lge" "Irish_sml" "Irish" "Irish" "Irish"

Thats it. Hope I haven't asked too much too soon. I've tried to find the above answers from this thread but some of the answers have been a little too advanced for myself hence my request for clarification.

Many, many thanks in advance to any person that can help.

Cheers
EX__Starkhorn

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Hi Stark ... actually for modding that is exactly what I did except my first mod was for VI.

Anyhow...

a) You can call it whatever you want, so long as you change all mention of the new faction label to the same. That includes a couple instances in changes.txt too. But if you keep it to FN_Free01 there is no need to edit most of them, since those labels are already there for Free01.
I find it easier to leave it as it is though, so there is no need to keep changing the labels.


b) You really don't need to change the names.txt at all to add new factions. Only if you add new items to the game do you need change this file (I mean completely new made up, whereas 32 factions are already accommodated for.) Hmmm, you might need to change this if you made changes to the labels (ie changed FN_Free01 to FN_Free21)

c) RGB values. The first 3 numbers represent the clans FOREGROUND colour (Red/Green/Blue), the second 3 represent the BACKGROUND.

Easiest way to edit these is to go into PSP and get the colour you want, then copy the RGB values accross to the line here.

Changing these will change lots of things in the game, like the colours on the pieces in the campmap and the colours the units wear in battle.

d) Yes you can use that line, and it is best that you do But you still need to go into campmap\pieces\units\christian\shields\vikings and copy the Irish.bif to the parent folder campmap\pieces\units\christian\shields

Do the same for campmap\pieces\units\muslim\shields\vikings

Then go to textures\campmap\vikings\castleflags and copy the irish.bif here to the folder textures\campmap\castleflags

Laslty, to fight battles you need to go into textures\campmap\vikings\prebatshields and make a copy of SHL01, then rename it to SHL21 and put it in textures\campmap\prebatshields

[WesW]

Has anyone started looking into what it is about face-shields that would be causing the crashes? I mean, we apparently have a work-around, but it would be better if we knew the cause of the problem, wouldn't it?

Also, I am not very experienced in this area, so would someone kindly explain what the face-shield is? I know what the armour piece is, but I would not think that Peasants would use one.

Just a thought: about the only factors I know of that would come together in this area are the unit height settings in the units text. Perhaps these have to be a special setting to work with face shields? On second thought, that's probably not right, but it may be something for one you guys to check out if you are inclined.

Just trying to help.

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Faceshields = Facshields, nothing to do with Faces but actually FacTions

A while back I thought these were causing the CTD but someone brushed it aside so I thought nothing of it. The problem is if you look in the facshields there are only files for the current 20 factions in the game, none for any of the other 12 or so that can be added. Which makes the game crash tyring to load shields for the extra factions.

I suspect that if you tried making new files in the facshields folder then they woulcd work too, so long as you call them the name you defined the faction as it might work too, ie FN_Free21 or FN_Free01 if you didn't change this.


I THINK the reason peasants crash is because they share their textures folder with a unit that uses a facshield (FeudalSergeants) but I don't know for sure why this would happen. To check if this was the case try a game with another of the units in there eg Vikings (Housecarles), Pikemen, Arty Crews, UrbanMils etc.

[starkhorn]

Quote[/b] (Ithaskar Fëarindel @ July 05 2003,00:41)]

Hi MajesticIthasker,

Thank you ever so much for that post....it was a huge help. Remind me to let you win the next time we meet online.

So my progress has gone well today thanks to this thread, your previous post.

I had problems where the game crashed when loading the camp map but that was due to the shields not being in the main MTW folder and your post solved that for me.
So now I've
(a)gotten 3 regions belonging to the Celts,

(b)gotten the leader unit changed from clansmen to knights (great program gnome)

©gave my new faction the turkish green and gave the turks the colour of the picts. Sorry ithaskar but what is PSP ?

(d)updated the prod and unit files to allow the Celts to build most catholic units and buildings.

(e)My final problem was that the game was crashing when I entered a battle but I saw Lysanders post which solved that one. Legend status for Lysander....how on earth did you manage to find that workaround ?

So things are going well and I'm close to actually finishing.....but I still have a few things that I'm not happy with.

(1) In custom battles I can't use many units at all. Now I've changed the unit prod file and I can build those buildings and train those units no problem. So I don't know what I've forgotten to make it work in custom battles. I saw that you had the same problem ithaskar but I didn't really understand the solution.

(2) How can I set the attribues of my starting king. I saw tha famous kings section in the hereos files but I can't seem to change much. I can easily change the command, acumen etc but for example how can I change the age or how can I add several vices...it always picks the first one.

(3) I want to add a specific Gaelic name list for my faction but I can't seem to get it to work. I want to add completely new names like Cuchulian or Owen Roe O'Neill etc but it never recognises them in the campaign map. I add the names in the hereos file and also the names.txt but it never recognises it and all the names of my generals are blank. Anyone done this successfully ? Did you do this in your mod Ithaskar and if so can I still download it to check your files ?

Anyway, thanks to all who contributed in this thread as it helped enormously. I couldn't have gotten so far. Also thanks to Grell for his Crusader mod. I downloaded it and been using it as an example to follow...really helpful.

Cheers
EX__Starkhorn