Dates, Seasons and Ages

[Didz]

Whilst adding to my Scottish blog on the AAR board I became increasing puzzled by the dates I was quoting, which were copied from the Faction scroll.

Time literally seemed to be flying by and at first I thought it must be my note taking which was at fault. However, it rapidly became apparent that it wasn't me but my game which was keeping weird time.

It seems that, whilst the seasons change alternately from Summer to Winter and then back to Summer, the years are incrementing each turn. Thus, Summer 1165 is followed by Winter 1166, and then Summer 1167.

Is this normal or has something gone wrong with my game?

And if it is normal is there anything I can do to change it, as its really annoying when your trying to keep a game journal and the timeline doesn't make sense.

Finally, does anyone know if characters actually age two years a year or is the aging process in step with the seasons.

[Tran]

Did you edit the time scale file before? Normally it's two years per turn (in-game campaign) as opposed to your one year per turn. As for the character, it is aging one year every two turns. That's why in a normal vanilla game, the character will only aged one year after "4 years" game time.

If you want to fix or edit it then go to:

C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign (or any folder where you install M2TW)

and open descr_strat:

start_date	1080 summer
end_date	1530 winter
timescale	0.50

You might want to change the timescale. The above is my setting, so that the game goes two years per turn (I know it's slow but I just like it for more "realistic"). Or if you want to revert it back to normal just change the timescale value back to 2.00

[FactionHeir]

That only works for new campaigns though, not for running ones. If you do change it and start a new campaign, you want to check the first link in my sig to fix your events accordingly as well.

[Didz]

After posting my OP on impulse I decided to go back and test the game more thoroughly and it is as you suggest. Which in turn is worse then I thought.

Turn 1 = Summer 1080 and Laurence Biddel is 29 years old.
Turn 2 = Winter 1082, Biddle is still 29
Turn 3 = Summer 1084, biddle is 30
Turn 4 = Winter 1086, Biddle is still 30
Turn 5 = Summer 1088, Biddle is 31

So, as you say, Seasons and Aging are 6 months per turn, but time passes at the rate of two years per turn. Totally Weird

I shall have to change that because it completely screws up any sort of record keeping.

That only works for new campaigns though, not for running ones. If you do change it and start a new campaign, you want to check the first link in my sig to fix your events accordingly as well.

Oh! damn that means my whole Scottish campaign and blog is screwed.

I suppose the only thing I can do is ignore the year quoted in the Faction Scroll, try and re-calculate the correct dates from turn 1 and then keep a manual record.

I suppose looking at the positive side, what this means is that I can alter the timescale to 0.5 as suggested by Tran and start a new campaign. I can then change it back 2.00 and start another campaign which will run on MTW2 time. So, I can actually have several campaigns running some of which run to accurate time whilst others can run on accelerated time.

I noted what you say about event triggers, bit to be honest if I'm running a campaign on realistic time then I'm not too bothered if the Mongols don't appear. I'd rather have the dates right than worry about whether the novelty factions are going to turn up.

[Shahed]

The default is 2 years per turn something which I always change to 0.5 years/turn. But right now I'm playing a completely vanilla game, just to be like everyone else, and frankly it's (WAY) cooler to be playing 0.5/turn. !

Be aware that if you change to 0.50 years/turn you also have to change event dates. This thread has all the info you may need:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74279

You can change the timescale DURING your current campaign if you download and install MedManager (D/L section@,org).

It's a great blog !!! Nice job !

[Tran]

If your problem is with your current save game in-campaign then as Sinan suggested you should try MedManager. It has the ability to edit your save game and adjust it to your liking, worth to try (and don't forget to back-up your save game before)

[Didz]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I've produced a simple date conversion table using excel and gone through and corrected the timeline of my Scottish Blog, which was my main concern.

I note what you say about Medmanager but I'm assuming, even if I altered my saved game file, that this utility would not recalculate the date which already appears in the Faction Scroll. In other words I could correct the increment of the date to 0.5 per turn but that change would only be applied from the next turn of my game e.g. turn 46. So, the current date as shown in the scroll would still be wrong.

Or is the date in the scroll recalculated every time you view it based upon the number of turns.