Making Vampire generals immortal

[Lanjane]

Here is a tutorial to make vampire generals immortal (as it should be ). Hope somebody finds it useful.

At first you should find somewhere RomeTW-ALX.exe and file chat_filter.san from alexander's folder. File must go to eod2 folder, exe - to main RTW folder, and shortcut to End Of Days must be edited to run EOD2 from ALX.exe.
For example:

"C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\RomeTW-ALX.exe" -show_err -nm -mod:bi\eod2 -enable_editor

Next, find export_descr_character_traits.txt file and add this to the end of traits section:

;------------------------------------------
Trait Immortal
Characters family
Hidden

Level Immortal
Description Immortal_desc
EffectsDescription Immortal_effects_desc
Threshold 1

and this to the end of triggers section:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;------------------------------------------
Trigger birth_immortal_vandals
WhenToTest CharacterComesOfAge

Condition FactionType vandals

Affects Immortal 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger adoption_immortal_vandals
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption

Condition FactionType vandals

Affects Immortal 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger lesser_general_immortal_vandals
WhenToTest LesserGeneralOfferedForAdoption

Condition FactionType vandals

Affects Immortal 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger marriage_immortal_vandals
WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage

Condition FactionType vandals

Affects Immortal 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger end_turn_catch_immortal_vandals
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition FactionType vandals
and Trait Immortal = 0
and IsGeneral

Affects Immortal 1 Chance 100
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Next, open export_VnVs.txt from eod2/data/text folder and add this:

¬--------------------

{Immortal} Immortal

{Immortal_desc}
Hidden VnV for ALX

{Immortal_effects_desc}
No Effects

Finally, add this to export_descr_VnVs_enums.txt:

Immortal
Immortal_desc
Immortal_effects_desc

So, from now all of your rahala generals will be immortal. The same about severins, if you'll add same triggers for them. Enjoy!

Edit: IMPORTANT!
To play Severin campaign or Year 730 all factions campaign you should download a small fix, by makanyane, here. There are two files in archive, and they must be placed in bi\eod2\data\text folder. If not, you'll experience CTD when trying to start these two campaigns.
Also, custom battles and historical battles (if there will be any) won't work. It's due to limitations of compatibility of RTW-BI and RTW-ALX. Maybe that will be fixed later.

[Halie Satanus]

Cool.

Vampyres and immortality is a contentious subject, while most versions of Vampyre genetic evolution involve mention of immortality they almost always depict Vampyres as ageing, albeit very slowly. Even Dracula himself, when first encountered by Jonathan Harker, appears as an elderly man and while he is said to have the power to transform his appearance it is as the 'elderly man' he meets his end while in a weakened state, which imo means he had aged. In the 'Vampyre chronicles' the Vampyres are said to undergo a molecular change over time especially those who refuse to drink blood for long periods. In 'Blade' (which is closer to the EoD II version than Dracula or the chronicles)) the pure bloods definitely age and die.

[Lanjane]

Halie Satanus

Even if not completely immortal, vampires should be very, very, very old, much older than campaigning time for even the most patient players. My campaigns never were more than 300 years long. Vampires surely can be 300 years old, mm?

[Halie Satanus]

Certainly, Dracula would have been approximately 636 years old by the time he travelled to London. In the Vampyre chronicles 'Lestat' is a baby at around 300 years, while 'Akasha' the (queen of the dammed) is over 6000 years old.

The immortality element in Alex is a nice addition.

[Lanjane]

The immortality element in Alex is a nice addition.

Will you use it in next patch?

[Halie Satanus]

We don't have a patch planned but if this does work then perhaps Makanyane can sticky it (I don't seem to be a local mod here) ..

[Lanjane]

It works correctly, I'm playing campaign using it

[Prince Nuada]

nice work lanjane

[makanyane]

I just stickied this - then unstickied again pending a couple of problems....

traits look absolutely fine ,
if you can get EoDII running through Alex I highly recommend adding them....

only trouble is I'm having difficulty getting it running via Alex - last time I tried it completely refused (and yes I know about the chat_filter.san) - tried just now and it worked for Lycans campaign fine..... but I can't yet get into custom battles at all (EDIT: giving it 'Alexander / imperial campaign' campaign folder isn't helping) - and get instant CTD trying to get into Severin campaign
(I have vague suspicion it might just be me, that my computer
doesn't like Alex.exe, as I've had strange problems with other Alex mods)

lanjane, could you check does Severin campaign work for you? also are you fighting the campaign battles on the battle map? if so are formations for Talamasca and units like Deava Spearmen that used shield_wall formation working?

[Lanjane]

Good evening, makanyane!

I'm surprised seeing CTD with Severins too... Rahala campaign works fine, and I've already played a lot of battle-map battles, as well as tested immortality trait for generals in campaign.

Shield wall/shiltrom formations don't work from now, it's a well known fact that they were disabled in Alexander engine.

Edit: and custom battles/historical battles (I've added some) don't work too...

Edit2: There isn't any troubles with Rahala campaign, Lycans campaign and Talamascan campaign, as I noticed, but when I try to select Severin cmp or "Year 730 all factions", the game crashes immediately without any error messages....

[makanyane]

thanks for confirming that some of problems aren't just me....
I'll have another look and try and work out what the relevant differences in the campaigns that aren't working are....

Re: shield_wall, I know if you leave 'can_swim' type commands in export_descr_units and that RTW type .exe's that don't support them generally ignore them, what I was a worried about was that I'd also used

unit_formation shield_wall

unit_type non_shield_wall_spear 0.5

type commands in descr_formations_ai.txt
and I've no idea how it would handle that, if it ignores it its probably not big problem but formations might not be optimal.....

[Lanjane]

makanyane
Also, have you seen test "barbarian_invasion" campaign, which appears when running from ALX.exe? It can be played, and severins can be selected in it... So the key to the problem isn't in sarmatians (=severin) faction, possibly it's in some differences between descr_strat.txt files for optional campaigns...

[makanyane]

thanks, have now worked out the problem with the other two campaigns...

under BI if you have same map regions in the provincial campaigns as in barbarian_invasion, you don't actually need to make a new
custom_campaign_name_regions_and_settlements_names.txt
in data/text....
for Alex , apparently even if you have same names as Alexander / barbarian_invasion folder you do; hence you need
SEVERIN_regions_and_settlements_names.txt
and
Year730-AllFactions_regions_and_settlement_names.txt
which are just re-named duplicates of the other files, I didn't add them in BI after I realised the other ones weren't necessary, but they are needed to run under Alex.exe ---- that was the missing differnce between the campaigns.

The custom battle bit I think might take a bit more to resolve - have remembered people having similar problems getting RTW custom battles to work under BI.exe and think they had to add a main campaign folder using the BI faction names, so this might need an Alex folder with RTW/Alex faction names, not entirely sure of that bit yet!

[Lanjane]

makanyane
Thanks for a fix!
I'm not really sure you need to create any folders with alexander factions as you describe, because, for example, AQD's more realistic RTR minimod is perfectly running from ALX.exe, in spite of he was created based on RTW-BI switch folder... I asked aqd how he enabled custom battles, and he said he only had added "-noalexander" parameter in shortcut for his mod. But when I had tried the same, it didn't help...

[makanyane]

Alex and RTW internal faction names are the same - I think RTR based mods use RTW names so they shouldn't have a problem converting, if it is the faction names causing hitch.

I think RTW/Alex based mods at one stage had this sort of problem using BI.exe, if I can find example of what they did to fix, reverse might work... Alternatively we can just say custom battles won't work via Alex and stop there, so long as all the campaigns perform OK it's not that necessary to fix custom battles for it, more a matter of curiosity as to why it's not working

[Lanjane]

makanyane
I've just tested vanilla BI too (just removed all horde features in descr_sm_factions to run BI from ALX.exe), and custom battles don't work too... More than curious! I think you are right about faction names conflict.

[Prince Nuada]

adding -noalexander does make custom battles playable its been done for a long time already

[makanyane]

Prince Nuada, does that actually work for you with EoDII?

I've added that to my shortcut and it's not helping

[Prince Nuada]

the campaign doesnt work for me makanyane it ctds

[makanyane]

the campaign doesnt work for me makanyane it ctds

Is that any campaign or just Severin & Year730? if its the last two you need the files from the attachment in post 13
they need to go in bi/eod2/data/text/

how about custom battles? was it this mod or something else you tried the -noalexander on?