Visit to M2TW Dev studio - post your must-know modding questions here!

**Epistolary Richard** · 10-11-2006, 01:46

As previously announced:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=70183

I plan to visit the M2TW development studio in a couple of weeks, meet some of the men behind the new game and get an 'under the hood' look at the game itself.

The primary purpose of the visit will be to have a look at the moddability of the new game, talk direct with the devs about what's possible and what's not and discuss any of CA's plans to support the modding community. Hopefully, it will all contribute to give M2TW mods a kickstart and get them out into the eager hands of mod-users as quickly as possible.

As mentioned, this is a chance to ask some modding-related questions directly to the men who made the game - so fire away with what you want to know!

**tFighterPilot** · 10-11-2006, 02:24

Ask them for an extractor for the demo's pack file.

EDIT: lol, I registered two years ago and I only have 3 posts

**SigniferOne** · 10-11-2006, 04:59

1) What tools will be included, and

2) will animations be provided unpacked.

**Furious Mental** · 10-11-2006, 06:52

What hardcoded limits will there be?

**DrAI** · 10-11-2006, 09:36

Probably the most wanted info would be on modding the AI.

Biggest problem with RTW was the way AI units would attack without support and leave themselves open to flank attack etc..
I know CA have said they have corrected alot of this but I am sure it can be improved further.

CA will obviously want to protect their code to avoid it be used in other games.
It's a long shot of being able to really get into the base workings of the AI but whatever you can find out will be very useful.

**Duke John** · 10-11-2006, 10:04

Not for me, I most likely won't even buy M2:TW, but for the sake of the modding community which has already started lots of new projects.

Do they realize that the community has wasted hundreds of hours with buggy unofficial tools after being told that R:TW would get modding support?

How hollow are their promises for modding support for M2:TW? Practically all modders sees modding support as getting official model/animation importer/exporter and an unpacker. That is how it works for many other top games.

And if they do plan to release a tool, do they realize that if the community gets that tool after a year that few will be able to release their projects before the next TW game?

**Lysander** · 10-18-2006, 21:25

Here are some (besides what we really want to know about the pak files):

(1) Will we be able to have more than 21 factions on the campaign map (there was talk of 30 possible at one time)? I noticed that there are already more than 21 factions defined in the text files, if you count the Saxons and the Normans.

(2) Are the rome abilities (e.g., testudo, shieldwall) still in the game (would they be recognized if one assigned the attribute to a unit in the EDU)?

(3) Is the horde feature (from BI) in the game?

(4) Will it be possible to remove the pope from a campaign (e.g., if one wanted to create an ancient era mod)? The same goes for crusades

(5) *this isn't a mod question, but I am curious* Have they decided whether to put the option of saving a battle replay in the single player campaign in?

Thanks for taking our questions.

**wilddog** · 10-20-2006, 17:20

Sorry another map question.
In MTW2 do they still use the same file to control the actual heghts in the cmapaign map v the battle map (the descr_terrain.txt file). In RTW this has led to people increasing heights characteristics so the campaign maps look 'better' but when you use them in the battle maps the slopes become way too steep.
It would be great to know if they split this into two different files to overcome the problem.