A few modding tips

**JeromeGrasdyke** · 10-04-2004, 12:11

I've only just discovered this forum and have to say, I'm impressed at how much headway people are making already. So, here are a few quick-and-basic tips for making mods for Rome, which should tide you over until we can get a more comprehensive guide done:

1) before you start altering the game's loading scripts, which are all the plain ASCII text files starting with "descr_" or "export_descr_" in the game's main 'data' directory, make a backup .... it saves a lot of time later

Note that the game won't run properly in multiplayer with a modified set of scripts - people who have modded Medieval will be familiar with this behaviour. There is a strategy in the works to deal with this, but it's not quite ready for prime-time.

2) when you're altering the scripts, run the game via a shortcut with "-show_err" on the command line when you are testing ... this will enable the game to display errors when you quit the program, so that if you've made an error in a script you can locate it easily; most of the game's script loading code is fairly heavily error-checked.

3) most of the loading scripts have comments at the top of the file which explain something about the format - it's worth reading as much of these as you can, since they will give you some insight into how everything fits together.

4) many entries in the loading scripts make use of 'tags' which refer to entries in other loading scripts; for example, the export_descr_units file, under the "soldier" line, gives a tag for an entry in the descr_model_battle.txt file (which in its turn has a line named "skeleton" which gives one or two tags referring to entries in the descr_skeleton.txt file). This is how the game links data together, to present a unit of men with all their stats, which use a certain model and texture set, which is then animated using a particular hierarchical skeleton and set of animations.

Hopefully that should help some in the great modding quest. If somebody wants to organise a poll on the five most-frequently asked 'modding questions' in the same mold as the one that was recently on the main forum, I'll try and supply a few answers.

**Jambo** · 10-04-2004, 13:07

Cool, thanks for the tips. I really appreciate the fact this game is so moddable. I've just been modding the weather - something I wanted to do so much with MTW - and as a result I have now increased the amount of fog one gets during the blizzard, rain_storm and heavy_fog weather patterns.

You seem, I was always so impressed with the seriously scary fog levels one could get in STW and wanted to replicate this is RTW.

**JeromeGrasdyke** · 10-04-2004, 15:35

Originally Posted by Jambo

You seem, I was always so impressed with the seriously scary fog levels one could get in STW and wanted to replicate this is RTW.

You won't be able to get exactly the same effects, because the fog in Shogun was done in software (together with many other parts of the display). The new RTW engine does the fogging through DirectX, and so it's a bit more limited. As soon as we can afford to do everything in shaders, it'll change again.

**Bwian** · 10-04-2004, 19:11

May I be the first to bid a hearty welcome to the guy whose name appears top of th eprogramming credits for RTW :)

Damn fine game, and equally nice to see a developer contributing on a forum. This is actually, in my experience, a VERY rare thing. Bought the whole lot .... STW, MTW, and had RTW on the day it came out in the UK....

anyway...fawning praise over with ;) ( you DO deserve it though ) and down to some serious modding questions :)

1) With a tool already out to allow us to poke around in the files, it looks like the unit data stuff and the textures are straight-forward enough..but what about the 3D files ? Is there going to be a way to mod them?
2) Can new units be added to increase the number of unit choices available, or ar ethere limits as there were with the MTW ones?
3) Is the campaign map a full 3D object or a 2D image of one?

Thanks in advance...and now back to subduing those pesky Gauks

**Jambo** · 10-04-2004, 19:15

Hey Jerome,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it's obvious the STW weather effects are still superior. Nevertheless, by increasing the values though I have managed to get a little more fog on the battlefield and on a more common occurrence.

One of the other things which i'm interested in modding is the population required to upgrade settlement levels (e.g. 2000, 6000, 12000 and 24000). Some people think the Marian Reforms take place too early and that population grows too fast exponentially, which in turn can mean that triari are only available for a short period. My intention is to make the amount of population required to jump a level a little bit higher to go toe in toe with the increasing population:

e.g. 2000, 6000, 14000, 30000.

Can you help at all with that one? I've looked all over the data folder, but alas can't find anything...

Cheers

Jamie

**Red Harvest** · 10-04-2004, 19:56

I also miss the STW fog aesthetics. But it sure was tough to fight in it! Seems like I was always facing tons of cav and cav archers when I got fog. Sound was very important when fighting in the fog...

**Marshal Murat** · 10-04-2004, 22:28

I would personally enjoy a tool for the "new unit" creation. I just want to create some awsome Night Raider Cavalry, and scare the freak out of the enemy.