How do I....

[GFX707]

Hi,

I have become somewhat bored of factions always using the same units, so I hit upon a stupid idea that I would like to implement for my future campaigns.

Basically I want to add a new "building" or "buildings" to each faction that would essentially be "doctrines" which will be very expensive and time consuming (20 turns+) that will allow a faction to "branch out" and build another type of units, for example with the doctrine "Hellenic Warfare" (working titles) you could eventually train hoplites, with "Horse Archery" you could train horse archers, each with the idea that once a country is sufficiently powerful it should be able to carry out reforms on its military. I know it's not strictly realistic but that's not the point. All of these are going to have the prerequisite of the Ludus Magna to build, which would mean that they could only come to very advanced factions, and cost 30,000 denarii each.

The problem is I am not sure how to enable other faction's units for each faction, I imagine that it will take a lot of work.

Anyone set me on my way?

[Atilius]

The problem is I am not sure how to enable other faction's units for each faction, I imagine that it will take a lot of work.

I'm assuming that you already have modified export_desrc_buildings.txt to allow your faction to build the other faction's units.

What you need to do is add the faction's name to the "ownership" line in export_descr_units.txt. The easy thing here is to just put "all" instead of a long list of faction or culture names.

Next, you need to unpack the pack directory - see
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=40313 - and move unit cards files and unit description files to the UI folder, which you'll need to create. The details can be found in this excellent tutorial : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=51750.

For each unit which you are going to allow a new faction to use, you must find it's entry in descr_model_battle.txt and add a texture and model_sprite line for the new faction. The above tutorial also covers this.

If you want to allow recruitment of many units by different factions this is a lot of work. You may want to take it slow. You may also need to beware of the 32 unit limit for the number of unit types recruitabkle in a settlement. See https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=42905.

Good luck.

[GFX707]

Thanks for the reply....I think the 32 unit limit kind of ruins my plans though. Didn't know about that....oh well :(

Is there a way to make a certain building preclude another? I mean could I have it so "researching" one of my "doctrines" prevents the "researching" of another?

Thanks

[Monkwarrior]

I find your idea very interesting.
Regarding how to implement it in game, I would do in the following way.

- Create a new building, called for example "greek_warfare" with one or several levels "greek_warfare1" etc.

- The conditions to recruit hoplites would be:

                recruit "greek hoplite militia"  0  requires factions { greek, } or building_present_min_level greek_warfare greek_warfare1

You can then associate each hoplite level to one higher level of greek_warfare.

The problem is that hoplites must be "owned" by all the factions, and they will appear in custom battles.
One solution would be to create a new unit, for example called "general hoplite militia" in export_descr_unit. Simply copy and paste the greek hoplite militia entry. Change the name, mark all the non-greek factions as owners and put in the attributes "no_custom". In this way they won't appear in custom battles.
You must also create a new entry in export_unit (text folder).
Assign textures to all the factions in the model of hoplite militia(descr_model_battle), for example the skin of greek_cities.
You have to copy and rename (remember the new name) the unit card and info picture from the ui\units\greek_cities and ui\unit_info\greek_cities in the folders of all the new owners.
In that case, the entry in export_descr_buildings would be:

                recruit "general hoplite militia"  0  requires factions { roman, carthaginian, egyptian, eastern, barbarian, } and building_present_min_level greek_warfare greek_warfare1

The only way I can imagine to make several incompatible "foreign_warfare" buildings, would be to stablish them as temples. But this would eliminate the truly temples from the construction options.

Another point that I don't like very much is that this building would allow the training in only the region where it is built. It could be changed by scripting, but that's another history.

Good luck!

[Atilius]

Is there a way to make a certain building preclude another?

Yes, you can use the "not" modifier in front of "building_present_min_level" - this prevents you from constructing a certain building if a building of another type exists.

What I have done is create a parallel set of barracks buildings which use the same levels as the standard barracks buildings. For example:

building roman_barracks
{
    levels muster_field militia_barracks city_barracks army_barracks royal_barracks

You might find this useful.


Question to Monkwarrior: In your response above you've used the "building_present_min_level" token in the "recruit" line. Have you used this successfully in the past? I ask because I tried this once, and everything went smoothly until the condition was actually met. Then the game crashed when I tried to build something. I did some troubleshooting and found that the problem went away when I got rid of "building_present_min_level" in the "recruit" lines. Ever since I've assumed that it's OK to use "building_present_min_level" in the requirement line for buildings but not for recruiting units.