Welcome to this modding series, Creating Your Legion. This will be a Youtube series consisting of 21 parts in which I will teach you how to do database editing, in particular we'll focus on creating a custom battle faction from scratch.
It is designed for people with 0 experience, and will not require or involve 3D modelling, texturing or artistic stuff of that nature. In case you don't know what database editing is, it pretty much just requires editing values such as this. Subjects we'll cover range from actually creating the unit using pre-existing models, how to get the unit in-game, how to balance it, how to change animations, and much more.
By the end of the series, I'll have taught you how to edit all of these tables, and how to make the following two units
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Last edited by Commissar Caligula_; July 04, 2017 at 03:07 AM.
Here are some frequently asked questions that may help you.
Is the animation input in land_units_table important?
Yes, it is important. It covers what type of animations your unit does. For example, if you have a spear unit you want to decide whether it should be a Two Handed Spear Unit, or a Spear and Shield unit. You would then apply the correct animation to that unit, to ensure it functions properly.
Why do animations have "precursor" in their name, and what does that mean?
Precursor refers to the way that a unit throws their missile unit. For example, in Rome 2 the Roman Legionarys throw their javelin during their charge animation, when they're about 10 to 20 metres away from their enemy. This is due to precursor animations.
If you want the unit to be a javelin skirmisher, you would give them normal javelin animations, and they can throw the javelin at any time they are in range of the enemy rather than only during the charge animation.
What if I don't want a unit to throw javelins, or be mounted on a horse but the animation says they must be?
In Attila, Creative Assembly decided to merge animations. For example, rome_man_sword_shield_javelin_horse animations have all of the javelin and horse animations built in, but they are not actually used if you DON'T give them a mount, ammo or a missile weapon.
What does the cdir_military_generator_unit_qualities table do?
I'm honestly not sure haha. It is either related to campaign auto-resolve strenght, or it affects the likelihood of the computer giving you that unit when it automatically fills your roster, or the AI's roster in custom battles.
I would more lean towards the second option. I generally just give all units the same number, or just put their unit cost in there.
If you have more than 50 units in a faction, I believe you have to you have to give all of your units a quality value of 0 to prevent your game crashing.
Last edited by Commissar Caligula_; July 05, 2017 at 09:29 PM.
What about creating a custom Campaign faction from scratch(or editing exicting ones) and making it playable? This problem is also in high demand for new tutorial for the people ,who are starting to learn to do it. As of right now everything on the subject is spread out in at least 10+ threads in TWC for both Attila and Rome 2 with no consistency and people are getting lost for the most part creating/unlocking a Campaign faction(or editing exicting ones) and making it playable with no crashes for example in turn 50 in their modded campaigns.
Fast Examples:
- Political system
- Family Tree
- Victory conditions
- Starting positions
- Custom Character names
- even things like Custom Cultures
and so on.
Last edited by FrozenmenSS; June 30, 2017 at 10:47 AM.
I've got 0 experience with campaign stuff for Attila so I couldn't really do any tutorial stuff on it.
I did make a guide on doing it for Rome 2 a few years ago, although I've got no idea how applicable it is to Attila. Here's Dresden's original guide, and my guide which expands on a few things.
I think someone on the Ancient Empires team, either ABH or Petellius, knows how to create a campaign faction from scratch. I'd definitely like to know how as well.
Last edited by Commissar Caligula_; June 30, 2017 at 10:36 AM.