Faction Switching

[Ensiger]

When I use the cheat, control <faction name> it never seems to work. I was trying to use it to play as the romano-british and other emergent factions but it never seems to work. What do I need to do to switch factions?

[SubRosa]

You will need Epistolary Richard's All Factions Playable mod for BI to play as the emergent factions in BI.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Welcome Ensiger
That's one of the numerous non-functional cheats I believe. CA documented them somewhere, but never got round to actually putting them in.

You can unlock these cheats by downloading this program and following the instructions here. The link in the thread is broken sadly, but critical instructions as to how to use are contained within there.

Alternatively, to serve your objectives, you could just download the mod that SubRosa connected to.

[Juvenal]

The control command works fine if it is in a show-me script (don't forget to use the internal name for the faction).

I have successfully used this method for my current AAR for IBFD7.03.

Most of the work was in setting up a show-me script which didn't interfere with the existing 4TPY script. I did this by adapting the Epistolary Richard's sample script described in his scripting tutorial here.

It works fine on BI too, except that you have to do a little bit of searching for the BI equivalents of some of the files described.

[Ensiger]

Epistolary Richard's All Factions Playable mod for BI, looks great but none of those links take me anywhere???

I cant unlock these cheats by downloading this program and following the instructions here seeings as how I dont have a NO-CD form of the game.

and, Juvenal I dont even understand your post...

[Juvenal]

...and, Juvenal I dont even understand your post...

Sorry, here is a fuller explanation. The control cheat command doesn't work from the console, but it does work from scripts.

Create a script in "Rome - Total War\bi\data\scripts\show_me" called my_script.txt

script
    console_command add_money 10
    console_command control empire_west_rebels
    console_command add_money 10
end_script

Substitute empire_west_rebels with the internal name for the desired faction, you can get it from the file descr_sm_factions.txt. I only put the add_money commands in so you can see whether the script ran.

Go to "Rome - Total War\bi\data\export_descr_advice.txt" and uncomment Trigger 2137 by removing the leading semi-colons. NB. it was commented out in my mod, I'm not sure if that is the case in vanilla BI, but check it anyway.

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 2137_Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Trigger
    WhenToTest ScrollAdviceRequested

    Condition ScrollAdviceRequested help_scroll

    AdviceThread Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Thread  0

Uncomment and add a reference to the new script in the Advice Thread definition for that trigger (you will find it in the same file).

;------------------------------------------
AdviceThread Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Thread
    GameArea Campaign

    Item Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Text_01
        Uninhibitable
        Verbosity  0
        Threshold  1
        Attitude Normal
        Presentation Default
        Title  Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Text_01_Title
        Script scripts\show_me\my_script.txt
        Text Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Text_01_Text1

To run the script:

• Press F1 to get the Keyboard Shortcuts scroll.
• Press the question-mark icon (top right of scroll) - the Advisor pops-up.
• Press the Show-me area of the Advisor and the script should then run.

I am told that after changing faction, the AI gets confused and won't play your original faction very well. But this wasn't a problem for me because I just wanted to replay important events from my save games without continuing the campaign.