I Hate Myself for Asking, but: Unlocking factions...?

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, now I'm officially one of "those" types: one of the thousands who have asked how to unlock factions in RTW. But I've spent a good deal of time searching around, so here goes.

I have BI, therefore I must have version 1.5 of RTW. At one point, I could play factions such as Numidia, Thrace, etc, in RTW, but no longer. What I'd like to do is find a way to make all factions playable through modding, WITHOUT resorting to downloading a mod that does this for me. I've changed a few things already on my version of Rome and just want to see if I can find a fairly simple solution for this.

Failing that, I seem to recall that it IS possible at least to add Macedon and Pontus as playable, simply by moving their names into the playable list. Is this still possible in 1.5?

Sheepishly Yours,
CountMRVHS

[Divine Wind]

Hello CountMRVHS. No problemo, i just cut and pasted this from Miss FBE's guide. Hope it helps.

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For Rome Total War vanilla

“1) Find the file "descr_strat" in ...\Rome - Total War\ data\world\maps\campaign\desc_strat.txt

2)Open it up.

3)cut the faction you want to play as from the section its under (either unlockable or nonplayable, and copy it into the playable section, that should do it.

Also on that same file for those who wish to play a very long campaign, you have the start date and end date that can be modded there, it says start_date -270 summer and end_date 14 summer.”

Note: You really don’t want to unlock the Senate with this method. They aren’t a proper faction; they are a fancy pseudo faction covering over a lot of fancy coded trickery responsible for generating the senate missions and so on. The game always crashes if you try to play the Senate, and always will. They are unplayable.


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For Barbarian Invasion Expansion

To unlock the factions in BI you have to go to
c:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\bi\data\world\maps\campaign\barbarian_invasion
open it and make like this.

; Custom campaign script generated by Romans Campaign Map Editor

campaign barbarian_invasion
playable
huns
goths
sarmatians
vandals
franks
saxons
alemanni
sassanids
empire_east
empire_west
celts
slavs
berbers
end
unlockable
end
nonplayable
ostrogoths
romano_british
roxolani
burgundii
lombardi
empire_east_rebels
empire_west_rebels
slave
end


Ps: make a copy of the original file before you change it, just incase something goes wrong.

[Ciaran]

I think it´s not so easy since 1.3 - I believe the factions you want to unlock need something else, from all I´ve read.

But take heart, I can help. You can get a link to a file to download a little file that will make all factions playable here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=52468

[Barbarossa82]

Under 1.3 you have to enter a brief description (just the word "playable" would be enough) for the faction in Data\Text\Campaign_descriptions.txt. Only 1.3 requires you to do this, there's no need if you have 1.5.

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm, well I tried Divine Wind's suggestion last night and tried a Dacian campaign -- CTD.

So I went back and moved all those factions back into the unplayable list, except Macedon and Pontus. Tried a Macedon campaign, and worked fine.

Even though I have 1.5, I'll try Barbarossa's idea next for the other factions such as Scythia, Thrace, etc. Failing that, I'll try Ciaran's link to the download.... though I'm hesitant to do that because of my slooooow dial-up connection.

We shall see...

[roman pleb]

I have 1.5 also. My tinkering with the game didn't work if I moved the nonplayable factions to the playable section, so I moved them to the unlockable section, played a short campaign with the brutii, and they were all playable after that.

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm... interesting tactic, roman pleb. Do you have 1.5 via a patch, or because you have BI?

[Ciaran]

Hmm, well I tried Divine Wind's suggestion last night and tried a Dacian campaign -- CTD.

So I went back and moved all those factions back into the unplayable list, except Macedon and Pontus. Tried a Macedon campaign, and worked fine.

Even though I have 1.5, I'll try Barbarossa's idea next for the other factions such as Scythia, Thrace, etc. Failing that, I'll try Ciaran's link to the download.... though I'm hesitant to do that because of my slooooow dial-up connection.

We shall see...

Oh, no fear, the file is quite small, only about 1 MB. I just hope it´s still online, as far as I know some sites remove uploaded files after a while, and I´m not sure whether Hader put the file in the TWC download area. But if it´s not online anymore, PM me and I´ll mail it.

[roman pleb]

Hmm... interesting tactic, roman pleb. Do you have 1.5 via a patch, or because you have BI?

Since I was relatively late getting into R:TW, I was able to purchase the pack that has R:TW and BI. I guess you call it the "gold" edition. So yes, I have 1.5 because I have BI, not because of a patch.