Sword Armed Thorakitai (using Ptolemaic Basilikon Agema) plus some other things..

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Hello everyone, I have some modding questions for the more experienced members.

1. Which file do I have to edit in order to change a building description?

2. As far as I know the descr_buildings.txt deals with building names, maybe with building descriptions as well?

3. If I would want to assign a weapon to a unit is it possible to do so with text-editing, and if so is the DMB the file I need to edit?
And in this case I want to give the Basilikon Agema throwing spear as primary and sword as secondary, a bit like an Hellenic "legionary". If someone would be able to show how the entry should look like (after being modded) I would be most grateful.


4. And how does one assign weapons to units if it's possible?

5. I'm quite sure of this already but the export_units file is the file to be changed if one wish to edit unit names? I just want this to be confirmed that's all.

6. And if so how does one edit unit names?

7. And lastly is there any console command(s) I can use to remove the "Hypermethyskos" trait from a character? And I know it's the add_trait something but I want to know specifically how to get rid of this trait. I'm playing as Makedonia BTW.

and bla bla yeah sorry if this have already been posted etc.

[Teucer]

One thing I can tell you is that you can't simply assign new weapons to a unit. If memory serves, the Basilikon Agema uses the same model as the elite epikratous hoplitai, which means sword and spear. Giving this model the throwing spear attribute would look very strange at the best, and probably wouldn't work at all.

To accomplish your goal, I would take a look at the Dunaminaca/elite african infantry model which has a thureos shield, italo-hellenic helmet, and short sword. Another option would be the Pontic throakitai/parthohellenikoi thureophoroi model, but then you're either stuck with the ugly conical pontic helm, or the boetian helm of the parthian unit. This model also wears pants which would be odd for greek thorakitai.

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Yeah.. I did suspect this was the case, which sadly means I will probably don't do this since Pontikoi Thorakitai have a shield with a nonhellenic symbol on it and also have a very nasty beard.

Oh and I suspect that the same goes for beard and shield, unless I'd change the model itself but alas I don't have 3ds max so it would not be possible.

My experience with modding is at best limited..

Thanks for your help though.

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Teucer, could you confirm that beard and shield are not assignable as well?

:note sorry for double post.

[Teucer]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by beard. Beards would simply be part of the unit's model. If a beard is added as an extra 'attachment' on top of the base head model, then it should be possible to hide it by using alpha channels. I don't think it has any effect on weapon use.

But in your case, I went back and looked at the pontic thorakites and I don't think the unit actually has a beard at all. It does seem to have a long hair attachment on the back, but no beard.

Are you still working on this project? I could make a skin for you using the dunaminaca model, but you'd have to get someone else to do the unit cards, since I'm terrible at that...

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Looks to me like he has a beard. :P
If you can do that model-changing thing on Dunaminca so that it looks like a Hellenic Legionary, I would be very grateful.
Don't worry about the Unit Card, I'll probably make it the easy way (i.e just use the Pontikoi Thorakitai unit card)
Oh and if you do these changes and send the modded unit to me how would I make it work in the game? i.e Replace the Dunaminaca model with the modified one you make?


Sorry if I ask too many noobish questions BTW.

[Teucer]

Ok... here's what I came up with what do you think? I could get rid of the plumes easily if you don't like 'em.

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Wow... That looks awsome! Yeah I think the unit would look better without plumes.
Some minor things: (sorry if I'm asking for too much )

Could you remove the beard, change the shield so that it have an Argead Star as a symbol on it, and maybe change the chain-mail-tunic so that it looks like the Pontikoi Thorakitai's tunic. i.e more grey-ish.

Thank you so much for doing this! I really appreciate this.

note: stupid question, is this a separate unit or is it Dunaminaca re-modelled?

[Teucer]

Ok... here's version 2

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Perfect, Thanks!

[Teucer]

now comes the hard part... where do you want these guys recruitable, and what sort of stats do you want them to have? I'd probably go with either the pontic thorakitai stats or else the samnite infantry stats, but you could create something from scratch I suppose. If you intend these guys to be Makedonian legionaries, then you might even go for the polybian hastati or principes stats (but I'd take off at least one shield point since these guys have a thureos rather than a scutum). If you let me know where you want them, I'll see what I can do about coming up with the right changes to the text files. Meanwhile, I think I'll be using the original version as an Ibero-Hellenic shock infantry for my 'Epeiros in Iberia' game...

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Hmm.. I've roleplayed some pretty heavy Roman influence on Makedonia and would I would like this unit's stats (but with that shield value reduction you proposed) as well as AOR to match that of the Cohortes Reformata.
These troops are going to represent the final form of the Makedonian Thorakitai, I think their name should be "Thorakitai Kopidophoroi" , "Swordbearing Thorakitai", or Koorteis Makedonikai (maybe a bit to roman-esque).

[Teucer]

Ok... well then I suppose it would make sense to use the reformata stats as well... If you want to make up for the 1 point shield reduction, you could raise the defense skill by 1 I suppose. Making these guys recruitable in all those provinces will be a little tricky, but before we do that, we'll have to create the proper entries in EDU and DMB to make the unit usable (so far I've just been using a re-skinned dunaminaca for the testing). If you know how to do the text modding, great, but if not, let me know and I'll see what I can do...

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

If you want to make up for the 1 point shield reduction, you could raise the defense skill by 1 I suppose.

Yeah that's what I had in mind exactly.
BTW, regarding the EDB entries, wouldn't copying the entries for Cohortes reformata and replacing "selucid" with macedon and Cohors Reformata with "insert name for the unit here" do the trick?
I know a bit about text-editing. So I can probably handle the AOR entries in the EDU, I've never added a unit in EB though so I still need quite a lot of help on this one.
Again thanks for doing this.

[Teucer]

What you suggest will work fine for the EDU with one caveat. Make sure to change the two Roman officers (centurian and signifer) with the two hellenistic ones. I'll see about PMing you with the image files and the new text to be added to DMB.

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Oh and copying the AOR entries for Cohortes Reformata and using them for this unit would work as well, right?

[Teucer]

Well, yes, you can copy the AOR entries, but of course you'll have to add them to the right barracks at the right levels (don't remember the factional one at the moment, but makedon's local barracks is barracks_y). You'll also have to decide whether to make the unit recuitable from the factional MIC or the local one. If you want the unit to be usable in both the homeland and frontier, you'll have to copy the entries to both barracks in the EDB file. Your best bet is probably to copy the relevant lines from the romani barracks, paste it into a new file, change the ownership to 'macedon' and then paste it back into the EDB at the right places.

Oh, and here's a link to a zip file with the skin and some poorly made unit cards as well as a text file with more instructions...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FN8BDR30

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Thank you, very much I'll have a look at this tomorrow.

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

By the way it's one thing I forgot to ask, is this save game compatible? (I fear it is not...)
Have a balloon btw.

[Teucer]

yeah, it should be just fine with your saved games! Thanks for the balloon, my first! And let me know if you have trouble getting it to work in-game.

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Everything works perfectly!

[Teucer]

How about a screenshot of those guys in action, etc...

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Here ya go!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Fluvius Camillus]

Wow nice work Teucer! I look forward to see the Makedon legion back in the EB empires thread, Arthur!

~Fluvius

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I downloaded the files as well Teucer. I hope you don't mind. I always wanted to play as Macedon with Roman type soldiers. Let the Romans feel their own medicine.

[Teucer]

glad you downloaded it... the more people to use it, the better spent my time was :)

[Rahl]

Downloaded and saved for future campaigns, maybe I will use them for a romano-greek rebell faction.
Thanks, you've done a great job.

[MechWarrior]

Excellent work, Teucer. I appreciate the new unit greatly...