Is there any way to use 'create_unit' for units from another faction?

[Sir Bobbert]

For instance, when playing as England I use the 'create_unit' command for certain units existing within a foreign faction; so for example's sake:

'create_unit London "Highland Nobles" 4 3 3 3'

Now, using this command does indeed give me that unit, but it appears not only as an icon depicting a gray-dressed peasant-like individual, but in real time battle, the unit itself appears as grayish, silverish, ghost-like or whatever else you want to call it.

Does anyone know what I mean by this? And does anyone know how to get rid of that effect so that - going off the example - the Highland Nobles appear just as they would were I playing as Scotland?

Thanks in advance.

[Faris ad Din]

Easy. Yes, let's say your forcibly create that unit when using another faction. But the units in M2:TW are two (really three) things - a MESH, or just the 3d shape/outline of the unit, and a 2d SKIN which is overlaid on the 3d mesh.

The infamous gray peasant is simply a "generic" unit card that the game defaults to when no proper unit card is available in Medieval II Total War/data/ui/units and data/ui/unitinfo. You can temporarily get rid of the gray peasant by copying the unit card of the Highland Nobles from the Scotland folders and copying it to the England folders, but you would get the same color unit. To get an England-colored unit card, you'd simply have to make it using Photoshop or another art program, friend.

You can also remedy the silver unit syndrome by editing the Medieval II Total War/data/unit_models/battle_models. This battle_model file is a bit more complicated and I'd suggest you search on the Mod Workshop forums on how to decipher and edit it. It's much messier than editing unit models in Rome: Total War because this time you have to add counters of HOW MANY CHARACTERS each string the game has to read and how many lines and so forth like:
2 [factions for the unit model] 8 [number of letters in "scotland"] scotland 7 [number of letters in "england"] england etc. etc. etc.
Then you'd either directly borrow the script for the Scottish Highland Nobles and add them for an England entry, or... be more ingenious and find some unit SKIN that may just fit onto the Highland Noble body mesh neatly.

This is what I did to create a sword unit for Egypt; I created a new unit using the Moors' Urban Militia mesh, but it looks so similar to the Saracen Militia model, down to armor and shield except for weapon, I was able to simply use the Saracen Militia skin and use it on top of the Urban Militia mesh. This will make the unit look like an authentic Egyptian Urban Militia up close.

Now a third problem you'd have to deal with is sprites. At long ranges the game can't handle the generation of thousands of individual 3d soldiers, so instead it phases those out and shows you 2d sprites. These have to be made if they're not available or you have to improvise (I used Saracen Militia sprites since you can't make out swords or spears at a good enough distance). Otherwise I think you get the gray peasant sprite that has plagued modders since Rome Total War. I hope this is enough to at least give you some understanding of what's going on, if it isn't enough to help you figure out how to fix it.

[Sir Bobbert]

Well there's certainly a bit to sorting it out that I wasn't aware of. Oh well, I could try tackling it sometime later. Thanks, that helped.