Choosing side to play in historical battles?

[r3mu503]

Hi all,

I'm pretty new to this game (actually pretty new to medieval gaming in general - I'm a WWII grognard by heart) and I was wondering if it's possible to select the side to play in historical battles? My interest lies more along historical battle recreations so I'ld like to be able to play out both sides of the available battles but I can't seem to choose the side to play when selecting the scenario.

On a related note, is there a way to play the campaign battles from the other side? Probably not within the context of a campaign but rather a way to load up the individual campaign battles in such a manner to allow for side selection?

Thanks in advance for any help

[mercian billman]

To answer your first question No you can only play one side in historical battles.

Im sure there's a cheat which allows you to plasy the other side in campaign battles.

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org r3mu503. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif I was a WWII fan too and had zero interest in Japanese history - until Shogun Total War was made. I still like WWII but my interests have diversified a bit.

In answer to your question, I think short of modding the game, you can't play both sides in the historical battles or campaigns...though I have this nagging feeling I'm forgetting something.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Hi r3mu503 Welcome aboard http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

This thread will give you some insight into how you can switch factions during the game. It was written by eat cold steel one of MTW's programmers who stops by from time to time to offer advice. Command line and switch thread. (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=26;t=10264) These switches work by editing the shortcut for the game on your desktop. Right click the shortcut select properties and in the target window add a space + the switch after the shortcut. For example:

C:\Program Files\Total War\Medieval -ian

will activate the free camera mode with almost zero restrictions. You can pan down to the ground or zoom way up to get a bird's eye view of the carnage.

Hope this helps. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Edited to add: AFAIK, this only works in the campaign and not historical battles/campaigns. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Gregoshi]

Thanks Jacque. I guess my nagging feeling was right.

[r3mu503]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll try the -ian debug mode and see if the number keys cause a side switch (although the post by eat cold steel did say it was for the strategy map, so it may not work for in-battle gameplay... we'll see).

How about editing the scenario files? I haven't seen a guide for scenario creation but since a few scenarios are available on the web I assume there is some way to specify in the scenario file what side you get to play?

Kind of curious that CA didn't provide a select side function for the scenarios, practically all wargames (WW2) allow you to choose which side to play.