Tutorial - Custom Character's for Medieval 2 Total War/ Mods 

Glad you enjoyed it. Happy modding :D

@@TheBerryKnight You were correct , spelling is the key. Missplaced a capital letter and the Campaign wouldent start. Works fine now tho!

@@simonresch1433 Glad to hear it. Hope the rest of your modding goes without a hitch. Have fun! :)

Richard the lionheart?

I haven't actively attempted modding in over 6 months, and I'm waiting on a new rig before I continue making M2 vids. It might be a while. In fact, I will say there are no promises on this, but I might come back with another tutorial if I think there needs to be one.

That's something you'd have to look up on the Total War center tutorials. At this time I have no idea how. Sorry

I don't see why it wouldn't in Third Age. Not sure about custom battles. I haven't done any of those with custom characters. I believe this method will work. If not, please message back.

it is work just I made a mistake, sorry

Also how do you change a faction's General's Bodyguard unit to something else?

You would have to start a new save to see your changes appear.

OK thanks do you know how to change a faction's general unit?

You simply change it in the descr_strat, to any unit currently on the roster of that faction that you want.

I tried it and it works, but only for generals at the start of the game. How do you change the default general unit so that when I train a new general later in the game it will have a different unit?

In one of these replies somewhere, I did add a link to a mod for M2tw that allows for modding the base game. Hopefully you find it, and hopefully it helps. Cheers

You have to unpack a file first. On this page you'll find some other helpful guides, as well as the link to the unpacker, which you'll need to add names and such. www.twcenter.net/wiki/M2TW_Modding_Tools

@Papiros www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?580314-M2TW-Index-of-Modding-Tutorials-Resources-amp-Tools Its in there somewhere.... Mainly just a great resource for modding in general. :)

Only new campaigns. It will mess up your current campaigns. I've done it before, and it gets kinda weird XD

well that sucks. thanks anw

np ;)

Steam just has a different location as to find the files. As for the descr_names, there is no file, but you could certainly make your own by copy/pasting one of your mods' files into notepad, or whatever your default program is, and start adding in your custom names.

I did this but the game wont create the .bin file for some reason. Any suggestions?

To me that's uncharted territory, and due to work I'm unable to apply any time towards it at the moment. I suggest looking up any tutorials you can find and try applying them. Hope this helped.

No worries man, I'll figure it out. Thanks though!

My best guess, would be to make sure you place the 'portrait' folder, in the right spot. Its been a while since I've looked into princess portraits, and I only did 1 if I recall for House Tully once.

but work fine to create character

I think BU stands for Backup, so I'd edit the 'descr_strat', as that's what the game will read in its files.

I have the War of Spring mod (www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?729925-RPHS-A-War-of-Spring). I tried adding a character just the way you explained but whatever i did the game switched back to the main menu every time i tried to play the game. So i tried the same thing on the Westeros:total war and it worked out just fine. I think it's a mod related problem. btw is there a limitation to how many custom characters you can add?

I think there might be a limit, as I've run into a problem where some added characters in F&B 0.9 have been blank.... So, maybe? On the other hand, sometimes different mods depend.I believe War of Spring has a bunch of new characters/settlements, so it wouldn't surprise me that there's been a limit hit, or something, but I'm not quite sure on that point...

Unfortunately I don't, Sorry

There are lots of tutorials for that on the internet, it just requires a little bit of text editing;)

+InvalidSloth Well i've managed to get this so far imgur.com/Lb3gkTS

+InvalidSloth Looks great dude!

Is the descr_strat file correct? Usually it'll crash due to mistakes. Even when you think you have everything perfect, I've learned that something can still go wrong >.

@@TheBerryKnight I changed the name of the faction heir, making sure to change every instance of that character's name. Is that the problem? By the way, thank you for the fast response.

@@whenwollf If the names you've used are listed on the names list, then I don't see a problem. Even that wouldn't cause a crash. The descr_start would, or tinkering with general skins on campaign map. Triats as well, so it depends on all the stuff you did. Just the heir's name changed? You might be able to work around it by adding your character, making them the heir, and keeping the other general. I did this in Falcom Total War 3 when I was tinkering a bit. Tinker a bit, and see what happens. Good luck :)

@@TheBerryKnight I got it to work but now I'm experiencing a new bug. I managed to get it to work on SS6.4 by adding the intended name and then an additional name, so that the compiler actually recognizes the intended name (an interesting workaround). I am now dealing with the issue that every time I reload my campaign, the name that I changed is now a different name, at random. I changed England's ruling house name from 'de_Normandie' to 'Bentley'. In my most recent reload of this saved game, the house name is now 'de_Bohun', including all named characters that were 'Bentley' which are now 'de_Bohun'. It seems that the surname object is no longer pointing to a fixed point in memory but now populates randomly at run-time. Do you have any idea on how to fix that? (Sorry for the long post)

@@cameronbentley7344 I haven't heard of that bug before. I realize you've probably gone through the name files a lot at this point, but try adding a few random surnames under the one you just added, and see if that helps. Otherwise, I don't know after that XD

I am the same. U are steamuser, aren't you? I think we haven't it :-(

Under world, under maps, under campaign, under imperial_campaign, is the descr_strat.txt file.

I got all that but I can't find descr_names.txt. Do I need to download something that let's me see them?

Below you'll see the same question from alex perez, and to shorten this, look down a few comments, and see where we got to. Hope your able to fix the problem.

you need to unpack medieval 2 total war.. download kingdoms unpacker somewhere from the internet and place the unpacker files on tools with the normal medieval 2 unpacker..

As long as the princess isn't related to the family members, I don't see the problem with it. As for generals, perhaps it has something regarding them being married in the descr_strat. That's my best guess. I honestly haven't seen this problem arise.

@@TheBerryKnight Thanks for the response and i figured it out by adding her to the relative section with the age difference between the father and daughter making sense. Now it works

@@simonaberg7301 Glad to hear! :)

Here is a guide, ~ www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?85474-A-Guide-to-Modding-Character-Names-in-M2TW which also talks about using the "Unpacker Tool" for M2TW. This tool is essential for modding the base game. Otherwise, for mods/submods, there should already be a descr_names file, due to the makers of the mod.

Berry Knight thanks

It doesnt say anything about unpacking

If you read the part just after "The Files" it specifies that you will need the unpacker to access those files. I don't have a link to the unpacker. I figured you could search for it on your own.

Is winRAR an unpacker?

If you are using a mod/submod, the .txt file should be there. Perhaps you deleted it thinking it was the .strings file?

I'm also having this problem, did you figure it out? I'm not using a mod btw

I wasn't using a mod either. I was just using the vanilla game. The text file isn't there. Just the strings.bin I can't get it figured out.

Perhaps we will have to download a mod and have our custom factions within a different era. Quite annoying but oh well. Thanks for the video Berry I don't want this to sound unappreciative as I wouldn't have known where to even start otherwise! :)

Oh, I totally understand. There's a lot of moving parts in making your own mod/faction/banners/units/generals. *sigh* It can be quite taxing if you're strapped for time, so make sure you have a weekend of free time to get started. Once you start, you won't want to stop ;)

Yes. You can change who the Heir/FL are, and the other family members will be the last in succession. All you need to do, is change who has FL/Heir in descr_strat Customizing an underage character isn't possible as far as I know.

Was the name already in one of the lists? Did you make sure to check all spelling?

I found a solution the problem is just I have to add another "S" or another letter I just need to found who letters

Ah, I've had that happen as well. Sometimes it worked out best when I added another name in the names.txt file, or under specific factions. Sometimes it wouldn't register the most recent names. Not sure why, but there you go.

@@TheBerryKnight so I need to remove the name and try another name in name.txt ?

No, you add another name underneath the name you want to be there. That way the name you want shouldn't disappear. The random name you added should take its place in essence.

Haven't tested it personally, but I don't see why not.

Yes it worked for me

nvm

then go to your sega folder under program files

dude I didn't finish the video but then I did. then I got to lazy to do it so I just played some cities skylines

ah, ok

Check for errors. If nothing seems to be wrong, then delete any files you chances with the .strings.bin file name. Sometimes that helps too.

ok. I'll try it then

unfortunately still don't working ;-;

Try only deleting the .strings bin files where you edited the files. You have to do it a every time before you start up the mod.

When I delet the name of my character and put the name of the original character the game works

Is it better in some way?

That's because they are not a family member. You can use a princess, or go into the descr_strat file to add him in.