change factions in the middle of the campaign

sorry for the trouble, but I was wondering if anyone remembers the cheat you type in to switch factions, you open the Medieval shell with '~' and then type it, but I forget the cheat and can't find it here :(

You may wish to check out this thread. It lists what you need to do to enable hotseat in M2TW.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=85464

After you've verified you are set up you should be able to change your faction with the command shell.

umm, sorry but what I asked for was how to change factions..

yeah, but doing that should allow you to switch factions. How else could you play 2 factions at one PC? (Hotseat)

where am I supposed to paste:
[multiplayer]
playable = true
hotseat_turns = true
hotseat_scroll = false
hotseat_autoresolve_battles = 0
hotseat_disable_console = 0
hotseat_disable_papal_elections = 0
hotseat_save_prefs = 0
hotseat_update_ai_camera = 0
hotseat_validate_diplomacy = 1
exactly in the preference file?

My bad,
control <Faction>
is what you are looking for. I don't have a list of the internal faction names, but I think there is on this site some where.

isn't working, I type in "control <mongols>" and nothing happens...

Ah, try
control Mongols

You would not need the "<" or ">" in there. The control is, I think, case sensitive as are the faction names. It is a royal pain in the Microsoft, but its how the program has been coded.

refuses to work

That would be handy, i'll try it in mine and see if i can get it to go.

~Isabella of Castile~
So far the following will not allow you to change factions in a game that was not started as hotseat. It will allow you to change factions in a game that was started as hotseat.

Please try the following. I just did this to make sure it would work on my machine, so I'm guessing it will do the same for yours.

Step 1, Click on your "My Computer" icon and navigate to your M2TW folder.

Step 2, open Medieval2.Preference.cfg in notepad.

Step 3, go down to the [hotseat] section and set "disable_console = 0"

Step 4, copy in the following [multiplayer] section to just before the [hotseat] section;
[multiplayer]
playable = true
hotseat_turns = true
hotseat_scroll = false
hotseat_autoresolve_battles = 0
hotseat_disable_console = 0
hotseat_disable_papal_elections = 0
hotseat_save_prefs = 0
hotseat_update_ai_camera = 0
hotseat_validate_diplomacy = 1

Step 5, save the file as M2.Hotseat.cfg

step 6, open a new instance of notepad

step 7, type in the following;

copy "C:\Program Files\Total War\Total War II\M2.hotseat.cfg" "C:\Program Files\Total War\Total War II\Medieval2.Preference.cfg"
"C:\Program Files\Total War\Total War II\medieval2.exe"

NOTE: For the above, the quotes are required to make sure the computer understands exactly what the path is to the files.

step 8, save this file as "C:\Program Files\Total War\Total War II\Hotseat.bat"

NOTE: For steps 7 and 8 above, you will replace "C:\Program Files\Total War\Total War II\" with the drive and path to your install of M2TW.

step 9, click on the "Hotseat.bat" file you have just created. This should start M2TW in Hotseat mode.

Step 10, start a new game as England.

Step 11, when the campaign map comes up, press the '~' key to bring up the console.

Step 12, in the console type "control France" and press enter. NOTE: There will be no quotes around the text when you type it.

The console should state that the human player is now controlling France. The command and the faction name are both case sensitive.

Step 13, in the console type "control England" and press enter. The console should now tell you that the AI is now controlling England.

If these directions don't work, please let me know where you have a problem or problems at and I will make screen prints (as needed) to show you exactly what I am doing. I don't have a good list of all of the factions, but that should be much easier to track down if this does work.

Step 14, if the above works then you can create a short cut on your desktop that points to the batch file. Make sure it starts in the directory your Medieval2.exe is installed in.

From now on, when you want to play with hotseat enabled, you should be able to click on the desktop icon to start up the game.

NOTE: Medieval2.Preference.cfg is recreated every time you run M2TW which is why you have to copy over the .cfg file you want to use every time you want to run in hotseat mode.

I did all the instructions, and when I click the hotseat thing, it flashes a black window and closes instantly

~Isabella of Castile~

Can you please post the full path to where you installed Medieval II total War? If you do, I can change what the text in the batch file is to match your real path.

I am also assuming you are running it from the directory where your copy of Medieval II is installed. If it is not being run from that directory then you would get the black screen (DOS window) popping up quickly like that.

yes it's running from where my M2 is installed..