How to change a factions accent to an already existing accent on the campaign map. - by IZob
Tutorial description:This tutorial demonstrates how to change the accent of an existing faction in your mod, with another existing accent. For example: making your faction use the Scottish accent, instead of the English accent.
Note this tutorial dose not cover
how to create a new accent.
This tutorial is compatible only for mods that run off:Kingdoms version 1.5
hence in a mod folder.
It assumes you have some knowledge of modding in Medieval II total War.
Introduction:Hello modders of TWC! Until now, knowledge on changing the accents of factions was unfortunately sparse and non existent. It was an issue that plagued me and many other members for some time. Was it not that I stumbled on another members step-by-step guide in a comment on the last page of a post, that I found out how to change the accents following this members solution (alas It is not me that figured this out). But I felt that it was my duty to save the suffering of others and properly inform them of this procedure.
Whats our goal here?:Using an accent from Vanilla (Medieval II total war), we are going to use one of these accents and give it to one of our own factions in our own mod. You could do this for multiple factions at once if you wanted.
The accents in Vanilla (Medieval II total war)
in bold:
Code:
accent English
factions england, normans, saxons
accent Scottish
factions scotland
accent French
factions france
accent German
factions hre
accent Mediterranean
factions milan, venice, sicily, papal_states, byzantium, spain, portugal, slave
accent East_European
factions russia, poland, hungary, denmark
accent Arabic
factions turks, moors, egypt
accent Mongolian
factions mongols, timurids,
accent Native
factions aztecs
You can view this in your own
descr_sounds_accents.txt file (see attachment at bottom of post).
A few notes for the .dat and .idx files:.idx files act as a map while the .dat files act as a sound folder. The .dat files store the sounds for your mod, based on if you are using custom music and/or vanilla sounds. The .idx files are "map" files, that tell the game where to look for the custom sound files and/or if to use any vanilla sound files.
When ever you want to change the sounds, music, accents in your mod, you will have to regenerate the .dat and .dix files. Every time the game regenerates the .dat and .idx files, its uses the information in the sound text files and gathers mp3 sounds from within your mods sounds folder and/or the medieval II total war folder.
If you do not edit the sound .txt files, then the .dat and .dix files will remain the same, even if regenerated.
Lets begin the tutorial (How to change a factions accent to an already existing accent on the campaign map):
The Step-by-Step guide:
Step 1:
- Download the Sound Text File.rar attachment at the bottom of this post.
- Place this file insider your <mymodnamefolder>/data folder.
- Extract the files so they are inside the data folder Backup: (note: if you are editing a mod, or have done any modding on your on sound files (such as the descr_sounds_music.txt file), then I suggest you backup all of the sound files in your mod and reconfigure them for your mod when this tutorial is finished. Also keep in mind, you will need to regenerate the event .dat and .idx files when this is finished. If your mod has custome sounds, you will need to obtain those sounds (they must be in mp3 format) and add them to your mod at the same time as you add this accent. This is for when regenerating the .dat and .idx files. See the appropiate tutorial for adding specific sound files (adding music, new accents, other sounds).
Step 2:
- Open descr_sounds_accents.txt. The file has been set to read-only. You will need to un-tick this in the files properties (right click on the file, click properties).
- You will see accents (English, French, Scottish...etc) and factions england, normans, france, etc.. Place your faction name under the accent you desire to use. For example I was adding wales to my mod and wanted them to use the English accent (to save space). So I placed wales under the english accent. (Note: Do not use capitals for faction names, and take note of the commas ',').
Code:
accent English
factions england, wales, normans, saxons
Step 3:
- Save descr_sounds_accents.txt.
- Close the file.
- Right click on the file, click properties, set the file to read-only on.
Step 4:
- Open the vanilla Medieval II Total War/data/sounds folder.
- Copy all of the files (Note: you may need to unpack medieval II total war to find these files) in the sounds folder and paste them into your mods sounds folder located <mymodnamefolder>/data/sounds. Replace, delete or move the older files if necessary. Don't worry, we can later delete some of these copied files when this tutorial is complete.
Step 5:
- Delete the events.dat and events.idx files in your <mymodnamefolder>/data/sounds folder (yes, the files you just copied in step 4). The Importance of this step is to make sure there are no event files inside the sounds folder. We want to make sure the game will generate the new event files with the right number of factions and their linked sound/music/accent text inside them.
Step 6:
- Run the mod. If your mod crashes, maybe you haven't deleted the events files in step 5? Otherwise look up your error logs file.
- Start a new campaign as the faction with the changed accent (in my example it would be Wales).
- Wales should now be speaking english (as determined in step 2) and your faction should also be speaking the correct accent of your choice as well.
Step 7 (this is a optional step, deleting the files we don't need)
:
- Open your <mymodnamefolder>/data/sounds folder.
- All files except events.dat and events.idx can now be replaced or deleted. This will save space and/or allowing you to mod other areas in the sound department.
- Run your mod again to test that your factions have the correct accents, sounds, music etc... Medieval II Total War will rebuild the necessary .dat and .idx files for your mod, based off the sound files inside the <mymodnamefolder>/data folder (the .dat and .idx files should now be much smaller in size).
Your finished!"What about my modded music/sounds and new accents?" For new accents you should look at the 'new accent' tutorial (theres a link at top of this post). A new accent will require you to have your desired accent sound files at hand so you can add them in to your mod. The same go's with adding new music or sounds. You will need the files to put them back in to your new .dat and .idx files. You should see the appropiate tutorial for this.
Accents on the battle field (not fully covered in this tutorial):Note: Changing the accent of a faction will not automatically give its troop units (in battle) the new accent. To make sure your faction is fully covered with its new accent, you will need to manually check over the:
- export_descr_sounds_soldier_voice.txt
- export_descr_sounds_stratmap_voice.txt
- export_descr_sounds_units_battle_events.txt
- export_descr_sounds_units_voice.txt
files. (All included in the Sound Text files).
These files are generally understandable and easy to change.
Again, when changing the sound files, you will need to regenerate the .dat and .idx files to have your changes take effect.
I hope this tutorial has helped you as much as it has helped me. If you are still having any problems feel free to post your issue here. Feedback welcomed.
Special thanks to Mikaiu for sharing this information.
Sounds text files also uploaded here, thanks to Lusted.