How to? Scottish Handgunners/Arquebusiers

[Melissia]

Okay... I had a general idea for a Scotland late game unit, seeing as nobody could point me to any mods that had either of these units. So I plan on seeing if I can make a basic mod that does nothing but create a single unit-- a unit that is effectively like giving Noble Highland Archers arquebuses. It may not necessarily be historically correct, but if I'm playing Scotland and conquering half of Europe anyway, historical accuracy has already been throw to the wind anyway.

They would also be a bit more expensive to recruit than normal arquebusiers, but would have better defensive stats (and better in melee) due to being a Noble Highland unit. Here's the basic idea for them, based off of Noble Highland Archers and Arquebusiers:


Noble Highland Arquebusiers

Cost: 650-700?
Attack: 9 (Missile 14)
Defense: 12
Charge: 4

Though gunpowder weapons are far beyond the reach of common highlanders, some nobles have adopted them as their favored tool due to the terrifying effect they have on their enemies. Armed with an arquebus, hand axe, and chainmail, these troops are effective against any infantry in the medieval world, but are also very expensive to equip and will suffer against heavy cavalry if left unsupported.

Combat bonus in woods or snow
Effective against armor
Good morale
Good stamina




How would I implement this, and how complex would it be? It would utilize existing models rather than create new ones.

[Nesimî]

existing models? Would you retexture them?

[Melissia]

Unless I absolutely have to... no. I'm not good at graphical design.

[Hrobatos]

well...you would just have to "cut" an arquebuses from a unit which has it, and give it to archer unit, while "cuting" their bow and arrows out
then you would have to copy the lines which tell the model what animations to use from gun unit to archer unit in models_db and in EDU change attack, defense etc values

its actualy not that hard


you can find how to do what in Aletun's Tome of Knowledge, a Bible for anyone who wants to learn making units

[Melissia]

Okay... that's how I would do the graphical side. Is there a thread for a complete and utter beginner to modding a Total War game? I've modded other games, but the system is usually very different between games. TBH I don't really care too much about the graphical aspect, so I'm just going to the most basic I can do and still have it look right (which is pretty much what you've described). For that matter, I don't even have 3DSMax, Milkshape, or Photoshop (the closest I can come is GIMP), and my budget for this project is $0.00 USD so cheap as any of them might be, if it's not free it's out of my price range (I'm a poor student ATM).

Does this basically screw me over and make me unable to do this?

[Druvatar De Bodemloze]

Okay... that's how I would do the graphical side. Is there a thread for a complete and utter beginner to modding a Total War game? I've modded other games, but the system is usually very different between games. TBH I don't really care too much about the graphical aspect, so I'm just going to the most basic I can do and still have it look right (which is pretty much what you've described). For that matter, I don't even have 3DSMax, Milkshape, or Photoshop (the closest I can come is GIMP), and my budget for this project is $0.00 USD so cheap as any of them might be, if it's not free it's out of my price range (I'm a poor student ATM).

Does this basically screw me over and make me unable to do this?

ok Melissia here you go! [Tutorial] guide to the first steps in making a mod(THE NOVICE CORNER)

[Melissia]

Thanks a bunch If I have any further questions, or if I make progress on the mod, I'll post here. It's kinda disappointing that Scotland didn't get even the most basic gunpowder infantry (it's good that they get cannons, but still). Makes playing them late game rather disappointing...

[Melissia]

Hrm. Would I really have to have an entire world map created just to have this single unit added in? I mean, the ONLY change I intend to make is this single unit. The geomod tool, and the various threads you linked to in your tutorial all seem to be something created to alter the world map, the factions, and so on... and I don't want to do any of that (the most I can think of is altering Scotland's information to allow the building of this unit after the discovery of gunpowder), and I didn't see anything listed for units in its features, though I might have missed something.

I've downloaded geomod and looked at other links you gave, but I'm really looking for the absolute most simple solution to this... I'll play with it, but I'm hoping to have a small mod here.

[Melissia]

Okay, here's what I have for the EDU, based off of this tutorial:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=221093

type             Noble_Highland_Arquebusiers
dictionary       Noble_Highland_Arquebusiers      ; Highland Noble Arquebusiers
category         infantry
class            missile
voice_type       Heavy				  ; From Noble Highland Archers
banner faction   main_missile
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Noble_Highland_Arquebusiers, 48, 0, 0.8     ; Unit strength count from Arquebusiers.
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, gunpowder_unit, fire_by_rank, start_not_skirmishing, gunmen  ; From Arquebusiers and Noble Highland Archers
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 3, squarw	  ; From Arquebusiers
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         14, 1, arquebus_bullet, 120, 20, missile, missile_gunpowder, piercing, none, musket_shot_set, 25, 1  ; From Arquebusiers
stat_pri_attr    ap
stat_sec         9, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, slashing, axe, 25, 1.2      ; From Noble Highland Archers
stat_sec_attr    ap
stat_pri_armour  5, 4, 3, metal			  ; From Noble Highland Archers
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        4
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      9, low, untrained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 700, 175, 100, 70, 700, 4, 150 ; Increased from Noble Highland Archers
armour_ug_levels 2, 3
armour_ug_models Noble_Highland_Arquebusiers, Noble_Highland_Arquebusiers_ug1
ownership        scotland
era 2            scotland

I'm having an issue with the unpacker patch unfortunately. It claims that I do not have MTWII installed-- I have the Steam version, would that cause issues with this?

[IZob]

It may have somthing to do with the address for the unpacked. Its looking for medieval II in the wrong place. Just my guess.

[Hrobatos]

that text file is rather irrelevent, what you need to do is add an rifle to model

and then just from a unit which alredy has a rifle copy from EDU and model_db

everything is explained in Tome of Knowledge

[Melissia]

Maybe, but editing the text and "coding" is the part of the modding that I might actually somewhat enjoy (I won't enjoy the graphical part even if it's just cut and paste), which makes me weird I suppose but that's how it is. Heh.

Paradigm: Hrm. guess? I mean I don't think I can legally actually install it a second time on this computer with a Steam version, sadly, so I was just going to make the unpack, then get everything I need in my mod folder, and delete/reinstall everything else through steam.. Hrm.