Descr_Strat tutorial

[Ramashan]

Thanks for your help and suggestion on this HoM. If anyone is able test this before midnight tonight I would be very grateful for the feedback.

I have a feeling that the never_a_leader thing is part of it, which you have just shown that it was true. Because why would they need the never_a_leader leader line if not to separate it from someone who was once a leader? But it could be old coding that was never implemented.

PS: Out of curiosity, how do you read the .exe?

[HouseOfHam]

Ok, here is as much as I've been able to figure out:

- You can create dead wives and children (either under-age boys or daughters of any age), but the results look rather strange. For example, I gave a character a dead 20-year old daughter, then the family scroll said "Born: 300 BC, Died peacefully: 0 AD". Campaign starts at 280 BC.
- past_leader doesn't seem to do anything
- dead adult males = CTD

I think dead males cause a null pointer exception when the game tries to plug values into data/ui/%s/portraits/portraits/dead/%03d.tga and/or data/ui/%s/portraits/cards/dead/%03d.tga to build the path to the dead character portrait.

It'd be interesting to unpack the portraits from ui_0.pak and copy one of them to data/ui/romans/portraits/portraits/dead/null.tga or (null).tga and data/ui/romans/portraits/cards/dead/null.tga files to see if that might work.

You can use the strings command, which you can download from microsoft's site, to pull out all the hard-coded text messages, formattting strings, and likewise from the .exe:

C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War>strings RomeTW-BI.exe > strings.txt

Edit Gigantus: link to "strings" download

[Ramashan]

Thank you for your continued information on this.

I'll check out that strings command you speak of and try some testing of my own with the portraits you mention.

I did notice the odd obituary that the game plugs in. It has the wife dying at the age of 12, well before her two sons were even born.

[HouseOfHam]

RTW Settlement (Coordinate) Locator Tool:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=2429

[Ramashan]

So, I've been making a family tree recently and I thought I knew what I was doing, but I'm kind of stuck.

Can anyone see anything wrong with this?

character_record        Tezcatlan,     female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 68, dead 5, never_a_leader
character_record        Miyahuaxiuhtzin,     female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 48, alive, never_a_leader
character_record        Eloxochitl,     female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 35, alive, never_a_leader
Character_record        Matlalcihuatzin,    female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 21, alive, never_a_leader 
character_record        Tezozomoc,    male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 13, alive, never_a_leader
character_record        Nopalxochitl,    female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 20, alive, never_a_leader
character_record        Teuctl_Ehauc,    male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 2, alive, never_a_leader
character_record        Nezahualcoyotl,    male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 2, alive, never_a_leader

relative     Acamapichtli Culhua,        Tezcatlan,        Huitzilhuitl,        Itzcoatl,    end
relative     Huitzilhuitl Culhua,        Miyahuaxiuhtzin,    Chimalpopoca,    Matlalcihuatzin,  Tlacaelel,    Moctezuma,    end
relative     Itzcoatl Culhua,        Eloxochitl,        Tezozomoc,    end
relative    Chimalpopoca Culhua,        Nopalxochitl,    Teuctl_Ehauc,    end
relative    Ixtlilxochitl Ome_Tochtli,    Matlalcihuatzin,    Nezahualcoyotl Ome_Tochtli,    end

I have listed as a named_character coded into a position on the map as well and it will load if I make him a general. But as soon as I add Matlalcihuatzin in any way, even as a child, it crashes.


and is it me, or can you not have a daughter and marry her to an unrelated character? I just keep getting an errorless CTD when I try it.

[Aradan]

It's possible to do what you say, there's probably a formatting error, that section can be very sensitive to tabs and spaces... Maybe even the capital "c" of characters_record is throwing it off...

[pannonian]

Quinn Inuit had some problems with some problems with names that weren't in the text/names.txt file, so you might want to check if the names you're using are in there.

[Aradan]

If it was a names problem, it would CTD even when he was a simple captain (not a family member), I believe.

[Ramashan]

Hmm, put it in the wrong post, was meant to go here; Thank you Aradan, that capital C was the problem. Thanks for pointing it out, its always the little things.

[Ramashan]

Oh, and for an update to the OP.

Regarding creating inter-family marriages.

If you want to marry a daughter from a family with a last name into another family name, you must put the daughters family birth family name in the relatives line, like so;

relative Julius Caesar, Camilla, Octavius, Ceasarian, Ophilia, end
relative Marcus Antony, Ophilia Caesar, end

Or the game will KTM at start up.

[Bardo]

I have recently discovered 2 new commands usable in the settlement definition inside the descr_strat. I'm not sure if they were know, but I have not found any reference to them being used in DS, and I think they can be really useful for people creating custom cities:

1) The creator of each building in the city. This allows to create buildings of different cultures from the beginning. For example a roman stone wall in a barbarian town:

	building
	{
		type barracks muster_field
		creator gauls
	}

2) The location of the city model in the battle map:
(not sure, but they seems coordinates from center of the tile: x, y, height, rotation, unknown)

battle_pos -480.000 1214.038 224.000	rotation_90	0

The source comes from the code automatically generated by the battle editor:

settlement
{
	level huge_city
	tile 149 80

	year_founded 1
	fortification 4 carthaginian, walls 0 towers 0 gates 2 gate_defences 0
	population 24000
	battle_pos -480.000 1214.038 224.000	rotation_90	0
	plan_set default_set
	faction_creator carthage
	building
	{
		type barracks muster_field
		creator gauls
	}
}

I have tested both commands with AlexanderTW and they work as expected.

NOTE: the line "fortification 4 carthaginian, walls 0 towers 0 gates 2 gate_defences 0" can be used without errors nor CTDs, but I'm afraid it has no effect at all.
It is a shame because it could be used to remove the oil or ballista defences...

[MasterOfNone]

Great additions, Bardo.

The boiling oil can still be turned off universally (as you should know as Wlesmana discovered how to do it) and for tower ballistas you could place hidden resource conditionals on the "tower_level 2" capability so as to at least limit it to certain regions I guess.

[Killerbee]

Great job Bardo !

[CaesarVincens]

Testing out the "creator" code, I found that if the building is not assigned to that faction in EDB, it is ignored but causes no apparent problems.

[toshinden]

i have question for faction relationship, can this be triggered via time period?

i want to make a scenario for Trojan War, where all greek's nation become allies and attack only Troy. and if i refuse the alliance, all the greek's nation will also attack me.

[Kylan271]

The 'options bi' etc,what does it do,and are there anymore 'options'?

[Muuro]

There is some nice information about the descr_strat file in here, but looking at all the ways it can be edited to mod the game makes me curious. Can you edit the file to change which towns and provinces each faction starts with? I tried to change a couple of towns to belong to another faction a while back, but it didn't seem to work. It just prevented the game from starting a new campaign and instead jumped back a screen from the faction select screen.

[hameleona]

You can. But you'll have to change the positions of the armies and characters (if any) in that region, if i remember correctly. Atleast, you can't have a brutii army in a julii city and so on.

[Caligula Caesar]

Incidentally, there's a small problem with the garrisons being coded in the way HoH discovered. They work perfectly for all non-rebel factions, and also work for the rebels, but with the drawback of the rebel faction (the bit that goes in brackets) doesn't show up. A small thing, but if you want it, you have to code it in the normal way.

[HouseOfHam]

Well, yeah, since you can't specify sub-faction...