GUIDE: Specifics of Modding Alexander - TW

[Dol Guldur]

Specifics of Modding Alexander - Total War

I could not find a thread or forum dedicated to the specifics of Alexander - Total War so I thought I'd start one here. I will - in time (hopefully) - list all the unique features of Alexander and how to mod them. But do feel free to help or take over as my time is very limited these days ;)

Alex:TW has some nice features, especially for perhaps the more heroic/mythical/fantasy mods out there and it would be good to see its moddability placed in such a Guide.

Unique Features List

* Alexander draws off of RTW and not BI (you do not even need BI installed), though you do need to make sure RTW is patched to 1.5 before installing Alexander. So BI features (swimming, shieldwall, schiltrom, loyalty, religion, night battles etc.) are not inherent within it.

* Victory conditions can state a "survivor" which requires that a specific unique character survive in order for that faction to remain in the game; the designated survivor needs to be the faction leader. The condition works when written as follows:

InternalFactionName
alexander Region1 Region2 etc.
take_regions NumberOfRegions
survivor Alexander
script world/maps/campaign/alexander/Alexander_Campaign_Outro_Script.txt

* Mercs can be designated as faction-specific in the campaign merc pool file

* DMB model entries increased from RTW/BI's 250 max (to at least 330)

* AI can be instructed in the DS file not to attack certain factions (unless at war already)

* Immortality trait can ensure that named characters do not die of natural causes

* Generals can be assigned unique strat map and battlemap models as well as custom portraits

* AI factions can be coded to not attack certain other factions (unless first attacked)

Specifics of modfolder setup

* make sure you include the chat_filter.san file in your modfolder's data folder

* TBC

Non-Alexander Features that can be used in Alexander

* Shadowing
* Re-emergence
* Loyalty

[Lusted]

Well most of the modding is almost identical to that of RTW. I did notice though that some of the map files were done differently, with just 1 water colour in map_heights, and the different water types defined in map_ground_types. Or the other way round, it's been a while since i modded it.

The unique general thing is pretty handy, in Alexandros i was going to add in all of Alexanders generals as unique characters.

[Dol Guldur]

Thx. Lusted.

I'm trying to get the survivor feature in win conditions to work for a new unique and it's not working. I suspect the survivor may need to be the leader - which I have not tested yet. I'm still not 100% sure what labels the character as - for example - Alexander is in the name list and so presumably other Alexanders can exist. Must be the leader label.

Anyway, will look into the map thing too, faction-specific mercs etc.

[Gandalf the White]

Well Alexander of course only has one campaign so my modded campaign didnt work; which was from RTW

[Dol Guldur]

The biggest difference between ALX and vanilla or BI is the hard coded limit on DMB. I have 330 entries in my mod and I haven't found the maximum number yet. BI and vanilla is limited to 250 entries.

The next big thing is, of course, the unique general models. You can have battle and strat model and portraits that cannot be used by any other general in the game.

Then there is ai_do_not_attack_faction in descr_strat, which prohibits the AI to attack certain factions, except when they're at war.

Another one I'm unsure if it's limited to ALX: the faction specific mercenaries. In ALX, you can specify regional mercenaries to be recruitable only by certain factions.

However, ALX cannot use the features of BI such as hording, shield wall, schilstrom and swimming.

from Wlesmana. Faction-specific mercs does not work in BI (and probably not RTW either).

[Roman_Man#3]

One comment and one question to Wlesmana.

Comment) I have noticed when modding ATW, that there is a lot of comments and things crossed off from the devs. I would just like to make a point to say that in files such as EDU.txt, do not be intimidated by all the lines saying stuff like:

;based off of: *insert vanilla unit here*

and stuff like that

Question) Wlesmana, did you have any difficulty porting Lotr - TW from RTW to ATW? I am wondering how difficult it is.

Thanks,
RM3