[question] How to change a faction's starting provinces?

[omzdog]

Did removing garrisons not work?

[trk]

I have done a little more experimating and have concluded that there is some issue surrounding the army - specifically the force in Lepcis (region 114 9 or as is the factions array 115.Basically after being unable to move or remove that army in 115 I went ahead and left them there as originally defined only giving the other two regions to carthage. building and recruitment including mercs was fine in thapsus and macomades. Those forces were used to capture lepcis and now I have edict control.So we apparently will need to figure out how to either change ownership or move the small stack in lepcis. THE ENTIRE PROVINCE IS NOW IN BREAD AND CIRCUSES. note:1/ I belive that we need to make use of the regional ownership by theater (above compressed data) and will need to figure out how to move that very small stack. And so perhaps some small progress.for the system byte to be critical perhaps none of that would have worked or it only appears when the last region is actually captured,

[.Mitch.]

I have done a little more experimating and have concluded that there is some issue surrounding the army - specifically the force in Lepcis (region 114 9 or as is the factions array 115.Basically after being unable to move or remove that army in 115 I went ahead and left them there as originally defined only giving the other two regions to carthage. building and recruitment including mercs was fine in thapsus and macomades. Those forces were used to capture lepcis and now I have edict control.So we apparently will need to figure out how to either change ownership or move the small stack in lepcis. THE ENTIRE PROVINCE IS NOW IN BREAD AND CIRCUSES. note:1/ I belive that we need to make use of the regional ownership by theater (above compressed data) and will need to figure out how to move that very small stack. And so perhaps some small progress.for the system byte to be critical perhaps none of that would have worked or it only appears when the last region is actually captured,

Ignore everything that isn't in compressed data, everything else is pre-open map info.

For example the region ownership was used in NTW to tell the game which regions on the minimap to highlight when selecting a faction. Totally irrelevant info when ingame.

[trk]

yes they are not in a save only the esf. By the way do you have any insights on removing, moving or changing the ownership of the Libyan units in Lepcis? thanks

[General WVPM]

The system.byte CAN'T be critical as I tested with carthage and nova carthage.
I gave qart hadasht to nova carthage and the island to carthage, so they still both held 1 region inside that province.
It didn't work.
I gave tingis and Iol to carthage and changed the ownership of the system.byte[2] to carthage, it too didn't work.
You CAN'T remove garissons as it will result in a crash.
The only thing that might work is moving it to another faction.
If that doesn't work there must be some secret entry for army ownership I haven't found yet.

[trk]

regarding the force in lepcis I tried deleting (ctd), moving to another region (ctd), changing ownership (failure). Obviously I do not understand that mechanism. If anyone can either move or change ownership I would love to learn how. thanks

[Grazgul]

I'm pretty sure I'm onto something.

I've changed all the sparta entries to Athens in my startpos. I control everything apart from the ability to produce units.

I believe this is set in the pack files. I've come across a bunch that I'm sure need to be changed. I will experiment some more on the weekend.

start_pos_regions => There is a large integer (eg 2120135774) in the column owning_faction.
There's a bunch of other startpos packs that aren't might hold the answers, especially if these IDs are used in startpos.esf

[General WVPM]

Grazgul, the ability to produce troops and issue eddicts is the indicator that you actually own a region.
We can all change region ownership with that being bugged.
We can't (yet) fix it.
The .pack files won't hold the information needed.
In a simple savegame holds all the data needed for region ownership, the other files are for the map (settlement placement, borders, trees etc) I guess.
Still thanks though.

[General WVPM]

You are confusing 2 differant programs.
For savegame data and starting scenario (this whole thread) use 'EditSF' http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Block-Entries
For all other modding, from unit stats to faction bonuses and beyond use 'Pack File Manager (PFM)' http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...v-replace-data
This should clarify.

[Dunadd]

You are confusing 2 differant programs.
For savegame data and starting scenario (this whole thread) use 'EditSF' http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Block-Entries
For all other modding, from unit stats to faction bonuses and beyond use 'Pack File Manager (PFM)' http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...v-replace-data
This should clarify.

I see them now - thanks General.

[Dunadd]

I found a change that lets you raise armies or fleets in regions in a province that you've changed the faction of by the methods other people already posted here.

Open the startpos.esf with the ESF editor. COMPRESSED DATA ->CAMPAIGN_ENV ->CAMPAIGN_MODEL ->WORLD ->PROVINCE_MANAGER ->PROVINCE_ARRAY

Then PROVINCE_ARRAY-26 (Africa) -> PROVINCE-> FACTION_PROVINCE_MANAGER_ARRAY ->FACTION_PROVINCE_MANAGER_ARRAY-0 ->FACTION_PROVINCE_MANAGER .

You'll see entries on the right including two for numbers. Change the second one to 3 for Carthage. You can now recruit armies and fleets in any region in that province.

(I think you might have to do the same for the same path but with FACTION_PROVINCE_MANAGER_ARRAY-1 instead of 0

Still doesn't let you issue edicts.

You could already recruit units into an existing fleet or army by moving it to the region or settlement even without doing this, just by making the changes other people in the thread already found.

[General WVPM]

Interesting, you had both ..._ARRAY-0 and ..._ARRAY-1 owned by carthage and it worked.
I feared it might crash.
Also did you notice the third value a System.Byte[x], where x is the amount of regions held by that faction.
However we can't change x.

[Dunadd]

Interesting, you had both ..._ARRAY-0 and ..._ARRAY-1 owned by carthage and it worked.
I feared it might crash.
Also did you notice the third value a System.Byte[x], where x is the amount of regions held by that faction.
However we can't change x.

I noticed the system.byte bit but i had no idea what it meant

[Dunadd]

I opened a saved game file with the ESF editor and it did seem to have exactly the same structure as the startpos.esf with region and province arrays on the same paths.

I played one game in which i used the Additional Income mod (adds 1,600 income from each faction). This makes it easy to conquer Libya playing as Carthage and issue edicts in the Africa province.

So couldn't we do that, save the game, then compare the fields and values in the startpos.esf with those in the saved game to see what needs changed?

[General WVPM]

Ofcourse we can, as the startpos.esf is actually a savegame with some extra info.
The point is that we wont find much news, as (I believe) the garrisons are the main problem.
Garrisons are put under the armies of a faction and can't (so far) be moved.
They can only be deleted (crash).

[hunharibo]

the system.byte[] is actually an array of bytes. The number inside the brackets does not designate how many regions a certain faction has in the given province, but it shows how many members the array has. So in case of africa and system.byte[3] it just shows that there is an array with 3 members inside each of which is a byte on its own. My guess is that it lists the region IDs in that array. That is how the game figures out which regions are controlled by which faction in the province.

[Dunadd]

Downloaded patch 3 beta and hotfix for it. When i start a campaign as Carthage now all the provinces i'd assigned to Carthage are still Carthaginian, but now i can't recruit new armies or fleets in Carthage or Lilybeaum, though i still can in provinces i'd switched to being Carthaginian. Somewhat confused about what's caused this as all the number 3 s still seem to be there.

[Dunadd]

Since we don't seem to be making any progress on this, should we ask CA how to mod it, or if it's not moddable, ask them to make a tool to make it moddable?

[Dresden]

I was thinking of a workaround, but I am not sure it is possible. Since you can give any faction the ability to make confederations, is it possible to force a confederation between Carthage and Libya so that Carthage gets their lands?

After trying this with Athens in a game, I finally got Sparta to agree and it worked (I got their lands, their armies, but kept the name Athens). The problem is, I don't think you can force a confederation pre-game or on the first turn.

[Dunadd]

I was thinking of a workaround, but I am not sure it is possible. Since you can give any faction the ability to make confederations, is it possible to force a confederation between Carthage and Libya so that Carthage gets their lands?

After trying this with Athens in a game, I finally got Sparta to agree and it worked (I got their lands, their armies, but kept the name Athens). The problem is, I don't think you can force a confederation pre-game or on the first turn.

That sound interesting. Didn't know about that. I'm sure there are released mod threads in which they mod the diplomacy/ friendliness ratings factions have with one another, so maybe it'd be possible to set Libya and Nova Carthago's with Carthage to 100 so they'd accept confederation and then add in the confederation option?