In addition, Rome's campaign map was tile based today's campaign map is seamless for better movement, making it that considerably harder to mod. Today's maps demand way more complexity in order to allow for better path-finding and AI. 'Likewise, today's campaign map is vastly more complex and data-dense than Rome's, which was basically a simple TGA file that could be edited in photoshop. The files should help modders looking to change in-game properties find the files they need. Compared to today's binary files, which we've had to implement to fight naturally expanding load-times, they were a doddle to mod. The Creative Assembly have released the raw table data for Empire and Napoleon on the Total War forums.
'There was a fraction of the database table files we use today, and these were basic, easily-editable text files. 'Back then, the game engine was a hell of a lot simpler than it is now,' he writes.
As well as this gesture of support for what used to be one of PC gaming's most prolific and passionate modding communities, The Creative Assembly explain why they've been unable to provide the same level of mod support that fans have enjoyed in older games like Rome and Medieval 2.Ĭreative Assembly's Craig Laycock explains that the complexity of the engine used to create Empire and Napoleon has proved the main barrier to the creation of mod tools.
