Renaming Factions

By Hussarknight

If you’re creating a new faction in RTW one of the basic things you want to do is changing the name of the faction. Read on for instructions on how to do this.

There are several text files that contain part of the appearances of each faction’s name each. These are found in the RTW\\Data\\Text folder. You have to edit the following files:

  • campaign_descriptions.txt – contains the faction descriptions that appear in the faction selection screen.
  • expanded.txt – contains the tooltips and explanations that appear on the campaign map.
  • expanded_bi.txt – does the same, but also contains text for BI factions. This file is used by the BI expansion pack and RTW 1.5. For older versions of RTW this file is obsolete.
  • shared.txt – contains faction names.
  • strat.txt – contains victory and defeat messages.

You must only edit the names or messages that appear on the right. The names on the left are the internal names the game uses. Changing them will cause your game to break. (If you really want to it is possible to change them, but it’s a huge amount of work to do so I wouldn’t bother with it unless you really really need it.)

Because there are so many references to faction names in the text files listed above it can be a good idea to use a text editor with a search & replace function, such as Notepad++. When using a search & replace function you have to be careful not to accidently change the faction names on the left. To prevent this be sure to always include a tab or space in the bit of text that you’re entering into the replace function. The names on the left don’t use these so they won’t be changed.

When changing faction names you have to keep in mind that they are used in different forms. For example there is “Egypt” for the faction name but also “Egpytian” which is used to label agents and cities on the campaign map. Using a wrong form somewhere looks stupid so be careful what you change to what.