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Thread: Romano-British playable

  1. #1
    Philosophically Inclined Member CountMRVHS's Avatar
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    Default Romano-British playable

    Hello,

    I tried a search for this and didn't come up with any answers.

    I'd like to make the Romano-British BI faction playable from the start. I'm working with 1.6. I have successfully made all RTW factions playable, and have made the Celts and Berbers playable for BI. The only other BI faction I'm interested in playing would be the Romano-British.

    Theoretically it seems as though I could give the RB a settlement, say Eburacum, and somehow "make" a faction leader to start the game with. Has anyone done this?

    I don't want to download a mod, and I don't want the RB to "emerge" during the course of the game, at which point I would be able to play them. I want to give them Eburacum, and make them playable from the start.

    Is this possible?

    Thanks for any ideas,

    CountMRVHS

  2. #2
    Philosophically Inclined Member CountMRVHS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    OK, I've gone ahead and made some changes to see if I can get this to work.

    In descr_sm_factions, I removed "spawned_on_event" from the romano-british. Not sure if this is necessary, but I did it anyway.

    In descr_regions, I removed the "britain" resource from Brit. Superior and Brit. Inferior. Again, not sure if I needed to do this.

    In descr_strat, I moved the romano-british from non-playable to playable.

    I then moved the WRE character Placus from Eburacum to Londinium along with his army. I gave the settlement Eburacum to the Romano-British and took it away from the WRE.

    Next I realized I needed to create some family members for the Romano-British. I basically cut-and-pasted the relevant lines from other factions, replacing the names to match Romano-British names and removing traits or ancillaries as necessary. To keep things a bit simple, I did not give the Romano-British any starting spies, diplomats, or assassins.

    I go to start up a new game, and I find that there is no shield with which to select the Romano-British faction. That's problem number 1.

    So I selected the WRE faction, hoping I could at least start up and see that the Romano-British faction was in fact on the map and at Eburacum. Instead of starting the game, I got a crash-to-menu. That's problem number 2.

    Thinking something may be messed up with the fact that the WRE still had control of Londinium, I removed the entire WRE army there down next to Samarobriva and gave the town to rebels.

    Started up the game and same thing. I can't select the Romano-British because they have no "button" on the main menu, and I crash to menu when I start any faction.

    Any thoughts, please? I know some folks have made mods so the RBs are playable; I'm hoping to hear from them on this. Professorspatula, any ideas?

    CountMRVHS

  3. #3
    Shaidar Haran Senior Member SAM Site Champion Myrddraal's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Hmm, good to see you tried it yourself

    Are you using show_err?

    Most kick back to menu errors leave an error message if you quit the game straight afterwards and you're using show_err

  4. #4
    Chief Biscuit Monitor Member professorspatula's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    It's been nearly a year since I messed around with BI and made the Romano-British playable, so I'm a bit rusty on exactly what I did to get them playable.

    It isn't too complicated though, and you seem to be on the right track.


    Firstly, have you started BI with the -show_err switch? That will hopefully give a clue to what is going wrong.

    Secondly, don't remove the Britain resource. I believe this resource is required for the training of Graal Knights. Without that resource you can't train them. You can always edit the export_descr_buildings.txt file to make it so the Britain resource isn't required for them to be built, but then you can train them anywhere.

    Also you don't need to remove the 'spawned_on_event' part in the descr_sm_factions file either. It probably won't harm if you remove it though.


    The problem may be with what you done in the descr_strat file.

    Firstly, how many playable factions have you allowed? If I remember, there's a limit to how many can be playable at once - possibly 20. If more are playable, then the last one on the list will probably not show up when you try and start a campaign.

    Anyway, if the playable factions limit hasn't been reached - which actually probably isn't possible with the default BI, there's obviously something else wrong.

    Make sure you have placed all your Romano-British units in valid places - ie not in tiles that contain trees etc. Same when you moved any WRE units. That alone will probably cause the game to crash.

    However, you may have messed up the family trees. This definitely will make the game crash. This is why the show_err switch is vital as it gives clues as to what is wrong.

    If you don't know about the show_err switch, you need to right click on your Barbarian Invasion shortcut, select properties and where the target field is, add -show_err at the end.

    I'm not sure if just a family tree problem would make the RB have no icon though. But it's a start. Things to remember with family trees, there is an order that musn't be broken: oldest members first, youngest at the end. Make sure your RB members have Romano-British names and not Roman ones. And make sure the relatives are probably related to one another. If you've just cut and pasted another faction's family tree and changed the names you shouldn't have any probs with that.

    Also, if you have deleted the Britain resource, you may need to delete the map.rwn file that will be in your campaign folder. That file is rebuilt when the campaign is started and will update the resources on the map. I recommend putting the Britain resource back in though.

    You may have messed up with the settlements, but if you just cut and pasted the settlement from one faction to the other, and stuck a unit in the settlement, everything should be fine there.

    I can't think of anything else at the moment. The solution is probably something simple, it usually is. The show_err should provide valuable help, but if it doesn't, I find hammers and much smashing up things makes you feel better.
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  5. #5
    Finder of Little Oddities Senior Member Makanyane's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Re: Britain resource; taking it out or leaving it in shouldn't cause any problems initially (once you've deleted map.rwm), but if its in you can have problems later when the effected provinces change hands (as its part of hard coded trigger for RB emergence), if you want to keep graal_knights as is, re-naming it to something else ('British' - whatever) seems to work. Just make sure you change each instance of it in descr_regions and in in export_descr_buildings (including in list at top) to exactly the same thing and delete the map.rwm again.

    Never heard of the not getting icon problem before - that does sound like one for the hammers and much smashing up of things!!!
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  6. #6
    Philosophically Inclined Member CountMRVHS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Thanks, Professor, I really appreciate your long response.

    I went back and added the "britain" resource; when that wasn't the culprit, I added the "spawned_on_event" line back in too; no luck there either.

    Incidentally, I can't seem to get -show_err to work; when I type it in, a message says it's not valid.

    Unless there's something hardcoded that says the Romano-British can not start the campaign in play, my feeling is it must be something in descr_strat. I'm curious -- I read you have made a mod where the RBs are playable once they emerge; but have you ever tried or managed to make the RBs playable from the start? Or have you heard of anyone succeeding at it? The more difficulties I encounter the more it seems like it might not be possible.

    At any rate, I pored over descr_strat and tweaked things here and there, checking the game each time. Nothing seemed to work, but here's what I've done, in case any of this might spur someone's memory to something else I could try:

    -Moved armies starting outside of towns to tiles where there were definitely no obstructions such as trees, rivers, etc.

    -Pared the family tree WAY down. The RB family now consists of a faction leader, his wife, and their son, the faction heir, who starts play as a 22-year-old outside Eburacum. I wasn't 100% sure I'd gotten everything right in the family tree section, so I wanted to simplify it.

    -Removed all ancillaries and traits from both family members.

    -checked and double-checked spacing of commas, brackets, etc. in descr_strat.

    Finally, here's the relevant romano-british section of my descr_strat. Originally I had removed dead_until_resurrected, but I put it back in just now; didn't seem to make a difference anyway. If it's not a problem here, it might be in the WRE section, but I doubt it.

    Any other suggestions? Thanks again,

    CountMRVHS

    faction romano_british, balanced caesar
    dead_until_resurrected
    denari 10000
    settlement
    {
    level large_town
    region Britannia_Inferior

    year_founded 363
    population 1579
    plan_set default_set
    faction_creator celts
    building
    {
    type core_building governors_villa
    }
    building
    {
    type defenses wooden_wall
    }
    building
    {
    type barracks militia_barracks
    }
    building
    {
    type equestrian stables
    }
    building
    {
    type port_buildings port
    }
    building
    {
    type hinterland_farms farms
    }
    building
    {
    type hinterland_roads paved_roads
    }
    }

    character Ambrosius Wledic, named character, leader, age 48, , x 55, y 140
    traits FactionLeader 1, Christian 1
    army
    unit romano british warlords exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit british legionaries exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit coastal levies exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit coastal levies exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit foederati infantry exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit sarmatian auxilia exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

    character Voteporix, named character, heir, age 22, , x 56, y 137
    traits FactionHeir 1, Christian 1
    army
    unit romano british warlords exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit sarmatian auxilia exp 2 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
    unit coastal levies exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

    character_record Barita, female, command 0, influence 0, management 0,

    subterfuge 0, age 38, alive, never_a_leader

    relative Ambrosius Wledic, Barita, Voteporix, end

  7. #7
    Chief Biscuit Monitor Member professorspatula's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    My mod makes RB playable from the start. It was Epistolary Richard's mod I later teamed up with that made RB playable after emerging.

    By the way - this looks promising:

    "faction romano_british, balanced caesar
    dead_until_resurrected"


    Remove the dead_until_resurrected part.

    That ought to make them playable from the start, providing there are no other errors.
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  8. #8
    Shadow Senior Member Kagemusha's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Hi CountMRVHS!
    Delete the line dead_until_resurrected from your descr_strat after the Romano British faction entry and tell me the result. Edit: Gah! professorspatula beat me
    Last edited by Kagemusha; 09-06-2006 at 17:48.
    Ja Mata Tosainu Sama.

  9. #9
    Finder of Little Oddities Senior Member Makanyane's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    I've got Romano_British playable in two mods as well (one of which I've been playing for months) so yeah its definitely possible.

    professorspatula's right you need to take
    dead_until_resurrected
    line back out but that's not cause of KTM - it just crashes at end of loading bar if you select them to play - was looking to see if that would be cause of missing icon, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be. There must be something quite fundamental going on with that icon thingy - what does top 'playable' etc section of descr_strat look like?

    To get -show_err on target line it needs to look like
    "x\:blah\blah\RomeTW-BI.exe" -show_err
    with a SPACE between " and -

    As for family tree - as you've given faction leader surname, don't you have to give same surname to son? Not sure but you could remove surname for now.
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  10. #10
    Philosophically Inclined Member CountMRVHS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Thanks so much for all of your replies; it's very encouraging to know there are others who have already gotten this to work!

    Thanks to your suggestions I've managed to make the RBs playable, at least for a couple of turns (haven't tested it beyond that). My mistake, in particular, was that in the top section of descr_strat, instead of typing in "romano_british", I had typed in "romano-british" with a hyphen. Once I fixed that, their icon appeared on the menu, and once I got rid of "dead_until_resurrected" I was able to start them up.

    I made London rebel-held and empty of enemy units, so on the first turn I was able to take an army to the town and take it without a fight. That put to rest one of my fears: namely, that if I took London as the RB, the game would crash.

    I'm still in the very initial stages of playing around with it, so I'm "cautiously optimistic", but very pleased I got it to work so far. In particular I'm concerned about the game crashing when the Romano-British faction is destroyed, say while I'm playing as another faction. Also, I'd like to give London back to the WRE; I wonder if the game will crash when the RBs take London from the WRE? Will have to test all that.

    Thanks again for all your help. I'll definitely be back to bug you all if something goes wrong.

    CountMRVHS

  11. #11
    Shaidar Haran Senior Member SAM Site Champion Myrddraal's Avatar
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    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Ah the devilish typo!

  12. #12

    Default Re: Romano-British playable

    Hey

    Can you please send me the descr_strat file for rb??

    having crashes after crashes here and really need some help;)

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