You will find guide to various aspects of modifying Rome: Total War here.

Modding FAQ

This index page will help you to quickly find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about modding Rome: Total War.

General Modding

Command Line Switches

This guide by SubRosa and Primo will show you how to add switches to your command line in order to alter how the game runs.

How To Use Mod:Switch

Learn how to use Mod:Switch in this article by SubRosa, and make your mods without copying over the original game files.

Units

A Guide To Creating New Units

Want to create new units, or modify existing ones? Look here in this article by SubRosa.

A Guide To Export_Descr_Unit.txt

Discover all there is to know about this file that is so important to creating and modifying units in this article by SubRosa.

A Guide To Descr_Model_Battle.txt

SubRosa will show you the ins and outs of this file that specifies what models, skins, and sprites the game uses for every unit.

How To Create New Unit Cards

This guide by SubRosa will show you how to make new unit cards from scratch, including how to make the backgrounds transparent.

Making Unit Cards With 3ds Max

This step-by-step tutorial by Private Clark will show you how to make professional-looking unit cards using 3ds Max and your graphics editor of choice

3ds Max Basics

This tutorial of SubRosa will take you step-by-step through all the basics of this powerful tool, such as opening a model, applying a texture rendering a preview, etc...

Rome: Total War Basic Modeling, Part 1

This tutorial by Private Clark will take you through the process of creating all new models, applying texture maps to them, and adding them to your units.

Rome: Total War Basic Modeling, Part 2

This continues Private Clark 3ds Max tutorial above.

How to Add Sprites

This guide by SubRosa will show you how to create your own sprites and add them to the game.

Single Player Campaign

A Guide To Descr_Sm_Factions.txt

Hussarknight guide of this file illustrates how it determines a culture, loading screen logos, banner symbols and colours, border colours, if it can horde, sets the details of its horde size and units, whether it is emergent, or a rebel faction shadowing another.

Adding Resources In RTW

Hussarknight outlines the steps needed to add completely new resources to the Campaign Map.

Adding Buildings To RTW

Hussarknight gives us a complete guide to creating new buildings from scratch and implementing them in your game.

Changing Terrain Features in RTW

Hussarknight describes how to create new terrain features on the strat map, including rivers, cliffs, and volcanoes.

Adding New Regions to the Campaign Map

SubRosa details how to add new regions to an existing Campaign Map in this step-by-step tutorial.

The Descr_Strat Reference

Hussarknight takes us on a guided tour of this file which sets many of the starting variables of the single player campaign, including settlements, starting characters and armies, faction relationships, and more.

Creating New Faction Symbols

SrJamesTyrrel brings us a step-by-step pictoral guide that reveals how to create new faction symbols in Photoshop.

How to Create New Retinue Members

A leader is only as good as his entourage. This guide by SubRosa will show you how to create your own retinue members.

Creating New Traits

This article by SubRosa takes us step-by-step through the process of creating new traits for generals and agents.

We're currently building up our database on game modification articles and hope to expand this section. If you have articles or tutorials you'd like to see here send them to SubRosa or Hussarknight. Only quality tutorials will be accepted.