Teach Me And I Shall Learn...

[King Pius VI]

Hello all! I would like to learn to do some relatively basic modding as my first foray into the community. For a start I'd like to learn how to delete units from the game, change the growth rate of cities, change the names of cities, and change the culture of a city. Please try to be clear as I am nearly a complete noob and warn me if I'm diving in too quickly. Thanks in advance!

[shifty157]

Check out the scriptorium. You should find everything youll need there.

[Bwian]

Here's a few suggestions:

As an introduction to text files working, try ADDING a new unit.

Download the bonus Spartan model from the official RTW website, and make it work in game, replacing the stock Spartan Hoplite.
This is an easy task, but it will show you the relationship between the physical 3D model and the text/stats

Next....make it a stand-alone unit so you have BOTH Hoplite's in game.

This will require you to copy chunks of data from the key unit text-files, and re-name the bits that make a unit unique.

When you have managed to do those things, you will know which text files make up a unit, and how it all fits together. After that, you will want to work out how to build that unit in a campaign by editing descr_building.

At each step BACKUP ANY FILE YOU WANT TO CHANGE

Also, add -show_err to your startup shortcut. If you screw up a text file, this will tell you which one and where!

After that...you could experiment with removing units.

I recommend working on ADDING a unit before you remove one. It's a lot easier to tell if you have done something correctly that way.

Tutorials to do ALL of these things exist in the Scriptorium, or over at twcenter.net in their tutorial section.

Happy Modding

[Frans Ubberdork]

Also, add -show_err to your startup shortcut. If you screw up a text file, this will tell you which one and where!

THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE!!!!!

That has saved me more than I can count.

[King Pius VI]

Thanks for the advice. I've only encountered one problem so far. After making a number of unit related modifications I can no longer access the Imperial Campaign. After making changes earlier I was able to play it but now I can't. Could explain what happened?

[Bwian]

I would guess that the campaign just returns to the previous menu when you tried to start it? Thats ususally the visual sign of a problem resulting from a building edit

Have you got show_err functioning? When you quit the game, you should have a pop-up window showing the error. It will tell you the text file responsible, and the line of the file that caused it.

Generally speaking, errors in campaign startup come from a limited number of sources:

1) You removed a unit that is part of a garrison or existing army
2) You have wrongly edited the buildings text file
3) You have changed something in descr_strat

Most of the other things that can go wrong with unit editing cause an error when the game initially loads, since the bulk of the text files are read on startup to check for key errors.

Now...there are some key bits of info you haven't told us....

1) What was the LAST change you made that actually stopped the campaign working
2) What were you trying to do
3) What did you actually do to try and make that happen
4) What was the error message.

IF you haven't got show_err in place...here's how:

Open up your shortcut on the desktop,( right click and choose properties )

next, change the line 'target' so it reads something like this ....

"C:\Total War\RomeTW.exe" -show_err

The bit up to and including RomeTW.exe should be left alone, since that varies according to where your game is installed. The IMPORTANT bit is highlighted. Put a space, then -show_err and then run the game FROM THE SHORTCUT. When the campaign fails, exit RTW and you should see the message. Let us know what it says.

[King Pius VI]

The problem seems to be a barbarian cavalry unit I gave the germans at the start of the campaign. The error message said that it did not recognise the id of the unit even though another unit that was exactly the same in every way was already in place.