Town Watch in BI

[GaiusJulius]

I've got a fair amount of experience and I'm pretty proficient modding the text files, but that's the extent of my skill. So, I'm asking for some help here.

I don't like that Town Watch is not available in BI. I don't feel peasants are right for keeping order, and the Limitanei, while they can be used for garrison duty, are actually a Frontier force. So, in my world, BI is missing what RTW has: Town Watch.

I'm hoping that someone could tell me what I've got to do to make this happen. Is it even possible? If someon's already done it, I'd be happy to load it into my game, but I'd enjoy the challenge of doing it myself. Thanks in advance for any ideas.

[professorspatula]

Well it can't be too difficult to add Town Watch. I'm assuming you'd need to add entries from the original RTW files to the BI ones.

For starters, you need their entry from the original RTW export_descr_unit.txt (EDU) file and add it to the BI EDU one, but change the faction ownership names so they fit BI.
Eg:

romans_julii becomes empire_west
romans_brutii becomes empire_west_rebels
romans_senate becomes empire_east
romans_scipii becomes empire_east_rebels

Then copy their entry in the RTW descr_model_battle.txt (DMB) file into the BI one. Again, make sure you change the faction names.

You also need to copy the Town Watch info from the RTW\DATA\TEXT\export_units.txt file and paste it into the one in the BI\DATA\TEXT folder.

Don't forget to edit the BI export_descr_buildings.txt file and add entries in the barracks so the Roman factions can train them.

You should also consider editing the BI export_descr_sounds_units.txt file and adding an entry for Town Watch in it. Copy it from the RTW one.

Then for unit cards, well that is trickier. If you have used the tool that unpacks all the original RTW textures and graphics (you can find a link somewhere on these forums), the Town watch unit cards can be found typically in the data\packs\ui\unit_info\romans_familyname folders and also in data\packs\ui\units\romans_familyname folders. Copy the entries there into their respective BI folders. I'd explain it better, but you wanted a challenge!

I think that is probably enough to get the Town Watch in the BI game.

There might be a few errors or things you need to figure out for yourself, but that's enough to get you started.

-- Oops! I forgot if you make any changes to the sounds files, delete the events.dat file in the bi\data\sounds folder. If you don't, the world will implode upon itself and your unit sounds won't work, plus we'll all be dead. Ok I may be lying about the planet destroying itself part and the six billion plus deaths.

[GaiusJulius]

ProfessorSpatula:

Thanks for the info. I'm going to work on that project over the Holiday break. I haven't had a break workwise, so it will be great. That's why I haven't responded to you. I appreciate it though! You put alot of thought into that answer.