A Guide To Descr_Sm_Factions.txt
By Hussarknight
Much information about the factions in Rome: Total War is set in Descr_Sm_Factions.txt. The information includes colours, culture and intro and outro movies. This guide will tell you all you need to know about this file, including options unique to the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack.
Depending on whether you are using BI, the file can be found in RTW\\Data\\Descr_Sm_Factions.txt or RTW\\BI\\Data\\Descr_Sm_Factions.txt. Remember that as always it’s a good idea to make a backup of the file before you edit it. That way you’ll always have the original to fall back on in case something goes wrong.
Now you’re ready to start modding. Here’s what an entry from BI might look like. An entry in the original RTW will be the same, except for the lines beginning with horde. Some BI entries will also lack those lines, see Barbarian Invasion options further on in this guide for more information.
faction huns culture hun symbol models_strat/symbol_huns.CAS rebel_symbol models_strat/symbol_hun_rebel.CAS primary_colour red 70, green 70, blue 70 secondary_colour red 0, green 0, blue 0 loading_logo loading_screen/symbols/symbol128_huns.tga standard_index 4 logo_index 233 ; Index into strat3.rsd small_logo_index 247 ; Index into shared.rsd triumph_value 5 intro_movie victory_movie fmv/victory/huns_win.wmv defeat_movie fmv/lose/huns_eliminated.wmv death_movie fmv/lose/huns_eliminated.wmv custom_battle_availability yes horde_min_units 60 horde_max_units 100 horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde 20 horde_unit_per_settlement_population 300 horde_min_named_characters 4 horde_max_percent_army_stack 80 horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture 33 horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture 50 horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture 100 horde_unit hun horde spearmen horde_unit hun horde spearmen horde_unit hun horde horse horde_unit hun horde spearmen horde_unit hun horde spearmen horde_unit hun horde horse horde_unit hun horde horse horde_unit hun horde chosen warriors can_sap yes prefers_naval_invasions no
I will now give a line-by-line breakdown of what each line does.
faction – As the name implies, this line tells the game which faction the entry belongs to. However, you won’t be able to change a faction’s name by changing it here. See this post for instructions on how to change faction names. Following the faction name, there can be one more option on this lines. This is used for when a revolt will not spawn the generic grey rebels, but a new faction. There are two ways of doing this. For both ways you’ll have to add some text to both the spawning and the parent faction.
This is the first possibility:
- , spawns_on_revolt – Add this to the parent faction.
- , spawned_by – Add this to the spawning faction.
This will cause a new faction to be spawned, but this faction will not behave different towards its parent faction than towards other factions. The second option will cause hostilities between the two factions. It goes like this:
- , shadowed_by – Add this to the parent faction.
- , shadowing – Add this to the spawning faction.
culture – This sets the culture of the faction. The culture determines what the faction’s buildings, towns and ships will look like. It can also influence the availability of certain units. These are the valid cultures for RTW:
- roman
- barbarian
- carthaginian
- greek
- egyptian
- eastern
These are the valid cultures for BI:
- roman
- barbarian
- carthaginian
- eastern
- nomad
- hun
If you want to, you can also add a culture yourself. Currently, we have no guide to doing this.
symbol – This sets the symbol used on the campaign map, for example in diplomatic negotiations or on the button for accessing the faction overview.
rebel_symbol – Rebels who spawn in a province owned by this faction will use the symbol specified here.
primary_colour, secondary_colour – These are the faction colours, specified according to the RGB colour model. The colours are used for faction borders, deployment zones and the colour of the text in online battles. The RGB model basically works as follows: Each colour is represented by three values. The first tells how much red there is in the colour, the second how much green and the third how much blue. The higher the number, the more of that colour the final colour will contain. The values for each colour can range from 0 to 255. Shades of grey (including black and white) are represented by equal amounts of red, green and blue.
loading_logo – This is the symbol used on the loading screen. By default all logos seem to be 128×128 pixels, so it’s probably a safe bet to stick to that dimension.
standard_index – This number will tell the game which logo should be displayed on the banners on the campaign map. All logos are stored in RTW\\data\\banners in a series of files named symbols#.tga.dds. There are four logos in each file. They are numbered starting from 0, and the numbers go from upper-left to upper-right to bottom-left to bottom-right inside each file. For example, a value of 6 will mean that the logo in the bottom-left part of symbols2.tga.dds is used.
logo_index, small_logo_index, triumph_value, – As far a I know, these three lines do not do anything, so you won’t need to change them. Please contact me via the link above if you know what they are for.
intro_movie – This is the movie shown when you start a campaign. Note that, although by default BI doesn’t have any intro movies, you can still use them.
victory_movie – This movie will be shown when you win the campaign.
defeat_movie – This movie is shown when you lose the campaign.
death_movie – This movie is shown when the faction is eliminated when it’s controlled by the AI.
custom_battle_availability – This sets whether the faction is available in custom battles. This has no influence over whether or not the faction is available in the campaign mode.
can_sap – Whether or not this faction will be able to use sapping points to undermine stone walls in sieges.
prefers_naval_invasions – Whether or not this faction will make much use of boats to send troops around and to invade other factions. This can be an important option, because it will help certain factions a lot if they are spread out or have little room to expand in their home region.
Barbarian Invasion options
These options are only available in the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack.
Not all factions will have the lines beginning with horde. These factions don’t have the horde ability, and will die out when they lose their last settlement. To give such a faction the ability to become a horde, copy all the lines beginning with horde from a horde faction and add them to the faction you want to give the horde ability.
horde_min_units – This sets the minimum amount of horde units this faction will get if it turns into a horde.
horde_max_units – Much similar to min_units, this will tell the game the maximum amount of horde units to give to this faction. You should always make sure this is higher than the minimum amount to prevent crashes.
horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde – When a faction hordes more than once, the maximum amount of horde units decreases every time. This is by how much units the maximum number is lowered.
horde_unit_per_settlement_population – This line is used when a faction hordes. It sets how many people will need to be removed from the cities population to form one horde unit. The amount of soldiers in the unit doesn’t matter.
horde_min_named_characters – This sets the minimum amount of named characters this horde will have. These are only the generals, not diplomats, spies or assassins. If the number goes below this limit, new family members will appear through adoption or marriage.
horde_max_percent_army_stack – This line is also used when a faction goes horde. It sets the maximum percentage of horde units in each stack, so it might or it might not be possible for armies of exclusively horde units to appear.
horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture – These lines set what part of the total horde units will be disbanded for each of the three first settlements a horde settles in. The first line is used when the horde occupies it’s first new settlement, the second for the second and the third for the third. It is set in a percentage of the remaining horde units, so a percentage of 50 will disband half of the existing horde units.
horde_unit – The lines that look like this will determine which units the faction will get when becoming a horde. The name of the unit is the “type” entry for that unit in BI\\data\\export_descr_unit.txt. These lines also determine the relation between the created units. The more often a unit is mentioned, the more often it will appear in the armies. An example:
horde_unit hun horde spearmen horde_unit hun horde spearmen horde_unit hun horde horse
This means that the newly formed horde armies will consist of twice as many Hun Horde Spearmen as Hun Horde Horsemen.
Well, I hope you’ve found this guide useful. If you have any comments or questions, I’d love to hear them. You can contact me via the link above or on the forums. Happy modding!
