Unpacking: The very first steps & simplest method for new modders

[Zajuts149]

I did the silly thing of not backing up the Data/Text folder, so I have mostly strings.bin files there after starting the game. All the links to download them seems to be dead. Does anyone have a backup to share? I tried to unpack again, but no joy. Don't want to reinstall the game all over again. Can anyone help?

Tried a strings.bin converter, but it didn't get me anywhere.

[beed_zilla]

I have Medieval 2 Total War Gold Edition too, along with all four kingdoms dlc's. I unpacked the files, downloaded the missing files that you attached there, and it all went well, I clicked the unpack.bat and took quite a long time. After the unpacking was finished, I went to the data folder to check'cm out, but there were no unpacked data whatsoever. I checked my hard disk space, it did took some space after the unpacking. But I just cant seem to find the data, can anybody help me out? am I doing something wrong? Did I miss anything during the process?

[engpanzer]

How can now play custom battles without the game crashing ?

[Bob the monkey]

How can now play custom battles without the game crashing ?

I'm having a similar problem. Someone posted the code to run the unpacker for kingdoms (I did it for crusades) and then I modified the export_data_units same way I usually do, which usually works fine, but in every battle, campaign or custom, it ctds.
Am I not starting it up right? Should I make a new launcher (not sure what that means I heard someone else suggest it), or did it not unpack right? Help!

[Gigantus]

but in every battle, campaign or custom, it ctds.

That will surely be the descr_geography files that you forgot to delete.

May I suggest this method? It unpacks outside the original folders (explanation for selected file unpacking as well) and you just simply copy the files you wish to edit into your mod.

[Bob the monkey]

Thanks! Battles work now. However, the game doesn't seem to take into account the changes I make to the export_descr_unit. I had edited this before I got battles to work, is that part of it? (I know i'm editing it right as it works for other versions I play)

[Gigantus]

The way I read it you are using the main folder of the game to mod files.

NOT a smart idea, for a variety of reasons - one of them having to add the file_first line (so the game reads the edited files) to the CFG file and making it read-only as the game will remove the entry otherwise. That disables settings changed via options to be permanent.
If you haven't modded a large amount of stuff I would suggest that you install my basic mod set up and then copy all your edited files there. That way your unpacked files will provide a back up for what ever you work on.

[Bob the monkey]

DUDE THANK YOU
this is sooo useful.
Say I want to edit a unit specific to a kingdoms campaign (e.g. byzantine firethrowers) can i just copy and paste the crusades export_descr_unit into geomod or does it need other files to go along with it? (e.g. textures thay unit might need)

[Gigantus]

It's a bit more tricky, but you are right in principle that it's a copy\paste operation - check the details of this tutorial.
More info from another angle can be found here.

[Bob the monkey]

So in your guide you said I need to find export_unit.txt to get the correct description and name etc when creating a new unit, but there's a problem. I can't find export_units (not export_descr_unit) for crusades, I tried unpacking with the '--filter=export_descr_unit.txt' tag, which works for other files but not this one. My unpacker is currently set to: unpacker.exe --source=..\..\mods\crusades\packs\*.pack --destination=..\..\ --verbosity=1 --base_pack_path=mods/crusades/data/--filter=export_unit.txt
this usually works but I still don't get it. I get an export_unit.bin but I can't open those, it's fairly warped in notepad++. Is that the right one? or am i looking for the wrong file?

[Gigantus]

The pack only contains the string.bin version - you would normally require the converter and the correct python version to get the TXT version. In your case (rare use of this) I would suggest to use the BinEditor instead - simply 'open' the string.bin file with it and then 'export' it. That will create the TXT version.
There are some string.bin files none of the converters can handle - those you can get here already converted.

[Basil_pup]

How can I make certain of that the game uses files not packs? Ofc I added "[io] file_first = true" to medieval2.preference.cfg, but I read there http://t-a-w.blogspot.ru/2009/11/why...edieval-2.html that it does not work sometimes. I tried to check renaming "packs" folder in the root of game. Medieval 2 crashes. Does game still need this folder even with unpacked resources ? P.S. Medieval 1.03, thanks in advance.

[Gigantus]

Once you have unpacked the main game then you will not require the pack files. There is however no reason to remove or rename the pack files unless you are running out of disk space.

Not sure why anybody would say 'file_first' doesn't work - that's simply not true. And I can't find anything in that blog that says that in the first place. That CFG entry simply means that files are being searched for in this sequence:

1. in the mod directory - if the CFG file is in a mods directory
2. in the main directory
3. in the pack files

Sometimes the unpacking itself doesn't work because of a missing file (usually found in the main directory) that the unpacker needs.

And advising to 'simply download this file' to fix a bug without explaining about the file_first entry is simply sloppy.
One thing about changing entries in the medieval.preferences.cfg file: unless you make the file read-only your entry will be removed at the next game start and THEN is doesn't work BECAUSE the entry isn't there anymore.

[Morrigana]

ok so i really really really need a little bit help. All im trying to do is rebalance some unit stats in the export_descr_unit file. Ive put the two missing files from the main directory into the unpacker file and unpacked it, ive deleted the geography files that needed to be deleted and ive changed the [io] files_first=true after disabling read first then re enabling it. however now im kinda stuck, ive tried everything just get that one file to work. The first time i accidentally forgot to rename my data folder before unpacking, this caused all the text inside the main campaign to disappear and i couldnt figure out how to fix that so i reinstalled and started this over. Now i have all the unpacked data (just for the main campaign i havent even started to touch the kingdoms yet) in its own folder and ive tried putting just the export_descr_unit file its own mod folder in the mod section, and ive tried putting it through mod>modname(ive just been using UUS)>data then putting it in that data file and then all the audio for the game pretty much stopped working and i couldn't even choose to start a campaign(gave the usual choose an item from the list message) so i tried putting all the unpacked data into that new mod folder then tried to run that and that made no difference.(ive been putting it in a mod because i use steam and you can change the launch options to run mods super quick and easy this way). so any advice help would be greatly appreciated, ive been trying to fix this for at least the past 24 hours reading everything i could find to no avail, i use windows 10 and i couldn't find anything about the U>a>C. so i dont know if that even exists for windows ten or not or if that would effect this. also i haven't tried it but would just putting the changed export_descr_unit file into the normal old data path fix it? i feel like it would conflict with the normal one in there but i dont know, thank you in advance for any advice any of you can give

[Morrigana]

sorry i meant U.A.C. user account control caus eik that caused problems for older versions of windows

[Gigantus]

Don't edit the original files in the original folders, that's just asking for trouble - use my modding set up instead. For more advanced unpacking options see here.

[KingXDestroyer]

Hey, so when I try to unpacker both teutonic and/or britannia, the cmd closes abruptly. When I put a pause code on there it seem it has an issue opening "large_castle_12_square_balista_tower_roof_animation_a.anim" which is located in mods/teutonic/data/blockset/north_european/animations/tower_castle_animations/castle_large_stone_tower_animations.
All help would be appreciated.

[shimzofremnik]

Thank you, I have spent few hours today trying to find solution for my missing folders, I am trying to edit salt resource in the game and it is so frustrating.

[drewd006]

Help!!! I can't find an answer to this question online. I have M2TW Gold, I unpacked all. I downloaded missing Gold files and unpacked them. Yet I still can't find units_models folder in my data. I have Windows 7. Where did I go wrong?


Please Help

[Gigantus]

That's mildly weird. Try this method of unpacking and then check after unpacking.

What files are missing in the Gold edition?