Adding a new faction - we are SO close!

[khelvan]

There is no getting around it, we're going to need someone from CA to answer one very short, very simple question, in order to add new factions:

Where, or how, do we define which culture (Roman, Barbarian, Carthaginian, Greek, Egyptian, Eastern) should be assigned for each faction?

According to Jerome Grasdyke, here, we should be able to add new factions:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37359

We have been searching long and hard for how to do so, and really right now we come down to what seems to be only one small obstacle. How to tell the system to use a particular culture for a particular faction. It would be nice to define a new culture, but we can cross that bridge when we get to it. We can use existing cultures if we have to, just to get the ability to add more factions.

We have found no area where this might even be implicit - from what we can tell, this seems to be hard coded. Unless CA pops in and tells us where to do this, I don't think anyone is ever going to be able to move beyond the number of factions we have today.

Sorry, guys.

-khel

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Sorry, guys.

I'm afraid that's about the size of it. The number of factions is hard-coded, and so are the mappings to the culture types and the behaviour of Roman factions as a group, at the moment (it will change in future products). Hopefully this won't hinder you too much though, as that still leaves 20 or so factions to play with, not all of which have to be present in the game and you can change the look of them pretty much however you want...

[khelvan]

Thanks, Jerome. We had hoped to be able to add more factions for EB, to better break down some tribal histories, and simulate the movement of peoples from the east, but we'll make do with what we have.

Forgive me for being optimistic, but I still hope we can add Illyria, since you guys left bits and pieces of it all over the code. It is listed as a valid faction in templates.txt. We won't bother trying to add anything else, however.

Thanks again,

-khel

[JeromeGrasdyke]

but I still hope we can add Illyria, since you guys left bits and pieces of it all over the code.

Ah yes, Illyria. I'm afraid that the code maps Illyria to the Greek City states. Originally there was no GC faction, only Macedon, Thrace and Illyria, but for various historical accuracy reasons (I don't know the precise details of that discussion) Illyria was removed and GC inserted in its place. The way things stand it's the one or the other

[khelvan]

Alas, no new factions at all, then. We'll just have to wait until the (as yet unannounced ;) expansion for that. Hopefully it also relaxes the hard code in other areas, such as the model limit, province limit, and other good stuff we modders are just dying to get our grubby little fingers on! Well, thank you again.

Cheers,

-khel

[eadingas]

Shucks.

[hellenes]

I'm afraid that's about the size of it. The number of factions is hard-coded, and so are the mappings to the culture types and the behaviour of Roman factions as a group, at the moment (it will change in future products). Hopefully this won't hinder you too much though, as that still leaves 20 or so factions to play with, not all of which have to be present in the game and you can change the look of them pretty much however you want...

As I see it you keep things hardcoded to "persuade" us to buy the expansion...

Hellenes

[Midnight]

I thought this was supposed to be a 'highly moddable' game? A highly moddable game where, in order to create a new faction, we have to overwrite an existing one?

Is there something in the water at CA?

edit: I think it's extremely poor that we have to wait for the x-pack before modding victory conditions is possible too. That is going to be possible, isn't it?

[SigniferOne]

Jerome, please ignore the naysayers and thanks for all your comments here.

Question: do you mean to say that only the Roman factions are hardcoded, or that all factions are hardcoded (and thus some have to be overwritten to make space, as someone already said)?

[Simetrical]

Please, people, don't flame the devs! I agree that there are some aspects of the game that don't really live up to its marketing, but that's probably not Jerome's fault, and he's doing us a huge favor by showing up and answering our questions here. Modders have been helped immensely by devs answering our more difficult questions. If you attack them, they won't come back, and nobody wants that.

-Simetrical

[khelvan]

Look, we're all disappointed that the game is not as moddable as we expected. This is certainly NOT Jerome's fault, as stated above, so please save the griping for a different area. We're trying to find out information about how to mod the game, not use this as a vehicle for airing complaints.

I, for one, really appreciate him taking the time to answer my post. This saved us countless hours of frustration and banging our heads against a wall. Now we will concentrate on other things.

[Duke John]

dysrow1
There are in total 21 factions and there can be no more then 21 factions. You can replace one of them, but keep in mind the following things:
- 1 Senate faction: that needs to be placed in Rome, hence both the Senate and Rome are needed to make the game run. The Senate faction is unplayable in the sense that it will cause CTDs when pressing some buttons.
- 3 Roman factions: these are hard-coded as part of the Roman government thingie.
- 17 other factions.

Some people have discovered that some Roman factions have been coded to always start with attacking certain regions/factions. It would be worthwhile to analyze the normal campaigns to use the coding for your own goals.

[eadingas]

I haven't noticed such hardcoding... when I switch them around places, the Blue ones go east, the Red ones go south and the Green ones go north as if nothing happened?

[Duke John]

Hmm, I read something about Roman factions always attacking certain regions in a sequence. If the Romans are switched around they did nothing. But that is what I remember, I didn't really test it though.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Hmm, I read something about Roman factions always attacking certain regions in a sequence. If the Romans are switched around they did nothing. But that is what I remember, I didn't really test it though.

It isn't true. The choices the AI makes are based purely on its strategic / tactical analysis. In fact, the game contains no scripted AI at all outside of the Prologue and the Historical Battles (and even this scripted AI can be modded, since the scripting system is exposed). The reason why the Roman AI chooses a certain sequence of attacks is down to the way the campaign map is set up - those moves just happen to be the logical ones, as far as the AI is concerned.

About the Roman factions: the hardcoded part here concerns the fact that they start off allied, and the behaviour of the Senate faction towards them (which includes the mission system, and the usual Roman victory conditions). But even this you could use to your advantage...

At the end of the day the factions may not be as moddable as some people had hoped, but there is a lot that can be done with 21 factions if you create a new campaign map. The way the game engine is set up, there are some things that are easy (adding a new historical battle or a new campaign set in the same time period and using the same factions) and some things that are harder (a total conversion to a new time period), and a few things that are impossible (adding a new faction to the current Imperial Campaign without removing an old one). It's unfortunate, but much of games development is about working within constraints of various sorts, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of all the hard work you guys are putting in.

[Paul Peru]

Thanks for the answers, Jerome!
May I have another?
Some AI factions seem more hostile, untrustworthy etc. than others.
Is this solely due to the known variables (smith caesar stalin etc.)?
Does culture types play a role also?
Or are there some hidden sympathies/antipaties/inklinations/thingies behind the scenes?

I seem to get very little love from other factions when playing Carthage...

[Monkwarrior]

Thanks for your answers, Jerome.
Undoubtly you know the game better than me and because of that I don't understand some points.

The choices the AI makes are based purely on its strategic / tactical analysis. ...The reason why the Roman AI chooses a certain sequence of attacks is down to the way the campaign map is set up - those moves just happen to be the logical ones, as far as the AI is concerned.

About the Roman factions: the hardcoded part here concerns the fact that they start off allied, and the behaviour of the Senate faction towards them (which includes the mission system, and the usual Roman victory conditions). But even this you could use to your advantage...

In a map different from that of the imperial campaign I didn't succed in putting the roman factions. Even cutting only one small part of the map did cause CTD. On the contrary, the elimination of the three roman factions allowed the campaign to work. Have you any other reason for this behaviour instead of the senate missions or the victory conditions?

About the number of factions, in my opinion 21 is a good number, but it could be greatly enlarged if it were possible to assign a campaign to a different set of factions (in a different folder).
Moreover, there seems to be a lot of characteristics associated to the culture, which is hardcoded. In fact I'd like to increase the number of barbarian or carthage-like factions.
One example: it seems that all the factions of the same culture share the models (with different skins) for the strat map (general and lesser general). Is there any way to include different assignation to them?

Thanks again.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

There are quite a few potential reasons for a CTD when you change part of the campaign map; most likely would be a problem due to linked data from another file. For example, if you edit the map tga's to get rid of a region and replace it with sea, you need to make sure that the descr_strat file isn't trying to place things there which are inappropriate. When you introduce an entirely new region you need to make sure its name tag is present in the right places, and so on. Your best bet is to use the -show_err command line option all the time, and hopefully it will catch these errors for you.

The 21 faction limit only means that there can be a maximum of 21 factions present on any one campaign map. The descr_xxx.txt files in the /data directory allow you to modify almost all aspects of a faction's look, from the models and skins on the campaign map to the tech trees and what units are available and how they look on the battlefield. It's a very open system, which combined with the -mod command line option (which also redirects the campaign and battle directories) should allow you to create a wide range of nice things...

Hopefully that answers your question.

[Monkwarrior]

Well, the new map is correct, as it works without romans.
After your indications, I will give a try again to a roman faction.

In descr_models_strat.txt we have this:

type				sm_eastern_general
skeleton			strat_named_with_army
scale				0.7
indiv_range			40
texture				parthia, data/models_unit/textures/officer_eastern_general_parthia.TGA
texture				pontus, data/models_unit/textures/officer_eastern_general_pontus.TGA
texture				armenia, data/models_unit/textures/officer_eastern_general_armenia.TGA
model_flexi_m		data/models_unit/officer_eastern_general_high.CAS, max
shadow_model_flexi	data/models_strat/shadow_model_sword.cas, max

It seems to me that all the factions belonging to the same culture share the same model_flexi_m with different skins (textures). I tried to distinguish among parthia and the other two, but I was unable to do it properly. Only a fully re-assignation to the carthaginian model was possible.
I will keep on trying.
Thanks again.

[eadingas]

There should be another file responsible for how the generals, agents, spies, etc. look on strat map, and I think it's done per faction, I don't remember now which one, but it's not descr_models_strat - this only describes which models are used, but doesn't assign them to factions.

[Monkwarrior]

There should be another file responsible for how the generals, agents, spies, etc. look on strat map, and I think it's done per faction, I don't remember now which one, but it's not descr_models_strat - this only describes which models are used, but doesn't assign them to factions.

I didn't find any other file. In descr_model_strat you have this

type				diplomat
skeleton			strat_diplomat
scale				0.7
indiv_range			40
texture				romans_julii, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_julii.tga
texture				romans_brutii, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_brutii.tga
texture				romans_scipii, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_scipii.tga
texture				romans_senate, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_senate.tga
texture				macedon, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_macedon.tga
texture				egypt, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_egypt.tga
texture				seleucid, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_seleucid.tga
texture				carthage, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_carthage.tga
texture				parthia, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_parthia.tga
texture				pontus, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_pontus.tga
texture				gauls, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_gaul.tga
texture				germans, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_german.tga
texture				britons, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_briton.tga
texture				armenia, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_armenia.tga
texture				dacia, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_dacia.tga
texture				greek_cities, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_greek.tga
texture				numidia, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_numidia.tga
texture				scythia, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_scythia.tga
texture				spain, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_spain.tga
texture				thrace, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_thrace.tga
texture				slave, data/models_strat/textures/diplomat_slave.tga
model_flexi_m		data/models_strat/diplomat.cas, max
shadow_model_flexi	data/models_strat/shadow_model_diplomat.cas, max

and it is possible to change the diplomats, spies and assasins from one faction to another (because the skeleton is always the same).
However, for generals the situation is different as I said in the previous post.
In fact I succeded in giving to pontus the generals assigned to a "cartaghe-spain" faction, and to armenia and parthia the normal carthaginian and numidian generals. But it was not possible to move one faction to another culture.
In any case, I hope you are right and, please, if you find such file let me know asap.
Regards.

Edit: just after writng this message some idea came to me.
Perhaps you was right and the file is descr_character.txt.
I have revised the files corresponding to a full faction modification (china mod) and it seems possible to create a new group of culture and assign the characters to the new group. E.g.

faction			parthia
dictionary		2
strat_card		data/ui/barbarian/agents/card_general_celt.tga
strat_model		sm_china_lesser_general
battle_model	china_officer
battle_equip	gladius, chainmail shirt helmet and rectangular shield

I will try this idea and will report the result.
Thanks.

[eadingas]

Yep, that might be the one, I think.
I have no idea what battle_equip does, though, and if it even does anything.

[Simetrical]

The 21 faction limit only means that there can be a maximum of 21 factions present on any one campaign map. The descr_xxx.txt files in the /data directory allow you to modify almost all aspects of a faction's look, from the models and skins on the campaign map to the tech trees and what units are available and how they look on the battlefield.

But not what culture they are for the purposes of, say, culture penalties, right?

-Simetrical

[Meneldil]

An answer to the previous question would be appreciated :)