BI - Adding RTW factions to BI

**Meneldil** · 10-01-2005, 11:19

I've been thinking about this for a long while, and I'm starting to edit some files in order to see if it could work.

Since my PC is really slow, it will take a shitload of time, and a quick answer from Jerome could help me to save some of my free time ;)

Anyway, I started by adding a greek_cities entry in the descr_strat file of BI, under faction playable. Launched the game with show_err and expected a CTD right on launching (since I did not add greek_cities names, banners, cultures, units and all that to BI folder), but the game went fine. But there was - as I would have expected - no greek cities faction available on the faction selection screen.
I left the game, got an error message (something like "descr_strat, line 23, expected starting date year").

Next, I went to descr_sm_factions. I looked for a non horde faction, and copy/pasted the saxon entry at the bottom of the file. I renamed Saxon to greek_cities. Since that entry has a 'available in custom battles' line, I launched the game to see if there was a greek_cities faction on the custom battle screen. Once more, nothing. But the game did not CTD either. When I left, I did not even get an error message

What really confuse me is that the game did not CTD with these - simple - changes.

Now, I'm going to add greek names to BI name files, add greeks_cities at some units possible owners, and create a greek_cities entry in descr_strat, with a character and a city.

I don't think all that will work, and I'm a bit lazy to make long run test, but I'd like to know what would be the game reaction.

**Ciaran** · 10-01-2005, 15:16

As far as I know the faction limit of Rome still is valid in BI, so there´s no way of adding extra factions, just replacing one existing faction.

**Bwian** · 10-01-2005, 16:26

what may fool it, though, is the emergent factions. If you add an extra faction at startup, it may not CTD until the conditions are met and the new faction appears.

**GodsPetMonkey** · 10-01-2005, 23:56

Originally Posted by Bwian

what may fool it, though, is the emergent factions. If you add an extra faction at startup, it may not CTD until the conditions are met and the new faction appears.

Nope, the game does a check of descr_sm_factions.txt at startup... to many factions = crash. It's number of factions in the game overall, not the number on the map at the start of a campaign.

**Meneldil** · 10-02-2005, 09:27

That's what I thought too, and that's why the fact it didn't ctd with a new faction in descr_sm_faction seemed weird.

**dark** · 10-03-2005, 02:28

I did the same test as you did, but using romans_julii instead of greek_cities. I managed to add them at the descr_sm_faction.txt, but when i added them to the descr_strat the game ctd'ed. I also wasn't able to give them any units in the export_descr_units.txt as the game also ctd'ed.

**khelvan** · 10-03-2005, 06:50

Remember, you'll need other things for this test to be valid, such as names entries (probably the most notorious). Of course, I'm only speaking from vanilla experience, but I would say every single faction call must be replicated, to be safe. Otherwise we can be assured that a CTD would happen.

However, the best thing to do is probably just to ask Jerome, who saved us a lot of heartache by informing us we couldn't add new factions to vanilla RTW.

**Meneldil** · 10-03-2005, 16:19

Yeah, I sent him a PM. I hope he'll be back soon.

Actually, I gave up with the experimentations. I'm having a hard time converting AoVaF map from RTW to BI (I'm encountering a load of unexpected CTD's) and adding a new faction in the files is a huge work, so as long as I'm not sure this will work, I won't do anything.

Adding the names is also not a good solution, since adding name is also a hell of a work (the tiniest single error = ctd right on lauching, without error message). I actually also gave up making names for AoVaF, cause this is really annoying

**cunctator** · 10-03-2005, 17:43

trying to add new factions is probably only a waste of time. From the .com FAQ 28.9.

Q. Did the 10 new factions mean that they pushed the factions limits, adding 10 more to the limit ?

A.There are a maximum of 21 factions possible in the game. In Barbarian Invasion there are 10 new playable factions and 11 non-playable factions. Although it is a map of Europe the factions and regions are changed as the game has moved on 300 years or so from where RTW left off.

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