ETW Data
At the heart of any game beats a spreadsheet (the cleverer ones hide this fact well). For complex games, there are several.
Thanks to the excellent Pack File Manager by LtChambers, we can now look at (many of) the data files for Empire: Total War.
When the Steam client caches the game on your system, it tucks the data files into %ProgramFiles%\Steam\SteamApps\common\empire total war\data, as a collection of .pack files. These are archives that contain other files, much like .zip or .cab files.
There are several .pack files: the following sub-sections contain a quick look at some of the interesting things revealed.
Contents
- 1 anim.pack
- 2 battlepresets.pack
- 3 battleterrain.pack
- 4 boot.pack
- 5 groupformations.pack
- 6 local_en.pack
- 7 main.pack
- 8 models.pack
- 9 movies.pack
- 10 patch.pack
- 11 patch_en.pack
- 12 seasurfaces.pack
- 13 sound_non_wavefile_data.pack
- 14 sounds.pack
- 15 sounds_animation_triggers.pack
- 16 sounds_campaign.pack
- 17 sounds_music.pack
- 18 sounds_other.pack
- 19 sounds_placeholder.pack
- 20 sounds_sfx.pack
- 21 subtitles.pack
- 22 supertexture.pack
- 23 terrain_templates.pack
- 24 testdata.pack
- 25 ui.pack
- 26 ui_movies.pack
- 27 voices.pack
anim.pack
Animations.
aaa_warscapeframe
animals
animation_tables
battleconfiguration
camel
campaignpieces
elephant
facialanimation
horse
horse_matched
men
reference
test
battlepresets.pack
battleterrain.pack
boot.pack
Initial loading.
groupformations.pack
local_en.pack
Localization resources, in the "en" (English) locale.
main.pack
This is the Big Kahuna, the key to most of the non-"eye candy" aspects of the game. As of version 1.11, the Pack File Manager does not decode all the contained files. But many that it can understand are quite useful.
Rather than just present them in alphabetical order, we've grouped each file in main.pack into (hopefully useful) categories:
Geography
The tables in these files describe elements of the strategic map.
- regions_continents
- regions
- region_unit_resources
- campaign_map_settlements
- campaign_map_towns_and_ports
Buildings & their Effects
- building_levels
- building_chains
- building_upgrades_junction
- building_effects_junction
- building_factionwide_effects_junction
- building_research_thread_junction
- building_resources_junction
- building_units_allowed
Factions & Groups
Units
- unit_category
- unit_class
- units
- units_to_special_editions_juncs
- unit_required_technology_junction
- units_to_exclusive_faction_permissions
- unit_abilities
- unit_to_unit_abilities_junction
- unit_experience_thresholds
- unit_stats_land
- unit_stats_naval
Governments
Economics & Trade
Technology & Research
The "tech tree."
- technology_threads
- technologies
- technology_required_technology_junctions
- technology_effects_junction
Historical Events & News
Traits & Ancillaries
The E:TW VnV system.
models.pack
movies.pack
The .bik files.
patch.pack
patch_en.pack
Patch data, localized for the "en" (English) locale.
seasurfaces.pack
The waves and cute lighting effects.
sound_non_wavefile_data.pack
sounds.pack
sounds_animation_triggers.pack
sounds_campaign.pack
sounds_music.pack
sounds_other.pack
sounds_placeholder.pack
sounds_sfx.pack
Special effects noises.
subtitles.pack
supertexture.pack
terrain_templates.pack
testdata.pack
Very important.
ui.pack
User Interface elements.
ui_movies.pack
Gentlemen shooting themselves in the face, etc.
voices.pack
--MikeV 7 April 2009
