Aztec/Native american settlements for Chaos/Dwarves ?

[Massive_attack]

This is something ive been thinking about for a while now, i really wish that the settlements resembled what they looked like on the campaign map. Chaos settlements would just work so well with the aztec ziggaurauts and such, and as for dwarves, it would just look look better than the boring generic castles we have now.

Just a thought for the team, this is undoubtedly hard to do, but i think it would be awesome !

[UberGrunt]

I think they're already making some custom strat map models. Check the Path 1.4 mini preview page. The more recent pages have them.

[Scipio praeditus]

I don't think he's talking about strat map models but about the battle map, I've suggested the same thing to the team several months ago (not sure about the entire team, but isilendil read it at least), and I think they are wise enough to get the idea themselves.

In the Gotrek&Felix novels (amongst others) stepped piramids are a recurring description of the main buildings in both chaos and dwarf settlements, so lacking custom battlemap buildings in MTW, the aztec buildings are certainly the second best choice and should be very easy to implement.

[Massive_attack]

Thats correct, i meant in terms of the battle-map.

Though im unsure how "easy" it will be. I have little experience in this. Even still, the improvement would be vast if it was done.

[Werebear]

Thats correct, i meant in terms of the battle-map.

Though im unsure how "easy" it will be. I have little experience in this. Even still, the improvement would be vast if it was done.

I think for now it is impossible, current converter only alpha vesion as i know

[Scipio praeditus]

I think for now it is impossible, current converter only alpha vesion as i know

But what do you need a converter for if the buildings are already in the game?

EDIT: Just to be clear, we are talking about the Aztec buildings that are in MTWII, not custom made buildings.

[Russian Gondor]

I heard that it was possible for Rome Total War?

[The Holy Pilgrim]

For Rome, yes. But there are many more features that you can do in Medieval 2 that couldn't be done in Rome, such as having 31 factions, single-man units in custom battles, and awesome models.

[Cleardream]

For Rome, yes. But there are many more features that you can do in Medieval 2 that couldn't be done in Rome, such as having 31 factions, single-man units in custom battles, and awesome models.

Single man units were actually easier to implement in RTW if I remember correctly.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

In campaign modes, yes. In custom battle, you had to stick with normal sized units in order to use them.

[Kahvipannu]

After some digging, found this thread, and Widdogs comment:

You can set both strat and battle at a faction level.

You set strat models in the mod folder data\models_strat\residences\faction_variants

for battle models you create a unique worldpkgdesc file and amend the faction info (hex edit) it. Just look at the Teutonic file for this.

You can also use the forts

Someone has experience/advice on this matter (Hex edit)?

[Massive_attack]

I dabbled in hex editing a little bit but... I really dont know what changing this file would entail. All i ever did was change specific numbers of code... Plus I dont know what number to edit. Bah, im useless, sorry

Edit: somebody should PM wilddog

[Kahvipannu]

I dabbled in hex editing a little bit but... I really dont know what changing this file would entail. All i ever did was change specific numbers of code... Plus I dont know what number to edit. Bah, im useless, sorry

Edit: somebody should PM wilddog

Could you do that, I would but I really don't even know how to do "hex-edit", or what it even means.. Or could you PM me what I need (programs, or if there is tutorials) to try it, so I could try if I get anything out of it.

EDIT:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...&highlight=hex
Here's how to edit forts in HEX, maybe this could be applied to settlements .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

HEX-editor
The only thing that is left for us to do now, is to somehow match the default buildable fort with a specific faction and a specific battle map model. Many different versions of fort battle map models have been made, and it would be nice to have some diversification (i.e. middle eastern typed buildings for Islamic factions, for instance).

As I have said before, the battle map models have nothing to do with the all the .txt-files you can find in the map ‘data’. In the beginning this appeared slightly odd to me, and I have spent a lot of time searching for some kind of solution in the .txt-files. One would or could, for instance, expect to assign forts the same way as models on the battle map. However, in the end, it appeared to be a little more complex than that.

First you will have to browse to your fort folder(s). You will find your stone fort models at the location we assigned them in the ‘placement’-section of this tutorial. Every fort’s battle map model is accompanied by a bunch of files, most of which are texture files. One of these files we are going to edit with an HEX-editor: “[fort_name].worldpkgdesc”, where [name] is the name of the fort model (e.g., ‘stone_fort_a’, ‘knightly_order_fort_b’ or ‘me_fort_a’). What we are going to do now is edit this file, so the game knows which forts to use. Before we can do so, you must download an HEX-editor; I would recommend this one (XVI32), a version that is widely used as you can see on the webpage.

Open the HEX-editor and browse to the “[fort_name].worldpkgdesc”-file, by default found at the following location:
“C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\[my_mod_name]\data\settlements\[culture]\ambient_settlements\[fort_name]\[fort_name].worldpkgdesc”

You will see two separate windows. On the left side, the HEX-code will be shown; every cell represents one character (either a letter or a number). On the right side, you can have a closer look at which character each HEX-code represents. In this right window, you can relatively easily add numbers and letters, for instance altering the system path of the fort file. In order to get our stone fort ingame, we are going to alter the system-path string (“settlements/north_european/…/stone_fort_h.world”) and the culture string (“greek”).



Now, let us look at an example I made. As can be seen below (image), the HEX-code is on the left screen and the corresponding information we are going to edit is on the right screen. Between every two bits of strings, there is a blank space: always a minimum of 3 spaces (represented by 00 on the left screen). Yet, between every readable bit of information displayed on the right screen, there is invisible information as well. These are the blank spaces, sometimes represented with a square-like symbol as can be seen in the image. This ‘invisible’ information (which is very important!) can be ‘seen’ on the left part of the screen. I highlighted the character of interest.



As you can see, there are 2 blank spaces after the word ‘settlement’ and 3 blank spaces before the string ‘settlements/north_european/…/stone_fort_h.world”. Between them, you can see the letter ‘N’ (right screen), corresponding with the HEX-code ‘4E’ (left screen). This code corresponds with the number of characters the next string has.



As highlighted in the screen above, this HEX-code ‘4E’ corresponds with the decimal number ‘78’. This represents the number of characters the system path has.



If we want to alter the system path (which can be easily done in the right screen by editing letters), we also have to alter the HEX-code (in this example: ‘4E’). Click on ‘edit’, then on ‘overwrite string’, as depicted in the screen below.



Then, select ‘HEX string’ and fill in the HEX-code which corresponds with the number of characters. To acquire the appropriate HEX-code, go to this website, enter the decimal value (i.e. the number of characters the new system-path string has) and copy the HEX-code into the HEX-string box, as depicted below.



Now, click op ‘ok’ and you are done J. Repeat these steps for the culture string as well. When you are short on characters in the right screen (i.e. you need more before the square-like symbols), you could also add these by selecting ‘edit’ and clicking on ‘insert string’.


HEX-editor: only one fort model
Let me, once again, be very clear: when you want the same bmm for each culture you need to copy the model and place them in the corresponding culture folders. Simply altering the “[fort_name].worldpkgdesc”-file by only editing the culture string will not work. Hence, you need to copy the fort folder to every culture folder and subsequently edit both the culture string and system-path string.


HEX-editor: buildable fort vs. non-buildable fort
If you want this fort to be the standard buildable fort for the culture you added the fort folder for, make sure the HEX-strings end with the phrase “wooden_fort”, as shown at the bottom of the right screen (see picture below). When this is done, the fort the .worldpkgdesc file belongs to indicates that this fort is the default fort, which can be build.



If you do not want this fort to be the default buildable fort, the file should end with the phrase “[stone_fort_name]”, where “[stone_fort_name]” represents the name of your fort. In case of our example shown in the screenshots, the name of the fort would be “stone_fort_h” (without the quotation marks).

And here's similar tutorial, how to change castle types to factions:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...&highlight=hex

I'll try to look into this too, tought no promises of success

[Kahvipannu]

Success.
Khorne city:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now the downside is that aztec uses only "small siced towns", so theyr style don't cover all "building types". One way to get around this (in castles) would be to give chaos teutonic-styled castles, which don't have any buildings (and which imo suits better chaos, and are funnier to play becouse of small size). But for bigger-settlements, there will propably always be some "european"-buildings.

I'll continue experimienting.

Edit: sorry for douplepost. Was ment to edit.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Wow! Very nice Kahvi! This may lead to an incrediable breakthrough!

+rep!

[Kahvipannu]

Wow! Very nice Kahvi! This may lead to an incrediable breakthrough!

+rep!

Maybe a breakthrough in this thread (), but the rep belongs to these tutorials authors:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...&highlight=hex
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...cking+kingdoms
But thanks mate

It seems that aztec settlements works fine with Chaos:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

..but teutonic castles can't be added to "Nord_culture" factions, so it is impossible to add them for Chaos I'll try to find solution, but I doubt there is one..

[Massive_attack]

Even still this is really great ! This, plus a quick retexture, and we have awesome chaos cities !

Edit: And perhaps later... awesome dwarf cities too. the Aztec buildings seem most appropriate for them overall. except for the large pyramid like temples... Hm.

[Kahvipannu]

Even still this is really great ! This, plus a quick retexture, and we have awesome chaos cities !

Yes, I had same in mind. I haven't started doing chaos textures yet, since I wanted to know if this could be implemented. I'll see if I can replace all buildings with aztec ones, that would make the re-texturing a lot easier, much less stuff to do.

Edit: And perhaps later... awesome dwarf cities too. the Aztec buildings seem most appropriate for them overall. except for the large pyramid like temples... Hm.

I'm not sure, but the temples might be possible to leave european ones, but some other buildings might be affected too. But I'm not sure if this works with dwarves at all, I'll test later.

[Scipio praeditus]

This looks awesome Khavi, with a retexture it would be just right for chaos, great work.

About using this for dwarfs, looking at it now those temples look a lot less suited than my memory made them appear.
Perhaps the temples could be compressed or stretched to be more in character.
Take the following picture of Karak Eight Peaks for instance;



Stretching an Aztec temple to double or three times it's height along with a decent retexture would make a good dwarf structure, compressing it to about half it's size on the other hand, might also give an acceptable result.
I can imagine though that this would take a lot of work and time, if it is at all possible.

With a good retexture the standard aztec ones might serve, but I think it would be better to just stick to castles for the dwarfs if editing the temples proves to be impossible.
Could it be possible however to make all dwarf culture battlemap models just be castles, including cities?
This alone would be a noteworthy improvement.

[Kahvipannu]

Yes, I'm having a bit of problems currently with properly changing settlement-types to CoW.. I'll let you know if I get it all sorted out.

Perhaps the temples could be compressed or stretched to be more in character.
Take the following picture of Karak Eight Peaks for instance;

Stretching an Aztec temple to double or three times it's height along with a decent retexture would make a good dwarf structure, compressing it to about half it's size on the other hand, might also give an acceptable result.
I can imagine though that this would take a lot of work and time, if it is at all possible.

Could it be possible however to make all dwarf culture battlemap models just be castles, including cities?
This alone would be a noteworthy improvement.

Remember, we are just trying to change preset settlement types, which specific factions use on battlefield, not modifying buildings.

I'm not sure about "all castles", but I believe it is possible.

For the dwarves, perhaps a european/aztec mix could be struck. European walls and castles/forts, but mesoamerican buildings inside that, and maybe european churches in place of the pyramids. That would require the least work but look the best, imho.

Good ideas, but I'm afraid there is some restrictions on that department, and I'm not totally sure yet how the game sometimes adds these features.

I'll look if I get these working properly first..