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Thread: Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

  1. #1

    Default Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

    Have a quick question about expanding the recruitment capabilities of each faction. Specifically, I'd like to be able to recruit elite, typically faction-specific units once an area has been conquered. I realize this isn't vey realistic in terms of classical era gameplay, but I'd like to play the game well into the CE, and recruit regionally specific legions, like Galatian Legions I would make recruitable in Gaul, or Asiatic legions (using the Armenian skin) in Asia Minor. No new skinning here, just allowing the Romans to recruit an already existing unit in a certain area.

    I tried adding "Roman" to the ownership line in descr.unit and altering descr.building as well to no avail. Some units showed up and others didn't. Or if they did, once I recruited them I got a CTD on the battle loading menu.

    I'm troubleshooting it at the moment but any help would be appreciated.

    Cheers,

  2. #2
    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

    Hi, Tullyccro!

    Um...about the CE...I'm pretty sure the 66 B.C. bug is unavoidable with 4tpy. I could be wrong (I hope I am), but ATM I think that's how it goes.

    I recommend this thread on adding units: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=51750
    It has a great deal of useful info.

    Your CTD is almost certainly caused by not giving their new owner faction a texture and sprite line in the DMB. (Info about this is available at that link.)

    For the record, I like your idea about recruiting faction-specific elite units in some cases, and I'm seriously considering implementing that for Armenia (not sure who else). You've reminded me to allow Rome to raise Galatian imitation legionnaires, too.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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  3. #3

    Default Re: Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

    Thanks again for the info.

    The 66 BC thing I could have done without though, hit me like a sledgehammer. Guess I might have to actually get out in the sunlight once that happens.

    At any rate, I'm not sure if another ExR edition is in the works, but if it is, and you plan on going into a later era, to represent the Republic to Empire transition or beyond, which it sounds like you might want to do, I think it'd be cool to have regional legions, hell even Italian region-specific legions, since typically you had Greek and Eastern Legions not only fighting Italian legions but African legions, Gaullic legions and eventually largely Germanic Legions. I think recruitable generals should also be "regionalized" accordingly, by the kind of uniform they wear, maybe allow them to be re-trained into different garb in certain cities as they would have readjusted and re-trained according to climate.

    Those are basically the kind of things I'd like to work on, as well as kind of factionalizing my gameplay myself by making certain legions recruitable in certain Italian areas only. For instance, as you probably well know, as Rome enfranchised her Italian neighbors and the Gaullic Italians from Cisalpine Gaul, the whole character of the army changed, and certain prominent generals used these regional differences to their benefit (the Gracchi in Spain, Pompey, later in Spain, Caesar in Gaul, Marius in southern Italy, North Africa and Sicily, Brutus and Cassius in Northern Greece and Dacia/Thrace.)

    Anyway, I'll get to it. I'd love to learn more and possibly contribute to a project in the future.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

    If your units already exist inside exrm, you only need to add the recruitment lines to the relevant buildngs inside the EDB (Export descriptions buildings)

    You will see a line somthing like this

    recruit "fac rome slingers" 0 requires factions { rome_republic, }

    In this example the unit is available to rome anywhere this particular building exists

    To restrict its availability to certain areas we need to add another requirement so the line might look like this

    recruit "fac aor rome light infantry" 0 requires factions { rome_republic, } and hidden_resource italy

    In this line the unit can only be recruited by rome wherever the hidden_resource "italy" is found. In Data\world\maps\campaign\barbarian_invasion\descr_strat.txt each region is listed and also includes the hidden resources found in that region. So to widen the area of recruitment, simply add the hidden resource to the additional regions.

    the "fac aor rome light infantry" is the unit library name and you can get these from the EDU (Export Descriptions Unit) file

    If you want to make that unit (above) available for example to the gauls you simply add " gauls," to the faction requirement like this

    recruit "fac aor rome light infantry" 0 requires factions { rome_republic, gauls,} and hidden_resource italy

    Now the gauls can recruit this unit in italy. Hope this helps
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  5. #5
    Quinn Inuit's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

    That was an excellent illustrated explanation, Clearchus.

    I don't believe you can change a unit's appearance through retraining. I'm pretty sure that's impossible with the game engine. Everything else you're describing is quite doable, though.

    That said, the ExRM probably won't be going in that direction in the foreseeable future. This is a mod focused on everyone, not just the Romans,* and also focused on the earlier portion of the time period it covers. We just don't have the ability to accurately depict events such as the rise of the Nabateans or Judaeans, or the invasion of the Saka, and we don't have the DMB space to depict a decent number of different legions. For the multi-legion setup you're describing, you might want to check out the FRRE, Imperator II, or Roma Surrectum mods.

    That said, if you want to hack up the ExRM and do a multi legion mod for it at some point, I'd be totally fine with that. You'd have to sacrifice some of the AOR units to make it work, but it would still be well-balanced and playable.

    *This statement may not make much sense unless you're aware of the fact that there are a limited number of model slots in the DMB (descr_model_battle.txt), and setting up multiple legions would take a disproportionate number of them.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

    The ExRM forum: come for the mod, stay for the Classical History discussions. Or vice versa.

    My writing-related Twitter feed.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Modding Recruitment Areas in ExR

    Thanks to everyone for their help. The tutorial link was especially helpful. Basically, I'm trying to make a Roman "heavy" mod that doesn' take too much away from the powerful barbarian and greek powers, not to mention carthage, but allows for some regional/political variations within the Roman faction.

    Regionalized legions are part of that idea, so that on the battlefield each legion will have a unique character, or at least there will be a few different variations, not only of garb but of stats as well. Everyone knows that Caesar had his favorites, and certain legions had a tradition of being good marines, others good wall-takers, or shock infantry, and I'd like whatever I'm working on to reflect that.

    Also, as I stated before, there were certain regional auxilia who were used frequently and changed the composition of the legion and I want to explore that as well. Like a predominantly Gallic Legion, or an option to re-enlist veterans of Gallic/Iberian/Germanic/Greek Campaigns at a high cost in a small locale, since they're experienced fighting whatever the local monsters are, in Iberia they would be good skirmishers to counter the horsemen and scutarii and in Gaul/Germania, they would be used to fighting the giants of the North.

    Enough rambling on my part, I've got a lot of work to do. Although I have another question I need to post as a new thread.

    Obviously I've come up against not having enough slots in dmb, so I'm removing slingers at the moment. I know, not very realistic, but I'm thinking that slingers and spear-skirmishing cavalry were not crucial on the battlefield, save or Numidia and Africa who will keep those units, only in skirmishes. I'll probably also allow the slave faction to have slingers in certain areas, but this frees up a few slots, I think 6 or 7.

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