Make all factions playable in BI

[Epistolary Richard]

Make all factions playable in BI
incorporating Professor Spatula's Unlocked Factions maps
& Rebel Commander


Version 2 released - Download
- Mirror 1

This is for 1.6 - note that it changes the mechanism by which you choose a faction. If you want to play as an emergent faction then you must start the game as the slave faction and click on specific cities to bring up the correct advisor. Full details in the readme.



Previous versions for 1.4

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Download


Update 13/12/05 - Version 1 Complete now uploaded including professorspatula's excellent maps and new leader pic's

What does it do?
This mod allows you to play as all of the factions within BI as they appear or emerge within the vanilla game.

What version is this for?
It is for the vanilla Barbarian Invasion.

How big is it?
Approx. 3.9 meg

How does it work?
For all factions which are present at the start of the game just select them as usual from the campaign menu.



The emergent factions are marked as 'Not Playable at Start' on the Faction Selection Screen. To play as one of these factions, you must select one of the other factions that begins the game (as specified in the emergent faction's campaign description):


At the beginning of the game, the advisor will appear and ask if you wish to swap control to the emergent faction. If so, click on the 'Show Me How' button and the game will switch to auto-pilot until the faction emerges. If not, press the dismiss button. For example:



Version 1 Download

Mod Compatibility
More advanced users may wish to make this mod compatible with their own personal mods. This mod should be compatible with most lightly modded games (eg, ones with modded skins, unit stats, unit formations, additional units etc.). It does however mod the descr_strat file which any map mod will also alter.

To make this compatible with a map mod, install it as normal but do _not_ replace the descr_strat file. Instead go into your original descr_strat file and move the emergent factions from unplayable to playable at the top of the file. This was the only change made in this file.

[Epistolary Richard]

As a special extra, here's a new descr_sm_factions file that gets rid of those ugly borders around the provinces on the minimap in the bottom left. It also makes the slave faction available for custom battles.



Download it here

[shifty157]

Youre just cranking these out.

Very nice work.

[Epistolary Richard]

It was just the obvious next step after Rebel Commander, though the scripting it slightly different to RC to make it slicker. (Any devoted Ostrogth players I would advise sticking with Rebel Commander though - after all the trouble with the vanilla emergence criteria is that sometimes the Ostrogoths never emerge!)

Hopefully, this should be the necessary solution for people who just want to play the vanilla game, but with all the other factions, without arguing over the inaccuracy of setting the Slavs or RBs up in 363AD as has previously been the case. And allow those modders making specialised campaigns for those factions the latitude to change things as they want without feeling beholden to trying to replicate vanilla.

[Epistolary Richard]

Thanks to Professor Spatula, the two of us can now proudly present the Complete version 1 of the 'Make All Factions Playable in BI'.

Inside you'll now find Professor Spatula's excellent faction selection and victory condition maps and as an added bonus leader_pics for each and every faction. Follow the download link in the top post.

Nota Bene! With the new maps, we say goodbye to the old big X maps for the emergent factions to remind you not to start the game as them. Be extra careful not to select them from now on.

[professorspatula]

Nice work Richard, it's good to see a bit of closure on the All Factions playable front. As soon as the new patch arrives and I get a chance to see what's changed, I'll be making the BI Hordes part of my mod into a separate mini-mod and having a link to this here Unlocked Factions mod for everyone who wants to play as the other factions.

To ER:
PS - It's Professor Spatula, I'm only professorspatula on here because of username restrictions upon registering and all that.

PPS - Make some room in your PM box!