Face it. You all know this feeling; it usually comes when you play one of the Hellenic or Mediterranean factions. You've crushed your enemies and your lands now stretch far and wide. You look at the date. 200 BC. Err...damn. Either you have to face another superpower in a war that will only stop once you've decimated all of your opponents, but you're still looking for a fun challenge! What to do, what to do?
Well, I have the solution for you! We call it the "civil war"!
I - Getting Started
Most of the EB players are roleplayers, and the trait system in EB works very well for roleplaying; due to the various types of traits (ethnicity, loyalty, charisma, intelligence, etc, etc) you can easily roleplay whatever you'd like to do! Let's take an example from my current Epirote campaign:
The current year is 237 BC. The faction leader, Pyrrichos Aiakides is in North Africa, campaiging against the treacherous Karchedonians who deceitfully attacked Neapolis (Capua) when he was ousting the Romans from northern Italy. When his grandfather, Pyrrhos, conquered the city-states of Hellas proper (Thermon, Athenai, Chalkis, Korinthos, Sparte), he allowed the various rulers to retain some level of autonomy (level III government).
To properly roleplay a civil war, we need to keep three things in mind:
- The authority your faction leader has (is he sickly, cruel, mistrustful, fearful, etc)
- The loyalty of the governors back home (disloyal family members, especially those that are directly related to the crown, yet do not hold a high position, are more prone to rebel)
- The influence of your rebelling family members and the the influence of your faction leader (when a uncharismatic family member rebels, perhaps he would only take one or two settlements, but if a very charismatic 9/10 influence governor rebels, perhaps you'd lose half your empire! Your mileage may vary, of course).
So what are good reasons to start a civil war? I'll take Epirote examples again
- All of the Italian Roman settlements have been taken, and the remaing Romans in Massilia, Tolosa and Emporion have come to your faction to ask for a truce. You accept, and the Tarentinian general that has fought against the Romans is disgruntled by this decision. He proclaims himself independent from your rule and takes control of all of your cities in Italy!
- You have recently been crushed in a huge battle with the Gauls; and Pyrrhos nephew thinks he can do a better job than your faction leader can at governing this empire; had he been in command, the Gauls would have known defeat instead of you. He decides to rally the Greek city-states against you and proclaim himself the true governor of Epiros.
- The year is 199 BC, and the last family member of the Aiakides family has died out when doing battle with enemy x; moments before he died, he announced that his Illyrian/Liburnian/whatever non-Hellenic friend would command the empire. Disgruntled and fearful that the empire would turn into a barbarian state, the Hellenic cities in your empire revolt.
These are just some examples, you can think of good (or bad, or humourous!) reasons for yourself to be the victim of a civil war to spice up your game a bit. When we analyse those happenings, we'll find three causes:
Cause 1: Civil war due to supposed betrayal
Cause 2: Civil war due to the loss of armies
Cause 3: Civil war due to ethnic problems/xenophobia
II
Zen and the Art of Modding
Welcome, young grasshopper, to the world of modding. Mod-do is the path to enlightenment, if you master it.
Once you've decided what kind of civil war you want, you will need to edit some files:
.../Rome - Total War/EB/data/descr_sm_factions.txt
.../Rome - Total War/EB/data/text/expanded_bi.txt
.../Rome - Total War/EB/data/scripts/show_me/genericScript.txt
Before you do anything, make copiesof these files and keep them in a safe place.
1) descr_sm_factions.
Logically, you'd want your rebel faction to look cool. You should pick the kind of faction that your family members will "rebel to", so to say. Keep in mind that this has to be an existing faction. There is another way, but that one is very tedious and involves heavy scripting. Find the faction that closely resembles your culture (and preferably shares your barracks building). There are seven cultures in EB:
The names between brackets are their internal names. This means that if you are looking for Epeiros in the descr_sm_factions file you should look for "thrace". There is just one thing you'd need to do here, and it's very optional. You could change the colour of your own faction as well as the "rebel" faction. For example, I used bright red for the rebelling faction in my Epirote campaign (the Achaian League) while I took on a dark-blueish colour.
Thanks to athanaric for clearing up how the barracks system works, exactly.
2) expanded_bi
This file is pretty cool. Here the names are defined of every faction in-game. So if you are Arche Seleukeia, and say, you RP that Syria is revolting, you could change the name of the Ptolemaioi to "Basileion Suriakon" or something like that, and gift them the settlements. Don't forget to do this for every line! So you should change "Ptolemaioi army" to "Syrian army", etc, etc.
3) genericScript
Okay, this can be one of the hardest parts.
1) Check who you want to revolt to a different faction. If I want Alexandros Aiakides (for example) to revolt, I'm going to look him up on the campaign map. I remember where I found him (or use the toggle_fow cheat)
2) Save the game under a different name! Like: EpirosCivilWar or something
3) Go to the genericScript file and find these lines:
script
console_command toggle_perfect_spy
console_command control faction
end_script
Of course, it shouldn't be "faction", but the internal name of the faction you want to control (in my case, greek_cities (Koinon Hellenon)).
3) Save the file.
4) Launch your EB campaign again, and press F1. Then click the question mark, followed by clicking "show me how" button.
5) Your turn ends. This is normal. When your turn comes up, you'll notice you'll control the faction you wanted to control. Take a diplomat and move him to the character(s) you want to rebel. To avoid freakish RTW ai behaviour while you're away, you could just use the "move_character" cheat.
6) Bribe the character(s). Make sure they are bribable in the first place, so you'll need a diplomat with some influence and the characters you need to bribe have the "seditious" or "venal" traits. I mean, disloyal characters wouldn't rebel in the first place, now would they?
7) Save the game.
8) Go back to the genericScript file. Change the lines to
Code:
script
console_command toggle_perfect_spy
console_command control originalfaction
end_script
Of course, originalfaction should not be written there! So if you are Seleukeia, type romans_julii
9) Reload your game, follow step 5 again. Turn ends, and look! You are in control of your original faction again. Let the fun begin.
III
So what now? - Getting used to civil wars
Of course, it would be quite boring if you would manage to restore peace within a year. While it did happen, it's not as fun. It all depends on what kind of civil war you want to have. MarcusAureliusAntoninus pretty much let half of his empire rebel and lost some of his border provinces, but if you would like to just to lose a couple of provinces, that's fine too! It's about what you enjoy. Some tips:
- Allow yourself some time before reacting, especially if your governor is far away. It would be even better if you managed to lose another few provinces (apart from the starting ones) to the rebels!
- When in control of the other factions, bribe some armies hanging around as well. It's even better! You can take control of a guy and recruit some mercenaries that will aid him in his resolve.
- Experiment around with the size of rebellions. Lose your capital! Lose all your family member, except your faction leader, and perhaps a brother or sons or something)! Raise the stakes! There are a lot of possibilities. Look at Rome and their constant rebellions from the first century onward. Look at the way the Seleucid empire disintegrated!
- Don't forget to save. A lot. This is crucial to having fun, and it always allows you to revert back if you've lost your empire made a mistake.
- To make sure the AI won't do weird things, try entering this line as well into the script:
Code:
command_console disable_ai
This makes sure they don't go wandering around and gives you some more time to do stuff.
If there's anything you don't understand, feel free to post here, or if you have anything to say at all, post as well. Enjoy your EB!
- Hax
Also, I will make one further post that deals with my current Epirote rebellion game. Pictures included!
Face it. You all know this feeling; it usually comes when you play one of the Hellenic or Mediterranean factions. You've crushed your enemies and your lands now stretch far and wide. You look at the date. 200 BC. Err...damn. Either you have to face another superpower in a war that will only stop once you've decimated all of your opponents, but you're still looking for a fun challenge! What to do, what to do?
- All of the Italian Roman settlements have been taken, and the remaing Romans in Massilia, Tolosa and Emporion have come to your faction to ask for a truce. You accept, and the Tarentinian general that has fought against the Romans is disgruntled by this decision. He proclaims himself independent from your rule and takes control of all of your cities in Italy!
Confess, Hax, you were actually monitoring my gamesave.
Consider this thread bookmarked and soon put into good use. I've got the perfect candidate for a rebel prince, I have the screenshots. Once I find the dedication, I'll get a AAR done.
One last word about all this: BACK UP everything before you start modding.
It's important to note that there are factional and regional barracks, which have different alignments. Notably the regional MICs are grouped by culture, whereas the factional ones are more placed for gameplay reasons. Apparently you confused some of them. Here's a revised list:
2) Save the game under a different name! Like: EpirosCivilWar or something
Do you mean that one should copy their EB folder/file, change the name of that file and do the changes to the copied one?
And are there any bugs/gamebreaking glitches associated with these changes?
Last edited by Arthur, king of the Britons; 04-20-2010 at 15:18.
Hax's Great Guide to Civil War
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Originally Posted by Hax
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