Another question

[Cormaeg]

It's never ceased to amaze me the incredible things that you guys can do with this game. I myself am not a modder nor a programmer by any wildest stretch of the imagination. However, I was wondering if this would be possible...I would like to replace the Britons faction in RTW with the Celts faction from BI. Keeping the tech tree of the Britons but having the recruit options of the Celts. It probably won't be possible because of something I've seen in here referred to as the hard code, (whatever that may be) but if it were, how exactly would one go about it? Please keep in mind that I'm a bear of little brain in any explanations!

Thanks,

Cormaeg

[IceTorque]

Grasshopper, what you want to do is not hard coded and is very do-able.

The first thing you'll need to do is locate your RTW folder on your hard drive, and make a copy of the entire folder. Now you can use the copied folder to mod/experiment with. This will save you the inevitable re-install when/if you create an error that you simply cannot fix.

Inside the copied RTW folder you will find the exe(s) or shortcut(s), send the shortcut(s) to your desktop, then right click on the shortcut(s), on the drop down menu select properties then locate the target line of the exe, at the very end of the target line you need to add -show_err making sure you leave one blank space between the end of the existing line and your added -show_err line. This enables the engine to display an error message when you exit the game.

A couple of other useful command lines are -nm (stops the intro movie from playing) and -ai (allows the game to autorun, strictly for observation purposes only) also leave one blank space between any extra command lines you add.

If you are still reading, understand the above, have lots of free time and are prepared to be frustrated and confused many times while you learn, then you may just be modder material and will eventually be rewarded with your very own unique version of RTW.

All you need to do now is locate the correct tutorial in the Modification Resources forum, goodluck.

[Publius]

This is definently possible, but you will have to do a lot of things. First you will need to remove the British units (at very least comment them out so they dont appear in game) and then add in the celtic units into your rtw folder (there is a tutorial on how to add units to the game in the tutorials and walkthhroughs forums). Then you are going to need to change the faction name (all text found in the 'text' folder, look at Seleukos tutorial for this). Then if you want their faction icon you are going to need a 2d editor that can handle alpha channels (GIMP is freeware) so you can change it yourself, or have a friend do it. The Symbols 128, 24, and 48 will also need to be overwritten with the celtic ones. That will more or less get you a faction titled 'Celts,' with the celtic icon and celtic units.

[Cormaeg]

Thanks muchly, I appreciate the responses. I am so glad that it is doable and that it seems maybe not so complicated as I thought it might be. I am definately going to have a look into it at some time in the future; however, ATW just came out so you can imagine it may be some time before I have the time to do so...heh heh. I've always been fascinated by that particular time in history and it may take quite a while to explore all the different factions in what looks to be a truley remarkable game (yes game, it's just too overwhelmingly different to be referred to as a mod).

I hope it's legal to comment about ATW in this thread. Oh well, but thanks again!

Cormaeg

[Cormaeg]

Actually, later today I got a bug up my posterior and decided to try to start with something that seemed as if it should be very easy, like changing the factions name. I found Myrddrals' tutorial on it and followed instructions to the letter. However, the Britons are still the britons and not the Celts. There must be something else involved that he forgot to mention. Anyone know what?

Cormaeg

[HorseArcher]

Actually, later today I got a bug up my posterior and decided to try to start with something that seemed as if it should be very easy, like changing the factions name. I found Myrddrals' tutorial on it and followed instructions to the letter. However, the Britons are still the britons and not the Celts. There must be something else involved that he forgot to mention. Anyone know what?

Cormaeg

It has to be the export_units.txt in the data/text/- folder.

[Publius]

export_units is for the unit names themselves, but has no bearing on the actual faction names to my knowledge.
The text file that deals with faction names in RTW is expanded.txt (in BI its expanded_BI.txt). Just make sure you dont change the faction names inside the brackets, only outside!

[Cormaeg]

Yes, he explained about the brackets and the faction names in the brackets (to the left) and not to change them. And that supposedly, only 3 txt files needed to be amended...the strat, shared and expanded dot txts. As I said, I followed instructions to the letter. Outside of the brackets, there were no longer any references to either briton or brittania, only to celts. I tried changing the desc_strat.txt after that, which only resulted in a CTD.

Good thing I followed IceTorques' admonitions concerning the exe. target line. I mean, I would have known what the problem was anyway, since everything worked until I did that, but it was nice knowing (instead of guessing) for once exactly why I experienced a CTD.

Anyway, I guess since there seems to be no other suggestions I will try the export_units.txt, even though Publius seems to doubt the efficacy of that attack.

I'll probably wait until next week to try it though-I spent most of yesterday wrestling with that comparatively minor job (I also know nothing about the tools available to you in word text programs, although I learned a bit yesterday. (heh heh) When I grew up, personal computers hadn't even been entertained in any of Bill Gates wet dreams!

[Publius]

You may also want to try deleting your map.rwm file (find it in the 'world' folder). Often when you dont get a CTD but things in your game fail to update, this is the cause. And dont worry about deleting it, as the game generates a new one upon booting.