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Hording and Emergent Factions - RTW/BI

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The Barbarian Invasion expansion introduced hording and emergent factions to the Total War game.

Horde Factions - General Information

Whether a faction is a 'horde' faction or not is determined in descr_sm_factions.txt, the following is an example of the basics required for a horde faction:

Fig. 1:

 faction						franks
 culture						barbarian
 symbol						models_strat/symbol_franks.CAS
 rebel_symbol				models_strat/symbol_barb_rebel.CAS
 primary_colour				red 10, green 39, blue 117
 secondary_colour			red 255, green 255, blue 255
 loading_logo				loading_screen/symbols/symbol128_franks.tga
 standard_index				3
 logo_index					232		; Index into strat3.rsd
 small_logo_index			246		; Index into shared.rsd
 triumph_value				5
 intro_movie
 victory_movie				fmv/victory/franks_win.wmv
 defeat_movie				fmv/lose/franks_eliminated.wmv
 death_movie					fmv/lose/franks_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					barb horde chosen swordsmen
 horde_unit					barb horde chosen swordsmen
 horde_unit					barb horde spearman
 can_sap						yes
 prefers_naval_invasions		no

The lines marked in bold are required for a horde faction. The numbers used for min_units, max_units etc are relatively self explanatory and can be adjusted. A horde faction must have at least one horde unit listed in its army section, but may have more, the armies composition will reflect the number of entries per unit, so that example would give more swordsmen than spearmen.

Adding Horde Ability

If you are adding horde ability to a faction you must add those lines between "custom_battle... and can_sap" to its sm_factions entry - as marked in bold in Fig.1 above. You must also give the faction ownership of a horde unit in export_descr_units.txt. The only requirement for a 'horde_unit' is that its export_descr_units.txt entry has the attribute can_horde,

Fig. 2:

 type             barb horde peasants
 dictionary       barb_horde_peasants      ; Horde Peasants
 category         infantry
 class            light
 voice_type       Light_1
 soldier          western_peasant, 60, 0, 0.8
 attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_horde, can_swim, no_custom, is_peasant
 formation        1.2, 1.8, 2.4, 2.4, 6, horde
 stat_health      1, 0
 .......
 stat_cost        1, 72, 0, 20, 30, 80
 ownership        franks, lombardi, burgundii

as marked in bold - do not confuse this with the horde entry on the formations line which merely makes the units soldiers deploy in circular formation in battle. It is conventional to use the word horde in the unit name and to give the horde unit a 0 maintenance cost - so as not to bankrupt horde factions before they gain income from a settlement. Those factors are not essential though.

Remember also to alter descr_model_battle.txt to give any units with new faction ownership an appropriate texture line for the new faction, otherwise the game may CTD when units are used in battle.

Removing Horde Ability

If you wish to remove the horde ability from a faction just delete the lines between between "custom_battle... and can_sap" in its sm_factions entry - as marked in bold in Fig. 1. You will also need to remove that factions ownership from any unit in export_descr_units.txt that has 'can_horde' attribute.

Do not remove the horde ability from the Slavs without also removing the event which makes them emerge.

Horde Factions on Map at Start - Without Settlement

The Huns and Vandals are placed on map but do not own a settlement, they are 'horde' nations so do not get destroyed because of not owning settlement. Most of their units are free of upkeep charges and they have the option to sack as well as occupy settlements. Sacking means the settlement reverts to rebel control, most buildings are destroyed or damaged, the population of the settlement is reduced and the 'sacker' gains income.

You can assign starting settlement/s to these factions in descr_strat.txt if you wish, but would probably then want to reduce the size of their armies (which wouldn't then be reduced on taking additional settlements) to prevent them having too great an advantage.

If you want to remove the horde ability from these factions you must give them a settlement and family tree in descr_strat.txt otherwise they would be destroyed as soon as game is launched.

Horde Factions on Map at Start - With Settlements

Factions like the Franks have the ability to horde but start on vanilla map with ownership of a settlement. If their last settlement is captured by another faction, or (in case of human player), if they opt to leave their last settlement a horde army will be produced for them and they will act as above.

You can remove the horde ability from these factions if you wish, just follow procedure explained in section 1

Horde Factions Emerging via descr_events.txt

Modifying the Slavs

In vanilla game the Slavs emerge via an event controlled by bi/data/world/maps/campaign/barbarian_invasion/descr_events.txt the relevant part of the file being:

   event	emergent_faction	slavs
   date	47 summer
   region  Locus_Barbaricum

which makes them emerge on the summer of the 47th year from the start of the game, in region Locus_Barbaricum. The date can be changed to anything you like, the region can be changed to any region on the edge of the map. Please note, if you try and use region that does not border edge of map you will get message that they have emerged but they will not actually apppear.

Making Other Factions Emerge via descr_events.txt

Other factions that have the horde capability can be set to emerge in similar faction. Remove faction from starting map by altering descr_strat.txt; assign the factions settlements to another faction or slaves and reduce their entry in descr_strat.txt to

   faction	franks, balanced henry
   dead_until_resurrected
   denari	10000

or similar, and move faction from playable to non-playable list at top of file.

Add event for them in descr_events.txt eg:

   event	emergent_faction	franks
   date	5 summer
   region  Locus_Barbaricum (or any edge region)

Important: to make that work you must also add lines to BI/data/text/historic_events.txt similar to the ones for the Slavs but using the other factions name eg:

   {THE_FRANKS_EMERGE_TITLE}	The xxxx Emerge
   {THE_FRANKS_EMERGE_BODY}		A new faction, blah, blah, etc.....

failing to add that will give a hard CTD when the event triggers!

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