Unlocking RomeTW Hardcoded Limits - Memory Editing

**RedFox** · May 19, 2014, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by Revan The Great

I have a few of questions.

I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities

Originally Posted by Revan The Great

1 - Why is this possible now, and hasn't been done before? Did a copyright expire, or did CA give permission, or something along those lines? To my knowledge, overcoming hardcoded limits was always possible but doing so would lead to CA issuing Cease and Desist letters or something like that.

It's a combination of several factors. First of all 10 years have passed since the launch, so CA is fairly disinterested in the old RomeTW engine. Secondly, we use a complex run-time injection method, which is quite difficult to achieve, but it only modifies the code in memory - which is a legal method of decompilation/reverse engineering. And the final reason is that the kids who first started playing RomeTW 10 years ago have grown up and became C++ developers... resulting in the necessary abilities for this to be possible

Originally Posted by Revan The Great

2 - Have you guys given serious thought to how desirable these unlocked options are? For example, I could see a game with 400 regions and 100 factions and 1200-man units running like such crap that it wouldn't even be worth trying to play. I'm not a programmer, but is the technology really there to support these sorts of changes? For example, as I understand it most of us have quad core machines now but R:TW can only use one of those cores due to old coding.

You needn't worry - of course we've given serious thought into this and our opinion is that the limits must go. If someone wants to create a tiny mod with 3 units of size 1200, then so be it! Performance will definitely suffer, so anyone who creates such a mod also runs that risk. For Macedonian phalanx however, this allows historical 8x8 squares of 256 men, this is why the current limit is 300.

Originally Posted by Revan The Great

3 - Building on #2, is it possible to code in multi-core support for R:TW now?

That would definitely be way too much work to fix with reverse engineering. There would be too many concurrency issues to fix. Even if we had the original source code, - which we don't -, it would be a difficult task.

Originally Posted by Revan The Great

It's a very interesting project though, and I'll be watching closely!

Thanks! I hope we'll get the help and support needed to finish this project.

**Turkeys!** · May 19, 2014, 03:57 PM

I so so want to see this released and used by modders. RTW is the ultimate TW.

**Nemesis_Maximus** · May 19, 2014, 04:06 PM

This sounds amazing

.

**debux** · May 19, 2014, 04:46 PM

I had no idea of this! This sounds great! Especially if some of the features that you have proposed to try to unlock are achieved (as if enough has not been done already!)! I wish you guys all the best! Hopefully this does generate some movements from modders of past-and-current mods, and they decide to implement this. And who knows, such thing could bring new improvements to what we already have!

**Wallachian** · May 19, 2014, 04:52 PM

Congrats on fantastic discovery. A simillar project is happening in M2TW.

**Pseudolivius** · May 19, 2014, 04:54 PM

This news is so hot that you can actually *fap to it.
Kidding aside, can the limit cap of 20 unit armies be changed to ... like say 40 ?

**Nelduin** · May 19, 2014, 04:58 PM

RedFox, do you think soldier variations inside a unit would be possible? (sorry to insist, but I really care about that question).

**Choki** · May 19, 2014, 05:07 PM

nice job and great news! Thanks!!!!

**2-D Ron** · May 19, 2014, 05:19 PM

1000 regions? Too long have modders suffered the burden of deciding which settlement to add and which one to exclude cause of hard-code limits. No longer!

60+ Faction slots definitely something that's peeved modders off when people make requests what Faction to add and which one had to be removed by historical importance.

What about Unit Slot limits? you can only have 500 can't you, meaning you have to distribute a limit number of units to each Faction.
Didn't Europa Barbarum nearly reach the number of custom made units for their mod?

Love to see Europa Barbarum with more Factions and Settlements, if the original isn't awesome enough.

**Samraat Mahendra Maurya** · May 19, 2014, 05:20 PM

Oh my god! Isn't this illegal though?

**RedFox** · May 19, 2014, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Nelduin

RedFox, do you think soldier variations inside a unit would be possible? (sorry to insist, but I really care about that question).

This would be a pretty epic hack. I can think of a few ways how this could be done, but it's going to require complete reverse engineering of the soldier rendering functions. All I can say is: perhaps, if gods deem us worthy.

Originally Posted by 2-D Ron

What about Unit Slot limits? you can only have 500 can't you, meaning you have to distribute a limit number of units to each Faction.

Increasing EDU and DMB slots is also on the "todo" list, so no worries there

Originally Posted by KleenClothMaurya

Oh my god! Isn't this illegal though?

We have permission from CA and TWC admins, so no worries there.

**Ac3** · May 19, 2014, 05:41 PM

RTR Team all day, er'day!
Awesome news, Redfox! Ill be sure to keep my eyes on this one!

**Zipzopdippidybopbop** · May 19, 2014, 05:51 PM

Fantastic news. Especially as I am an avid fan of Rome and its "feel" (still playing it actually).

The one real peeve in my eyes is the absolutely terrible campaign AI. Alliances are pointless, and vassals are near impossible to achieve. Do you reckon you can address this (maybe improving the AI to Medieval 2's level if not better)? I can just picture playing this with Germanicus' AI package......

**Finn** · May 19, 2014, 05:54 PM

Terrific work RedFox! RTW is such a great engine and I'm ecstatic that your breathing new life into it!

**Nelduin** · May 19, 2014, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by RedFox

This would be a pretty epic hack. I can think of a few ways how this could be done, but it's going to require complete reverse engineering of the soldier rendering functions. All I can say is: perhaps, if gods deem us worthy.

Mate, if you achieve this, I would be your debtor for life. Seriously.

**Lord Golog** · May 19, 2014, 05:58 PM

How tough would it be to implement similar workarounds to Medieval 2? Would groundwork laid here provide benefit for people trying to apply it there as well? Is there already such a project for M2?

This is such great news, incredible.

**RedFox** · May 19, 2014, 06:01 PM

There is a mirror project for M2TW being worked on by Zarathos. We're sharing resources, code and knowledge, but M2TW vs RTW is a pretty big difference, so creating an unified launcher does not make sense for now.