a few questions

hey everyone

my new rig arrived today, and it's been fairly smooth sailing thus far. m2tw is running great, but there are a few changes i'd like to make, and i don't know how. in order:

how do i increase the unit size? on max i'm getting basic sizes of 80 men, where i'd like to see 100 or 120. there's a text file where i can change this, right?

how do i unlock all the factions? i rather fancy a campaign as scotland, then one as the turks. england looks, frankly, boring.

how do i get rid of those stupid circles under the selected unit?

how do i see where i've ordered my units to go? in rtw i recall one used the space bar...

sorry if these questions are n00bish. i've been installing drivers and downloading patches all day, so i'm a bit short on patience at the moment.

cheers!

To cahnge unit amout go to options -> game options -> unit scale

To unlock all factions u can Either go to Descr_stars (or something like that in the data folder) There put all the factions u want in the playable section or complete a short/long campain

i know how to do it in the game, but i want to go past what "huge" will allow me.

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Originally Posted by Katana

i know how to do it in the game, but i want to go past what "huge" will allow me.

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Not possible. "Huge" is the biggest size you can go mate, sorry. 150 it is!

The spacebar still works, but it's a bit fickle. On my comp' at least, the destination plots are semi-transparent and flash ultrafast, instead of the solid dots of the previous games, making them hard to see.

The circles under the selected unit can be disabled by editing the preference.Cfg file (located in m2tw's root directory) IIRC. I think the parameter is disable_arrow_marker, which you should set to 1, but I could be mistaken.

Hmmm, don't ever remember using the spacebar, but on the battle map I thought it was the Shift key? Shows a red arrow marker at the dest. where you ordered your yokels to go?

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

The spacebar still works, but it's a bit fickle. On my comp' at least, the destination plots are semi-transparent and flash ultrafast, instead of the solid dots of the previous games, making them hard to see.

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I have no idea why this would be happening. The <Space Bar> has always produced a steady display of dots showing the final destination of your units. Have you altered any of the settings in the preference file which might have changed the way this is represented?

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Originally Posted by Whacker

Hmmm, don't ever remember using the spacebar, but on the battle map I thought it was the Shift key? Shows a red arrow marker at the dest. where you ordered your yokels to go?

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That's for waypoints, and for a single unit/group AFAIK. The spacebar shows the outline all the bozos in your army will have once they reach their given destination(s).
I'm being unclear, I know.

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Originally Posted by Didz

I have no idea why this would be happening. The <Space Bar> has always produced a steady display of dots showing the final destination of your units. Have you altered any of the settings in the preference file which might have changed the way this is represented?

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Nope, it's always been this way for me in M2TW, right from the first install on default settings, even though things are completely normal in RTW (and in STW + MTW, but that's irrelevant). Might be a vid driver thing, or even a vid card thing (I have an NVIDIA 7800GTX though, not the most erratic nor outlandish card out there methinks) but it doesn't bother me enough to stir me into changing either of them and risk breaking something else/some other game. *shrug*

Yeh, the flashing dot thing is well known - I've had it from day one (nvidia card here too) ~:(

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Originally Posted by Eng

To cahnge unit amout go to options -> game options -> unit scale

To unlock all factions u can Either go to Descr_stars (or something like that in the data folder) There put all the factions u want in the playable section or complete a short/long campain

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It's descr_strat.txt, and you will find it in Medieval II Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\

Be sure to back it up first. That way if you mess it up, you have one that works ready to go back in. Also, editing descr_strat seems to be one of the main reasons people are having patch 1.2 fail, so you'd be wise to have a backup so you can put the vanilla one in when it comes time for another patch.

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Originally Posted by Katana

i know how to do it in the game, but i want to go past what "huge" will allow me.

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Originally Posted by Whacker

Not possible. "Huge" is the biggest size you can go mate, sorry. 150 it is!

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Technically, the sky is probably the limit. The in-game settings determine the multiplier the game applies to the file export_descr_unit.txt in order to figure out how many men to display, but that file itself actually determines the base sizes for each unit. If you were to go in and say triple the base unit size of each unit, then every in-game setting would in fact make 3-times as many soldiers show up in the unit than it would with a vanilla export_descr_unit file. This is not recommended though, as even a top-of-the-line box can probably be brought to its knees if you try to render 5- or 6-figure armies with insane graphical settings. Plus, if you make the units much bigger than huge settings would normally have them, you'll be dealing with so many soldiers on the battlefield that it will probably be absolutely impractical to have a siege, ever. If you've got extra computing power even in really big sieges I'd just recommend jacking the vid settings as high as they'll go and enjoying the fact that you can still run the game flawlessly - there appear to be few people that can boast that at the moment. For an example, be sure to test your settings out w/ 2 full stacks against each other in a citadel assault, for instance: your fps will take a huge hit in the larger settlements, most especially if you have vid settings at or near the max.

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Originally Posted by Foz

Technically, the sky is probably the limit. The in-game settings determine the multiplier the game applies to the file export_descr_unit.txt in order to figure out how many men to display, but that file itself actually determines the base sizes for each unit. If you were to go in and say triple the base unit size of each unit, then every in-game setting would in fact make 3-times as many soldiers show up in the unit than it would with a vanilla export_descr_unit file. This is not recommended though, as even a top-of-the-line box can probably be brought to its knees if you try to render 5- or 6-figure armies with insane graphical settings. Plus, if you make the units much bigger than huge settings would normally have them, you'll be dealing with so many soldiers on the battlefield that it will probably be absolutely impractical to have a siege, ever. If you've got extra computing power even in really big sieges I'd just recommend jacking the vid settings as high as they'll go and enjoying the fact that you can still run the game flawlessly - there appear to be few people that can boast that at the moment. For an example, be sure to test your settings out w/ 2 full stacks against each other in a citadel assault, for instance: your fps will take a huge hit in the larger settlements, most especially if you have vid settings at or near the max.

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If you know how to increase unit sizes above 150, then by all means let's hear it. I haven't seen or read of any such a means so until someone can point us in that direction 150 is the limit CA has set for us with M2TW, hence the OP's question and my response.

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Originally Posted by Whacker

If you know how to increase unit sizes above 150, then by all means let's hear it. I haven't seen or read of any such a means so until someone can point us in that direction 150 is the limit CA has set for us with M2TW, hence the OP's question and my response.

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I don't know any such way, of course - I just explained how one would do it in theory based on what I know of the game's mechanics. If CA has imposed an arbitrary 150 man cap on unit sizes, then I don't suppose there's much any of us is going to do about that, is there? At least not without some sort of likely-illegal editing of game files that I don't even want to get into. So let's just say "it can't be done currently" and leave it at that.