Sucess with mdding the demo!

[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.

[Steppe Merc]

Could we somehow insert another square so it doesn't mess up?

[Steppe Merc]

Yeah I think I might have figured out how to make the unit sizes from 2 digits to 3 digits. You do edit, insert string then press in the space bar to to add in another blank block. I have yet to test it, so it might not work. Wish me luck!

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Some guy over at TWC has added Sacred Band Infantry and has shown a pic! After testing I can confirm they appear on the unit screen, but as of yet I can't seem to get the battle to work! I think there are more Carthage units possible to add also!

[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.

[ShadesPanther]

I think yo can only add in faction specific units except probably mercenaries.

someone add iberian infantry please ~:p

[Steppe Merc]

Grrr. I tried and double all the units sizes, and I did, and it showed up on the prebattle screen. It froze, and I managed to get out of it, but it exited out. And when I checked to see what I did wrong, everything I changed had been undone.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I've check it out, and Iberian Infantry, Long Shield and Round Shield Cavalry are all present and appear at the unit screen but when I tried to load the battle it crashes!

[Steppe Merc]

Odd. After futher checking it seems that were I changed it it was original. However, there seems to be a similar section later on.... Could it be there are two parts that denote unit size?

[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.

[Aelwyn]

I thought about that, as doom 3 has pak files, and people could unpack them with winrar. I tried with no success. Also searched for .pak unpackers. There were some, but they were associated with other games, and didn't work. But if you can build one it'd be nice.

[Steppe Merc]

I have no idea about any sort of computer toolsl to do those kind of things. It would be a heck of a lot easier though. Right now I'm so confused... haven't been able to change unit sizes at all.

[Sinner]

I've tried a variety of tools as well & I'm beginning to suspect that CA have either created their own pak format or they're using an obscure version that is different from that used by the likes of Quake, etc.