Sucess with mdding the demo!

[Alrowan]

Hurrah! I have a long list of things needing modding to reduce the Amphibian Annoyance Factor (AAF).

-Green arows (die!)
-Bad voice acting (disable it, or replace it if we have a few decent actors in our midst, or even just swap it with the speech from MTW and STW)
-The stupid things your units say when taking orders (just SHUT UP! Either shut up or get decent voice actors!)
-The nasty interface (especially the camera controls, I want my old setup back and editing the in-game options didn't work)
-The missing information in the interface (on fatigue especially)
-The puny unit sizes (units of 60 men as big units!? :cries:)
-The advisor (get rid of him!)

most of these can be simply edited in the perferences.txt

i removed green arrows, increased unit size. and there are more you can simply do in this list.

[Steppe Merc]

I see the unit number starts at 80. I wonder how much each number increases the unit size in game? I'm now trying out 120, will report (unless someone beats me to it).

[Steppe Merc]

Odd. I changed it to 120, and the unit sizes are the same. Has anyone else succeeded in this?

[Puzz3D]

I got the infantry unit sizes in the battle of Trebia up to 120 men by editing dpack_0.pak with a hex editor, but they wouldn't go over that, and I did change the unit size in preferences.txt to 200. You can turn off the flags and green arrows in preferences.txt and that works to improve the sense of immersion. However, the infantry running speed seems very fast which makes it difficult to control all of your units, and it looks unrealisticly fast at times against the terrain and scale of the men which detracts from the sense or realism as well. They certainly did a very nice job on the graphics and the armies look good when forming up and marching, but there is a gamey aspect to the fighting once they engage. I played with almost all units increased by 20 men and that did slowdown the fighting, but I still could only control about 1/2 my units. The rest were on their own.

[Aelwyn]

I agree, don't like the camera movement much. For some reason the screen seems kinda blocked to me, like I don't have good control and can't see everything. I suppose thats because I'm so used to the old setup though. Hmm...I'll have to find a hex editor again, as I got a new comp. and don't have many programs on it yet.

Overall not too bad though. I like the background pics when the demo is installing though.

hmm...whats 'Classic Control' and 'Classic UI' in the preferences.txt file?

[Steppe Merc]

I tried using xci32 that I got from a link in CBR. All I got was a bunch of gobbly gook.

[Puzz3D]

XVI32 works. It's freeware that you can get here: XVI (Isn't that neat. The program name is a roman numeral.) Search for Trebia. You get about 12 Trebias in the middle of the file, but the one you want is the next one after that down near the end of the file. Scroll down a little beyond that and you'll see the units in the Trebia scenario specified by name with upgrades and unit size for each. You can overtype or insert text characters in right side panel using the insert key as a toggle. Best to save a copy of your original dpack_0.pak before starting.

You see a lot of goobly gook because ascii characters are only defined for the numbers 0 - 127, but each byte can hold numbers between 0 and 255.

[Aelwyn]

I tried to change the Gauls to the playable faction in the tutorial, and no luck. When I try to play, the unit screen where it shows the armies beforehand is completely blank. And when I quit I get some error that starts off saying something like C:\Romans\blah where there is no Romans folder in my C drive. Says the Julii aren't specified in the header or something...

Edit: Well I got the screen to appear at least. Tried to play as the Senate, but I don't think the tutorial is really changeable too much. The only thing we can probably change around is the Trebia battle, as I successfully played as the Romans. Maybe we could even change the map, add units, etc. For now I'm gonna take a break.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

I got the infantry unit sizes in the battle of Trebia up to 120 men by editing dpack_0.pak with a hex editor, but they wouldn't go over that, and I did change the unit size in preferences.txt to 200.

Note that the demo code doesn't support unit sizes above 250 men in total, so if you hack the .pak files to go above that it may crash the game in odd places, although the .pak parser may still accept the new values.

[Sinner]

A useful tip to modders: as well as opening the file with your hex editor, also open it with notepad, which gives you a far greater feel for the general layout of the battle script.

I suspect that it shouldn't be too difficult to add extra units rather than just swap one for another, it's just that in a hex editor it's difficult to picture the overall structure of the file and thus important info gets left out leading to CTDs & the game refusing to play.

I think there are still limits though: I tried to swap the Roman's light cavalry for heavy and arcani for velites, getting a CTD with an error about missing graphics for both units, so I would guess that we only have a subset of available units rather than the full complement.

[PaolinoPaperino]

Some guys on this site has done some nice patches.
U can play as roman..etc..

http://www.rome1.de/cms/

[Beirut]

On behalf of all of us who are just too plain dumb to understand the intricacies of game modding...

Thanks for what you're doing. We're all looking forward to the fun you will provide us.

[frogbeastegg]

most of these can be simply edited in the perferences.txt

i removed green arrows, increased unit size. and there are more you can simply do in this list.

Anyone want to outline how to fix much of my list in step by step, idiot level instructions? My modding experience is limited and I've never worked with anything like RTW's setup.

[Leet Eriksson]

I have an XVI32 hex editor and for the life of me i can't understand anything on it, except the last portion ok i'm with froggy in this one i don't know how to mod, so if anyone can help i'll appreciate it

[CBR]

Anyone want to outline how to fix much of my list in step by step, idiot level instructions? My modding experience is limited and I've never worked with anything like RTW's setup.

In the main demo folder you find the txt file called preferences.txt. Look for DISABLE_ARROW_MARKERS and change FALSE to TRUE


CBR

[frogbeastegg]

In the main demo folder you find the txt file called preferences.txt. Look for DISABLE_ARROW_MARKERS and change FALSE to TRUE


CBR

That's the kind of moron proof info I was looking for, thanks. Quite painless to do.

Now, how to alter unit sizes? "A moron's guide to editing unit sizes".

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Mmm. Seems like you can't do all that much after all. I tried to add a Gallic contingent to Trebia and although they appeared on the faction unit section it would not take me to the battle. It says I didn't position them on the battlefield, but I did. I think it might read from a hidden hardcoded file.

Also, when I tried to make the Senate playable in the Tutorial, it crashed while loading the battle. And the Gauls don't seem to want to fight at all - you can only move them.

[Leet Eriksson]

got rid of the arrows, but how do i play the Roman faction in Trebia?

[Steppe Merc]

Can I have an idiot friendly how to increase unit sizes (a lot)?

[Aelwyn]

got rid of the arrows, but how do i play the Roman faction in Trebia?

This one is easy enough. Just open the dpack_0.pak in a hex editor, and do a search for the word 'playable'. Once you find the one referring to the Trebia battle it currently looks like:

Trebia playable carthage end nonplayable romans_julii end

Swap the two factions. MAKE A BACKUP OF THE FILE FIRST. Of course you know that. I find it easiest to insert the names correctly by clicking on the first letter of the faction and typing in the other faction exactly as it appears, then deleting the faction that was just there. I do it that way cause it seems to be necessary for the spacing to be correct, much like the tabs in the MTW files.

Hope that helps.