Sucess with mdding the demo!

[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.

[Steppe Merc]

Aelwyn, where can you find the part about the unit sizes? I'm looking, trying to figure out what the heck all this stuff means, but I'm very confused.

[Aelwyn]

Its in the dpack_0.pak file. You have to open it with a hex editor. Do a search for things like Carthage, playable, trebia, etc. You'll find a lot that don't apply to the demo (or do but not what you're looking for). The parts that you want to change are about 3/4 of the way down.

I just tried adding a unit of gauls to the trebia battle, and it didn't work. On the faction selection screen I saw that the unit was added but all I saw was a 'unit placeholder' outline, and when I tried to start the battle it took me back to the main menu. Not sure why, maybe because they're gauls, and the gauls aren't in the battle header, I dunno. But I added the unit info exactly as it appeared in the tutorial part, and even put in a location for them on the battlefield very near another carthaginian unit, exactly as it appeared in the file, just slightly moved over. No luck. I'll wait till others figure it out because I'm at my modding experience limit.

[Leet Eriksson]

thanks a load aelwyn i can now test my roman skills against the carthaginians.

[Sinner]

For those trying to use Gauls, etc, if you look further down in the file after the unit selection, from hex address C81050h onwards, you'll see additional references to Carthage and the Jullii Romans - these also might require editing to get the other factions to work properly.

[Kraellin]

umm, guys, why dont you just write a .pak packer/unpacker. would make this a whole lot easier. most likely, and i havent looked at the file structure yet, the .pak is just a packed (zipped) and compressed file. i'm guessing the entire thing could be opened fairly simply, edited, and then put back togehter.

also, in some games, (though usually not the demo), the packed files like this can also be bypassed by a 'user folder'. i havent unzipped the demo yet to look, but is there a 'user folder' somewhere in there?

K.