Creating New Campaign Map in Rome Remastered

The underlying map structure in Total War: Rome Remastered is exactly the same as for the original game and can still be changed via text file and tga image alterations, however, the visual element of the campaign map is now provided by a separate 3D mesh and textures.

• For differences between Remastered files and RTW see File Differences - Rome Remastered
• For detail on changes needed to port existing maps see Porting a Mod to Rome Remastered, Mapping/Campaign Differences

Map Structure

Functional Map

The Rome Remastered map system uses the old RTW base map_*.tga and text file system to generate the functional map, this original system still controls:

• Coordinates of settlements and ports and starting position of characters and agents
• Region boundaries
• Which areas are sea, accessible land, or blocked land (deep forest/mountains)
• Locations of features, such as cliffs, volcanos and rivers, so far as they effect events and movement on the map.
• Heights, ground_types and climates as used to generate battle-maps at each coordinate (modified by the geography.db).

Visible 3D Campaign Map

The visible 3D campaign map is created separately and is NOT automatically generated or changed by changing the base map files, it has no effect on the battle-maps generated from a battle on the campaign map. The 3D campaign map comprises:

• Cas mesh pieces and textures
• Heightmap bin files generated from the mesh pieces (used to set heights for display of cas models)
• Cas models for trees, settlements and resources (as in original RTW)
• Cas model and textures for the frame
• Cas model for the coastline (uses the surf texture and has a wave motion applied)
• Cas model for the rivers (has a moving 'water' texture applied)

It is possible to load a functional map with a non-matched 3D map, however, this will be confusing to the player, and too large an area of additional map without the appropriate heightmap bins generated from the mesh appears to cause an errorless CTD on loading.

2D map overview

Additionally, there is a 2D map overview section, which is displayed with the map fitted to screen size, the base images for it are the feral_map tga files in the campaign folder. The game generates overlays for this map view based on the game state and the functional map (e.g. boundaries are from map_regions.tga)

Functional Map Components

Any base map that loads under RTW should be capable of loading under RR including using the map.rwm from RTW. For general advice on making a Rome Total War map see the Mapping Index.

Differences from RTW

descr_strat.txt

The default descr_strat.txt used for 'remastered' settings has a quantity value specified for each resource, e.g.

 resource	marble,         3,         56,   62

which would give you one visible model but 3x the resource value to a merchant. This value is before the x/y coordinates so you need to add 1, here if you only want a single resource.

descr_win_conditions.txt

For hold_regions condition, the Settlement name must be used NOT the Region Name

map_heights.hgt

This is the same as in RTW, in case you've forgotten, you don't need to use a .hgt file the game will generate a map.rwm from just map_heights.tga, but the .hgt file can provided finer detail. However, if your map is the same size as the vanilla map in data/world/maps/base - then you either need your own .hgt file, or you will have to delete the base games' .hgt file - otherwise the game will just use that information instead of your map_heights.tga

3D Mesh Components

Mesh Pieces

The mesh is formed from .cas pieces found in:

data\terrain\campaign\pieces

the mesh pieces should be rectangular and all at the same size.

These mesh pieces are not automatically generated by the game so will not correspond with any changes made to the mapping .tga files.

Currently, RTW/BI seems to require 104x files listed in descr_map_tiles.txt, however, these can be duplicated files moved somewhere away from the visible map area.

Heightmap bins

The game generates .bin files based on the height information in the mesh piece .cas files. The data in the .bin files is for height points only no x,y coordinates are given. This data is used to set the height of settlement, tree and resource models on the campaign map, and to set the 'ground level' that armies and agents stand on.

Using a data\terrain\campaign\descr_map_tiles.txt file with differently named .cas and .bin files requested than in the original game will trigger the game to write new .bin files, if these files don't already exist in the mod-folder they will be written in:
DATA\terrain\campaign\heightmap
That's the main game data folder not the mod-folder, cut and paste them from there to your mod-folder! Cut, because if they overwrote your original game files, you will need to let the vanilla game recreate them based on the correct map.

Ideally, name your new piece .cas files differently from the vanilla ones to avoid any accidental overwriting.