How do i unlock factions? addapting from MTW?

Of course when we start up RTW for the first time we have to take the time to play the romans before we can enjoy more rewarding barbarians and eastern countries. (in my opinion). How might i change the script so that in the case that i must reinstall RTW i can play any faction of my choice? I hope this isnt an internet registered thing because that would be quite manipulative if you ask me.

Another question is, I am coming directly from modding much of MTW and i am used to the startpos txts to change all of my faction information and declaring factions FT_MAJOR, FT_MINOR and that sort of thing. Is there a place like that where i coud unlock the Sythians. Ive had a small fascination with the history of the steppes, and think that would be a fun thing to do. Is there an easy way to convert from my MTW modding brain to RTW skills, (are there similar files) or do i have to learn from scratch.

Looking in the directories i could not find right away a file that resembled the startpos files, and i expected the modding to be quite different anyway. Is there a RTW equivalent to GnomeEditor. Why when i try to open the tga files with IrFanview, all the tga files are now *.tga.dds is there a perfered RTW viewer that can open these files with out me having to change the extension all the time?

Any information to help modders addapt is welcome.

Now, it depends a lot on whether you´ve got BI/patch 1.3 installed as well or not. If you have, things get a bit more complicated, as far as I know (I don´t have either).
If not, it depends which factions you want to play, there are three categories: playable, unlockable and unplayable. Playable from the beginning are the Roman factions. nlockable are all factions that can be played after finishig the Roman campaign. Unplayable are the Senate and the Rebels and then some others.
If you want to unlock the other basically playable factions, you just have to edit the preferences.txt in the line First Time Play = True to False.
If you want to make the unplayable factions playable, there is one file where the factions are listed in the three categories, I´just not sure which it is. Just enter the faction you want to be playable to the Playable or Unlockable list.

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If you want to make the unplayable factions playable, there is one file where the factions are listed in the three categories, I´just not sure which it is. Just enter the faction you want to be playable to the Playable or Unlockable list.

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Its in data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\ folder, the file is descr_strat.txt

Thanks, for your quick answers.
In MTW modding forums i would have to wait about a month for a good answer, this took one day.

When i was modding MTW i found out that if i raised farm and mine income it made wars faster and more realisic. Since the enemy and i would both be able to summon massive armies, we would be able to build realistic armies (compared to what an entire country should be able to produce in a full year) Thus i could assault my neighbors and count on them resisting me early in the game. The battles were more challenging and the economic situation was less of a delay. This way i could afford to launch costly missions just for the fun of it, and not be afraid of either wiping them out entirely or having my kingdom under threat of ruin at the first massive failure.

Since these border wars were more realistic and enjoyable than the massive invasions (in my opinion) I would like to raise the income of towns and farms in RTW. This way my towns would be more productive to compensate for the fact that they are spread so thinly over all of Europe. In MTW i know that i only had to open the startpos and add 100 to each province income, and 200 to those provinces that i wanted to be more critical (in factions that i wanted to be more successful.) Or, in the building prod file, i just added 50% of the income back onto the farms, lowered the production time and added hordes of other buildings and units, to give me more options for my provinces.

How might i add income to farms and/or provinces in RTW, is there an equivalent to the startpos file that contains region attributes? or is there an equivalent file to the building prod, that lists the incomes of different buildings?

Hrm...

You know what...I am completelly clueless in that regard...heh...in RTW.

STW, was not hard at all, Koku production was directly associated with the Harvest...so constructing better farms made for a better harvest and that meant more Koku...

In MTW..well you know all about it as above, and you could thus affect the Production of income directly...

From what I understand thus far on the economical system of RTW...is that many things combine together to generate income...

I would say it maybe more complex than MTW in that sence, and so there may not be 1 File where you could directly raise the Income...at least not to my knowledge.

As in RTW, income is something that is generated as you play and there is not a static value attributed to a province, like MTW...

We pretty much understand the Taxes...

But the rest of the Income is that combination of factors...which depend on the value of the tradeable goods in a province (these are found in descr_sm_resources.txt).

Then depend on the presence of Ports, the presence of Farms, the presence of Markets, the presence of Roads, Paved roads etc etc...

The Income is also affected by Squalor...and Squalor can be reduced by more Law in various forms...

So no easy and fast solution here...at least from where I stand with the curent knowledge I have of the game...

Maybe someone with more knowledge of this side of the game could clarify more :)

Another factor in the Income is the Diplomacy, there is lots of diplomacy hapening between the factions in RTW...lots of Tributes and Gifts are passing around...which affect the income of Factions.

That means that even if the Income of a faction you raised, the AI per say is not necessarilly going to make Units with it, some Factions will Invest in Fortifications, others in Units and Others use their Income for Diplomatic Action...there is more diversity in RTW than MTW as far as what to do with income is concerned.

Alternativelly, you can reduce all construction costs of Units and Buildings, as well as Upkeep costs.

Thanks for your help,
ya i expected that there would be differences like that, the income being based on, population, squalor, and all sorts of new realistic factors that make for more opertunity. In MTW there aren't any population, squalor, or tribute factors. And, even though you could mod so that any building will give you either a set amount of income or a percentage upgrade, the income consists strictly of trade, farms, cathedrals, and taxes, (and occasional tributes from the pope). But as long as i can change the trade income that will be great.

In the case of the countries diverse investments, i remember that in MTW i was able to assign different buildings to different AI using the Building_prod.txt. Then i could change the AI in the startpos.txt to make the muslims more agressive and the Bysantines more defensive. Is there by chance, a file that has an simple AI change like there was in the old starpos.txt under ::SETFACTIONBEHAVIOR?

Changing the building prices and support costs is a good idea. In the MTW we were able to change any building properties through the unit and building prod files again. We simply had to change the 3rd collumn to a factor that would be compared to the unit size. If i wanted to change prices and support costs, how might i do this? What i particularly liked about MTW prod files was that they contained every possible property for each building, so when you knew which collumns stood for what, and with the help of Gnome editor, i could use different combinations of properties to create unique buildings: give small incomes to ports and merchants, give negative income to some buildings, and use buildings to represent polocies that effect province statistics and give offices. is there a file like the Prod files, where i could change many properties of the buildings?

I noticed durring the game movie, that there were units of about 150 men it seemed. I much perfered those numbers to these default handfulls, which better represent a small tribal comunity, than the whole of Germany. In MTW it was possible to change the unit size by a option slider. in the menu options under game options, we could choose from 5 options that allowed our units to be from 60 spearmen to 133. Support costs would be affected with this scale as well, because they were determined by a basic integer. Now i could probably change the unit sizes in the scripting, but it would be much easier if there was a unit size option. I couldnt find anything like this in the RTW preferences on the main menu. Has anyone found a unit size scale? If not i might result to changing the scripts for the units that i must have larger where might i do this.

Thank you for your thoughtful answers, i cant get over how fast these responses have come in. hopefully other previous MTW modders can benefit from this thread as much as i have

AI behavior. While you cant directly edit the AI behaviors they are slightly edittable. Basically there is a list of set hardcoded behaviors that you can choose from to apply to a faction. Im not sure exactly where this is because ive never done it before but i know it has been done.

Changing costs. You can change unit costs in 'export_descr_unit.txt'. The same can be done for buildings but im not sure of the file. Along with changing building costs you can give other attributes like law or happiness or squalor bonuses.

Yes you can change unit sizes. This is done easily. From your start menu go into options>game options (or maybe it was video options). Anyway. Here youll be able to set the resolutions. Beneath that is a check box asking to display advanced options. Check that it should be one of the menus. Each time you increase the unit sizes are doubled. (maximum unit size of 240). The highest level can be a bit taxing on your computers capabilities though in the bigger battles. Also these large unit sizes can quickly deplete the populations of your cities especially early in the game.

A great place to learn about modding rtw is to check out the scriptorium. This forum contains tutorials to do pretty anything you would want to do as well as links to modding tools. It can be a long read but once you get the hang of things it really isnt too difficult.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=77