How to make other clans playable
Hello,
I have been asked to make this tutorial, which will show you how to make minor clans playable. I know there are other tutorials, but I will make this one so people dont have to look far. It is very basic. This way you will be able to play any clan you want at any time. When you get the hang of it, it shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes. It's simple trust me, you just have to concentrate a bit.
What do I need?
You will need PFM (pack file manager), MMS (multi mod support), Assembly Kit and a program that can open .tga files (this is not vital for your mod, but it will be prettier), I use paint.net. You can easily download these programs (you have all the instructions on how to install them, so read carefully):
MMS http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ltiMod-Support
PFM http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?680538
paint.net http://www.techradar.com/downloads/paint-net
The Assembly Kit you will find in Steam/Library/Tools/S2 Assembly Kit
Part 1
Before we start, there is another thing you will have to do.
Go to SteamApps/common/S2/data. There you will find data.pack file. Now what you will do is extract the files you need for modding.
Open data.pack with PFM and once you expand it go to ui/flags, select it and press ctrl+x, or right click on it and select Extract/Extract Selected.
Then, go to ui/frontend ui/skins. There you will find a number of button.tga files. What you need is e.g. button_date_active (and down, down_off, inactive, selected, hover). You have to extract those six files. For FotS or Gempei they are called button_boshin_clan_... and button_gempei_clan_... respectively. There are only four of those files, but dont worry there is nothing wrong with that, just extract those four. Remember, that is the clan you will be changing later. So make sure you extract the right files.
What these files do and how you will use them: The button.tga files represent the small mons in clan selection screen, the ones you select. Now you will change that mon to your wanted clan mon. This is purely esthetic. But I think it looks nice ingame.
The button.tga files should now be in your S2/data/UI/frontend ui/skins, and the flags should be in S2/data/UI/flags.
Now you will need MMS. Go to the location where you installed it and run the application. Create a new mod. Go to Mod/Add and name it however you want. Leave MMS open and go to wherever you installed your Assembly Kit. Then go to working_data. From S2/data copy UI folder and paste it to working_data. Getting too complicated for you yet?
While in working_data/UI/frontend ui/skins, open your button.tga files you want to change with paint.net, or any other program that can open them. Here I will tell you how to do it with paint.net, because that's what I know. Go to Layers/Import From File. A quick way is to search your PC for the flags you extracted. Just type the name of the clan and open the file. There you will find mon_64 picture. Import that picture. You will have to do a bit of adjusting now, if you want to make things nice and right. It's not so hard. Just cover the original mon with your new mon, go to Save (remember to save as .tga file) and overwrite when asked, paint.net will also ask you to "flatten" the file, just click ok . You have to do this for all of the button.tga files. So open another one. This time it will be easier. When you go to Import, it will already be in the skins folder, so find the file you changed and import it. Save (as .tga file), and overwrite when asked. Not very complicated is it?
When you are done, dont close MMS or working_data. You still need them.
Now go to S2/data and open models.pack file. While there, go to rigidmodels/flags and extract agent_faction_ids.tai and banners.tai (for expansions it's agent_faction_ids_boshin/gempei.tai and banners_boshin/gempei.tai). Once you did that, you should be able to find them in S2/data/rigidmodels/flags/textures. Now copy rigidmodelsfile from data, and paste it to your working_data, just like before (you didn't close MMS did you?). In those .tai files (agent_faction_ids and banners) you will see all the clans. These files determine what flags the clans will use in the game, as the name itself says. Go to working_data/rigidmodels/flags/textures and open the .tai files. Find the major and minor clans you are changing. Now switch their names. E.g. if I am changing Shimazu to Ito I have to change mon_stratbanner_shimazu_diffuse.tga to mon_stratbanner_ito_diffuse.tga, and mon_agentID_shimazu_diffuse.tga to mon_agentID_ito_diffuse.tga, and viceversa, mon_stratbanner_ito_diffuse.tga to mon_stratbanner_shimazu_diffuse.tga and mon_agentID_ito_diffuse.tga to mon_agentID_shimazu_diffuse.tga. You only have to change those names, leave everything else as it is, dont change any of the numbers to the right!
Once you did that save your changes. Dont close working_data yet. Now go to MMS (which should have remained open, I'm reminding you). There is a button on the bottom that says Launch BOB (your mod must be set as active as well, a small star next to the name indicates that in MMS, if it's not, select your mod and go to Mod/Set Active). Click the button. This will start BOB. While there, you will se three columns, Raw Data, Working Data and Retail. You need to find rigidmodels and UI in Working Data. Now tick the boxes next to them. If you tick any of those two it will tick the other one you need and some other boxes, but that is all fine, dont untick any of those, leave it as it is. So when you did that, click Start, in the bottom right. When BOB is done just exit it. go back to MMS and, while your mod is selected, click Postprocess/Optimize, then Postprocess/Install.
Now you are finaly done with this part! I hope it wasnt too cmplicated for you. I think this is really simple stuff. There is maybe another, more simple way of doing this. I just dont know how to do it just with PFM, I have tried and it didn't work. So if anyone has a better idea please share it with us!
Part 2
Now we go to the real thing. Open PFM and go to File/New. Important: go to Options and untick "Ca Packs Are Read Only", click "I'm not affraid, coward!", because we are not!
When done, right click in the area bellow your mod (the left hand side of PFM) and click Add/From Pack, go to S2/data and select data.pack. This will open a new window. Expand data. By right clicking on subfolders you add them and everything inside them, and by double clicking you only add certain things you want (from subfolders). What you want to add is campaigns (not campaign, campaign_maps or campaign_data). You can add the whole file, or just the subfolders you want to change (for S2 right click on jap_shogun, for gempei jap_gempei). For FotS you need to add files from data_fots/campaigns. You will also need files from db, so dont close the window yet. Go to data/db and right click faction_banners_tables, faction_unifirm_colours_tables and factions_tables. You also need to add local_en/text/db/factions.loc.
Now lets get started.
1. The first thing is to change region ownership. Go to campaigns/jap_shogun or whichever you are changing and click on startpos.esf. There go to CAMPAIGN_PREOPEN_MAP_INFO/REGION_OWNERSHIPS_BY_THEATRE/REGION_OWNERSHIPS_BY_THEATRE-0/RGION_OWNERSHIPS. Here you can see all the regions and which clans own them.
What you want is to switch the region ownership between the major and minor clans you are chaning. E.g. if I'm changing Ito and Shimazu I will find the regions they own, and bellow the names of the region switch the clan names. So bellow jap_osumi I will write shimazu and bellow jap_satsuma I will write ito (remember to write these names exactly as they are written originaly). For clans like Hojo and Hatakeyama, who have more than one province, you have to switch ownership for all of the provinces they have.
2. Next, go to COMPRESSED_DATA/CAMPAIGN_ENV/CAMPAIGN_MODEL/WORLD/FACTION_ARRAY. Here are all the clans. In the case of shogun 2 vanilla, the first 12 factions are the playable clans. It's the same for the expansions, with playable clans in the begining.
Now, remember the clans you want to change. For my example it's Shimazu and Ito. So expand FACTION_ARRAY-2 and FACTION_ARRAY-12 and click on FACTION. In the third row you will see a clan name. What you want to do is switch those names, just like everything else before. So in FACTION_ARRAY-2 I will write ito and in FACTION_ARRAY-12 I will write shimazu (remember to write the names exactly as they were written originaly).
Then, when you expand FACTION_ARRAY-2/FACTION, there are two rows at the end called CAMPAIGN_LOCALISATION. You want to change the first one. In this case I have factions_screen_name_shimazu, and I have to change it to factions_screen_name_ito. Leave the other one alone. Do the same for Ito, change factions_screen_name_ito to factions_screen_name_shimazu.
You are pretty much done here. There are small details still missing, like victory conditions. But first, there is another thing. If you go to CAMPAIGN_PREOPEN_MAP_INFO/FACTION_INFOS you will see the faction informations that appear in the clan selection while in game. Things like difficulty level and number of provinces owned. You can change these. If your minor clan has more than one province, or less provinces than the major can, and your major clan has fewer, or more than the minor, you can change the 8th row. That number displays the number of provinces controled. The same thing with difficulty, but I dont really think you have to change that, as it has no impact on the game.
Now for the victory conditions. Go to CAMPAIGN_PREOPEN_MAP_INFO/VICTORY_CONDITION_OPTIONS. Here you have to find the major clan you are changing. If you expand any of those options you will find vic conditions for all of the difficulties. Dont change Block-2, that is for co-op versus campaign I believe. I reccomend going to data.pack and then db/regions_tables. There you will find all of the regions and the keys you must use for your vic conditions (found on the left side of the table). Write the keys you want in one of your vic conditions (remember to keep them separated, and written correctly), and then just copy and paste them to all others (except Block-2). You will have to do it with your mouse, as it doesn't work with the keyboard (for me atleast). And that's it for startpos.esf editing.
3. Now you will go to db. You will be changing faction_banners_tables and the rest of those.
Faction_banners determine the look of the sashimono on the units in battle. What you have to do is, you guessed it, switch the colors of the two clans you are changing. What I do is add a new row, copy one of the two rows there, change the one I copied with the second one, and then copy the first one (from the new row) to the second one (did that make any sense to you?). Dont forget to also change the simbols for the sashimono.
Next, go to faction_uniform_colours. I dont think I have to explain this one. Do the same thing as above, just switch the colours.
Finaly, go to factions_tables. There is a lot of info here, but dont worry. What you have to do here is find your two clans. In my case it's Ito and Shimazu. You have to switch screen_name and screen_adjective, like everything before. Also the flags_path, just switch them. Remember to write everything correctly. There are two windows that you can tick called early_availability and late_availability. If you tick them, the clan will appear in custom battles.
The next thing you have to change are the numbers that you find if you go a little bit to the right. The numbers from primary_colour_r all the way to b6. For all minor clans the last last six numbers are the same, but not for all major clans, so keep an eye on that. I honesty dont know what they affect in the game, but better be safe than sorry. So just do the same thing, add a new row and copy one of the two there. Change the one you copied, and then copy the first one (from the new row) to the second one (am I making any sense here again?). You dont have to delete the new rows you made in these tables, but I always do it just in case. You are done here.
4. Finaly we are almost done. The last thing here is text. Go to text/db and click on factions.loc. Here are all of the names for the factions, shogunates etc. You have to find faction_screen_adjective_{clan} and faction_screen_name_{clan} (for FotS and Gempei the prefixes are bos and gem, respectively). Again, switch the names. In my case I will change faction_screen_adjective_shimazu and faction_screen_name_shimazu to Ito, and viceversa. You also have to change factions_clan_summary_name_{clan} and factions_clan_summary_name_when_shogun_{clan}. I changed them to The Ito Clan and The Ito Shogunate respectively. It's a bit different for FotS because they have Domains, but the principle is the same. Just switch them.
5. The LAST step! Remember the .tai and .tga files we were chaning in the beginig? Well now you will import them to your mod. Right click and Add/From Pack. Go to your mod that you made before, and right click on rigidmodels, then go to ui and right click frontend ui. Click save and you are done!
So there it is. This is not perfect as I dont know how to change .lua files, which you need for missions, so they will remain the same. If you know how to do it, please tell me. I really tried to explain this as best as I could, but if you are stuck somewhere just tell me, I'll try to help you. If you go to steam workshop you can find the mods I made this way (e.g. Kyushu Clans), so you can see them as examples. Again they are not perfect, as I am pretty much new to this.
Cheers!
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Re: How to make other clans playable
Originally Posted by kugkings
