Battlemap Buildings

[Bwian]

Been pondering this!

Do we have the tools to do this, and can we mess about with the buildings. I think these are culture defined things, so we may be limited to how many style variations we have.

What thoughts?

[Lordy]

Edit: post sliced ,diced and thrown away. Think before you post, and do not presume you own or direct my time.

[Eufarius]

Bwian about the battlemap thingamajig Im not sure yet. poster above me give Bwian a break he doesn't want to just only do armies he wants to work on the whole thing and wants to make this mod as high quality as he wants.

[Dogman55]

Yeah. I have full faith that this mod won't stop because the attention is being spread out in too many places. After all, everything will have to be done eventually. I think that cities should really only be worried concerning battle map buildings. But then again you can create just small pieces of warhammer flavor in the lands of warhammer. My best suggestion is finding a warhammer rulebook and then, in the back, find the scenery generator and just look there for ideas. But Im not so helpful on the whole 'can it be done part'

For Lizardmen (almost gaurenteed I'd have ideas about them) I would love to see a lizardmen temple city for sieges... even if it was just exclusively generic one. For in-the midddle of no where scenery pieces, perhaps a star tower, ruined statue or etc.

[Lordy]

Bwian about the battlemap thingamajig Im not sure yet. poster above me give Bwian a break he doesn't want to just only do armies he wants to work on the whole thing and wants to make this mod as high quality as he wants.

Im not giving bwian a hard time, i love the guy his work here is awesome, i was just giving my thoughts, people could be testing the balance side of the armies if they were finished while Bwian would be free to complete other areas of the mod such as maps/battle buildings.

Either way im happy this mod is the closest thing to my dream game since Dark Omen many moons ago :)

[uanime5]

I haven't heard of any tool that will let you change how a building looks in battle mode. There is not even a texture file that can be esited to change a building's colour. My guess is that since buildings can be damaged and burned they require special models.

Bwain you are right about these being limited by culture, so we could only have 6 types of each building.

[Bwian]

Right ... lets get one thing clear.

I will work on whatever I choose. period.

Now, with that over and done with, I will not be releasing this for playtesting and balancing with just a bunch of units in custom battles until I am happy we have viable processes and answers to all the issues and things we need to build to finish the mod. You don't polish until you are finished.

For those of you who actually know how much work goes into making these models, you will understand that I need a break from doing that for a while. Each unit moel represents somewhere in the region of 2 days of my complete free time ... time during which I do nothing else. I have a wife and a family who also want my time, andthey don't get it while I am working flat out making units. Other stuff I can mess about with for an hour or so, and not spend all night at it.

You cannot realise just how PISSED OFF comments about what I should be making or not get me. I suggest there are no more of them.

If every time I choose to work on something different I get whining about how I should be finishing off the unit lists, then I might just get the idea that I need to take a LONG BREAK from modding instead, until people realise just how stupid posts like that sound.

I will not repeat this warning.

2 people in as many days have decided they have a right to command my time and direct my efforts. They are not team members, and they are not contributing. They should think what they are posting, and not press the submit button.

[Taranaich]

I think the buildings will be restricted by culture, but I've only seen four different building sets from vanilla (Northern European, Southern European, Islamic and Aztec), which could be a tad problematic.

According to the current faction list the buildings would be something like this:

Northern European = Bretonnia, Empire, Vampire Counts, Kislev, Skaven, Nurgle, Tzeentch
Southern European = Dwarves, High Elves, Dark Elves, Khorne, Slaanesh
Islamic = Tomb Kings, Lizardmen
Aztec = Orcs

Assuming cultures types can be changed, this is how I would see it:

NE = Bretonnia, Empire, VC, Kislev, Skaven, Dwarves
SE = High Elves
IS = Tomb Kings, Lizardmen
AZ = Orcs, Dark Elves, Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle, Tzeentch

Or, if more sets can be used:

NE = Bretonnia, Empire, VC, Kislev, Skaven
SE = High Elves
IS = Tomb Kings, Lizardmen
AZ = Orcs
01 = Dwarves
02 = Dark Elves, Chaos

It's hardly perfect, and I'm sure others could think of better ones, but it's just a thought

I've been trying to edit the building files myself for my mod, but so far all I've been able to edit texture-wise are the overlays like roads and farmland. I think the bulk of the information is in the .world files, so I think someone will need to work on converting/extracting the files into an editable format.

[Lordy]

Jesus chill the hell out Bwian, we all know how much work you put into this mod, all i did was offer an opinion as i stated in my post, you dont need to get all high and mighty about an opinion just choose to ignore it.

Anyway back on topic, if you need any pictures of any Armies buildings just ask away.
Lizardmen buildings would be fun lol

[Bwian]

I will not chill out. Comment on what has been done. Make suggestions as to what could be done ... thats all fine by me. Critique of a mod is all part of what should happen.

But tell me I should not be doing something, and you will get the same reaction from me every time. It is something I have come across all to often, and I don't tolerate it. Why should I.

[DrZoidberg]

who cares? nobody looks at them any way do they. just my humble opinion

[Eufarius]

Back to topic. No there isnt a tool that help with changing the building models.
(not one that I havent heard of)

[NagatsukaShumi]

Alright guys, lets behave, Bwain works very hard on this in his free time and shouldn't be attacked with the same sort of scrutiny that is levelled at CA, who get paid to do it, even then they don't deserve it.

Bwain will work on what he wishes to, as a modder I am entirely aware of what Bwain is talking about and its not fair to badger him. This is just a friendly warning, don't get on Bwain's back, I am not a mod on this particular forum but myself, Bwain and alpaca are in charge of MTWII modding on the Org and we won't tolerate unfair comments towards ANY projects or project leaders.

Now, get back to enjoying the very exciting prospect that is unfolding here.

Nag

[uanime5]

I think the buildings will be restricted by culture, but I've only seen four different building sets from vanilla (Northern European, Southern European, Islamic and Aztec), which could be a tad problematic.

Though the game only lists these 4 cultures it recognises buildings from all 6 cultures (I was able to make some building models for each of these cultures without the game crashing). I have not tested whether models for other cultures show up in the game, as I would have to have a battle in a settlement with 2 different cultures.

According to the current faction list the buildings would be something like this:

Northern European = Bretonnia, Empire, Vampire Counts, Kislev, Skaven, Nurgle, Tzeentch
Southern European = Dwarves, High Elves, Dark Elves, Khorne, Slaanesh
Islamic = Tomb Kings, Lizardmen
Aztec = Orcs

Assuming cultures types can be changed, this is how I would see it:

NE = Bretonnia, Empire, VC, Kislev, Skaven, Dwarves
SE = High Elves
IS = Tomb Kings, Lizardmen
AZ = Orcs, Dark Elves, Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle, Tzeentch

Or, if more sets can be used:

NE = Bretonnia, Empire, VC, Kislev, Skaven
SE = High Elves
IS = Tomb Kings, Lizardmen
AZ = Orcs
01 = Dwarves
02 = Dark Elves, Chaos

I feel I should point this out. All the unit and agent pictures are defined by culture (except GR which uses SE's images), therefore we cannot have different races sharing the same culture because it will cause problems when we make the unit pictures.

So I don't get accused of just raising problems I will give a possible solution (criticise it all you want).

NE = High Elves, Dark Elves, [Elven]
SE = Bretonnia, Empire, VC, Kislev, Chaos [Human]
EE = Tomb Kings
GR = Dwarves [in case we have to use SE images]
IS = Orcs
AZ = Lizardmen
01 = Skaven

01 represent a 7th culture we can add (but it can't have priests).

[Jargon]

Having Lizardmen as aztec is a must, no other way around it, all the work has been done and it fits perfectly. Your version seems pretty good Uanime5.

[Taranaich]

I feel I should point this out. All the unit and agent pictures are defined by culture (except GR which uses SE's images), therefore we cannot have different races sharing the same culture because it will cause problems when we make the unit pictures.

So I don't get accused of just raising problems I will give a possible solution (criticise it all you want).

NE = High Elves, Dark Elves, [Elven]
SE = Bretonnia, Empire, VC, Kislev, Chaos [Human]
EE = Tomb Kings
GR = Dwarves [in case we have to use SE images]
IS = Orcs
AZ = Lizardmen
01 = Skaven

01 represent a 7th culture we can add (but it can't have priests).

Your system seems best for the portraits/units/agents, and probably the best choice for the game, but I was thinking more about the building choices (mostly because I can't see Bretonnia and Chaos having remotely similar architecture), but ultimately I think it's better to sort cultures by things like portraits.

Can you switch buildings sets between cultures, or is it all stuck with it?

[uanime5]

All buildings are the same for a culture. When you construct a building the version for your culture is automatically built. Unless you can code different factions to get different building upgrades all the buildings will look the same (this won't cause a recruitment problem because factions can recruit from buildings they can't construct).

Could someone test whether the following code would work (I abbreviated this because I don't want to research the exact info).

##Building 1
#Faction (Bretonnia, Chaos)
#Building info
#Units: basic (Bretonnia, Chaos)
#Building upgrades: Type A, Type B
##Type A
#Faction (Bretonnia)
#Building info
#Units: basic (Bretonnia, Chaos), medium (Bretonnia), basic (chaos)
##Type B
#Faction (Chaos)
#Building info
#Units: basic (Bretonnia, Chaos), medium (chaos), basic (Bretonnia)

[Eufarius]

I'll test it as soon as I get home. (I'm in Chicago.)

[ellydog]

In medieval totalwar 2, can you add different textures to the ground so it isn't just the vanilla ones? If so, that would be great.

Well i really hope that this mod will eventually have different environments for different faction, as vampire counts it would be beutiful to have dead trees, destroyed houses, dark earth and graveyards on the battlefield.

[Taranaich]

I'm pretty sure you can edit the texture files, but the extent and variety I'm not sure of. You'd probably have to fiddle about with the climate to add "warped by chaos" or "undead" to the usual temperate, desert, woodland etc.

I don't know how useful this is, but I managed to edit the texture files for the buildings in my mod (they're in the blockset folder). The problem is that they are used for a multitude of buildings, meaning that if you do anything drastic like change the colours, it affects a lot of buildings on the battlemap. I think you can edit the church/cathedral/etc textures without it affecting other structures, since they have a unique architecture.

Just thought I'd throw that in.