New Patrons, you can post your questions here

[R'as al Ghul]

Sorted the MP problem now, still not sure what it was but tinkered and suddenly it worked. Will take your advice re low res bifs and do 'em. Once the great work is finished in a week or two then we plan to release the mod for general consumption, title 1809 NTW V5. Even tho I say it myself its now a pretty accurate Napoleonic mod and plays rather well. Ideal for the history buffs be they SP or MP. Combined with our historical OB's available on the site it will attract a few Napoleonic enthusiasts I guess.

Falkonfive

That MP problem must've been a glitch. Normally, whether you can join a game or not, you can at least see it. If the hosted game uses a mod or a map that you don't have, you still see the game but you get a version conflict. That's also a good indication that someone hasn't installed the files right.
Sometimes, though, you do everything right and you still can't see the hosted game. Then you can only log of and relog to gamespy.

Anyway, now that it works, I'd be interested to know if you get any problems while playing. We've considerable problems with the MP side of our Samurai Warlords mod (beta_8). Players desync with other players after making the first moves and drop from the game. We still haven't found the cause.
If you experience anything similar I'd appreciate it if you could report that here.



R'as

[Puzz3D]

We've considerable problems with the MP side of our Samurai Warlords mod (beta_8).

Yes, but we don't use the beta8 to play online. We use Samurai Warlords (beta5) which has no desync problem, and is very stable online.

[R'as al Ghul]

Yes, true.
I'm still dreaming of getting beta_8 just as stable as beta_5 and thought we could get some new clues to this desync problem.

[falkonfive]

Hi R'as,

First of all I think your right about the previous MP glitch. In the end my co-tester reinstalled everything exactly as he did before ( he says !! ) and off it went.

Regarding playing, we have tried at few games so far in MP with the mod at various stages. I'm extremely glad to say that up to the moment it runs like a dream. Max we have had is a 2v2 and a few 2v1's, 1 v 1's and everything seems smooth, no desync problems, only a few graphics adjustments to be made with weapons etc but nothing that caused major disruption. Considering we are all fairly new to this and stumbling along in the dark I'm surprised. I can tell you what we have changed from the original mod if that helps at all ( sorry if it sounds non-technical ).

1. All stats in the unitprod.txt have been changed
2. All the figure graphics have been overhauled and folders swapped about to accommodate new types. We have done no new figures. They are all modified old ones. All the usual stuff, swapping round action page files etc. Changes to the names file, made a small faction colour change in Startpos, made a few front end changes but just adding graphics.

At this stage it plays fine in MP and SP. We haven't touched the campaign. It's intended purely for MP battles ideally but of course SP games are possible. I am now putting the finishing touches and exploring changing unit icons, selection icons and hopefully some changes to flags. Hopefully this won't upset the MP aspect.

If its of any use to you I'll gladly send over any files you may want to look at if you want to compare. ( You'll no doubt understand 'em better than we do ! )

Falkonfive

[blademaster76]

Hi Org members, obviously, I'm new to the forums, so I'll just ask 2 quick questions, because those are the only real problems I have at the moment...

1. My mod to add the Outreamer (Crusader States) is working beautifully, and the faction is fully implemented with the help of Starkhorn's guide to modding, however, I am at a loss when it comes to the name files.

In his example, he used the already-made Welsh forenames and surnames as the name of his Welsh faction. Because there is no preset "Outreamer name list", I'm confused how to add the names to my faction. When I start the game, my king is always named "Roman numerals xxxisasdf### this label doesn't exist" and my generals/princes/agents don't have a name either. If someone could explain how to add the names to a new faction (including the "famous king" names) I would be very grateful.

2. The second is fairly simple question. Can you mod the Glorious Achievements other than homelands? For example, for my Outreamer faction, could I add the Glory Goal of conquering Constantinople in 1224?

Thank you for the help :)

[macsen rufus]

Hi Blademaster, and welcome to the Org

Sounds like you've made a good start so far

Faction names are set in the campmap/names/(mod)heroes.txt file and there are a few entries you'll need to make.

First off, take a look at the bottom of the file where you'll find a series of names lists for forenames, surnames and princess names. Find the lists you want to use and take a note of their numbers. Near the top there is a declaration for each of these names. The only tricky one is the male forenames, as this has two numbers. The first one is for which list to use, the second one determines how many of those names are royal. So if the entry for your new faction was:

SetForename:: FN_new_faction 1 5

then you'd be using list 1, and the first five names would be used to name your kings and princes.

A little further down this file there's a section for setting your starting king (or rather "Famous Kings") but we'll keep it simple for now! It will be something like this:

FAMOUS_KINGS::	FN_01	1				// Mycenae
//name	no.		comnd,	dread,	piety,	acumen	portrait	vnv
2,	1,		2,	2,	4,	4,	-1,	attacker1

The first row is the command, faction name, and the number of kings you've defined, in this case 1 (hence the keeping it simple )

The bottom row shows the king's stats.

Now the name "2" is selected from the name list below - using the example above, if you use list 1 and have 5 royal names these will be numbered 0-4 (NOT 1-5 - this is a common mistake), so you start king will have the third name in the list, and the number shows he is the first of that name.

Portrait -1 means random portrait, and the vnv must be selected from the list in events.txt, or you can have 'no_v', meaning no vices or virtues.

The other part you need to put in place will be found in your startpos file:

SetStartLeader:: FN_01 0 5 1 1 1 1 1

This says "pull famous king 0 from the list" (we only have the one, so he is listed as 0). The 5 confirms the number of "royal names", and the list of numbers afterwards tells how many of each name existed before the game started. The exception is our start king who counts as being king "before the game started". His number is the third one in the row of five 1s - this entry and the number in the "famous kings" line must agree. All other kings that follow will count as the 2nd with their respective names.

Once all these bits are in place you'll have starting kings with real names and numbers

Question 2: Sorry, but no, GA goals are very unmoddable.

[blademaster76]

Thank you for the response. My King's name is no longer all that gibberish, though his name is now simply "King I", and the Royalty/generals/agents still have no name. I'm trying to make my faction #22 on the list, but I don't think the game identifies my new names (which are all reused from other factions). Help? :)

[blademaster76]

Sorry for the double post, but I figured out the problem.

In the startpos file, it was still
//SetNameData:: "campmap\names\latin_HEROES.txt"

instead of...

SetNameData:: "campmap\names\latin_HEROES.txt"

[cegorach]

Macsen

FAMOUS_KINGS:: FN_01 1 // Mycenae //name no. comnd, dread, piety, acumen portrait vnv 2, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, -1, attacker1

Do you know what is the second number's use in the game ? I have no idea - it doesn't seem to affect anything, but it surely does something.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Cegorach,

that's the regnal number of the "famous king" - in this instance it would be "King (name 2) the 1st" - it has to match with the appropriate entry in the "SetStartLeader" line or you can get the "romannumeral" errors.

[cegorach]

Amazingly it has no consequnces in my setting e.g.

FAMOUS_KINGS::	FN_POLISH	4
//name	no.	c	d	p	a	portrait	vnv
1,		1,	1,	3,	5,	3,	-1,			mightywarrior1
6,		3,	2,	2,	4,	6,	-1,			builder3
0,		1,	5,	4,	4,	5,	-1,			mightywarrior3
4,		4,	1,	4,	5,	3,	-1,			defender1

The first king is Zygmunt III, second Kazimierz IV, third Stefan I and the fourth is Jan Kazimierz II - numbers are completely different.

The only wird thing I have noticed that the supposedly random portraits all show the same portrait (king02 - Stefan I ) except the fourth which shows amazingly accurately Jan II Kazimierz himself...

As you know PMTW cannot use fixed king portraits for some reason (contrary to heroes who are fine) so whn it is accurate I can only be glad it is this way...

[macsen rufus]

The "famous kings" thing is a little bit broken, I believe, as I've noticed, and others have mentioned, that any but the first don't seem to pick up the stats correctly. Hence I only ever set one famous king for each faction, who will be the starting king, then just try to set up the "royal names" so that subsequent princes get appropriate names, and hope the succession goes to plan The "later" famous kings are supposed to work IF the king with the right name and the right number just happens to come along, it certainly doesn't "make" him come along.

To be sure what's going on with your Zygmunt III I'd really need to look at your SetStartLeader line, and the "royal names" from the faction names list. I suspect that you are calling your first leader as famous king 1 (as opposed to 0), and that Zygmunt is your seventh name (ie number 6 when starting from 0). I think it might also "work" if the number quoted in the SetStartLeader declaration is HIGHER than the one quoted in your FamousKings declaration. The real problems come when it is LOWER, as this gives the Roman_numerals errors.

King portraits are a real mystery as well, I've found that they don't work too well either - I noticed that the way NTW got around this was just to give each faction a single king portrait - which is fine in as much as you can have your historic starting king with a correct portrait, but then all his successors look exactly the same... Portraits for heroes seem more reliable, but still not 100% - I managed to get Hannibal Barca right in my Punic Wars scenario, but whatever I tried, Scipio Africanus just flat out refused to show up correctly, so there's obviously more subtleties I haven't yet grasped on that front. (And most of what I have learnt came from PMTW )

[cegorach]

The "famous kings" thing is a little bit broken, I believe, as I've noticed, and others have mentioned, that any but the first don't seem to pick up the stats correctly. Hence I only ever set one famous king for each faction, who will be the starting king, then just try to set up the "royal names" so that subsequent princes get appropriate names, and hope the succession goes to plan The "later" famous kings are supposed to work IF the king with the right name and the right number just happens to come along, it certainly doesn't "make" him come along.

That is confirmed by my own results... I have only set 4 kings for 4 major campaigns - I know it is not necessary, but this was my first attempt in this area - in later changes I have stayed with one famous king per campaign...

To be sure what's going on with your Zygmunt III I'd really need to look at your SetStartLeader line, and the "royal names" from the faction names list. I suspect that you are calling your first leader as famous king 1 (as opposed to 0), and that Zygmunt is your seventh name (ie number 6 when starting from 0). I think it might also "work" if the number quoted in the SetStartLeader declaration is HIGHER than the one quoted in your FamousKings declaration. The real problems come when it is LOWER, as this gives the Roman_numerals errors.

It looks this way:

SetStartLeader:: FN_POLISH 0 8 3 3 2 4 1 2 4 1

// 11: polish_forenames
ADD_FORENAMES::
"Stefan"
"Zygmunt"
"Aleksander"
"Wladyslaw"
"Jan Kazimierz"
"Jan"
"Kazimierz"
"Stanislaw"
"Michal"
"Henryk"

So I guess it works just fine thanks to that you have said i.e. higher number.

Portraits for heroes seem more reliable, but still not 100% - I managed to get Hannibal Barca right in my Punic Wars scenario, but whatever I tried, Scipio Africanus just flat out refused to show up correctly, so there's obviously more subtleties I haven't yet grasped on that front. (And most of what I have learnt came from PMTW )

I have a similar problem in ECW campaign, but solved that by setting a new sub folder in Viking directory titled Orthodox (since all factions with fixed portraits are othodox/Protestant there anyway) and put a new Misc folder out there as opposed to the main campaigns which use the 'vanilla' orthodox/catholic/pagan/muslim directories...

This feature didn't exist before 2.0 so it is quite a recent discovery. Maybe this will solve your problems ?

[napman]

Hi people, I'm Falkonfives partner in crime on the 1809 team. Just a question regarding installer programmes. I made one for the 1809 V5 mod and it works great if your using the default directory, if you ain't your in trouble. I used custom install fields for all the files and folders and of course could only point em at where my install is, the default one. Even though you are able to direct the install to another folder, the custom fields take precedence. Any ideas? this is my first skirmish with this kind of thing so any help is greatly appreciated.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Napman,

I took a slightly devious route on this one - I use the "Clickteam" installer, which seems pretty popular (and is free, of course ). In my instructions I include a line to say "make your copy of MTW and rename it to this...", then set up the suggested name as the default install path. I've had very very few problems of people installing it to the wrong folder, so guess it's working okay

[R'as al Ghul]

Hi people, I'm Falkonfives partner in crime on the 1809 team. Just a question regarding installer programmes. I made one for the 1809 V5 mod and it works great if your using the default directory, if you ain't your in trouble. I used custom install fields for all the files and folders and of course could only point em at where my install is, the default one. Even though you are able to direct the install to another folder, the custom fields take precedence. Any ideas? this is my first skirmish with this kind of thing so any help is greatly appreciated.

Hi napman,

as Macsen said, use the clickteam installer.

Here's how I do it:

1. Tell people how to make a copy of the game to install the mod on
   Post this manual at the same place where you announce your download
2. Make "C:\Program files\Medieval - Total War\" the default install path.
3. Make a disclaimer in the installer WARNING people that they need to point the installer at the copy of Medieval they intend to use for the mod
   (if you put it into the license agreement field in click-installer, people need to confirm that.
4. Lay back a second and enjoy the illusion that you've everything covered
5. Prepare for a large number of people who've trouble installing

[napman]

Thanks guys, i'll check out this option, it certainly seems the logical route to take.

[napman]

Thanks for the heads up on the Clickteam installer software guys, great tool. I worked out how to install to any directory that the user chooses as well, works a treat. It seems that if you create a folder for your install files and compile it into a directory structure that mirrors the install path, it copies and overwrites each file to it's own given destination without a hitch. Because it overwrites files and not folders it is 100% safe to do it this way, unlike other installers i tried that refuse to cooperate. Each file has an install path that is copied from the directory structure you set up in the source folder, so obviously it's important to get that bit right.

[napman]

Anyone know how to edit the menu text. I want to remove some menu options as they are surplus to the mod, ie:campaign, tutorial etc. Played with the frontend text but nothing happened, is that the right file? Any help greatly appreciated.

[Fenixx]

Im new at this, but you're referring to ..\log\eng\frontend???

[jayban]

Hi All,

I've been modding and reading these forums for years, and I've never seen a comprehensive "How to" on adding new buildings, step by step.

Can anyone link me to an existing post? Thanks for any info you may have!

[napman]

I managed to edit the menu etc and with 1809 ver 5.3 a totally new look is being employed, with no trace of MTW whatsoever. Hopefully it will be released during June.

[Dol Guldur]

I know nothing about the various formats in MTW that did not make it into RTW. So I have two questions about BIF files.

1. How can I view them? I have tried 3-4 pieces of free software that claim to read BIF files but none of them actually work with BIF files (they show either a blank or a default unread-but-detected image icon. (I've tried Konvertor, Pixviewer 3.1, and Nico's Viewer Pro. I need a way to display them all. The Bifreader seems to only display one at a time and I need to browse them - and it seems to have a cream mask over all the images so as to make it pretty useless for my purposes (I know some are supposed to be like this but not all- and it seems stronger than in-game)

2. And - again the above software failed despite their claims to the contrary - I require something to batch convert the BIFs into TGAs (or via an intermediary file format if necessary).

I would imagine the above 2 issues were resolved early-on in MTW modding but they must be buried so deep as I have spent 3-4 hours at TWC and the ORG looking for the info all to no avail. And another 2-3 hours looking for software that seems not to work. Perhaps there are different types of BIF file and MTW uses ones specific to it?

Thx. for the help.

[Raz]

The readBIF program can import, export and (of course) read BIF files, it can be found on the mizus server. Go to "Tools" then scroll down to "RSW Read Bif Buf v22a.zip". If you've already tried this, and this is the one that's giving you the cream mask, then it's probably just a palette issue. The "cream" mask is probably just transparency, personally I'd change it to a cyan shade or a 128 Green. You do know what I'm on about right? Anyway, unfortunately there is no batch editting/converting with ReadBIF - you can only export and import 256 colour BMP files. But from there, it's quite easy to convert to a TGA file.

It should be noted that you must preserve the palette table or else you'll have all sorts of black dots and transparency issues all over your image.

Hope that helps.

[Dol Guldur]

Thank you Raz.

This updated Bifreader gives green and cream rather than just cream :)

I can convert them to bmp, and bmp to tga - but I am not sure how to change the original image to get rid of the masking. I have played with the palette in bifreader but it makes no change to the image.

What a noob I am here

I'll keep experimenting..

It is a great pity there is no batch viewer or convert - not only will it take a long time to convert them, but also to just view them :(

thx again.

[jayban]

Two questions:


1. How does one add a new resource? What files are involved?

2. Is it possible to add a VnV to a title? How?


Thanks,

[Raz]

1. How does one add a new resource? What files are involved?

By "Resource" you mean "Trade Good" right? To add a new trade good, navigate to your MTW folder, then open up the folder named "campmap", in there open up "startpos" - Here you will find all of the Eras in MTW and VI. You should have text files named "EARLY", "HIGH", "LATE" and if you have VI you'll find one named "VIKING" - you'll also find "TUTORIAL" which is, as one would expect, for the campaign tutorial. Open up the era that you want this new trade resource to appear.
In my example, I'll be using the High era to add the trade resource "Fine Wine".

Open High.txt and scroll down to "Declare the tradable goods for this campaign." section (Pressing ctrl+F and copying/pasting that into the box will get you there quicker). You'll find the resources available to this era listed here along with their base values. Copy/Paste the line that declares "WINE" and paste it at the bottom of that list and change the "WINE" part to "FINEWINE" without spaces, I'll also want to increase it's value slightly as the name suggests, it's finer than regular wine. It should look like this.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

//========================================
// Declare the tradable goods for this campaign.
//========================================

DeclareTradegoods:: "GLASSWARE"	40
DeclareTradegoods:: "WOOD"		20
DeclareTradegoods:: "FURS"		40
DeclareTradegoods:: "WINE"		40
DeclareTradegoods:: "WOOL"		30
DeclareTradegoods:: "SILK"		40
DeclareTradegoods:: "COTTON"	30
DeclareTradegoods:: "LINEN"		30
DeclareTradegoods:: "WAX"		20
DeclareTradegoods:: "HONEY"		40
DeclareTradegoods:: "SALT"		20
DeclareTradegoods:: "HIDES"		30
DeclareTradegoods:: "BUTTER"	20
DeclareTradegoods:: "POTTERY"	30
DeclareTradegoods:: "FISH"		20
DeclareTradegoods:: "SPICES"	50
DeclareTradegoods:: "GEMS"		50
DeclareTradegoods:: "SUGAR"		40
DeclareTradegoods:: "DYES"		50
DeclareTradegoods:: "IVORY"		40
DeclareTradegoods:: "OLIVEOIL"	30
DeclareTradegoods:: "GRAIN"		30
DeclareTradegoods:: "FINEWINE"		45

Now scroll down to the Set Region Resources section of that text file. Press ctrl+F and copy/paste this into the box and hit enter: "//Region Goods Available". Here it lists what resources and trade goods are available to a particular region. You'll note that it sets two things here:
"SetResources::" refers to raw mineral deposits such as copper and iron.
SetTradableGoods:: refers to, well... tradable goods such as silk and cotton. This is the one you want.

I'll be adding the Fine Wine goods exclusively to Burgundy. Scroll down to the line that says "SetTradableGoods:: ID_BURGUNDY", you'll also note here that it already has access to the standard wine trade good. We don't want it to have two trade goods otherwise France would be super powered, so we'll change it, delete the "WINE" part and add "FINEWINE" instead. It now should look like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...
SetResources::		ID_BRANDENBURG		COPPER		
SetTradableGoods::	ID_BRANDENBURG		LINEN		GRAIN
SetTradableGoods::	ID_BRITTANY			LINEN
SetTradableGoods::	ID_BULGARIA			GRAIN
SetTradableGoods::	ID_BURGUNDY			WINE
SetResources::		ID_CARPATHIA		COPPER		SILVER		IRON
SetResources::		ID_CASTILE			IRON			
SetTradableGoods::	ID_CASTILE			SILK			
SetTradableGoods::	ID_CHAMPAGNE		GRAIN

Save the changes and exit HIGH.txt. Your done there for now. Head backwards from .../campmap/startpos/ and navigate to .../loc/eng/. Open up the text file named "DEFAULT_REGION_SPECIFIC", if you were modding the Viking era, you'd open "VIKING_REGION_SPECIFIC", but we aren't. So anyway scroll down to the line "@["goods_names"]", here it shows the names of trade goods back in HIGH.txt (and EARLY and LATE as well) in order. So for example, the first tradable good declared in the startpos was GLASSWARE, you'll note that Glassware is also the first here, so add Fine Wine to the bottom of the list, since it's last declared. You can add spaces too, as here it shows the name that will be seen in-game, the other name (with all capitals) is used internally by the system. Don't forget to add the @ sign and enclose the words in curly braces and quotes. It should look like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...
@{"Spices"}
@{"Gems"}
@{"Sugar"}
@{"Dyes"}
@{"Ivory"}
@{"Oliveoil"}
@{"Grain"}
@{"Fine Wine"}

Now scroll down a touch further and you'll find the descriptions for each of the trade resources (also in order). Add a description for Fine Wine at the en of the list, make sure it uses the same things like the others (at sign and braces etc). It doesn't have to be too flash or really long, I just added:
@{"Extremely fine wine is produced here. It can be sold for a large profit."}

Save the changes and exit. Your pretty much done, just one last thing to add. Back out of .../Loc/Eng/ and head to Textures/campmap/goods/, here it lists the graphics files used to represent the trade goods in game. Merely copy and paste the file "WINE.bif" and rename it "FINEWINE.bif" and ensure the ".bif" part at the end is still there.

Start up a new campaign in High as the French and right click on the province of Burgundy, it should now have the Fine Wine tradable good. Hope that's what you asked for. If not, it helped my typing skills.

[jayban]

Many thanks Raz!!!

No, I was actually looking for a "How to" on resources (Iron, Forest, Salt, etc). In particular, "How to add a new resource".

(As a completely random example, let's say I wanted to create a resource called "Divine Right" and make a new building called "Royal Throne" that requires the resource to be in the province....)

Your post, however, is excellent for trade goods. I really appreciate the time you spent and it will speed up my adding of new trade goods to my mods in development.

I guess an alternative would be to...

1. Translate the resourece forest as something you would like as a new resource (Trade Route)

2. Rename the bif files you would use for the new trade route resource to "forest".

Would that work?

[Dol Guldur]

Resolved. Seems there is a folder called "coloured" that has the non-creamy (that's a technical term) images in. Thx to Aradan for finding.

I have another question now :)

Where can I find the video file that causes the background menu animation? This would be the equivalent of the background dump file in RTW. Thx.

[Raz]

Sorry Dol Guldur, but unfortunately those silhouettes in the background are non-moddifiable (that's a technical term as well, =P). I posted a thread about this earlier, found here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=99916

Note: If you scroll down to post #9 btw you'll find that Ashdnazg has used a hex-editor to remove the background soldiers. It does however leave a dark strip at the bottom but that's easily removable.
Hope that helps.