Possible to tweak game files to make WRE harder/ houserules for them?

[Aenima]

I love this mod. I'm not sure what it is about 7.3 but I bloody love it. Maybe it's something to do with the feeling of impending doom and the desperation that I feel playing as the WRE...yeah, I'd say that's definitely it.

But the only problem is that that same feeling of desperation ebbs away after the first few turns; the Goths are easy to drive out of Italy, Spain is easy to hold onto and the economy eventually turns the WRE into a supreme powerhouse. In all of my WRE campaigns the reason I've quit isn't out of frustration or defeat, but that it's simply become too easy and as such, boring.

So I've got a question. Does anyone have
(a) modded game files or know how to edit the game files so that morale and such can be changed to make battles more challenging? As anyone knows the morale is the biggest issue with regards to fighting as Rome, since barbarians shatter in an instant.
(b) House rules that have been tested and make playing as Rome harder, yet still achievable. I don't want to fight with armies of peasants just to make things a challenge since I'd never win, but if anyone has ever played with house rules and found it much more difficult and fun to play I'd love to hear them.

Thanks very much, and I can't put into words how much I'm looking forward to v8.

[Joar]

Well, I understand what you mean. If you know your way around some of the text files, you can quite easily tamper with the numbers a bit. Back when I played 7.03 I was also a bit frustrated about the lack of morale amongst the Barbarians. Check out the EDU and the other related files that allows you to boost your enemy a bit. For example, I remember I edited the descr_strat so that the starting units of the Visigoths got "gold armour" and 3 bars of experience to reflect that they where an experienced and battle hardened army etc.

But a ready mod pack that does what your asking about? Not that I'm aware of, I'm afraid.

This situation will, however, be rectified in v.8.

[Gäiten]

This situation will, however, be rectified in v.8.

Western Romans may cry ...

[PSEUDO ROMANUS]

Do you realize what you just did, Aenima?!?!? You just brought darkness and destruction to the western Roman realm! May the gods forgive you for this!

[Gäiten]

Gods love good a challenge, do not they?

[Aenima]

Well, I understand what you mean. If you know your way around some of the text files, you can quite easily tamper with the numbers a bit. Back when I played 7.03 I was also a bit frustrated about the lack of morale amongst the Barbarians. Check out the EDU and the other related files that allows you to boost your enemy a bit. For example, I remember I edited the descr_strat so that the starting units of the Visigoths got "gold armour" and 3 bars of experience to reflect that they where an experienced and battle hardened army etc.

But a ready mod pack that does what your asking about? Not that I'm aware of, I'm afraid.

This situation will, however, be rectified in v.8.

I didn't expect any submods, so luckily that's no disappointment. Do you know if it's possible to tamper with the stats to even them out then, or do you know someone/somewhere I could ask for advice on what to do? (Completely inept at messing around with game files)

Do you realize what you just did, Aenima?!?!? You just brought darkness and destruction to the western Roman realm! May the gods forgive you for this!

Pah, I could take on Alaric's rabble, Attila's jockey club and those perfumed Sassanids with my hands tied behind my back! Mere men fear barbarians, but Romans....

Gods love good a challenge, do not they?

The Gods....have deserted us *solemn ninja face*

[Gäiten]

Pah, I could take on Alaric's rabble, Attila's jockey club and those perfumed Sassanids with my hands tied behind my back! Mere men fear barbarians, but Romans....

Romans die.

[Taco Santa]

\RTW (MAIN Directory/folder)\ibfd\data\scripts\show_me\

Put the text attachment file in the above location. It is the 4turn per year script with an added script to make every faction (except one of the desert factions to the far east of the Eastern Roman Empire so they don't really matter) declare war on the Western Roman Empire. It doesn't take affect until the beginning of turn two though.


\ibfd\options\SCRIPTS
Also included in your regular 7.03 ibfd folder are several optional scripts. Apparently the full script option is buggy as hell. But, the Sack of Rome script option seems fine. That causes all of the Visigoth army to pile up outside of Rome and lay siege to it at the beginning of THE VISIGOTHS turn. That plus the regular 4tpy or my altered 4tpy scripts are kinda cool. The regular 4tpy script just makes the game have 4 turns per year. However, the attachment file makes it be 4 turns per year and everyone declares war on you at the beginning of turn two (if you are WRE). If having everyone declare war on me at once is still boring, then I'll look into how to modify the various barbarian armies experience points for their standing armies.



I started over my campaign now with the Campaign map difficulty set to Normal with the Battle difficulty set to Very Hard. Apparently the armies behave hownky and just stand around mostly if you have the campaign map set to Very Hard difficulty.

In my campaign as WRE by the end of turn 1 I am laying siege to one ERE town and about to lay siege to another. I have one of the Armenians? cities under siege. I have sacked that one city of the Constantine Roman Empire and laid siege to another. I'm moving the various garrison troops around and attacking some of the other standing armies (Vandels, Independents in North Africa). So hopefully by pissing off and attacking everyone around me (except the Huns in turn 1) I can finally get a decent challenge.

[Aenima]

Romans die.

And the next Roman, fearing neither death nor pain, steps into his rank and gets revenge for his fallen brother. It's a good deal

Thanks Taco, I'll give that a go when I get home. I'll guess that I'll have to look into giving the other factions exp/ weapon bonuses as well though since being at war with some factions won't really make a difference since the Roman Britones, sassanids etc are too far away. ERE though... might just work. I'll see how it turns out man, thanks.

[Aenima]

I've looked around on the internet; apparently the units morale can be edited by tweaking with the EDU file. If this is the case I'd be more than happy to spend some time going over it and changing it. To edit IBRR unit stats I assume that I need to go into RomeTW/ibfd/data/EDU? From there it's just a matter of editing the number next to 'mental stats' right? If someone could explain what the standard for morale is (10 the best, 1 worst?) and suggest the units that need to be edited and by how much, I'd be happy to edit my folder and post a thread with the edited EDU so that others could play a more balanced game. Cheers

[Aenima]

Rawr triple post

Bumping for advice from the team on editing unit morale. Any and all pointers and advice you can give is apprecaited. Cheers

[Joar]

Yes, the EDU is the file for you. And yes, that's the path ( RomeTW/ibfd/data/EDU ).

Remember to make a copy of the files you're tampering with in case something goes wrong. You can also try to read a tutorial on the EDU - Aradan has made a very good one here.

[Aenima]

Thanks Joar, that helped a lot. Now begins the painstaking process of lowering certain stats to make the game more balanced. Oy vey

[Joar]

Thanks Joar, that helped a lot. Now begins the painstaking process of lowering certain stats to make the game more balanced. Oy vey

Glad I could help. Good luck!

[Aenima]

Another question that I could do with advice with. In the EDU each troop seems to have three names (troop type, dictionary, etc) and I'm confused as to which is actually the name of the soldier. For example

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type western peasant alemanni
dictionary western_peasant_alemanni ; german_levy_alemanni
category infantry
class light
voice_type Light_1
soldier german_levy_alemanni, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes sea_faring,hide_forest,can_swim,is_peasant

Though this is listed as western peasant, I assume from the mention of german levy that that is what it actually is.
However, if this is the case, that the unit's real name is listed under dictionary, then how can this unit be explained?

type german foot skirmishers
dictionary german_skirmishers_foot ; need new desc maybe redo model
category infantry
class light
voice_type Heavy_1
soldier german_foot_skirmishers, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes sea_faring,hide_forest,can_swim,is_peasant


type gothic heavy infantry
dictionary gothic_heavy_infantry ; need new desc
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Heavy_1
soldier gothic_infantry, 35, 0, 1.3


Are these soldiers simply called by the original name given due to there being no correction, or are they not even in the game? Could really do with this being cleared up, thanks.

[Joar]

Another question that I could do with advice with. In the EDU each troop seems to have three names (troop type, dictionary, etc) and I'm confused as to which is actually the name of the soldier. For example

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type western peasant alemanni
dictionary western_peasant_alemanni ; german_levy_alemanni
category infantry
class light
voice_type Light_1
soldier german_levy_alemanni, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes sea_faring,hide_forest,can_swim,is_peasant

Though this is listed as western peasant, I assume from the mention of german levy that that is what it actually is.
However, if this is the case, that the unit's real name is listed under dictionary, then how can this unit be explained?

type german foot skirmishers
dictionary german_skirmishers_foot ; need new desc maybe redo model
category infantry
class light
voice_type Heavy_1
soldier german_foot_skirmishers, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes sea_faring,hide_forest,can_swim,is_peasant


type gothic heavy infantry
dictionary gothic_heavy_infantry ; need new desc
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Heavy_1
soldier gothic_infantry, 35, 0, 1.3


Are these soldiers simply called by the original name given due to there being no correction, or are they not even in the game? Could really do with this being cleared up, thanks.

You're talking about the unit's internal name and on screen name? To find out more about the unit in question, you can go to the text folder ( in the data folder ) and open up the export_units.txt. Use the unit name you got from the EDU and then the search function, and you'll see what it's actually named. Hope that clearifies it a bit.

[Aenima]

Forget it. I used the export_unit to try and figure out what units really were, but even then it wasn't clear; the export unit would say that a certain unit name was a skirmisher, so I'd highlight the name of the original unit and use the find function on the EDU to try and edit it to what the export unit said it was (in this case a skirmisher) and the EDU had it listed down as light infantry with no missile attack.

I'll just wait until V8 is released, but thanks for the help Joar.

[Joar]

Sorry to hear that. I'm afraid the units and so forth are not my department, so to speak, but I'll ask Gäiten if he's got some advice for you.

[Gäiten]

I do somewhat not get your problem. Maybe you can tell me the units you want to modify?

[Aenima]

Actually for the timebeing I'm alright. I decided to give it another go and am at page 55/213 with no problems as of yet. Just need to do the others and I'll copy and paste it into the EDU and give it a test to see how it works. I have to admit I'm not sure how I got mixed up either, I must have been doing something very, very wrong.

Unless I run into it this time around, at which point I'll post up my problem in greater detail before I forget. Until then, thanks again for all the help and interest shown!