The "New" Frontier of M2TW Modding: Memory Editing

[wilddog]

It was a joke, Zarathos had already warned me.

As was my comment .. tied to the length of the main IWTE thread and the various diversions there...... Don't think UndrState got it though

[Lord Baal]

I'm a programmer! How can I serve?

My biggest dream is to have more regions, more factions, more religions and cultures and enabling multiple buildings at once, just like the recruitment of units, that's it, being capable of building more than one thing at the time. Also a way for characters from different factions to have different lifespans (humans, elves, dwarves anyone?)

Oh and bigger population limits.

After that I would like to have at least two different kind of populations and a los of other things. My wall of doom speaks for itself I guess.

Anyway beyond any personal aspiration of mine I want to help.

[Zarathos]

I'm a programmer! How can I serve?

[...]

Anyway beyond any personal aspiration of mine I want to help.

If you know how to use disassemblers (mainly IDA Pro) and debuggers (WinDBG, OllyDBG) and you understand how low level assembly instructions work, you could be helpful. A little knowledge of hex editors and C++ is also necessary, but not really important.

[Pyotr Rachkovsky]

Seems very promising! if i can i would rep you, but I can't (too young)

[makanyane]

apologies for this very far off the wall question... but is there any possibility that you can change the number of seasons to include an autumn/spring with associated memory space for battle/strat texture changes (e.g. autumn/spring names + geography and vegetation models and textures)?

[Zarathos]

Of course it is. Imho it could be a very hard task, so I wouldn't give it a high priority for the moment. You have access to the group and, consequently, to our database. You could start investigating a little bit of this in your spare time, if you wish.

[wilddog]

Hi Zarathos, does that apply to me then also? I declined the invite as I am too tied with other things (IWTE mostly) and wanting to do some other modding things plus my knowledge of C++ is mostly restricted to a 'needed to know' basis tied around some open GLSL little routines and converting some things to Python.

The climates thing is the bit that interests me most as the issue is most likely around the counts of 2 seasons (and their names) and 12 climates. We (mak and I) already have full knowledge of the vegetation.DB and geography.db and have written routines to completely rewrite those files in IWTE (i.e not use the CA generator).

Note I don't think Mak does have access to the group as she wasn't invited as she isn't really a programmer..... just pretty good at hex editing and analysis.

[WindGuru]

Is there any chance of being able to make sensible suggestions in the future for limits to be raised or different things to be changed, etc? Different mods might have different requirements. I appreciate it's hard to please everyone (especially when we excitedly blubber a wall of text at you!) but could this be done eventually?

[Lord Baal]

My assembly is rusty, haven't touched it since college. However it's nothing a quick read can't undo and put me up to speed.

[Valiant Champion]

number of ranks fighting is spearwall?

[AnthoniusII]

Hi Zarathos, does that apply to me then also? I declined the invite as I am too tied with other things (IWTE mostly) and wanting to do some other modding things plus my knowledge of C++ is mostly restricted to a 'needed to know' basis tied around some open GLSL little routines and converting some things to Python.

The climates thing is the bit that interests me most as the issue is most likely around the counts of 2 seasons (and their names) and 12 climates. We (mak and I) already have full knowledge of the vegetation.DB and geography.db and have written routines to completely rewrite those files in IWTE (i.e not use the CA generator).

Note I don't think Mak does have access to the group as she wasn't invited as she isn't really a programmer..... just pretty good at hex editing and analysis.

You mean that you may know how to totaly change the entire vegetation of the game (with RSII's one for example)???

[Rorarii]

He's a thought, We all know populations were divided into classes - aristocrats, commoners, poor / serfs, slaves, criminals etc .. I wonder if you could add extra populations and link solder type to population type eg - knights only come from aristocrats. etc

What's the purpose for all this ? politics and government types - aristocrat run monarchies, commoner run democracies, criminal run Tyants etc

Ok, maybe I've asked for too much, we have memory editing not source code.

R

[makanyane]

You mean that you may know how to totaly change the entire vegetation of the game (with RSII's one for example)???

it's been possible for a while
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post13489853
just needs a lot of manual work - it's not a memory/exe problem... just someone actually doing the conversions


EDIT; actually I suppose it might be possible to get the game to auto generate the veg.db and sprites as RTW used to, so maybe that's worth a look - there is a command that looks like it ought to allow .db to be rebuilt - but which doesn't work, I think because we're missing some of the original files needed
for the .db, I don't know if it's actually got the sprite producing process in there if you get past that point.

[AnthoniusII]

it's been possible for a while
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post13489853
just needs a lot of manual work - it's not a memory/exe problem... just someone actually doing the conversions


EDIT; actually I suppose it might be possible to get the game to auto generate the veg.db and sprites as RTW used to, so maybe that's worth a look - there is a command that looks like it ought to allow .db to be rebuilt - but which doesn't work, I think because we're missing some of the original files needed
for the .db, I don't know if it's actually got the sprite producing process in there if you get past that point.

A re-creating or automaticaly replacing of vegetation , tool would be wonderfull!
So far you and wilddog's work gave new possibillities in creating worlds that with better settlement textures make settlements look more real than ever!
Modern modelers and skiners also made unit creations look as good as possible and what remains is the surrounding enviroment inorder all these achivements wont look alien in game!

[warman222]

Hey, quick question. In theory, could you do this same thing with the newer total wars? I know it would take time, but I want to know if it's possible.

[Zarathos]

Memory editing an executable is possible for every existing executable. But this kind of things require just too much of time. I don't think I'll work on R2TW as I don't play it and, unlike M2TW, I don't consider it a good base for modding (a lot of things must still be discovered, the engine performance is horrible and the new CA policy reduced too much the time between new game releases).

[AnthoniusII]

Memory editing an executable is possible for every existing executable. But this kind of things require just too much of time. I don't think I'll work on R2TW as I don't play it and, unlike M2TW, I don't consider it a good base for modding (a lot of things must still be discovered, the engine performance is horrible and the new CA policy reduced too much the time between new game releases).

True! M2TW as it can be modded today can become much more enjoyable!
New animations are available.
Modders and skiners drove their creations beyond limits.
Tools gave us the ooportunity to adjust the game to modding needs!
If vegetation could be replaced and added naval combats (water exists as terain surfase) the game would be better than R2 in all aspects!

[Lord Baal]

I think I recall someone says that he tried to add naval battles to either Rome or med2 and partly succeeding but the result was as awful that in fact it was better to have them abstracted. Also if memory serves it was kind of a total conversion, that's it only naval battles no land ones. I could be wrong or remembering a dream, I don't know. In any case it seems that including naval battles would be something out of reach unless lots of people with the right skills put a huge effort into it. And that's even if it's possible in the first place (I have a hunch it might actually be possible)

[Zarathos]

On the top of that, R2TW is still being developed because it's the last game being released by CA. They still have a dedicated team of programmers, the source-code and big feedbacks from communities. They could just transform it into the greatest game ever without the help of a poor guy modifying opcodes with a hex editor, unless they are wiling to pay me for what I do like any other member of their develpment team, of course

[wilddog]

If vegetation could be replaced

It can. Its just that you always had to make it first, create the sprites (via IWTE) and load into the vegetation.DB. Its been possible for a long time however what you seem to be asking for is a tool that takes all RTW vegetation cas files, splits them up and automatically changes and corrects them and generates the sprites and updates the DB from an unrelated text file. That's the bit that isn't possible via IWTE. I could possibly split out the RTW cas's but mak (who played with this) doesn't think its a straight usage of those CAS files.