- 3Modding
Location
Extract to C: Program Files (x86) The Creative Assembly Rome - Total War data world maps campaign imperialcampaign Hello guest register or sign in or with. Descr strat files. Rome: Total War PC. Android iOS (iPhone/iPad) Macintosh Linux Macintosh PC. Log In to add custom notes to this or any other game.
Descr_strat.txt is one of the core files in both Rome: Total War and Medieval II: Total War. It can be found at [Install location]dataworldmapscampaignimperial_campaigndescr_strat.txt, depending on what game it is (by default the folder name would be Rome - Total War or Medieval II - Total War) and which campaign it is.
Note:
- In Medieval II: Total War the descr_strat.txt is set to read only. To fix this, right click the file, select properties and uncheck 'read-only'. Press OK and you are good to go. (Supposedly)
Usage
The Descr_strat.txt contains all info about the beginning of every campaign. It controls simple things such as the starting date, end date and playable factions. Furthermore it also contains info about the different resources. Most of the file however consists of info for all of the factions, such as diplomacy relations, starting money, settlement level and buildings, armies and agents and family relations.
Modding
Descr_strat.txt is argueably one of the easiest files to edit. It can also be quite difficult for a novice modder to get into. Here are some examples of what can be done with it:
Setting all factions as playable
This is the vanilla (unmodded) version of the Medieval II: Total War descr_strat.txt. At the very beginning of the file, you should see this:
Now, if say, you want to make the Turks playable, you need to move it to the playable section. The easiest way to do this is to highlight 'turks', right click it and select 'cut'. Then, after 'venice' press enter (to make a new line), make a single tab (this doesn't really mean anything, it's just cleaner this way), and then paste 'turks' there. Now if you load up the game the Turks should be playable. If you just want to make every faction playable, highlight all of them, cut and paste in the playable section. Same goes for Rome: Total War.
NOTES:
- You can also make nonplayable factions playable, but beware. There is a reason for not having them playable by default. Factions such as the Mongols and Timurids only appear after some turns, so you don't want to play as them (unless you make them playable from the beginning, something which isn't covered in this article). The Papal States and the Senate (SPQR) from RTW will probably generate a lot of crashes, as they have some special coding attached to them that makes them issue missions to you, amongst other things. (For example when playing as SPQR in RTW and opening up the Senate Scroll, you will have an immediate crash).
- In RTW a lot of factions that are normal factions are nonplayable. Basically what you can do here is to make all factions except the Rebels (slave) and the SPQR playable. The nonplayable factions don't have any descriptions, intro videos or faction leader portraits though.
- After the [1.3]-patch for Rome: Total War, making all factions weren't that simple anymore. You also had to add some starting maps, leader portraits etc to the faction. This is easiest by just copying another factions files, renaming them while keeping the content the same. (This will be inaccurate, but an easy way of making them playable).
- In Medieval II: Total War, there is an even easier way of making all factions (except the Papal States, Aztecs, Mongols, Timurids and Rebels) playable. This is done by adding two lines of text to the preference file:
The result is the same, but some may find this method easier.
Adding Money to a Faction
Adding money to a faction is a very simple operation. Here's how to do it:
Scroll down to the factions section. It can be found easiest by pressing 'ctrl'+'F', and then type in the faction you want to add money to. (Sometimes the first hit it gives you is the faction name in the playable-/nonplayablefactions-section. To avoid this click with your mouse someplace after this.) Let's take the Gauls in RTW as an example. Once you have scrolled down you should see this:
After it there is a list of every settlement the Gauls has, but just ignore it.Anyway, simple change the number after denari, and when loading up the game the Gauls will have more or less money than in vanilla, depending on what you set it to!
The Descr_Strat Reference
by Hussarknight
The descr_strat.txt file is one of the most commonly modded files in RTW. It can be found in the dataworldmapscampaignimperial_campaign folder. It contains the necessary information for almost anything concerning the campaign. I will now break it down part by part and explain what each part does.
It is not necessary to read all parts. Minecraft download mac free tlauncher. You can jump straight to the ones you're interested in and leave the others for what they are. You should however, read a section through entirely before you start editing, as often there's more than one thing you need to change if you want it to work correctly.
Before you change this file (or any other file for that matter), there are two things you should remember:
- Make a backup of the file first.
- Keep the spacing in the same format as the original. Not doing this may cause a crash.
Ok, here we go!
Opening section
campaign imperial_campaignThe name of the campaign. If you set this to imperial_campaign it will appear in the single player menu. Campaigns with a different name will appear as a provincial campaign. For a provincial campaign to function properly, you have to make a new folder in dataworldmapscampaign with the name of your campaign. It should contain the files in worldmapscampaignimperial campaign and those in worldmapsbase.
| playable |
| romans_julii |
| romans_brutii |
| romans_scipii |
| end |
| unlockable |
| egypt |
| seleucid |
| carthage |
| parthia |
| gauls |
| germans |
| britons |
| greek_cities |
| end |
| nonplayable |
| romans_senate |
| macedon |
| pontus |
| armenia |
| dacia |
| numidia |
| scythia |
| spain |
| thrace |
| slave |
| end |
This section determines which factions are playable. All factions under 'playable' can be used at all times, those under 'unlockable' only after you've defeated them in a campaign and the 'nonplayable' section holds factions that can never be played. To change this, simply cut and paste them into another section.
There are three other things you have to keep in mind. First, the faction selection screen can only display 20 factions, so you'll have to leave another faction in the unplayable section if you want the Rebels (Slave) to be available. Secondly, when playing as the Senate the game will crash if you look at the 'Senate' tab in the faction scroll. Third and last, the Rebels were never meant to be played and it is possible that you will get random crashes if you're playing them.
| start_date -270 summer |
| end_date 14 summer |
A small part determining when the campaign starts and ends. Negative values represent dates BC, positive values set dates AD.
| brigand_spawn_value 10 |
| pirate_spawn_value 28 |
This determines how often rebels and pirates will spawn. The higher these values are, the less often rebels and pirates will appear.
Wonders & Resources
landmark pyramids_and_sphinx 181, 12landmark - Defines a landmark that will appear on the campaign map.
name Apowersoft screen recorder with audio. - The internal name of the wonder. This may not contain spaces.
x,y position - The position of the wonder, measured in x (horizontal) and y (vertical) from the bottom-left corner of the map. The numbers represent tiles on the campaign map.
You can easily find out of the coordinates of a place on the campaign map. First, place your cursor on the tile you want to know the coordinates of. Then press the ` or ~ key. Type show_cursorstat and hit enter. It will now give you the x and y coordinates of the tile your cursor is hovering over.
resource iron, 83, 128
resource - Defines a resource
name - What resource it is. For valid types, see the other entries in descr_strat.
x,y position - The position of the resource, measured in x (horizontal) and y (vertical) from the bottom-left corner of the map. The numbers represent tiles on the campaign map.
Note, that the resources you set here do show up on the map but they don't influence the abilities of the province. For example, you can place elephants near Rome but you still won't be able to train elephant units there.If you want resources to effect the settlement, you have to edit dataworldmapscampaignbasedescr_regions.txt. Simply add the resource to the list of resources for the settlement you want.
Factions
| faction romans_julii, comfortable caesar |
| superfaction romans_senate |
| denari 5000 |
| settlement |
faction romans_julii, comfortable caesar - Faction determines which faction this part of descr_strat is about. The two words behind it directly influence the AI behaviour. The first one sets what buildings the AI will focus on constructing:
- balanced - mixed
- religious - growth, public order, trade, farms, walls
- trader- growth, races, games, farming, experience bonuses
- comfortable - growth, farming, games, races, experience bonuses
- bureaucrat - trade, growth, health, walls, law
- craftsman - walls, races, trade, upgrades, mines, health, growth
- sailor - sea trade, walls, growth
- fortified - walls, trade, public order
- smith - balanced
- mao - mass troops, mostly light infantry
- genghis - missile and light cavalry
- stalin - heavy infantry and artillery
- napoleon - mixture of light and heavy infantry with light cavalry
- henry - heavy and light cavalry with missile infantry
- caesar - heavy infantry, light cavalry and artillery.
denari 5000 - Amount of denarii this faction starts with.
Settlements
| { |
| level large_town |
| region Etruria |
| year_founded 0 |
| population 4000 |
| plan_set default_set |
| faction_creator romans_julii |
| building |
| { |
level large_town - Sets the level of the town. Valid levels are: village, town, large_town, city, large_city and huge_city
region Etruria - Sets the region were this settlements is located. The exact position of the settlement is stored in dataworldmapsbasemap_regions.tga.
year_founded 0 - As far as I know, this doesn't do anything. All towns have 0 as value here, so it is best just to leave it at that.
population 4000 - Starting population of the town.
plan_set default_set - This determines which city plan is used for the layout of streets, buildings and walls. If you want to change this, you'll first have to create a new set yourself.
faction_creator romans_julii - Here you can set which faction founded this settlement. If the settlements rebels when owned by another faction, there is a random chance the settlement will revolt to that faction.
Buildings
| building |
| { |
| type barracks militia_barracks |
| } |
This is an example of a building. You should first declare the type and then the level. For valid types and levels, you can look at other entries in descr_strat or you can look in RTWdataexport_descr_building.txt.
Characters
| character Flavius Julius, named character, leader, age 47, , x 89, y 82 |
| traits GoodCommander 2 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , GoodDefender 1 , PoliticsSkill 3 , GoodAdministrator 2 , Austere 1 |
| ancillaries aged_retainer |
name - This is the name of the character. You also have to give a name for captain-led armies and cities without a governor. Note that captains should have a name consisting of only a first name and that the name has to be in datatextnames.txt
named character - sets what kind of campaign map object this is. Named character stands for general, admiral for an admiral, spy for a spy, assassin sets an assassin and a diplomat a diplomat.
leader/heir - This sets this character as the faction leader. The heir is set with 'heir'. You can only have one leader and one heir per faction. Leave this empty for all other characters. Example: named character, , age 25
age - age in years.
x,y position - This is the starting position of the character, measured from the bottom-left corner.
traits - List of traits this character has. All valid types and levels can be found in RTWdataexport_descr_character_traits.txt. Note that several traits have an antitrait. A character can't have both a trait and it's antitrait. For example, you can't have a general that has the trait GoodCommander and the trait BadCommander. You can find which traits have which antitraits in export_descr_character_traits.txt.
ancillaries - List of retinue members this character has. All ancillaries can be found in dataexport_descr_ancillaries.txt. Just like traits, some ancillaries exclude others. Which ancillaries exclude which can be found in the aforementioned file.
Armies
| army | ||||
| unit | roman generals guard cavalry early | exp 1 | armour 0 | weapon_lvl 0 |
| unit | roman hastati | exp 1 | armour 0 | weapon_lvl 0 |
army - Indicates an army will now be described.
unit - All units should start with this.
unit type - The name of the unit. This is found in RTWdataexport_descr_unit.txt . Find the unit you're looking for, then copy the entry behind 'type' into here. Note that the first unit in the list is the bodyguard of the general.
exp x - Sets the amount of experience chevrons this unit has. Ranges from 0 (no experience) to 9 (three golden chevrons).
armour x - Sets the level of armour this unit has. 0 is the minimum and 3 the maximum value here.
weapon_lvl x - Sets the level of weapon this unit has. 0 is the minimum and 3 the maximum value here. Higher values can normally be achieved by building blacksmiths or temples to weapon gods.
Underage Family Members
| character_record Amulius Julius, male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 13, alive, never_a_leader |
This is what an entry for a non-controllable character looks like. It is used for males aged under 16 and for all female characters.
character_record - Indication for the game that a character follows.
name - This is the name of the character. Note that the name has to be in datatextnames.txt
gender - The gender of the character. There are only two valid values: male and female.
command/influence/management/subterfuge x - This sets the level of all . the character has. It is best to leave all values at 0, otherwise it might cause problems.
age x - Sets how old this character is. For males this should not be higher than 16, otherwise they would be present on the map at the start of the game. Making it higher than 16 will cause a crash.
alive - Determines if the character is alive or not. I don't know the effects of setting this to 'dead'.
never_a_leader - This is a default entry. It is best not to change it.
Family Tree
| relative | Flavius Julius, | Faustina, | Lucius Julius, | Quintus Julius, | Vibius Julius, | end |
relative - Another one of the game's default tags.
name of character - The name of the character. It is necessary to have set all properties in the character entry.
name - The first name to follow the one of the character is the name of his wife. Remember that the wife has to be present as a character_record.
names - This are the names of the sons and daughters of this general. They have to exist either as a character or as a character_record to avoid crashes.
end - It is very important to always have this closing tag. If you don't, the game will go on reading and think 'relative' is a son of the character, which will cause a crash.
Diplomacy
In this last section of descr_strat you can set how the different factions think of each other. This is done in two ways. First, the core relationship sets the general relationships between two factions. Second, faction_relationships sets how the relations between factions are at the start of the game.| core_attitudes | seleucid, | 410 | parthia |
faction - This is one of the factions you want to set a core relationship between. It doesn't matter which one you put here, because it works in two directions. For example, seleucid,
value - The higher this value, the more hostile these two factions are towards each other. This is a general guideline, taken from descr_strat itself.
- Allied = 0
- Suspicious = 100
- Neutral = 200
- Hostile = 400
- At war = 600
faction(s) - Here you enter the second faction or factions. You can put as many factions here as you like if you separate them by a comma.
| faction_relationships | romans_julii, | 100 | romans_brutii |
faction - This is the faction of which you want to set it's attitude towards the second faction.
value - The higher this value, the more hostile this factions is towards the other.
faction - This is the 'target faction' of the value in the middle. Note, that you have to set this relationship in two directions: from faction 1 to faction 2 and vice versa. The values don't need to be identical.
If you set this value to anything lower than 200, these two factions start out with trade rights, an alliance and military access.
Another thing to note here is that it is not required to declare relations between all factions. However, it is a good idea to set the relationships towards the rebels for all factions and vice versa.
Forts & Watchtowers
Rome Total War Descr_strat Original File Download
Although there are no forts or watchtowers on the campaign map in unmodified RTW it is possible to place them on the map at the start of the game. You can do this in the regions section at the bottom of descr_strat.txt. New entries can be added using the following key:
region < name > - indicates which region the structure(s) you want is in. Replace < name > with the name of the region the structure is in as found in dataworldmapsbasedescr_regions.txt.
watchtower - indicates a watchtower will be placed.
fort - indicates fort will be placed. It can be garrisoned by putting an army on the same spot.
x,y coordinates - set the position of the structure. Make sure the location is suitable for building a fort or watchtower. For example they can't be placed on a mountain or a river.
You can have as many forts and/or watchtowers in a province as you want.
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