Tutorial: Converting a Roman Faction to a Different Culture

[Atilius]

Converting a Roman Faction to a Different Culture

The purpose of this tutorial is to show how a Roman faction can be converted into a faction belonging to a different culture. In fact, the tutorial is meant to outline how the culture of any faction can be changed, but since there are additional complications for the Romans, we'll demonstrate how to do it using them. As an example, we'll convert the Brutii into a faction of the Greek culture, the Syracusans.

A couple of assumptions:

1. All modifications described are to the RTW 1.5 Imperial Campaign.
2. Since any former Roman factions will still have the Senate Tab if the Senate faction is retained, I'm removing the Senate from the game.

Tools: tga editor (e.g. photoshop), text editor (notepad, wordpad), Vercingetorix's xpak.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to:
bouis for his Howto on making Roman factions independent of the Senate.
Epistolary Richard for his terrific tutorial "Adding new units for beginners" which is very useful for understanding how textures, unit cards, and unit information files work.
Myrddraal for his How to on adding and removing names from a faction.
wlesmana who pointed out that I'd originally failed to remove the Senate Offices button, which caused a crash if one clicked it, and
Makanyane, who proved out a method to fix this problem.


This is a big tutorial so I'm bound to make some mistakes. Please let me know if you find one and I'll be happy to correct it. Also, if I have described anything poorly, tell me and I'll try to clarify the text.

Since there is a lot of work to do here, I'm going to try to split it into parts so that the game is playable after each group of modifications.


Removing the Senate
First of all, we'll remove the Senate from the game and give Latium to the Julii.

Files to change:
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt

Open descr_strat.txt. Remove the Senate from the game by removing the three instances of the line

superfaction romans_senate

which occurs under each of the lines

faction romans_brutii, balanced stalin
faction romans_julii, comfortable caesar
faction romans_scipii, bureaucrat napoleon

Cut the settlement description block from the Senate's faction description and paste it into the Julii faction description with the other Julii settlements. If you make it the first Julii settlement listed, Rome will become the new Julii capital.

Then remove all of the remaining Senate faction information. This is everything from

faction	romans_senate, comfortable napoleon

to

relative 	Servius Maxentius, 	Marciana,		Lentulus Maxentius,	Papiria,	end

If you run RTW now, you'll see that the Senate tab is grayed out for the three remaining Roman factions. Note that the colored map on the faction selection menu is now wrong for the Julii since it doesn't show Latium in red. We'll need to change this, but since we're going to make more changes in province ownership, we'll deal with it later.


Renaming the Senate Faction
By removing the Senate faction from the game, we've caused the Senate tab to be grayed-out. Unfortunately, this has no effect on the Senate Offices button in the lower left corner when you click the faction button for the Julii, Brutii, or Scipii. If you click the Senate Offices button the game will now crash. Let's fix that.

Files to change:
Data\DESCR_BANNERS.TXT
Data\DESCR_BUILDING_BATTLE.TXT
Data\DESCR_CHARACTER.TXT
Data\DESCR_LBC_DB.TXT
Data\DESCR_MODEL_BATTLE.TXT
Data\DESCR_MODEL_STRAT.TXT
Data\DESCR_NAMES.TXT
Data\DESCR_OFFMAP_MODELS.TXT
Data\DESCR_SM_FACTIONS.TXT
Data\EXPORT_DESCR_BUILDINGS.TXT
Data\EXPORT_DESCR_SOUNDS_PREBATTLE.TXT
Data\EXPORT_DESCR_UNIT.TXT
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_win_conditions.txt

For all these files except the last one, simply search for the single word "romans_senate" (I don't recommend changing it in a file path) and replace it with something else, "illyrians" perhaps. For descr_win_conditons.txt, you need to add an entry for the "illyrians". I've used this:

illyrians
take_rome
short_campaign outlive_factions
gauls

If you'd prefer, you can download the set of files that Makanyane has already modified, renaming "romans_senate" to "slavs" and making it immediately playable. If you do this, you'll need to re-apply some of the changes described in the previous section. There is a link to these files in this post, which occurs later in this thread.

If you start the game playing as a Roman faction now, you'll see that both the Senate tab and the Senate Offices button are gone. In addition, the former Senate faction can now be made playable with just a little effort, should you wish to do so later on.


Moving the Brutii to Sicilia Graecus
Take Sicilia Graecus from the Greek Cities and give it to the Brutii.

Files to change:
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\map_romans_julii.txt
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\map_romans_brutii.tga
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\map_greek_cities.tga

An army of the Greek Cities commanded by Dionysios of Sparta and the diplomat Diodorus of Gela are located in Sicilia Graecus. The army must be removed from Sicilia Graecus, but we'll leave the diplomat where he is. You can remove the entry for the army from descr_strat.txt or you can move it somewhere else by changing its x and y map coordinates. I'm going to move it to Laconia at x 138, y 46.

Now cut the settlement block for Sicilia Graecus from the Greek Cities faction description and paste it into the Brutii's.

Next, cut the settlement blocks for Apulia and Bruttium from the Brutii faction description and paste them after the last settlement block in the Julii faction description.

All the Brutii family members and armies are now in Julii territory, so we need to move them to Sicilia Graecus. In order to keep things simple, I'm just going to delete all but one of the Brutii family members and armies. They can be added back in later, preferably after we've made the culture change.

We'll keep the faction leader Tiberius Brutus and his army. Change his coordinates to x 106, y 44 to place him and his army in the city of Syracuse. We'll leave the diplomat, spy, and navy alone. At this point the faction description for the Brutii should be very short:

faction	romans_brutii, balanced stalin
denari	5000

settlement
{
	level city
	region Sicilia_Graecus

	year_founded 0
	population 6000
	plan_set default_set
	faction_creator macedon
	building
	{
		type core_building governors_palace
	}
	building
	{
		type defenses stone_wall
	}
	building
	{
		type barracks muster_field
	}
	building
	{
		type port_buildings port
	}
	building
	{
		type hinterland_farms farms
	}
	building
	{
		type hinterland_roads roads
	}
}

character	Tiberius Brutus, named character, leader, age 52, , x 106, y 44 
traits GoodCommander 1 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , GoodAttacker 1 , PoliticsSkill 2 , Intelligent 1 
ancillaries drillmaster
army
unit		roman generals guard cavalry early				exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		roman hastati				exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		roman velite				exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

character	Marcus Attius, admiral, age 29, , x 120, y 64 

army
unit		naval biremes				exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		naval biremes				exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		naval biremes				exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

character	Luca Antonius, spy, age 23, , x 116, y 62 
traits GoodSpy 4 

character	Caius Flaminius, diplomat, age 23, , x 112, y 63 
traits GoodDiplomat 3 

character_record		Galla, 	female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 50, alive, never_a_leader

relative 	Tiberius Brutus, 	Galla,	end

We're done reassigning provinces, so now we can edit the files that show province ownership on the faction selection screen for the Julii, Brutii, and Greek Cities. These files are map_romans_julii.tga, map_romans_brutii.tga, and map_greek_cities.tga. You can use any program that edits *.tga files; I use Photoshop Elements. I don't have any good suggestions about how to do this, mine don't look very good. But this is also something that can be cleaned up when the tricky stuff is done.

The game should be playable again, so some testing is in order before we move on.


Making Brutii Characters Look Greek
The Brutii now control Sicilia Graecus, so I'm going to call them the Syracusans from this point on. The Syracusans are still members of the Roman culture. In this section we begin to change the appearance of the Syracusan characters. We've already decided to make them members of the Greek culture, but now we must also choose a faction-specific "look". It's possible to design and assign new models and textures, but I'm going keep it simple and just make the Syracusan characters look like the characters of the Greek Cities faction.

Files to change:
Data\descr_character.txt
Data\descr_model_strat.txt
Data\descr_model_battle.txt

We need to change the strategy map model for Syracusan characters from the Roman one to the Greek. Open descr_character.txt and change the dictionary, strat_model, and battle_model lines for the Syracusan generals from:

faction			romans_brutii
dictionary		15
strat_model		sm_roman_general
battle_model	roman_general
battle_equip	gladius, chainmail shirt helmet and rectangular shield

to

faction			romans_brutii
dictionary		2
strat_model		sm_greek_general
battle_model	greek_general
battle_equip	gladius, chainmail shirt helmet and rectangular shield

A similar thing should be done for the (lesser) general, spy, assassin, diplomat, and admiral. In each case the romans_brutii entry should exactly match the greek_cities entry.

Now we need to change the textures used by the strategy map models. Open descr_model_strat.txt. For the diplomat, spy, and assassin, change the romans_brutii texture file to match the greek_cities one. As an example, for the diplomat, change

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_brutii.tga

to

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_greek.tga

To the GREEK GENERALS section add a texture line identical to greek_cities but subtitute romans_brutii for greek_cities.

For sm_greek_general use:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/officer_greek_general_greece.tga

and for sm_greek_lesser_general:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_greek_militia_hoplite_greek.tga

Don't do anything to the ROMAN GENERALS section.

In the ADMIRALS section, add this texture line to greek_cities_admiral:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_strat/textures/navy_illyria.tga

Finally, we need to specify the texture used by the Syracusan generals on the battlefield. Open descr_model_battle.txt and add the following texture line to the greek_general model:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/officer_greek_general_greece.tga

and to the greek_lesser_general model, add:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/officer_greek_lesser_general_greece.tga

This is a good time to take a break and do some testing. You should see that the Syracusan characters look like their Greek Cities counterparts on both the strategy map and the battle map. The generals are particularly distinctive.


Renaming the Brutii
Now we'll change most, if not all, of the text in the game referring to the Brutii and have it refer to the Syracusans instead. We'll also give the Syracusans Greek rather than Roman names.

Files to change:
Data\text\campaign_descriptions.txt
Data\text\expanded_bi.txt
Data\descr_names.txt
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt

First let's change the faction name and faction description of the Syracusans. Open campaign_descriptions.txt. After{IMPERIAL_CAMPAIGN_BRUTII_TITLE} replace "The House of Brutii" with "The Syracusans" and replace the text after {IMPERIAL_CAMPAIGN_BRUTII_DESCR} with something suitable.

Now open expanded_bi.txt. This is a large file and there are so many changes required that I can't outline them all. Searching for "Brutii" and "Roman (Brutii)" and replacing them with "The Syracusans" or "Syracusan" or something similar will take care of most of the changes. A few others are a bit trickier, like the victory and defeat text and the army composition description from the faction selection screen. Fortunately, this is all cosmetic and problems can be tracked down and fixed at your leisure. It's easy to get carried away with search and replace, so be careful not change anything in braces, such as {EMT_ROMANS_BRUTII_ASSASSIN}.

Next, make sure that our Syracusan characters are given proper Greek names. Open descr_names.txt, remove all existing names for the romans_brutii, and substitute all the names for the greek_cities faction.

To do this find romans_brutii in the file:

faction: romans_brutii

	characters
		Amulius
		...
		...
		...
		Vistilia

faction: romans_scipii

Get rid of everything beneath "characters" from Amulius to Vistilia. Be careful not to change any of the names for the romans_julii and romans_scipii factions, which will be almost identical.

Then search for greek_cities:

faction: greek_cities

	characters
		Acaeus
		...
		...
		...
		Xantippe

faction: seleucid

Copy everything beneath "characters" from Acaeus to Xantippe and paste it under the "characters" line just below the "faction: romans_brutii" line.

Finally, we need to change the names of the Syracusan characters who exist at the start of the game. Open desc_strat.txt and change "Tiberius Brutus" to "Hiero of Syracuse" or whatever Greek name you like. We need to change "Galla" to something else also ("Penelope"). Note that Tiberius Brutus and Galla have their names appear in two places - change them both.

There are three other necessary name changes. Here they are with an example of a valid new name in parentheses:
Marcus Attius (Thestor of Miletus)
Luca Antonius (Pleistos of Pydna)
Caius Flaminius (Nearchos of Himera)

This is another good time to stop and test. Make sure that the text in the game shows up correctly and that the name changes you've made appear as expected. You should almost immediately get an adoptee: make sure he has a greek name. If you make Penelope younger, she'll be more likely to have a child in a few turns - make sure the child's name is greek. Check that captain's names are correct, etc.


Make Greek Units Recruitable by the Syracusans
We have succeeded so far in making Syracusan characters look greek. It's finally time to make the Syracusans members of the greek culture.

Files to change:
Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt
Data\export_descr_unit.txt
Data\export_descr_buildings.txt
Data\descr_model_battle.txt
Data\desc_sm_factions.txt

We begin by removing Roman units from the Syracusan army and preventing the Syracusans from recruiting them.

Open descr_strat.txt and remove the two remaining Roman units (one of hastati and one of velites) from the army. Also, change Hiero's bodyguard unit from "roman generals guard cavalry early" to "greek general's guard cavalry early". You can rebuild the army with greek units later.

Now open export_descr_unit.txt and remove romans_brutii from every "ownership" line in the file. This prevents the Syracusans from recruiting any units at all.

We also need to prevent the Syracusans from constructing Roman buildings and enable them to construct Greek ones. We'll give the Syracusans exactly the same buildings as the Greek Cities faction. Open export_descr_buildings.txt. Everywhere that romans_brutii is found without greek_cities it should be removed, and everywhere we find greek_cities without romans_brutii, romans_brutii should be added. There is only one tricky case, lines like:

        recruit "roman velite gladiator"  0  requires factions { romans_brutii, }

Here the best thing to do is simply comment out the entire line.

Before we enable the Syracusans to recruit Greek units, we need to give any Syracusan officers a proper texture.

There is only one greek officer type: greek_standard. Open descr_model_battle.txt and find the entry for greek_standard. We want to specify a texture for this model when it's used to represent a Syracusan officer. The texture we want to use is the same one used by an officer of the greek_cities. So we must add this texture line:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/officer_greek_standard_greece.tga

Note that this model already has a model_sprite line for the romans_brutii. Probably the best thing to do in this case is to comment out this line, so the sprite is generated on the fly as is done when the greek_cities use this model. This shouldn't cause a performance problem since it's only a single figure. I've also tried leaving this model_sprite line alone and noticed no difference in appearance.

We are now ready to change the Syracusans from the Roman to the Greek culture. Open desc_sm_factions.txt; in the "culture" line for the romans_brutii faction, replace "roman" with "greek".

While you're in this file, you may also wish to change some of the video clips. I think the defeat_movie is OK for the Syracusans, but I would change the intro_movie, victory_movie, and death_movie to those used by the greek_cities. You can look at them and decide for yourself.

Now we will begin making greek units recruitable by the Syracusan army. For each unit type we make recruitable, we need to do several things: allow the Syracusans to own that unit type, provide the Syracusans with a texture for the model used by the unit, and allow the Syracusans access to that unit's unit card and unit information card.

The last task will require us to unpack the Data\packs folder, so we'll do that now. This thread (post #4) tells you how to download and use Vercingetorix's xpak. Go ahead and unpack the packs folder now. Next, we'll create a directory structure to put new unit card and unit information card files into. This isn't strictly necessary, but if we make a mistake we'll be able to clean up and start over without disturbing the original files. In the Data folder, make a UI folder. In the UI folder make a UNIT_INFO folder and a UNIT folder. In both the UNIT_INFO and UNITS folders create a ROMANS_BRUTII folder.

The folder structure should look like this:

Data---UI---UNIT_INFO---ROMANS_BRUTII
          |
          --UNITS-------ROMANS_BRUTII

We'll use this set of folders shortly.

The Syracusan army has just one unit right now, Hiero's bodyguard unit. We can start with that.

Open export_descr_unit.txt and find the unit "greek general's guard early". The last line in the unit description is the ownership line; add romans_brutii to the list of factions that can own this unit. Note this unit uses the model greek_medium_cavalry (indicated in the "soldier" line). Next, we need to supply a texture for this model when it's used by the Syracusans.

Open descr_model_battle.txt and find the entry for the model greek_medium_cavalry. Add a texture line for the romans_brutii which uses the same texture as the greek_cities:

texture				romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_greek_medium_cavalry_greek.tga

Also add a model_sprite line for the romans_brutii which uses the same sprite as the greek_cities:

model_sprite		romans_brutii, 60.0, data/sprites/greek_cities_greek_medium_cavalry_sprite.spr

Now we copy the unit card and unit information card for the general's bodyguard unit. Go to Data\packs\DATA\UI\UNIT_INFO\GREEK_CITIES. Copy the file GREEK_GENERALS_GUARD_CAVALRY_EARLY_INFO.TGA and paste it into the new folder Data\UI\UNIT_INFO\ROMANS_BRUTII. Now got to Data\packs\DATA\UI\UNITS\GREEK_CITIES, copy #GREEK_GENERALS_GUARD_CAVALRY_EARLY.TGA, and paste it into Data\UI\UNITS\ROMANS_BRUTII.

You could do all of this en masse, but it's pretty easy to make mistakes that will cause the game to crash - just a simple typo will do it. The tedious but safe way to do it is to add one unit type to descr_strat.txt, make it recruitable, give it a texture, a unit card, a unit information card, and test. Make sure the unit card and unit information card are correct; you'll get a peasant on the cards if the game can't find the right one. Then make sure the unit looks OK on the battle map. If you have a texture problem, the unit might have the wrong colors, or it may be black or translucent. If the unit's sprite is wrong you'll get a peculiar color shift as you zoom into or away from the unit. This way, if you make a mistake you immediately know which unit is causing the problem.

The game should be stable again at this point, so go ahead and test. Playing as the Syracusans, you should see that Hiero has a Greek portrait and that Greek buildings now appear as construction options. The unit recruitment queue has a problem: the unit cards for peasants and militia hoplites are wrong. This problem can be remedied by repeating what we just did for the general's bodyguard unit for the peasant and militia hoplite unit types, but this should be done later. Move Hiero out of Syracuse and right-click on his unit card. If you click the helmet icon, the unit information card for the general's bodyguard should pop up. Make sure this is OK. Finally, get into a fight by having Hiero attack the Scipii army just outside of Messana. Make sure that the general and bodyguard unit look OK on the battle map during the deployment phase by checking the textures and sprites.

Earlier we assigned textures for the greek officer type and for the greek lesser general. We'd also like to make sure these are OK. In order to check them both at the same time, we need to add a unit type that has an officer attached. So open descr_strat.txt and add a "greek hoplite elite" unit to Hiero's army in Syracuse. Repeat what we did for the general's bodyguard unit: add romans_brutii to the unit's ownership line in export_descr_unit.txt, in descr_model_battle.txt, give the unit's model (greek_armoured_hoplite) texture and sprite lines for the romans_brutii which use the same texture and sprite as the greek_cities entry does, and copy the appropriate unit card and unit information card files from Data\packs\DATA\UI\UNIT_INFO\GREEK_CITIES and Data\packs\DATA\UI\UNITS\GREEK_CITIES to Data\UI\UNIT_INFO\ROMANS_BRUTII and Data\UI\UNITS\ROMANS_BRUTII.

Test again. Make sure the unit card and unit information card for the Greek Hoplite Elite unit is correct. Leaving Hiero in Syracuse, march this unit out to tangle with the Scipii near Messana. During the deployment phase, make sure the textures are correct for the greek officer, greek lesser general and the greek hoplite elite unit. Check the sprites for the hoplites. There is a bit of a problem with the greek officer (standard bearer actually): he's carrying a Greek Cities standard. Unfortunately, this is what we asked for when we copied the Greek Cities texture for this model. There are ways to get around this but I'm not going to discuss them here.

Now repeat this process for each remaining unit recruitable by the Greek Cities faction. In some cases, you won't need to add romans_brutii to the unit's ownership line in export_descr_unit.txt. If "greek" already appears in the ownership line, it will already be recruitable by the Syracusans. When you're finished, you can create a suitable Syracusan army to begin the game with.


Some Details
There are just a few more items that ought to be addressed.

Victory Conditions
Victory conditions need to be modified in order to work properly. In the vanilla game, the Brutii must satisfy the "imperator" victory condition - see Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_win_conditions.txt. Since the Brutii have now become the non-Roman Syracusans, this will no longer work. Instead, use "take_rome" as all of the other non-roman factions do. Oddly, the "imperator" victory condition also no longer works for the romans_julii faction. This is probably a consequence of removing the Senate. Instead, use a combination of the "hold_regions" and "take regions" victory conditions. (I'm not sure if "hold_regions" will work by itself, but "take_regions" definitely doesn't.) For instance, this works nicely:

romans_julii
hold_regions Latium
take_regions 50
short_campaign outlive_factions
gauls

Ancillaries
Many of the ancillaries are faction specific. There are 4 ancillaries specific to the Syracusans (formerly Brutii): Marcus Tullius Cicero and the Priests of Juno, Mercury, and Mars. Cicero should be transferred to one of the remaining Roman factions by changing the Trigger trigger_m_tullius_cicero in export_descr_ancillaries.txt. The line

         and FactionType romans_brutii

should be changed to

         and FactionType romans_julii

in order to transfer him to the Julii.

We have already changed the temple types that the Syracusans can build to be the same as those of the Greek Cities faction. To be consistent, we should probably also change the Priest ancillaries that the Syracusan characters can acquire. To do this we comment out the triggers for the Priests of Juno, Mercury, and Mars in export_descr_ancillaries.txt. Next we need to create triggers which allow the the Syracusans to acquire the Priests of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Nike. To do this, just copy the existing triggers, giving each a slightly different name and changing the FactionType from greek_cities to romans_brutii. For example, to allow Syracusan characters to acquire a Priest of Athena, we would need to add a trigger like this:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger trigger_priest_of_AthenaSyracuse
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    Condition EndedInSettlement
          and RemainingMPPercentage = 100
          and SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_leadership_temple
          and FactionType romans_brutii
          and IsGeneral

    AcquireAncillary priest_of_Athena chance  15 
;------------------------------------------

Diplomatic Standing
Since the Syracusans were originally a Roman faction, they start the game allied with the Julii and the Scipii. There's nothing wrong with this, but you are free to change the Syracusans' diplomatic standing by editing the diplomacy section of descr_strat.txt - you'll find it at the very end of the file.

Leader Portraits
On the faction selection screen, when you select the Syracusans, you get a Roman portrait representing your faction leader. You ought to replace this portrait with a Greek one. Assuming you've unpacked the Data\packs folder, you can find the Greek portraits under Data\packs\DATA\UI\GREEK\PORTRAITS\PORTRAITS. There are YOUNG\GENERALS and OLD\GENERALS folders under that. Since Hiero is currently 52, you should select one from OLD\GENERALS. I believe that the portrait 000.TGA is used by default for the faction leader at the beginning of the game, so this portrait ought to appear as Hiero in the game as well. Copy the portrait of your choice to Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\leader_pic_romans_brutii.tga (you may want to save a copy of the original first). This portrait will now be the one you see when you select the Syracusans from the faction selection screen.

That's it.


A few words about things that haven't been covered here:

You may wish to change faction banners, but the procedure I've outlined here doesn't deal with that. Some information on this can be found here.

A problem remains with the speeches of generals opposing the Syracusans: they may occasionally refer to the Syracusans as the Brutii ("Those overly proud Romans over there..."). The generals' speeches are moddable I believe, but I know nothing about it, and will leave this for another person or perhaps do it myself at another time.

[Edit: phrasing, link for banner editing, ancillaries, victory conditions]