Post your "must-know" modding questions here!

[Duke John]

JeromeGrasdyke was so kind these answer to our modding questions:
Since the number of questions is not too large I've decided (in a fit of enthusiasm) to answer all of them, so here they are:

Assuming there are individual unit speeds, where are they found?

The unit speeds are affected by a number of factors. The main one is the animations; you may already have noticed that the 'fast' skeletons contain many of the same animations as the none-fast ones, just different, sped-up locomotion anims. A second factor is the ground type modifier - these are stored in the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt file, but will cause the soldiers to 'slide' around when applied, so it's best to keep their influence to the minimum required. So, there are no individual unit speeds as such, but it is possible to create their appearance by adding new animations.

Where can we find the Marian Reform trigger (and can it be changed from the Imperial Palace)? Can we change the population limits for settlements so that they happen later?

The Marian Reforms are triggered by the first non-Senate faction to build an Imperial Palace, and this is hard-coded. We are planning to add a date limit as well in the v1.2 patch to make sure it does not occur too early. The population limits are also hard-coded, although you could attempt to decrease the rate of population growth by reducing farming and other growth bonusses (this will have substantial knock-on effects for the game balance, so watch out).

Is it possible to create a new faction/rename an existing one, and if so how?

It is possible, but it will be a lot of work. There are many things which go into the look of a coherent faction: names lists, banners, tech tree entries and their descriptions, unit lists, correctly-coloured unit models, and so on. Covering all of this in detail is beyond the scope of a simple question, but all the conversions from a faction tag into the code's internal identifiers run through the same code, and so if you wanted to change the Julian Romans into something else, you could do a search for 'romans_julii' and be reasonably certain that you've caught all instances where the faction is directly referred to. You'll see these faction tags all over the text files, so I won't list them here. Unfortunately, there may be places where it is implicit; none come to mind, but any sequences of numbers or properties in sets of 21 would be suspicious. There will be some trial-and-error involved...

Is there a way to turn off the Fog of War so that playtesting sweeping mod changes is easier?

Yes. Open up your preferences.txt file and change the FOG_OF_WAR setting to FALSE. Alternatively, there is a 'toggle_fow' command available as a cheat through RomeShell.

With a tool already out to allow us to poke around in the files, it looks like the unit data stuff and the textures are straight-forward enough..but what about the 3D files ? Is there going to be a way to mod them?

We're still considering various ways to approach this - no decision has yet been made.

Can new units be added to increase the number of unit choices available, or are there limits as there were with the MTW ones?

The game supports a maximum of 300 units.

Is the campaign map a full 3D object or a 2D image of one? What about .rwm files?

The campaign map is a full 3D object, and is mostly built out of geographical heightfield data, with models merged into the map at the places where there are mountains to give the visual appeal a bit of extra 'oomph'. The RWM file contains this data and quite a few other 'layers' such as a climate map, a ground type map, a region map and a feature map.

Could you give us an idea of what kind of modding support CA are planning? Really just an outline ie. are they going to release a modding guide or will there be a set of tools available too? I'm interested in creating a Japanese/fantasy mod but it would require model editing ability (rather than simple texture adjusting).

We will be releasing a battle editor (which also includes an integrated terrain editor) for generating stand-alone battles with a future patch, and also a rough modding guide which may be added to over time as people run into problems. Other tools, such as the sprite generator or some of the Excel spreadsheets, may be released after a while; again, no decision has yet been made on this.

Can we mod individual (turning) speeds?

No. They are hard-coded.

Is there a list of console commands / command-line options available anywhere?

Not as yet. These will probably be included in the modding guide.

How does the Academy bonus work?

The Academy generates ancillaries for characters which are inside a settlement which contains an Academy. If you examine export_descr_ancillaries.txt you will be able to spot them, together with a lot of other ancillaries which are linked to the presence of buildings.

Can we add new campaigns without adding a new installation of Rome?

There is a mechanism for this, however it is not yet ready for prime time. It will be exposed in a future patch and detailed in the guide.

[Jagger]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was wondering how to mod the cavalry turn/wheel factor. To me, it seems cavalry can turn on a time and reverse/change direction. Infantry seems to rotate formation in a reasonable manner. I just not happy with cavalry formation turns. I know we use to be able to change the turn rates in MTW. Can we mod this factor in RTW, in particular for cavalry?

DJ: Added

[khelvan]

Is there a debug routine that we can turn on, to determine where the crashes come from?

DJ: See post #4

[tombom]

I'll back modding tools. And what other modding support is included. Jerome said that there was a way to get around the fact that changed files will be incompatible in MP but that it wasn't ready. And I'd also like to know if "modding tools" covers a tool to create a map, which seems to have been compiled from the tga files.

And -show_errs on the command line shows errors when you exit.

[khelvan]

Thanks, is there a list of command line and/or console commands anywhere?

DJ: Added

[Steppe Merc]

Can we make the troops hold their weapons differently as it is now? Can the pikemen be made to hold their pikes correctly with two hands, and the heavy lancers hold their kontos with two hands, are are we forced into one hand to hold the spear/pike?

DJ: This can be done if we can add new animations and that question is already included.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

If there are multiple weapons in a texture how can we determine which one the unit uses? (This is probably relevant to the CAS files, so it may count as the same question as DJ's)

DJ: Indeed. The weapon is likely included with the model. When switching weapons the model is also switched and also a different set of animations. At the moment we can't change weapons so we need to add animations and models and that question is already asked.

[dhague]

Academic Building Question: The descriptions of the academic buildings imply that they should improve the starting ratings of heirs. The export_descr_buildings.txt file shows that these buildings have blank "capabilities" so their only current value is to allow other usefull buildings. I see no effect on heirs starting ratings if these buildings are present. One could mod the blank capabilities for happiness_bonus, law_bonus, and recruit_exp_bonus but this would only affect units not heirs. Is there an "heir_bonus" somewhere or is this something that will appear in the "future patch"??

DJ: Added.

General Mod Issue Question: Since modding RTW would involve changes across many files/directories, Does RTW have an equivalent of the MTW "Prodfiles" and other similiar command lines?? Or are mod-ers going to be limited to having a duplicate RTW installation for each mod set?? For example, it would be nice if all mod files could reside in a single directory such as data\world\maps\campaign\My-Mod_campaign.

DJ: Question has been added. On a side note, by chance I copied the Imperial campmap directory. And then I noticed in the main menu that a new item appeared in which I could select "Copy of Imperial Campaign".

Command shell Question: Has anyone found or figured out if there is a "toggle_xxxx" command that will turn off the startup intro so that RTW pops right into the main menu?? This would make mod-testing so much easier and save hours of looking at the soundblaster plug.

DJ: See post #12

TIA for any answers or conjectures.

[camulos]

What about files such as 'export_descr_character_traits.txt' that say:

;This file is generated from the Spreadsheet VnV,txt
;Please modify the spreadsheet and re-xport the data, rather than editing this file directly

How can we mod these files correctly?

DJ: Question has been added.

[khelvan]

Further to camulos' question, can we please have copies of the spreadsheets that output those .txt files? We don't even need documentation, I am sure we can figure it out. However, given the almost countless number of changes one has to make to do something like rename a faction, such spreadsheets will no doubt make our lives a lot easier.

DJ: Added, merged with post #9.

[V'ger]

Hello

First, I'd like to thank Jerome for his kind offer. It is muchly appreciated.

Second and to the point: Are we going to be able to mod and create events? If so, a full list of the relevant files and where they fit into the scheme of things would be most helpful.


DJ: Added. Although you can change dates, the effects of the events are most likely hardcoded.

For that matter, for any of these files where we can make changes, it would be good to have a short rundown of how these files relate to each other. For example, if you need to change the cost and upkeep for agents, you have to change two files (whose names escape me at the moment).

So it might say: To change building capabilities, open export_building_descr.txt.

DJ: We would get some guides to help us modding. We will see to what extent they help us. I think we are ourselves more than capable to write our own guides if the official ones are lacking a bit.


Thanks.

[Thoros of Myr]

Command shell Question: Has anyone found or figured out if there is a "toggle_xxxx" command that will turn off the startup intro so that RTW pops right into the main menu?? This would make mod-testing so much easier and save hours of looking at the soundblaster plug.

Just cut the files "ATVI_Spinning_Logo_640x480.wmv" & "rome_title.wmv" from the game files and put them in a backup folder for safe keeping, no more intro during those heavy modding sessions

[Jambo]

I'd like to know whether it's possible to mod the population requirement that causes the increase to a settlement's level, i.e. 2,000, 6,000, 12,000, 24,000.

Cheers

DJ: Added. But I can't find it, so most probably not.

[Duke John]

I have added most of the questions. See the blue comments in your post.

To all
Please post questions that we are most likely unable to discover ourselves. For example the questions about changing events or population requirements are some that we can answer ourselves if we look through the files. If there no entries then it's not moddable.
For example the question about command line/ console commands is a good one since there is no way we can discover that ourselves. If there are too many questions then I will pick the ones that are asked with the above in mind.

Perhaps we can make a new post in the future where we ask the developers to uncode some things and make the moddable. This has been done in the past with the M:TW projectile files. And the VI expansion allowed us to add multiple campaigns.

Cheers, Duke John

[Lance]

How can we edit terrain and other overlay effects, like climate, map surface and things like that.

I tried to modify the map_heights.tga, which has the same surface features as heightmap as the campaign map in game, but it wont change anything. Next I compiled a new .hgt file, a heightmap file, from a modified heights.tga and did the same for the .rwm file (rome world map?) but when I loaded the game, I was still the default campaign map.

So, where can we modify campaihn map terrain and import elevation data to create custom terrain?

Belonging to the above: Can i create new regions, if I create a new color on the regions.tga (as the regions seem to be stored as unique RGB fields), add a black dot for the settlement and paint it onto an existing region? (modifying a few of those settlement and region text files too)

The same question concerning rivers: Is there a way, to simply PAINT the new rivers in the appropriate file in the base folder? I noticed that all rivers are dark blue, the background black and forable places white.
Will these .tgs tell the engine to create terrain features from existing art work?

mfg

Lance, trying to edit the terrain

[SwordsMaster]

Can we mod in firearms?

Cheers

[Jambo]

Another question:

Is it possible to mod the difficulty level settings for battle and campaign map AI, and mod the AI's tendency to purchase buildings/units? For example the AI never seems to build an assassin.

Cheers

[hellenes]

Another question:

Is it possible to mod the difficulty level settings for battle and campaign map AI, and mod the AI's tendency to purchase buildings/units? For example the AI never seems to build an assassin.

Cheers

I second that AND also CAn we mod the AI bonuses OUT? So we can play on "smart" AI but without the REDICULUS battle bonuses? (+att+def)

Hellenes

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Thank you very much for the offer, JeromeGrasdyke

Everybody, if you have a modding question then post them here. Once we have enough reasonable questions I will make a poll so that we can decide whitch 5 question are send to Jerome.

My questions:

• Will we be able to make our own campaign maps, ie only England or even Middle Earth?

• Will we be able to import our own models, not just textures?

For me those are the most important since if we're not able to do those things alot of mod ideas can be thrown into the wastebasket.

Cheers,
Duke John

Couldn't have said it better. For us at the EB (Europa Barbarorum) thread, those are the two of the most important questions to be asked. In addiction to those:

• Can unit stats be edited one by one, regarding walking, running, charging speed, defense, attack, bonuses against cav, etc? I don't mean by category (light cav, heavy cav, etc...), but by unit.

• Can new unit animations be imported into RTW? If no, is there any way to change existing ones?

• Can events (like Marian Reforms) be modded or altered in any way?

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Since the number of questions is not too large I've decided (in a fit of enthusiasm) to answer all of them, so here they are:

Assuming there are individual unit speeds, where are they found?

The unit speeds are affected by a number of factors. The main one is the animations; you may already have noticed that the 'fast' skeletons contain many of the same animations as the none-fast ones, just different, sped-up locomotion anims. A second factor is the ground type modifier - these are stored in the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt file, but will cause the soldiers to 'slide' around when applied, so it's best to keep their influence to the minimum required. So, there are no individual unit speeds as such, but it is possible to create their appearance by adding new animations.

Where can we find the Marian Reform trigger (and can it be changed from the Imperial Palace)? Can we change the population limits for settlements so that they happen later?

The Marian Reforms are triggered by the first non-Senate faction to build an Imperial Palace, and this is hard-coded. We are planning to add a date limit as well in the v1.2 patch to make sure it does not occur too early. The population limits are also hard-coded, although you could attempt to decrease the rate of population growth by reducing farming and other growth bonusses (this will have substantial knock-on effects for the game balance, so watch out).

Is it possible to create a new faction/rename an existing one, and if so how?

It is possible, but it will be a lot of work. There are many things which go into the look of a coherent faction: names lists, banners, tech tree entries and their descriptions, unit lists, correctly-coloured unit models, and so on. Covering all of this in detail is beyond the scope of a simple question, but all the conversions from a faction tag into the code's internal identifiers run through the same code, and so if you wanted to change the Julian Romans into something else, you could do a search for 'romans_julii' and be reasonably certain that you've caught all instances where the faction is directly referred to. You'll see these faction tags all over the text files, so I won't list them here. Unfortunately, there may be places where it is implicit; none come to mind, but any sequences of numbers or properties in sets of 21 would be suspicious. There will be some trial-and-error involved...

Is there a way to turn off the Fog of War so that playtesting sweeping mod changes is easier?

Yes. Open up your preferences.txt file and change the FOG_OF_WAR setting to FALSE. Alternatively, there is a 'toggle_fow' command available as a cheat through RomeShell.

With a tool already out to allow us to poke around in the files, it looks like the unit data stuff and the textures are straight-forward enough..but what about the 3D files ? Is there going to be a way to mod them?

We're still considering various ways to approach this - no decision has yet been made.

Can new units be added to increase the number of unit choices available, or are there limits as there were with the MTW ones?

The game supports a maximum of 300 units.

Is the campaign map a full 3D object or a 2D image of one? What about .rwm files?

The campaign map is a full 3D object, and is mostly built out of geographical heightfield data, with models merged into the map at the places where there are mountains to give the visual appeal a bit of extra 'oomph'. The RWM file contains this data and quite a few other 'layers' such as a climate map, a ground type map, a region map and a feature map.

Could you give us an idea of what kind of modding support CA are planning? Really just an outline ie. are they going to release a modding guide or will there be a set of tools available too? I'm interested in creating a Japanese/fantasy mod but it would require model editing ability (rather than simple texture adjusting).

We will be releasing a battle editor (which also includes an integrated terrain editor) for generating stand-alone battles with a future patch, and also a rough modding guide which may be added to over time as people run into problems. Other tools, such as the sprite generator or some of the Excel spreadsheets, may be released after a while; again, no decision has yet been made on this.

Can we mod individual (turning) speeds?

No. They are hard-coded.

Is there a list of console commands / command-line options available anywhere?

Not as yet. These will probably be included in the modding guide.

How does the Academy bonus work?

The Academy generates ancillaries for characters which are inside a settlement which contains an Academy. If you examine export_descr_ancillaries.txt you will be able to spot them, together with a lot of other ancillaries which are linked to the presence of buildings.

Can we add new campaigns without adding a new installation of Rome?

There is a mechanism for this, however it is not yet ready for prime time. It will be exposed in a future patch and detailed in the guide.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Thank you for answering all the questions. Looks like many things are undecided at the minute but at least we have plenty of things to be going on with for the time being. (goes off to try adding a faction or province)

[Duke John]

Thank your very much for your answers, JeromeGrasdyke

Although we're still a bit left in the dark considering the tools, I can completely understand that just releasing company made tools isn't always the obvious thing to do. Still I would like to add that mods do sell games. Not all people might be interested in buying a roman game, but if there are fantasy, medieval or napoleonic mods with a large modding community behind it then it's a different story. At the moment we're limited to tweaking the original game and IMO that is waste of the huge potential that the engine has.

Still many thanks

[AstroCat]

First off thank you for taking the time to help us with answering our questions. Truly appreciated. :)

Now, on to my question:

Many, many of us have been desperately and intensely trying to slow down the "kill rate" or rate in which combat happens. So many of us feel combat is over way too quickly and there should be more time for the fight to commence thus allowing more tactics not to mention a more "epic" feel to the battles.

We have tried in desperation everything we can think of, or find.

1. Kill - rate modifier (last one on the line)
2. boosting hp's
3. boosting defensive skill and other skills

... and every combination of the above we can all think of and test.
So far everything has been a dead end because some part of what we change ends up disrupting something else in a way we can not figure out how to rebalance.

So, I (we) ask of you, please, can you help us?

What is the way in which we can prolong the melee combat experience without or with minimal disruption of the balance of the units and the game itself?

Several of us are also using this in combination with a 10-20% decrease in the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt file.

Thank you very much for your time.

Best Regards,
Jordan Trais "AstroCat"

[khelvan]

Since the number of questions is not too large I've decided (in a fit of enthusiasm) to answer all of them, so here they are:

Assuming there are individual unit speeds, where are they found?

The unit speeds are affected by a number of factors. The main one is the animations; you may already have noticed that the 'fast' skeletons contain many of the same animations as the none-fast ones, just different, sped-up locomotion anims. A second factor is the ground type modifier - these are stored in the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt file, but will cause the soldiers to 'slide' around when applied, so it's best to keep their influence to the minimum required. So, there are no individual unit speeds as such, but it is possible to create their appearance by adding new animations.

Thank you for your answers!

So, if I am reading this correctly, you are saying that the unit animations can actually increase or decrease not how quickly the unit -appears- to move, but rather how quickly the unit -actually- moves? By "move" I do not mean the movement of limbs, but rather the actual distance travelled over the same amount of time.

Thanks,

-khel

[Steppe Merc]

The game supports a maximum of 300 units.

Noo....

[vladthewallachian]

I might be speaking out of school, but I was wondering how I can change the unit sizes. Even at Huge 160 men will not do it. At least 200 men per unit max would be feasable to me. How could that unit size number be changed? I tried to do it in preferences file, but it changes back to 160. I guess it won't work. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Cheers!

[Red Harvest]

Thanks for the responses! Don't know if there will be an opportunity for future questions, but I'm curious about the following:

1. Spears/pikes vs. cav. We are seeing some odd effects where spear units don't seem to do that well vs. cav. (compared to sword infantry), and horses jump over phalangites, etc. Where should this be adjusted (file and stat), and is it working as intended by CA?

2. Missile stats and units. Is there some factor for reducing missile effectiveness at extreme range? I'm not seeing much loss of accuracy/killing power at range and would like to tone it down for the "elite" units. I realize the missile attack rating can be lowered, but what about accuracy/penetration vs. distance?

Thanks again.

[Thoros of Myr]

Thank you for your time and responses Jerome.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Although we're still a bit left in the dark considering the tools, I can completely understand that just releasing company made tools isn't always the obvious thing to do. Still I would like to add that mods do sell games.

Yes, totally true. But it's one thing to have a tool for internal use, and another to release it to the public at large. There are some legal issues, and business ones as well, which need to be thought through and dealt with.

Many, many of us have been desperately and intensely trying to slow down the "kill rate" or rate in which combat happens. So many of us feel combat is over way too quickly and there should be more time for the fight to commence thus allowing more tactics not to mention a more "epic" feel to the battles.

Increasing the number of hit points is probably the best way to go, as long as you multiply all of the hit point numbers by a small amount (x2 or x3). There are a few problems: for one, the engine only supports a maximum of 15 hp, and hence you will need to increase the armour of those troops which are already near the limit in order to compensate. The elephant units are the only ones that come to mind, although the individual general and officer soldiers will also become more vulnerable relative to the other soldiers, and there's not much that can be done about that. Combined with a decrease in the movement modifiers, as you mentioned, this should do most of what you want. Then there may be too much fatigue resulting from the longer battles; it this turns out to be a problem, it could be resolved by adding the 'hardy' attribute to all units (this gives a boost to fatigue resistance). It will also be necessary to increase the amounts of ammo for all missile troops, since it will take at least two hits to kill a soldier, and also the attack strength of all 'precursor' weapons (such as the Roman pilum), since they function as one-shot weapons prior to engagement and their impact will be considerably weakened.

So, if I am reading this correctly, you are saying that the unit animations can actually increase or decrease not how quickly the unit -appears- to move, but rather how quickly the unit -actually- moves? By "move" I do not mean the movement of limbs, but rather the actual distance travelled over the same amount of time.

That is correct. The mocap-derived animations drive the distance travelled as well as impact points of weapons, sound events and the movement of the limbs and even the cloaks. The ground type modifier, on the other hand, only modifies the actual distance travelled, and hence the men appear to 'slide' a little when it is large.

I might be speaking out of school, but I was wondering how I can change the unit sizes. Even at Huge 160 men will not do it. At least 200 men per unit max would be feasable to me. How could that unit size number be changed?

The preferences file sets a general scale modifier for units in general, from x0.25 to x4 in size, relative to a default average of 40 men per unit. Hence the multipliers of 20,40,80,120,160. The reason for the this is that parts of the engine only support a maximum of 256 men per unit; hence x4 means that a 60-man unit can scale to 240, while a 40-man unit scales to 160. You could create a mod in which most of the units were 60 men in size and run that at x4 to get units of mostly 240 men, but it would run that much slower.

Spears/pikes vs. cav. We are seeing some odd effects where spear units don't seem to do that well vs. cav. (compared to sword infantry), and horses jump over phalangites, etc. Where should this be adjusted (file and stat), and is it working as intended by CA?

The default spear vs cavalry bonusses are hardcoded. It may be a balancing issue - I'll ask someone to investigate. Alternatively, you could use the 'mount_effect' entries in the unit database to boost the combat performance of specific units against mount categories or individual mount types. These are applied on top of the default bonus.

[Botis]

My apologies in advance if my questions have been addressed already.

It would be most helpful for me to know how the data files are read by the game to "build a world".

In the "Data" directory there's a heap of files relating to the game world. Then there's the "World" directory which contains what looks like dummy templates to go into campaign files (is this right?). There's a directory called "Base" under that which looks like some more generic data. Then under "Maps" there's the Campaign folder where you can add new campaign - which I've successfully done & played with only a few variables like start end date etc.

My question about this is:
-How/when does the game read these data files? Is it looking for certain files to be under certain folders. Or can you change parameters safely by copying files from "up the tree" into your Campaign folder & edit them there?

My last question
-In the file descr_rebel_faction there's "Chance" setting, is this like the M:TW rebellion likelihood? I've assumed it is so to experiment, am setting all to 6 to see what happens. But my main question is, Do factions Reappear, if so, does this file have any effect on the chance of this occuring? If so what other than chance of revolt determines what & when a faction should appear. If it's in another file, which one, or is it not editable?

Irrespective of whether you get time to look at my q's, many thanks for your contributions to date, they're greatly appreciated.

Cheers