Descr regions.txt
First, descr_regions.txt is one of the most important files and absolutely essential for making a new map.
This is an example of a vanilla Rome: Total War (NOT BI or M2) description of a region. The changes of Barbarian Invasion and Medieval II will be explained below.
Latium (Province name) Rome (Settlement name) romans_julii (Culture/faction tag) Latins (Rebel tribe) 52 13 198 (Map RGB value) slaves, dogs, pigs, rome, italy (Comma-separated resources list) 5 (Triumph point value) 8 (Base farm level)
The words written in in with '( )' around them are not included in the TXT file but are meant as guidelines and will be explained below.
Province name: Here, you must determine the name that you want your region to have. This is not the name of the settlement. If you have a region that has two words in it (ex: Washington DC) you must devide it with an underscore (ex: Washington_DC).
Settlement name: Here, you must determine the name that your settlement will have. Again, if you have two words for your settlement, they must be divided by an underscore.
Culture/faction tag: The culture tag defines how loyal the people of the settlement will be to the faction that governs them. The people will less likely rebel to the faction that you put there (ex: Rome will less likely rebel against the Romans than against the Barbarians)
Rebel tribe: Here you must put the name of the 'Rebel Tribe' that will be the 'faction' of the people who rebel in this settlement. A list of all the rebel factions can be found in rebel_factions_descr_enums.txt in the 'data' folder.
Map RGB value: The RGB (Red-Green-Blue) value must be exact the same as the RBG value your region has in the map_regions.tga.
Comma-separated resources list: Here, you must put the names of the recourses that your region will have. If you don't want any resources you can simply write 'none' there.
Triumph point value: I'm not sure what this does. It doesn't seem to affect your campaign map. Just write down '5' because that seems to be the basic number.
Base farm level: This is how much money your settlement will gain from farming. The higher the number, the higher the income. But than again, it doesn't have a big influence on the balancing of your campaign. Some perfectly balanced mods just use '0'.
NOTE: Don't forget to put all of your region and settlement names in the descr_regions_and_settlement_name_lookup or the game will not work.
Changes in Barbarian Invasion:
(Province name) legion: Barbaricorum (Legion name) (Settlement name) (Culture/faction tag) (Rebel tribe) (Map RGB value) (Comma-separated resources list) (Triumph point value) (Base farm level) pagan 90 christianity 10 (Regilion)
Legion name: Here you can write down what name the legions trained in this region will bear (when playing as romans). I'm not familiar with legions but it seems that you have to add their names in both barbarian_invasion_regions_and_settlement_names (located in data/text) and in descr_regions_and_settlement_name_lookup.
Religion: This where you give the starting religion values of your settlement. You have 3 religions in Barbarian Invasion, namely: christianity, pagan and zoroastrian.
NOTE: You can have all 3 different religions at the same time in one settlement but you have to make sure that the values are '100' together. (ex: pagan 90 + christianity 10 = 100)
Changes in Medieval 2: Total War.
In M2TW, everything is basicly the same as in RTW. No legions anymore and the religions are slightly different though:
(Province name) (Settlement name) (Culture/faction tag) (Rebel tribe) (Map RGB value) (Comma-separated resources list) (Triumph point value) (Base farm level)
religions { catholic 0 orthodox 0 islam 0 pagan 100 heretic 0 }
As you see, it's actually easier this way, with all the religions already described. You can have all 5 religions at the time in your settlement but again, you have to make sure that together, they are 100 (ex: catholic 10 + orthodox 10 + islam 10 + pagan 10 + heretic + 60 = 100)