Factional Perfection.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

The thing I really like about Extended Realism aside from the fact the AI seems smarter than it was before (due to BI I think) is that all the major factions are now in the game. Each region now has a native faction to contest any would-be invader due to the ability to add new factions without taking out any old factions. There aren't hardly any faction-free regions any more. And the Epirots and the Galatians are now in the game!

I really like the addition of Epirus in particular. Hence why I am presently invading Italy as Pyrrus and wiping out the nasty Romans in their cradle. Admittedly I've had complication because after killing off everyone of note in the Senate, the Roman Gladiators have taken it upon themselves to take over Rome! I was hoping I would simply see a rump bunch of 'Roman rebels' with a handful of velites and hastati to defend Rome, not a funny menagerie of scary troops from all over the world including elephants (that they can somehow afford elephants to die in their circus yet cannot manage to field them to defend their city in their hour of need is a sure sign of Roman decadence).

Ideally the whole world could be owned by full factions but I reckon that at present a good job has been done under the circumstances.

[Quinn Inuit]

The battle AI has also been heavily modified by several people (most recently, me, but mostly Sinhuet).

I'm glad that you like the current faction balance, but I just can't agree that we've represented all of the important ones. The Lusitanni don't behave in an appropriately aggressive fashion as rebels, Pergamum's not in there, the Insubres and Arverni weren't allied (I didn't want to remove them, so I had to put them in the same faction), and the Greeks aren't properly divided. I think we can really improve it in the next version.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

The battle AI has also been heavily modified by several people (most recently, me, but mostly Sinhuet).

I'm glad that you like the current faction balance, but I just can't agree that we've represented all of the important ones. The Lusitanni don't behave in an appropriately aggressive fashion as rebels, Pergamum's not in there, the Insubres and Arverni weren't allied (I didn't want to remove them, so I had to put them in the same faction), and the Greeks aren't properly divided. I think we can really improve it in the next version.

I know. Ideally it would be possible to make every single province owned at the start of the game. Every faction would then have a rebel faction, allowing us to get rid of rebels completely except for bandits and pirates. We could then even rename them the "criminals" even.

But given the restrictions on the number of factions in the game I reckon the present faction set up is as optimal as it could be made without breaking the restrictions that are imposed by the game. However rebels break the game realism I reckon completely.

That is the reason I am NOT in favor of leaving any large areas (say Illyria, Iberia or Britain) in the hands of rebels precisely because rebels are at war with everyone. This silly unrealistic situation means that whole areas are cut off from trade with the outside world except with other rebel cities. Dividing the world up in this way is rather silly. Rebel cities are a sad necessary concession to the game engine but an atrocity to Realism.

What I don't understand is that if the AI has indeed been modified as you say why it isn't possible to 'break' the faction limit, surely that is an easier and simpler process than changing the AI.

Surely one can simply add as many extra faction slots to the end of whatever part of the file the faction slots are stored in? This was already done in creating Barbarian Invasions, it cannot be so difficult or complicated else they wouldn't have been able to afford to do it.

As for the legal issues, how are there more issues to it than there is with changing the AI? And whose going to care? We are doing them a favor by improving their game for them for free.

Once properly broken every province in the game can be owned by the appropriate historical faction, each of which would also have a rebel version of itself. We could represent the various tribal groupings of 'barbarians' and various greek cities. It is a lot better than the anachronistic nationalistic system at the moment even though I complimented the talent of the RTR team and implementing it as realistically as possible.

Even better some of those factions can be emergent factions. They need not exist at the beginning of the game. We could see the re-emergence of nations that existed before the game period but were eliminated. Just think of some examples of what we could have.

The Samnites.
Babylon.
Assyria.
Persia.
Egypt.
Isreal/Judea.

With all the regional units we have created, it would not be hard to create an army list for the emergant factions.

[Incomitatus]

What I don't understand is that if the AI has indeed been modified as you say why it isn't possible to 'break' the faction limit, surely that is an easier and simpler process than changing the AI.

Surely one can simply add as many extra faction slots to the end of whatever part of the file the faction slots are stored in? This was already done in creating Barbarian Invasions, it cannot be so difficult or complicated else they wouldn't have been able to afford to do it.

As for the legal issues, how are there more issues to it than there is with changing the AI? And whose going to care? We are doing them a favor by improving their game for them for free.

As far as I understand it, there is a serious technical issue here - namely that the 'end of whatever part of the file the faction slots are stored in' is an encrypted file, aka 'hardcoded', that could only be accessed through hacking the propriety code. Whereas the things which are regularly modified are text files or spreadsheets, and were designed by CA with easy modification in mind.

So yes, CA can make changes easily enough to roll out an expansion, because they have the internal software tools to allow them to access the appropriate files and make the needed changes, not to mention the legal right to do so. We have none of those things. We can only access and change what CA has decided to let us access and change.

An exampe: A lot of Empire: Total War folks are upset because CA promised modders access to tools that would make it the most moddable TW game yet... and those tools and that access has not been forthcoming.

Unless and until the source code is publically released, which may very well be never, the things you are asking for are not possible in a mod. Unless some nifty work-around can be developed like this 'superfaction' idea bouncing around here...

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

As far as I understand it, there is a serious technical issue here - namely that the 'end of whatever part of the file the faction slots are stored in' is an encrypted file, aka 'hardcoded', that could only be accessed through hacking the propriety code. Whereas the things which are regularly modified are text files or spreadsheets, and were designed by CA with easy modification in mind.

So yes, CA can make changes easily enough to roll out an expansion, because they have the internal software tools to allow them to access the appropriate files and make the needed changes, not to mention the legal right to do so. We have none of those things. We can only access and change what CA has decided to let us access and change.

An exampe: A lot of Empire: Total War folks are upset because CA promised modders access to tools that would make it the most moddable TW game yet... and those tools and that access has not been forthcoming.

Unless and until the source code is publically released, which may very well be never, the things you are asking for are not possible in a mod. Unless some nifty work-around can be developed like this 'superfaction' idea bouncing around here...

What is the super-faction idea?

I am intrigued though. How would you change the AI without breaking the encryption though? I already knew it couldn't be done easily, else it would have been done already. It would just be cool what we could do if we could change that annoying part of the file.

Given the limitations under which we are placed I reckon that things have been done perfectly hence the title of the thread.

[Maurits]

Can't we collect money, sent it to CA and get permission to change hard-coded things like faction slot limit?

[Cheomesh]

We would have to buy the source code.

M.

[Maurits]

Would they care? Imo they don't get lots of money of RTW anymore: it's in stores for 3 euro!

[Carados]

They should just give it us!

In fact, they should just give us the contract for the next X amount of total war games, because I'm sure we'll all do a better job of it!

[Quinn Inuit]

Yeah, or at least the stuff they don't want to do (e.g., the AI, historical research, balancing, etc.).

[Caesar Augustus]

When I win the lottery, I'll buy the source code, just for you guys...

[Carados]

GAH!
I made a nice post and then closed the window...

Since I can't be bothered doing it all again, it might be worth your while looking through this thread:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t=superfaction