Post your "must-know" modding questions here!

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Although we're still a bit left in the dark considering the tools, I can completely understand that just releasing company made tools isn't always the obvious thing to do. Still I would like to add that mods do sell games.

Yes, totally true. But it's one thing to have a tool for internal use, and another to release it to the public at large. There are some legal issues, and business ones as well, which need to be thought through and dealt with.

Many, many of us have been desperately and intensely trying to slow down the "kill rate" or rate in which combat happens. So many of us feel combat is over way too quickly and there should be more time for the fight to commence thus allowing more tactics not to mention a more "epic" feel to the battles.

Increasing the number of hit points is probably the best way to go, as long as you multiply all of the hit point numbers by a small amount (x2 or x3). There are a few problems: for one, the engine only supports a maximum of 15 hp, and hence you will need to increase the armour of those troops which are already near the limit in order to compensate. The elephant units are the only ones that come to mind, although the individual general and officer soldiers will also become more vulnerable relative to the other soldiers, and there's not much that can be done about that. Combined with a decrease in the movement modifiers, as you mentioned, this should do most of what you want. Then there may be too much fatigue resulting from the longer battles; it this turns out to be a problem, it could be resolved by adding the 'hardy' attribute to all units (this gives a boost to fatigue resistance). It will also be necessary to increase the amounts of ammo for all missile troops, since it will take at least two hits to kill a soldier, and also the attack strength of all 'precursor' weapons (such as the Roman pilum), since they function as one-shot weapons prior to engagement and their impact will be considerably weakened.

So, if I am reading this correctly, you are saying that the unit animations can actually increase or decrease not how quickly the unit -appears- to move, but rather how quickly the unit -actually- moves? By "move" I do not mean the movement of limbs, but rather the actual distance travelled over the same amount of time.

That is correct. The mocap-derived animations drive the distance travelled as well as impact points of weapons, sound events and the movement of the limbs and even the cloaks. The ground type modifier, on the other hand, only modifies the actual distance travelled, and hence the men appear to 'slide' a little when it is large.

I might be speaking out of school, but I was wondering how I can change the unit sizes. Even at Huge 160 men will not do it. At least 200 men per unit max would be feasable to me. How could that unit size number be changed?

The preferences file sets a general scale modifier for units in general, from x0.25 to x4 in size, relative to a default average of 40 men per unit. Hence the multipliers of 20,40,80,120,160. The reason for the this is that parts of the engine only support a maximum of 256 men per unit; hence x4 means that a 60-man unit can scale to 240, while a 40-man unit scales to 160. You could create a mod in which most of the units were 60 men in size and run that at x4 to get units of mostly 240 men, but it would run that much slower.

Spears/pikes vs. cav. We are seeing some odd effects where spear units don't seem to do that well vs. cav. (compared to sword infantry), and horses jump over phalangites, etc. Where should this be adjusted (file and stat), and is it working as intended by CA?

The default spear vs cavalry bonusses are hardcoded. It may be a balancing issue - I'll ask someone to investigate. Alternatively, you could use the 'mount_effect' entries in the unit database to boost the combat performance of specific units against mount categories or individual mount types. These are applied on top of the default bonus.

[Botis]

My apologies in advance if my questions have been addressed already.

It would be most helpful for me to know how the data files are read by the game to "build a world".

In the "Data" directory there's a heap of files relating to the game world. Then there's the "World" directory which contains what looks like dummy templates to go into campaign files (is this right?). There's a directory called "Base" under that which looks like some more generic data. Then under "Maps" there's the Campaign folder where you can add new campaign - which I've successfully done & played with only a few variables like start end date etc.

My question about this is:
-How/when does the game read these data files? Is it looking for certain files to be under certain folders. Or can you change parameters safely by copying files from "up the tree" into your Campaign folder & edit them there?

My last question
-In the file descr_rebel_faction there's "Chance" setting, is this like the M:TW rebellion likelihood? I've assumed it is so to experiment, am setting all to 6 to see what happens. But my main question is, Do factions Reappear, if so, does this file have any effect on the chance of this occuring? If so what other than chance of revolt determines what & when a faction should appear. If it's in another file, which one, or is it not editable?

Irrespective of whether you get time to look at my q's, many thanks for your contributions to date, they're greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Red Harvest]

Jerome,

Thanks for the answer. I look forward to seeing what changes happen with future patches to address areas that are confusing or frustrating us at the moment.

I hope you guys are remaining thick skinned about all of the comments. We can be pretty biting at times, but most of us mean well. I wouldn't bother getting so involved, except that I've seen CA fix serious problems in the past. I also know that if we don't figure out what seems a bit off early (now), we will run out of time on patches. So strike while the iron is HOT! (and there is still money to pay the developers to work on patches...)

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

If the campaign Ai settings are changed part-way through a campaign (descr_stats.txt) will the changed (new) AI settings be utilised in that continued game, or are they only applied (applicable) from the start of the game and then used *for ever after*? (Hence to use the new AI settings you have to start a new game).

If the new AI settings are utilised is there anyway to trigger a change in the AI upon a certain event? (e.g faction takes Rome and then changes AI policy)/?

[adonys]

For JeromeGrasdyke, a big thanks for taking time to answer our questions.

And a few more questions, of course :P

in the export_descr_unit.txt file, the header of the file states that

;Details of unit's primary weapon. If the unit has a missile weapon it must be the primary
; stat_pri From left to right
; attack factor
; attack bonus factor if charging
; missile type fired (no if not a missile weapon type)
; range of missile
; amount of missile ammunition per man
; Weapon type = melee, thrown, missile, or siege_missile
; Tech type = simple, other, blade, archery or siege
; Damage type = piercing, blunt, slashing or fire. (I don't think this is used anymore)
; Sound type when weapon hits = none, knife, mace, axe, sword, or spear
; Min delay between attacks (in 1/10th of a second)"

but the actual units descriptions (the following line is just a random example from one of the units):

stat_pri 1, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 25 ,1

shows there's another term in the end which isn't defined. our researches points to the fact that both the last term and the one before the last one are both implied in the computing of the actual damage that specific unit will do per a RTW standard time interval (gamne tick).

the term before the last one seems to be in fact the last term from the header (the Min delay between attacks (in 1/10th of a second)"[/quote] one), while the last one seems to be a sort of probability which shows if that unit's damage is beeing considered or not for that RTW game tick (the lower the term, the lower the probability for that unit to do its damage during the actual game tick).

if all of the above are true, wouldn't be much more indicated to use this last term (and eventually the one before it) for the slower killing speed mod than to use any kind of modification to units' HP, AF, damage which seems to trigger a unpredicatble chain of subtle propagated effects?!!

that would be all for the moment, thanks for your time!

[SigniferOne]

A few questions from me:

Is there currently any other way to Mod the Senate works other than the descr_senate.txt file (which is *highly* limited in what it contains)?

Can we mod things like the Zoom ranges; we really need to be allowed to zoom out more, for those battles where really large numbers of troops are involved.

Will it be possible to externalize into a .txt files two essential features: "hidden_resource" feature to allow us to create regional units similar to the Spartan Hoplite; the trigger for Marian Reforms?

[JeromeGrasdyke]

If all of the above are true, wouldn't it be much more indicated to use this last term (and the one before it) for the slower killing speed mod than to use any kind of modification to units' HP, AF, damage which seems to trigger an unpredictable chain of subtle propagated effects?

It would certainly be a good avenue to explore, although it will also have its side-effects. For example, it will raise the value of precursor attacks relative to a period of hand-to-hand melee, as they are fairly strong one-volley missile attacks before combat starts, and it may weaken phalanxes more than other units as they rely on killing soldiers in front in order to prevent them getting through the spears and breaking up the formation. It will also increase the relative value of charges, which are represented as a temporary boost to combat stats, and so it may be necessary to bring charge bonusses down somewhat. Changing the combat rate in this way will also have some visual impact in making the battles look considerably less dynamic and impressive (as soldiers would be playing their attack anims less frequently).

As you can see, the system is quite subtle and many-sided. I think whichever way you go you will need to rebalance a few of the other factors to fit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nobody has said that everything else about the game *has* to stay the same when you make a kill-rate mod; the advice I would give is to experiment, then test it until you're sure it's still fun to play and hasn't introduced any game-killers. That's part of the joy of making games...

[Akka]

Thanks for answering questions, you can't imagine how good it is to see official people actually giving explanation of the inner work of the game ^^

I have a question that is quite important for me : actually, my main gripe with the game is the excess in rebellion. I would like to make some modifications to tone down slightly the negative loyalty effect of distance and squalor. Is this possible to do something like that ? Or are squalor and distance rates and effects totally harcoded ?
Additionnally, is it possible to alter the effect of garrison in the same way, toning up or down how much one unit improve the public order ?

[Silver Rusher]

Some more questions:

1. In my Citadel mod, I want the papacy to have the same sort of relation with the catholics as the senate does with rome. Is this possible?

2. If and when an expansion pack comes out, how easy/hard would it be to upgrade your mod from the regular to the expansion? Will there be a lot of changes necessary, or would the mod be compatible anyway?

3. This has probably been already answered, but can we make new unit skeletons?

4. Can we use existing siege equipment (I'm thinking more 'onagers and ballistae' than 'rams and belfries') and change their models, so that we can have new thingies, like trebuchets and mangonels?

[davidky5]

Is there a way to change the names of regions and cities?

That city name, domus dolcis domus (literally means "home sweet home") is really bugging me.

[Midnight]

I have a few questions:

1) Will it be possible mod structures which are separate from cities, eg a structure which appears in a province and grants bonuses, but has these bonuses taken away if it is 'blockaded'?

2) Will it be possible to mod different city sizes? eg, can I mod a city which is smaller than a town (and, inventively, call it a Small Town)? Modding the whole tech tree would be necessary after this...

3) Will it be possible to mod in flying units?

4) Will it be possible to mod faction leader's 'death ages'? eg, if I want a faction leader who can only die in battle, can I set his 'death age' to something ridiculously high?

5) Will it be possible to mod in female generals or faction leaders?

6) Will it be possible to mod in MTW-style 'glory goals', or at least (heavily) mod the victory conditions of Rome?

Thanks.

[Midnight]

Damn, only remebered this as I clicked 'submit' (and I'd checked the post, as well )

Similar to Silver Rusher's question: is it possible to include a Senate-like faction, which cannot be assailed without popular support and which makes requests or demands of various factions?

Is it also possible to have a number of factions at war with each other and yet (forcibly) allied to this Senate-like faction?

Thanks again.

[Dagoster]

Hello


In the effect files I noticed that the naming conventions of the effects
are somehow linked to events..

For example

effect_set flaming_man_effect
{
lod 10000
{
burning_man_halo
burning_man_smoke
burning_pig_skeleton_fire
}
}

My assumption is the effect_set is the trigger.. flaming_man
is this tied to an animation event named flaming_man.

can you explain the naming conventions used in the effect files and what they
are attached to?

also can you explain
type blood
in descr_particle.txt

[vladthewallachian]

How can I get rid of the blasted time limit on the battles without using that infernal Time Negator Mod? By the way which crashed my game.

[Sjakihata]

before you start a campaign, go to the historical battle menu, then exit and start a campaign = no timer for that campaign.

[Duke John]

Colourpalette in interface?
I've been altering the interface, importing M:TW parchments into R:TW, but there is going something wrong with the colours. Does the interface use a limited selection of colours which might cause the weird colours? If so how can I figure out which colours are safe?

This is how it looks in my PSP:


And this is blown up piece of a ingame screenshot:

It goes especially wrong on the sides. The middle colour is also way off.

Any hints are greatly appreciated,
Duke John

[Scorpion]

1. (This was asked before, but unfortunately, ignored) Can we edit the battle AI difficulty levels and their effects? I´d want to play with the best AI tactics possible with the current AI, but without any combat bonuses to them.

If the answer is no, could you please tell us exactly what boni the AI gets on Hard and V.Hard, so that we could mod our own units to have the same boni (or perhaps the counter-boni)?

2. How should we go about making the AI handle its generals better, and not lead them in suicide charges? What governs the way a unit act - classification seems to do nothing. Or are you planning to improve this in a patch?

3. Would it be possible to modify the game so that the AI would always use the "attacking" posture in battles, instead of the passive "defensive" one it uses when you initiate the battle (ie. most of the time). Of course, siege defenses might be an exception. The defensive AI is far too passive and does not even make use of the terrain very well.

[Totalize1]

How do you edit the Tech Tree?

Thanks

[Taamati]

it seems that when we change the scale values in the skeleton.txt the units don't change their scale. How do we change the scale of units?

Also how would we implement a 1 character unit like a Kensai

[mad caligula]

CANT WAIT FOR THE NEW MOD

CHEER

[japinard]

Is jerome coming back to answer any questions here?

[dj jones]

I have a question that relates to mod testing thats driving me batty -

on the command line, when you reference a character, you can do it like
give_trait "Anarch Brutus" etc etc
or
give_trait Heras etc etc

The names that have things like 'Jon the vanquisher' or "Pete the Wrathful' can still be addresses by putting quotes around their proper names, os using underlines, like Jon Brutus or Pete_Julius.

However -- whenever a character has an 'of' in there name, like Michael of Sparta, I cannot get the game to recognize the character. The list_characters command shows him as Michael of Sparta. Nothing special.

I have tried endless combinations with about 20 different 'of' characters. Have tried using their proper names, tried underlining, tried the 'of' first, tried it without the 'of', etc. But I cannot get the game to recognize them. Always 'cannot find unit or faction'.

So what is the proper syntax when manipulating a character who is 'of' a certain place?

thanks!

[eadingas]

Question: What are building plugins, and can they be used (and how?) or is this some abandoned idea?

[tommh]

What are the food costs on the unit and can they be used in any interesting ways?

Some additional mod requests (in order of importance)

1 Seperate a units population cost from it's physical size. Please please make these seperate stats.

2 Allow us to specify a unit as replaceable but not recruitable at a building.

3 implement parenthesis for conditionals

[Encaitar]

2 Allow us to specify a unit as replaceable but not recruitable at a building.

One way to do this (at least from a human player's perspective) is to give the unit a build time of 999 turns (or some rediculously huge number). Retraining still happens in 1 turn, but you won't have time to even recruit 1 of the units during a game. The only thing I'm not sure about with this method is how the AI would manage with it.

[wilddog]

The thing I'd like to know is whether there is any means of turning off bribing. I couldn't see any traits to allow this and couldn't find any other bribe type parameter that did anything when switched off e.g. the 'bribe' action in the character files or the Talk/Bribe options in the cursor files.

[Flatulus Maximus]

I apologize if I've missed this one but would you mind telling me how to mod the distance ships can travel in a single turn? It seems ridiculous to have a ship take 2 years to get from Sicily to Egypt. Traveling at a leisurely 5 knots per hour the trip would last only about 10-15 days. I may be off in my distance but you get the point.

[sleighr]

Hoping that these still get read and answered: How do you go about editing and assigning sounds to units, especially new ones?

I've looked high and low for help on this and no one seems to know the answer.

[Darthmalt]

Is there any way to change the number of men in a unit and/ or give each of those men a different color so you can tell them apart?

Also to repost a question I saw in an earlier post. Is there any way to adjust the possible level of zoom?

I want to use RTW to do some Machinima but theres no way to differentiate on soldier from another so I cant use voices or really do an effective story. I already used it to make two short vids but right now I'm limited to just staging battles (though I did make a cool arcani vs gladiators battle with mortal combat in the background)

[hal269091]

I'm currently working on the new campaign map for NTW 2.

Now one thing handy to know in advance is how roads appear on the campmap.

There is no file - at least as far as I can see - that determines the roads on the campmap. So I suppose that they are generated automatically in relation to some map files.
Probably the groundtypes and height tgas are involved.

Is there anyone who has experiences with that or did deal with this issue.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hal