Official CA comment - Total War: The modding situation

[Basileos Leandros I]

Thank you CA, thank you Craig for coming over here. Your efforts are much appreciated.

[Little Legionaire]

sounds good. Looking forward to seeing what happens next

Unit editor would be nice

[D.B. Cooper]

It's finally confirmed what I've always suspected, Warscape is simply too hard to mod.

[Lord Baal]

It's finally confirmed what I've always suspected, Warscape is simply too hard to mod.

Something they better take into account the next time they choose a engine..

[Steph]

Map editor would be more interesting than unit editor, we already can go a lot on that regard.

But even before a map editor, I'd take a design doc explaining what is the effect of all the fields, and if they are actually used.

Unfortunately, the XSD doesn't contain any anotation to explain each entity.

If CA really wants to support us, we could also benefits from an "ASK CA thread" in the workshop, where someone from CA could shade some light on some parts. I for instance asked several questions there, and nobody had anything to answer. I'm sure someone from CA could.

[Grimstoned]

Cool ...... thanks? So what about Shogun 2 ?

[Zarax]

As software developer and DB developer I can feel your pain.

As a (not very) side question, did you guys ever think about releasing the source for your older games (STW, MTW or RTW) to the community or license them for a price modders could actually afford?

The basic mechanics for those games have been out for enough years that if a competitor wanted to make a similar product he would have long tried already and the extra tweaking ability would give you a loyal and forever grateful community.

Projects like Descent: Freespace 2, Warzone 2100 and Jagged Alliance 2 increased bargain bin longevity exponentially, making it an extra source of revenue for you guys.

EDIT: If that's not feasible you could also consider reselling STW and MTW through GOG.com which would make them available to the community in a package that works with newer systems

[Dubh the dark]

It's finally confirmed what I've always suspected, Warscape is simply too hard to mod.

True, I just hope that this gesture isn't a case of too little, too late.

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

The nonconformism religion is implemented. There's a blank space in each territory for the nonconformism religion--if you set it to a nonzero percentage (esf editor), it'll show up in game with a praying hands icon. You can also set priest agents to spread nonconformism, which has unique spread factors (it's particularly effective against catholicism and animism, but not protestantism, which is odd given that it's the religion of the American Pilgrims).

I've used it before.

[Leoben]

If CA really wants to support us, we could also benefits from an "ASK CA thread" in the workshop, where someone from CA could shade some light on some parts. I for instance asked several questions there, and nobody had anything to answer. I'm sure someone from CA could.

I think this could be a very good idea if they want to help the modding community.

[Hector Barbossa]

Thanks Craig totally appreciated +Rep

[dajarvi]

Something they better take into account the next time they choose a engine..

I totally agree. Unless, however, the market is greater for Total War gamers who prefer vanilla over mods. I, however, am not one of them. That said, I still play Rome and Medieval. They are the most modded Total War games. And Europa Barbarorum 2 is coming out on the Medieval 2 engine!

[taw]

esfxml supported rel_nonconformist since forever of course ;-)
Convert startpos.esf, in population/*.xml you'll see something like:

<religion_breakdown>
rel_hindu=0.85
rel_nonconformist=0.0
rel_sikh=0.0
rel_animist=0.0
rel_orthodox=0.0
rel_buddhist=0.0
rel_catholic=0.0
rel_islamic=0.15
rel_protestant=0.0
</religion_breakdown>

It's really easy to mod. In ETW conflict between various varieties of Christianity has
such low penalties that CA did the right thing by cutting 4th variety out from release.

Probably the only interesting use of this is changing name and icon and creating new religion,
let's say rel_militiant_atheism. It's more of a late 19th century socialist/Darwinist thing,
but what the heck, it's not like ETW is particularly historical.

If someone figures out how to add China/Japan, this slot will have some much better uses
of course.

[Muizer]

Hello Craig,

I think most long term modders will appreciate the situation CA is in concerning giving aid to the modding communitity anyway, but it's good of you to declare your position on modding. And yes, I do still hope that in the future modding will become an integral part of your developemnt strategy.

Mzr

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Craig/CA: now we're given a hand, could I please ask for the whole arm and ask you to post some similar documentation on the M2TW file formats such as the dot world files, and the (header of) dot cuf files?

If you could do us that massive favour I'm sure you'll see that repaid in some knock-your-socks-off modding by the people who currently forge ahead in modifying the M2TW battlefields, and fonts respectively!

@People who think these are somehow tools: nothing of the sort. By themselves these files will not allow you to do anything meaningful but stare at how much there can be edited.

What these files are useful for is people who are currently actively working on tools to edit NTW/ETW because the XSD files state “rules” which “valid” entries must conform to, and the XML data provides examples of valid data. Thus one can now write conformance test suites for the data based on the actual rules (XSD) rather than having to reverse them, and such validators are very much necessary to check modded XML files for errors. Additionally, XSD files might shed light on currently obscure corners of the ETW/NTW engine.

Essentially what is posted is a “grammar” or “spec” if you will for source file formats.

So right now you still must wait for the people who may pick this up and write tools based off this information, or update currently existing tools to fix their bugs accordingly.

[HappyGoodVibes]

Thanks CA.

[CraigTW]

If CA really wants to support us, we could also benefits from an "ASK CA thread" in the workshop, where someone from CA could shade some light on some parts. I for instance asked several questions there, and nobody had anything to answer. I'm sure someone from CA could.

That's something I'd definitely like to organise in future. Watch this space.

[ForteS]

From now on my new faith is the CraigTW church

CraigTW about the esf files, are you going to help us? I don't want to be asking you to give us everything you have but a little help would be very useful.

[CraigTW]

From now on my new faith is the CraigTW church

Haha, thanks... I think.

I can't take all of the credit though - a number of people behind the scenes have been pushing very hard alongside to get this data out there. You should also worship those faceless, heroic few. You might know a name or two

[CraigTW]

CraigTW about the esf files, are you going to help us? I don't want to be asking you to give us everything you have but a little help would be very useful.

The ESF stuff is pretty complex. If I get anything on that I'll let you know.