Hello there. By clicking on this article, it means you are either desperate for knowledge, love reading what I write, or are merely bored. Let us hope it is the first one, for the other two are probably better spent doing something else, especially the second one. Now, where were we?
Ah yes, the TiME tool. I hope you would have downloaded the file fromhere. Once downloaded, you should unzip the file and place it as directed in the files Reedme. That the setting up part is done, we must now prepare our Rome Total War for modding. This tool modifies the campaign, not units and buildings, so find your campaign folder, which is inside the folder marked 'world' in your Data folder. Select the following folders from inside your imperial_campaign folder:
descr_strat
descr_mercenaries
descr_regions_and_settlement_name_lookup
And then copy them, and paste your copies into your Base folder.
Your Base folder should now look something like this:
Now, there are backups for text files, locatedhere for RTW 1.5, but there are no online backups for non-text files. This is where I stop, and try to scream at you to MAKE BACK UP FILES. But since there are most likely a few people who will MAKE BACK UP FILES, they will be happy in case they find that they screwed up and can't figure out how to fix it. There will be those who aren't so lucky, and will plead for someone to help them. Please, make the files. Right now. No, don't skip down to the next section, make the files. NOW! Ok? Good. Now that you have done this, we can go to the actual program.
If you have done everything correctly, you may now run your TiME program. When the program opens, you must select the folder where all of the right files are located, aka, the Base Folder. The result should be this.
Press 'Ok' and let the program load the campaign. When it is finished, it should look something like the following, using vanilla as a reference.
Now I shall go through what this program has available right from the loading screen. Over on the right hand side, there are 6 functioning buttons, and one that doesn't do anything, at least that I have found. That one that does not work, is the map features button. All that it does, at least for me, is keep you on your previously pressed button, so if you went from the regions tab, to map features, you'd appear to be still in the regions tab. All the other buttons work the way that they appear they are supposed to. The Characters tab brings up the characters, army size (if they have one), and list every character a faction has. But as a side note for when editing the map itself,your beginning cursor size is very, very large, approximately 9 pixels wide and tall. To give you an idea of how large this is, a settlement dot is merely 1 pixel wide and tall. This can be very damaging, so I insist you change the bar to the third notch from the left, which will make your cursor 1 pixel wide and tall.
Basic Modding
Now, onto some of the features. I will show you how to move a city, then move it's garrison, as well as explaining some other things this great thing can do. First off, click on the Regions tab. It should appear like this on vanilla.
You will notice that I moved to the Carthage area, and that the first region selected, is Britannia_Inferior. Make note of this, because every faction has it's own unique color. Some regions may be close to identical, but the Red, Green, Blue (RGB) values are slightly off. So if you are for some reason adding more pink to the map that is eerily similar to Britannia_Inferior, double check you have the right region selected. If you are wrong, you can select the appropriate region by either going through the list, or by deselecting your paintbrush via Campagin => Draw Mode (make sure there is no checkmark) or by simply selecting the brush to the left of the GT button, and clicking on the region you want.
Now, in the next picture you should notice I've selected Africa as the color in the box has changed, and Africa is selected in the list. I have also clicked on the Edit/settlement, which brings up almost, if not everything, about that settlement and region you need.
You will notice that there is a list that is highlighted blue. I did that because this tool takes pleasure in messing with this particular list, usually going down the list by one. Parthia is right below Carthage in this list. So if you ever decide to edit stuff via this tool, double check your information to make sure that it is correct. Now on to moving Carthage back to the sea, and not 10 miles from land like the Romans wanted.
Once the region is selected, and nothing else is opened (like the edit region/settlement interface), simply click 'Set City Position'. Now, as long as your cursor is set to a 1v1 pixel area and your paintbrush is not selected, you may move the city's position to anywhere in the region. Your first click after pressing that button will set the city there. There are hidden dangers in this moving of cities, as going solely by this screen you don't see the tiles that have ground types that don't allow a city to be on them, low/high mountains, dense forests and such. You also don't see rivers and resources, which will also not work. You can see these if you click on the appropriate buttons at the top, GT meaning Ground Types, next to the right shows regions borders, CP means City Positions (also includes port positions), the blue swiggles make the rivers appear, the person is characters and armies, the next button is visible resources, and the final button is what the ground will look like when all finished. As a side note, clicking these make your scrolling across the map slower, as they provide more detail.
Now, as to moving the garrison, we need to select the Characters tab. You will notice in the next picture that there is a list of all characters of the Carthaginian faction on the right.
I've played enough Carthage to know that Hasdrubal resides in Carthage, and have simply clicked on the guy standing on the tile that formerly held Carthage. You can also click on the name in the list, and you'll be brought to that character immediately. Now, all you have to do to move the character selected, is drag the character to the spot you want him to go. To make sure you get the right tile, click the CP button and drag Hasdrubal to the city.
One thing I have withheld from saying until this is, to make sure you are still reading, is that when your cursor is on the map, the program shows the coordinates of where your cursor is. Really, look at the last picture, the cursor is on Hasdrubal, which is now in the city of Carthage, x 84, y 44.
The TiME people have the program rewrite the descr_strat file when you save, as well as any other file your modding may have changed. I find their new descr_strat file is quite handy, as it tells you exactly what everything is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This will be all for now. I will fix the images, and start on any corrections/adjustments this needs. There will be PLENTY more explained when this article is completed I just want to do an overview of what it can do before I start into the how to edit the map with it.
Ah yes, the TiME tool. I hope you would have downloaded the file from
descr_strat
descr_mercenaries
descr_regions_and_settlement_name_lookup
And then copy them, and paste your copies into your Base folder.
Your Base folder should now look something like this:
Now, there are backups for text files, located
If you have done everything correctly, you may now run your TiME program. When the program opens, you must select the folder where all of the right files are located, aka, the Base Folder. The result should be this.
Press 'Ok' and let the program load the campaign. When it is finished, it should look something like the following, using vanilla as a reference.
Now I shall go through what this program has available right from the loading screen. Over on the right hand side, there are 6 functioning buttons, and one that doesn't do anything, at least that I have found. That one that does not work, is the map features button. All that it does, at least for me, is keep you on your previously pressed button, so if you went from the regions tab, to map features, you'd appear to be still in the regions tab. All the other buttons work the way that they appear they are supposed to. The Characters tab brings up the characters, army size (if they have one), and list every character a faction has. But as a side note for when editing the map itself,your beginning cursor size is very, very large, approximately 9 pixels wide and tall. To give you an idea of how large this is, a settlement dot is merely 1 pixel wide and tall. This can be very damaging, so I insist you change the bar to the third notch from the left, which will make your cursor 1 pixel wide and tall.
Basic Modding
Now, onto some of the features. I will show you how to move a city, then move it's garrison, as well as explaining some other things this great thing can do. First off, click on the Regions tab. It should appear like this on vanilla.
You will notice that I moved to the Carthage area, and that the first region selected, is Britannia_Inferior. Make note of this, because every faction has it's own unique color. Some regions may be close to identical, but the Red, Green, Blue (RGB) values are slightly off. So if you are for some reason adding more pink to the map that is eerily similar to Britannia_Inferior, double check you have the right region selected. If you are wrong, you can select the appropriate region by either going through the list, or by deselecting your paintbrush via Campagin =>
Now, in the next picture you should notice I've selected Africa as the color in the box has changed, and Africa is selected in the list. I have also clicked on the Edit/settlement, which brings up almost, if not everything, about that settlement and region you need.
You will notice that there is a list that is highlighted blue. I did that because this tool takes pleasure in messing with this particular list, usually going down the list by one. Parthia is right below Carthage in this list. So if you ever decide to edit stuff via this tool, double check your information to make sure that it is correct. Now on to moving Carthage back to the sea, and not 10 miles from land like the Romans wanted.
Once the region is selected, and nothing else is opened (like the edit region/settlement interface), simply click 'Set City Position'. Now, as long as your cursor is set to a 1v1 pixel area and your paintbrush is not selected, you may move the city's position to anywhere in the region. Your first click after pressing that button will set the city there. There are hidden dangers in this moving of cities, as going solely by this screen you don't see the tiles that have ground types that don't allow a city to be on them, low/high mountains, dense forests and such. You also don't see rivers and resources, which will also not work. You can see these if you click on the appropriate buttons at the top, GT meaning Ground Types, next to the right shows regions borders, CP means City Positions (also includes port positions), the blue swiggles make the rivers appear, the person is characters and armies, the next button is visible resources, and the final button is what the ground will look like when all finished. As a side note, clicking these make your scrolling across the map slower, as they provide more detail.
Now, as to moving the garrison, we need to select the Characters tab. You will notice in the next picture that there is a list of all characters of the Carthaginian faction on the right.
I've played enough Carthage to know that Hasdrubal resides in Carthage, and have simply clicked on the guy standing on the tile that formerly held Carthage. You can also click on the name in the list, and you'll be brought to that character immediately. Now, all you have to do to move the character selected, is drag the character to the spot you want him to go. To make sure you get the right tile, click the CP button and drag Hasdrubal to the city.
One thing I have withheld from saying until this is, to make sure you are still reading, is that when your cursor is on the map, the program shows the coordinates of where your cursor is. Really, look at the last picture, the cursor is on Hasdrubal, which is now in the city of Carthage, x 84, y 44.
The TiME people have the program rewrite the descr_strat file when you save, as well as any other file your modding may have changed. I find their new descr_strat file is quite handy, as it tells you exactly what everything is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This will be all for now. I will fix the images, and start on any corrections/adjustments this needs. There will be PLENTY more explained when this article is completed
[This message has been edited by Punic Hoplite (edited 03-27-2012 @ 10:05 PM).]