Official CA comment - Total War: The modding situation

[Lord Baal]

I've updated about 15 tables so far (see thread in the workshop). I'd put that figure at nearer to 40%.

40% I bet you are going to do amazing stuff with the 60% that you have to figure out now!

[renegade765]

Even if these files don't greatly help modding I needed to hear this. I was so let down by the fact that ETW was unmoddable I didn't buy Napoleon and just barely bought Shogun. You have my deepest gratitude for being forthcoming with this and I will still support CA whenever I can. Thanks and gl modders!

[taw]

I've updated about 15 tables so far (see thread in the workshop). I'd put that figure at nearer to 40%.

Is this genuinely new non-trivial information, or just stuff that was obvious looking at columns' content that nobody bothered to label before?

[T.C.]

Is this genuinely new non-trivial information, or just stuff that was obvious looking at columns' content that nobody bothered to label before?

30% trivial. But, I know how to add more buildings to battle maps, make cities appear closer to the fort in sieges, change the skill level at which agents spawn at, edit campaign map L.O.S and Z.O.C etc. So there's quite a bit of useful stuff in there.

[taw]

30% trivial. But, I know how to add more buildings to battle maps, make cities appear closer to the fort in sieges, change the skill level at which agents spawn at, edit campaign map L.O.S and Z.O.C etc. So there's quite a bit of useful stuff in there.

Wait, didn't we already know how to change skill level at which agents spawn at, except it didn't apply to existing agents, so nobody modded it?

[xxon]

From a quick look to the ETW files, I've noticed:
- new religions (nonconformism)
- mercenaries
- policies (not implemented? there's religious persecution and tolerance)
- disasters (not implemented, related to specific zones such as deserts)
- a list of empires (including the HRE, the Russian Empire... not implemented, probably some vassalage thing? it also has a list of "empire-regions-junct" but it's incomplete as it only contains 2 regions related to the Indian Empire)
- a lot of non-implemented agents (thinker, bandit, explorer, settler...)
- diseases (cholera, smallpox, malaria, among others; probably similar to disasters, it also has a list of durable turns and mortality rates; non-implemented)
- a list of "entities" (no idea what is this, it also has a range of training: from mob to elite with a lot in between)
- there's additional governorships (remember your European faction had a minister for america and another for india apart from the European ones? well there's also Asian and African governorships!)
- a new diplomatic stance (like alliances, wars...): patronage.
- there's also some big files related to the campaign map, but I think most of those have already been fully unlocked (I don't know)

Even if a large part of the tables are already understood by the community, certainly there's still another large part that's completely new...

[renegade765]

@xxon holy man that sounds awesome

[taw]

From a quick look to the ETW files, I've noticed:
- new religions (nonconformism)
- mercenaries
- policies (not implemented? there's religious persecution and tolerance)
- disasters (not implemented, related to specific zones such as deserts)
- a list of empires (including the HRE, the Russian Empire... not implemented, probably some vassalage thing? it also has a list of "empire-regions-junct" but it's incomplete as it only contains 2 regions related to the Indian Empire)
- a lot of non-implemented agents (thinker, bandit, explorer, settler...)
- diseases (cholera, smallpox, malaria, among others; probably similar to disasters, it also has a list of durable turns and mortality rates; non-implemented)
- a list of "entities" (no idea what is this, it also has a range of training: from mob to elite with a lot in between)
- there's additional governorships (remember your European faction had a minister for america and another for india apart from the European ones? well there's also Asian and African governorships!)
- a new diplomatic stance (like alliances, wars...): patronage.
- there's also some big files related to the campaign map, but I think most of those have already been fully unlocked (I don't know)

Even if a large part of the tables are already understood by the community, certainly there's still another large part that's completely new...

We've seen all that in db tables. It's all not implemented as far as I can tell.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Does this mean we'll never see a decent square? NTW just needed a square fix ,column formation. I'm afraid this mean will never see anything more from CA...

[MorganH.]

Thank you very much for this very positive gesture Craig and the rest of the CA crew.

Ps:Craig;Imagine EB,RS,RTR etc overhaul types of Mods on the Warscape Engine.. now that would be great hey?

[xxon]

We've seen all that in db tables. It's all not implemented as far as I can tell.

Aww man, I didn't know

Not even mercenaries? I've noticed there's a fairly big file called regions_and_mercenaries that contains info for regions like Indochina, Java (Indonesia), Hausa (west Africa), Hainan (China!), and tons of unheard regions... but I guess that's what is remaining of Empire's original concept...

[Leoben]

Is there any chance the BAI could be improved thanks to this?

CA did wait for the very last day to give this. I suppose it's a good gesture, even if looks like we could have all that two years sooner which would have helped a lot our courageous modders. Anyway, even a little gesture is better than no gesture at all.

[emperor77]

From a quick look to the ETW files, I've noticed:
- new religions (nonconformism)
- mercenaries
- policies (not implemented? there's religious persecution and tolerance)
- disasters (not implemented, related to specific zones such as deserts)
- a list of empires (including the HRE, the Russian Empire... not implemented, probably some vassalage thing? it also has a list of "empire-regions-junct" but it's incomplete as it only contains 2 regions related to the Indian Empire)
- a lot of non-implemented agents (thinker, bandit, explorer, settler...)
- diseases (cholera, smallpox, malaria, among others; probably similar to disasters, it also has a list of durable turns and mortality rates; non-implemented)
- a list of "entities" (no idea what is this, it also has a range of training: from mob to elite with a lot in between)
- there's additional governorships (remember your European faction had a minister for america and another for india apart from the European ones? well there's also Asian and African governorships!)
- a new diplomatic stance (like alliances, wars...): patronage.
- there's also some big files related to the campaign map, but I think most of those have already been fully unlocked (I don't know)

Even if a large part of the tables are already understood by the community, certainly there's still another large part that's completely new...

Yup. It would seem empire was originally planned to be a cool game.

[Steph]

A question to CA. It's all very nice to have the name of the fields. But would it be possible to have some design doc explaining if the fields actually have a game effect?

Because many of them can be changed with no impact. And trying to change them all to guess what changes, or doesn't change, is tedious and not really productive.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Next one that tries to be funny and messes with the tags will earn him self a one way infraction ticked.

This is the first and last official warning.

[Blitz66]

Wow. This is awesome.

[empr guy]

Aww man, I didn't know

Not even mercenaries? I've noticed there's a fairly big file called regions_and_mercenaries that contains info for regions like Indochina, Java (Indonesia), Hausa (west Africa), Hainan (China!), and tons of unheard regions... but I guess that's what is remaining of Empire's original concept...

well it's the same with napoleon and S2, they kept alot of useless and unimplemented stuff's files in the game itself instead of deleting it apperantly, like elephants from empire in S2's files. Basically from what i can tell, CA just got lazy and apperantly doesn't see the value in deleting several GB of unnecessary files.

[JGL]

sounds good. Looking forward to seeing what happens next

[husserlTW]

We’ve talked for a long time about releasing tools for your use, and as you’re (keenly!) aware this still hasn’t happened yet.

CA must be the only video game company that spends so much time in thinking that... they should not provide modding tools in community. Are you paid for this guys?

EDIT: It is obvious so far that realising mod tools has to do only with marketing and sales course. Are you happy with Shogun Total War sales? Moreover it would be very interesting to know the relation between the players who bought Shogun and the current players of the game...

[bangell99]

Thanks guys - something is always better than nothing. I do hope that modders will be able to do something useful with this new information and I also hope that CA realises that being faster and more helpful when it comes to releasing things related to modding will massively improve their standing with the community.