How to edit unknown file types in the main.pack

[uanime5]

I was looking through the main.pack file and found a file called "UI\frontend ui\grand_campaign_japan". I was able to open it with notepad but large parts of it are garbled. As far as I can tell this file seems to tell TWS2 which factions you can select in which campaigns so it's possible that editing this file will allow modders to make more clans playable. So do anyone know of a good program to open these files with?

[T.C.]

They are compiled UI layout files. To edit them you need to decompile them to xml. taw released a converter for NTW and ETW, I presume he has one out for S2. To do anything decent with them you'll also need to decompile the associated .luac file (it should have the same name, just with a .luac extension). taw also released these files decompiled, as the decompiler wasn't windows compatible. To recompile them you'll need a lua compiler compatible with TW Lua, I have one if you need it. But the decompiler was broken, chances are the lua code is very badly garbled when decompiled.

[T.C.]

Also, you're right about adding new factions. From here you can probably add extra UI components to facilitate extra faction selection.