Post your "must-know" modding questions here!

[NimitsTexan]

What are the effects of the different difficulty levels on the campaign map?

[khelvan]

You mention a HP limit of 15. Are there hard-coded limits for other unit stats, such as attack factor, defensive skill, and so on? If so, can we get a list of what they are?

This would simplify things for us immensely.

Thank you!

-khel

[japinard]

I believe 18 is the highest limit on defense values.

[AssasinsShadow]

I know this is gonna sound really stupid, but I'm about as new to modding as you can get. I've been reading a bunch of things all over the place that require the editing of TGA files. Now, try as I might, I can't figure out which program I can use to edit these files. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I have found out that I have no clue what I am doing.

[Lord_Winter]

photoshop seems to work for me...

[AssasinsShadow]

Yea, I tried Adobe Photoshop, but it keeps telling me that it can't be imported because the file type is not supported.

[mr. E]

i'm new to moding as well,i have the same problem, i dl a tga viewer but the pic is all black

help please

and another question please

sorry for the ignorance but is there a map editor for rome total war? (a battle map editor) i cant find it anywhere!

[alpaca]

If you have Photoshop, you can use that. If you don't search for "The Gimp" for windows, you can use that, too. It's not as comfortable, though.

[AssasinsShadow]

My photoshop keeps tellin me that the TGA files are "damaged or unsupported format." I'm at a total loss now, maybe I need a newer version of photoshop? Right now I have Adobe 2.0 Starter Addition, is there some other version I need to dl to view R:TW TGA files???

[fenir]

AssasinsShadow, Go to Duke Johns modding page entry.


Go here and read https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37203

from there, enjoy

fenir

[fenir]

Jerome, One Question please if I may.

I have started looking at redoing MTW with the RTW game. In short, I am thinking of making a medieval TW update, by using RTW.

I have heard a rumour, nothing more, that CA maybe revisiting the MTW in the next series.
Now if this is true, it will be a waste of time me redoing MTW.

when will we know for sure, and can you give me a go for it, or a sutle try something else please fenir.


Thank you

fenir

[Lord_Winter]

Could be old versions of the program...

Try download the test version of adobe on download.com it works like a dream...

[quadrille]

Is it possible to have several different models and/or skins in the same unit? Alternatively add more "unique" models, such as the standard bearer and unit leader? If this is somehow possible, it would be very useful especially for the bretonnians in the warhammer mod I'm working on.

Grateful for an answer.

[AssasinsShadow]

Just curious about modding the comp map. In Duke John's page on modding (great work BTW: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=37924&page=1 ) he says to open up map_ground_types.tga, map_regions.tga, and map_heights.tga and layer them so that you can edit all three in the same spot. However, map_regions.tga is of a different pixel resalution then the other two, and I cant get them to layer as the same size, therefore making editing the campaign map nieh impossible. Any help what-so-ever would be extremely appreciated.

[Vorbis]

What steps need to be taken to add a new agent to the game? So far, I've edited the following files in the (what I feel is obvious) appropriate manner, consistent with other entries in them:

descr_agent_ancillary
descr_character
export_descr_buildings
descr_model_strat.txt
export_descr_character_traits.txt
export_descr_VnVs_enums.txt
/text/export_VnVs.txt
/text/shared.txt
/text/expanded.txt
/text/strat.txt

However the error message that I have gotten every single time is

Script error in data/descr_agent_ancillary.txt, at line 14, column 1.

At least one culture (barbarian) has no agent/ancillary data supplied in descr_agent_ancillary.txt

Now, my entry for the barbarians is the same as for the Romans:

culture barbarian																							
																											
doctor			data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary.tga		data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	100	1	10
quartermaster	data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary.tga		data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	100	1	10
priest			data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary.tga		data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	100	1	10
scout			data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary.tga		data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	100	1	10
engineer		data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary.tga		data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	data/ui/generic/generic_ancillary_info.tga	100	1	10
																											
spy				spy.tga			spy_info.tga			spy.tga				350	1	1
assassin		assassin.tga	assassin_info.tga	assassin.tga		500	1	1
diplomat		diplomat.tga	diplomat_info.tga	diplomat.tga		250	1	1
admiral			admiral.tga		admiral_info.tga		admiral.tga			100	1	1
taxcollector			diplomat.tga		diplomat_info.tga	diplomat.tga		350	2	1

(I'm simply using the diplomat image and model for simplicity here.) Is there some file or process that I'm missing here? And I can see that of the three numbers, one is recruitment cost and one is likely build time, but what is the third? Starting level?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

[l3th4l]

Just curious about modding the comp map. In Duke John's page on modding (great work BTW: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=37924&page=1 ) he says to open up map_ground_types.tga, map_regions.tga, and map_heights.tga and layer them so that you can edit all three in the same spot. However, map_regions.tga is of a different pixel resalution then the other two, and I cant get them to layer as the same size, therefore making editing the campaign map nieh impossible. Any help what-so-ever would be extremely appreciated.

i would resize the layer in question and size it down afterwards again..

[l3th4l]

(how do you edit your post??)

i don't know what program you use.. with photoshop id simply use free transform.. (not actually resizing the layer.. that sounded kind of wrong )

[l3th4l]

mhh.. i just tried to do that and found that using free transfrom is not that good an idea as i thought.. it resaples the edges in the original picture and by doing that changes the colot at the edges.. don't know how that'll effect the game but better not take a risk ;)

instead you could open the regions file seperately and resize it before you pase it into a new layer. make sure you use nearest neighbour as the resampling option to avoid the effect that happened above..
(there might be an some place where you can change the resampling options for the free transform tool, too; i just don't know where)

ps: sorry for triple-posting still don't know how to edit

[Arderon]

Is it possible to alter the victory conditions to allow/require the taking of all regions for instance?

[AssasinsShadow]

Is it possible to alter the victory conditions to allow/require the taking of all regions for instance?

In the totalwar/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt it has a section quite near the top called win_conditions. However, the only one specified is land_owner, so I think the only thing you can change there is the # of terr. required to win. I'm sure someone else can help you out with changing the conditions.

[Moosehead115]

Is it possible to modify the movement points of units on the campaign map, either by individual units or classes of units? Such as allowing ships to move approx 2-3 times further then they currently are able to.

[Vorbis]

Is it possible to modify the movement points of units on the campaign map, either by individual units or classes of units? Such as allowing ships to move approx 2-3 times further then they currently are able to.

Admirals are agents, give them a special trait upon creation with, say 20 movement points, and make it a hidden trait so the only affect you see is the movement range (you won't even see the trait. perfect solution)

See my post here (scroll down a lot) for the exact changes I did to effect this, because it's a lot of typing and it's easier to just link

[Akka]

Is it possible to mod the factor of bribe ?
(I would like to multiply by 3 or 5 all the prices of bribing, but without altering units themselves)

[sharrukin]

Would it be possible to increase the advantage that height gives you on the battlefield. Seems a little toned down from MTW, not as realistic. If this isn't in the works for the patch can it be done through modding and if so how?

[SpencerH]

Would CA be so kind and move as many as they can (all would be the best!) actually hardcoded values/constants from the RTW exe file into an editable text file, to allow us to modify them if we really need/want to?

There's over 500k of setup scripts open to modding and you want more?!? Well, we'll see what can be done. All constants would be a bit optimistic, as there are an awful lot of them, but we may be able to extern a few more things.

Jerome

Glad to see y'all here. Contributing to these threads goes a long way toward releiving tension amongst the disgruntled (even mildly disgruntled). I'd like to point out to the moderators here that Jerome has provided a wealth of info here that isnt apparent to people who havent visited this modding thread (I'm only here because I'm looking for a way to turn off the damn floating pop-ups on the strat map).

I guess the request for moving the hardcoded values to a text file is based upon the fact that most of the game parameters that 'old vets' have the most problems with (such as cav turn speeds) appear to be hardcoded.

I havent done much to TW (yet) but have some experience modding CIV so my question is this, given that the game was 'meant' to be modded why are some things hardcoded at all. Going back to my CIV experience, the arbitrary nature of whether a game component was hardcoded never failed to amaze me. For example, the early CIV3 versions had limits on the numbers of units because a file 'somewhere' had a numerical limit. There was no reason to set the number at 80, it just was. From reading here, y'all have set a unit limit to 300. Is there a reason for that?

Just to be clear, I'm not complaining about this. I'm not a programmer and I'm trying to get some insight into the kinds of decisions that are made for my own interest.

[Jagger]

Jerome perhaps you can help me here.

It seems to me that snow covers way too much of Europe during the winter. So I decided to try to change the snow coverage.

First, I went to the descr_climates folder. I started experimenting. First, I removed "winter" from the temperate_grasslands_fertile climate area. Perfect on the first try. On the strategy map, primarily mountains and closely surrounding areas in Europe remain in snow during the winter-plus a good chuck of Russian. In the changed areas of the strat map, trees remain covered in snow but the ground is green. I like it.

So I test a battle in the newly altered areas. Not good. The battle map is complete blinding snow.

Next I go into the descr_geography file. Each climate type has different textures assigned dependent on whether it is summer or winter. OK, maybe this is it. For temperature_grassland_fertile, I replace the winter textures of grass, rocks, etc with summer textures. One texture is a pure snow texture. I remove it as well. I leave the winter "tree" and "shrub" textures. Back to test it. No go...still all blinding winter battlemap.

So then I go to the actual terrain TGA's contained in Data/battlefield/ temperate_grassland_fertile folder. Again the TGA's are divided into summer and winter folders. I replace the winter TGA's with summer TGA's. This has got to do the job. Back to battlefield test, sheeshhh...still blinding snow everywhere!!!

Ok, I have spent several hours this morning on this. Any ideas where I am going wrong???

[Vincenzo Morello]

I have tried giving provinces to other factions but it didnt work because the error i mention in this post kept coming up.So i have changed the descr_strat.txt back to normal well not normal as it is edited to a certain extent although i have edited previosly this error comes up: Script Error in data/world/maps/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt at line 481 , column 5 The core building level should be one less than the settlement level what i want to know is how to find line 481 column 5 please can you help thanks

[irishron2004]

I read someplace and forgot towrite it down, but where is the file or files for adjusting building times for buildings and units? I"d like to set the building times to 1 turn.
Thanks

[the_holy_knight]

Hi Duke John I hope you can answer my question as you do textures in paint shop pro.
How do you do it? I downloaded the plug ins from nvidia but it says in the instructions that I need some files that I have to put in windows/system32, any idea on where to get these?
Thnx in advance

[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