How To...Add / Relocate / Delete Campaign Map Resources

Modding Resource Header

Title: How To...Add / Relocate / Delete Campaign Map Resources
Posted by: Seasoned Alcoholic
Modding area: Campaign Map (Tangible Resources)
Required programmes: Notepad (or other text editor)
Related links: How To - Edit a trade resource
Summary: Resources are the graphic icons displayed at various locations across the campaign map. They can be traded internally with your own settlements, as well as being exported to and imported from your rivals. This guide illustrates how to add / relocate / delete campaign map resources in detail.

Tutorial Contents

* Part 1: Relocating Campaign Map Resources
* Part 2: Adding New Campaign Map Resources
* Editing Trade Resource Values

What You Need:
descr_regions.txt (DR) @ \Data\world\maps\base
descr_strat.txt (DS) @ \Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign (this may vary depending on whether you have mods etc installed)
descr_sm_resources.txt @ \Data
pen and paper to note (potential) resource locations on the campaign map

Before you begin:
Make necessary backups to the text files listed above. Do this frequently as you progress through editing the campaign map resources. In the case of an error for whatever reason, you will then have a working file to fall back upon if and when needed. It is a good idea to number / date / word etc your backups so that you will know which is the most latest version without confusing yourself.

You need to have all the files open as you will be doing a lot of cross-referencing between each. When you actually go into the campaign map, you'll need to take notes of the specific tile reference. Note that you can keep your files open when you go in and test out changes, you don't have to save and close text files for the game to read them. This saves a lot of time!

Part 1: Relocating Campaign Map Resources

Run RTW. When it has loaded-up, select a new imperial campaign with the faction of your choice. Open the RomeShell console and type in toggle_fow, this will make the whole campaign map visible and let's us see what were doing. You should be familiar with the map by now (well, the game's only been out since October 2004 ~D).

You may, however, be unfamiliar with resource locations, or more specifically, what each of the resources look like. Spend a few mins looking at the different types of resources (position your mouse over the resource for a tooltip). Note that some resources are hard to see at a glance (EG lead on mountains), you can always use your cursor to do the looking for you - the tooltip will reveal a resource's location.

Now scroll upto Tribus Alani / Campus Alani (spelt Alanni in vanilla). Have a look around the province - you should be able to spot the Silver resource in the hills towards the south border. This is the only resource present in this region.

https://img127.imageshack.us/img127/...rce19zw.th.jpg

Move your cursor over the silver resource in Tribus Alanni. Now, open the RomeShell console (using your shortcut key, assign this if necessary). In the commandline, type in show_cursorstat. This will provide you with the specific X, Y coordinates of your cursor location, mine is 216, 108. Using a pen and paper, make a note of these coordinates and label them something like Tribus Alanni; Silver so you remember which region and resource you're editing.

OK, now we have an estimate as to which tile we want to relocate the silver resource in. Close RTW down and go back to desktop.

In DR, hit Ctrl+F to bring up the search dialog box, and type in Alanni. This is what you should see:

Code:

Tribus_Alanni Campus_Alanni scythia Alans 177 170 58 silver, slaves, dogs, pigs 5 3

We are only interested in line 6 (the resource line). Ignore slaves, dogs, pigs. If we were adding / deleting resources, we would update the resource line appropriately, but since we are relocating resources, we don't need to do this.

Now we have our coordinates from the campaign map, go into DS, maximise the window if necessary. Underneath the landmarks section, you should see this:

Code:

; >>>> start of resources section <<<<

This is the area of DS we will be focusing on. As you can see the existing campaign resources are simply listed in a lengthy, unsorted manner, which complicates things. However, since we have our coordinates taken from show_cursorstat on the campaign map, we can pin-point our silver resource from the list.

Hit Ctrl+F to use the search dialog box again, and type in silver . Now cycle through each silver resource in the list, taking note of the coordinates of each. Once you find an exact (or close enough) match to our coordinates, you have found the resource, something as follows:

Code:

resource silver, 216, 108

You could search for the exact coordinates, but if an error has been made in working out the coordinates, then we won't find anything. Now to actually relocate the resource, simply edit the X, Y coordinates in DS to whatever you want, I've changed them to the following:

210, 120

Now save the changes you've made and browse to this directory:

\Data\world\maps\base

I'm not sure if this is mandatory in relocating resources, but to be safe, delete map.rwm in this folder. When you start a new imperial campaign the game will automatically generate a new map.rwm file for you containing all of your changes / adjustments.

Now relaunch RTW and start a new imperial campaign to view your relocated silver resource!

https://img127.imageshack.us/img127/...rce26ob.th.jpg

Using similar techniques to the one described above, you can position resources in specific tiles on the campaign map, as well as adding / deleting / replacing existing ones with alternative ones. Use descr_sm_resources.txt as a reference to the trade resources available in RTW. Use the sections below as necessary.

Part 2: Adding New Campaign Map Resources

Open RTW and start a new imperial campaign (the faction choice is unimportant), unless you already have it open from the previous section. Open the console and type in toggle_fow if necessary.

For this next stage we will be referring to Tribus Alanni once again. We are going to add a new Timber resource to this region. So, scroll back to Tribus Alanni (towards the north east corner of the map). You should see something similar to the following:

https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/93...rce36bm.th.jpg

Now position your cursor on the campaign map as displayed below:

https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/55...rce48ry.th.jpg

With your cursor positioned correctly, open the RomeShell console and type in show_cursorstat as illustrated below:

https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/56...rce53fs.th.jpg

Hit enter to confirm the command. You should now see the following appear in the console:

https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/32...rce68kb.th.jpg

Take a note of the X, Y coordinates provided by the console, and then exit RTW.

Open DR. Hit Ctrl+F to open the search text box, and type in alanni. You should see the following:

Code:

Tribus_Alanni Campus_Alanni scythia Alans 177 170 58 silver, slaves, dogs, pigs 5 3

We are interested in the resource line, which is line 6 (EG silver, slaves, dogs, pigs). Add timber to the end of the resource line, and you should see something similar to the below:

Code:

Tribus_Alanni Campus_Alanni scythia Alans 177 170 58 silver, slaves, dogs, pigs, timber 5 3

This adds timber to the region, but to actually get the game to display the resource on the campaign map, we need to use the X, Y coordinates we made a note of earlier using the show_cursorstat console command. To do this, we simply add the coordinates to the list in DS.

Open DS and scroll or search for the resources section. There are a couple of ways to add resources, we can either: (a) add new resources to the bottom of the existing list, or (b) copy an existing resource and edit its name and / or coordinates. We will use method (b) for speed's sake.

Browse or search for an existing timber resource. Once you've found one, duplicate it by copying and pasting the original. For example:

Code:

resource timber, 41, 110 resource timber, 41, 110

Now edit the coordinates we made a note of earlier, which were 218 (X), 140 (Y).

Code:

resource timber, 218, 140

Save your changes and close both DR and DS. Now relaunch RTW and start a new imperial campaign. Scroll to Tribus Alanni and we should see our new timber resource displayed on the campaign map:

https://img157.imageshack.us/img157/...rce72co.th.jpg

Note: If you wish to delete this timber resource, simply remove the timber entry from the resource line in DR, and remove the resource and coordinate references in DS. Save your changes to both of these files, reload RTW and the resource should now be removed from the campaign map.

Editing Trade Resource Values

All of the existing trade resources are contained in descr_sm_resources.txt @ \data directory. If you wish to edit the value of these trade resources to influence the trade income of settlements, check out Part 2 of Myrddraal's How to - Edit a trade resource guide.

Re: How To...Add / Relocate / Delete Campaign Map Resources

I do not understand why you have not simply used the show_cursorstat command to id the strat_map co-ords...but otherwise a great tutorial for less-experienced modders!

Re: How To...Add / Relocate / Delete Campaign Map Resources

At the time of writing the tutorial, I was unaware of the show_cursorstat console command (i'm actually unfamiliar with most of the console commands), hence the 'manual' description involving map_regions.tga etc. Thanks to ER for pointing this out btw.

I'd actually used that manual, long-winded method to allocate / add / delete most of the resources in my mod. Shame I never stumbled upon this time-saving console command earlier, since I've spent a few solid days coding the resources ~:rolleyes: I'll probably get round to including the console command in the tutorial at a later date.

[EDIT:]Updated the main post with show_cursorstat console command shortcut; added link to Myrddraal's related topic