This is a very long guide, but don’t let that fool you, this is actually a very simple process. 95% of this guide is just me waffling on!
This might surprise you, but this does not involve using the editor at all. All you need to do is modify a few text files. The game is programmed to create the campaign automatically, all you need to do is tell it how many battles to have, what armies and generals to use, and a few other variables.
The official campaigns in FoG2 are, so far, based around the historical campaigns of a particular famous commander. Therefore we have Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, and Mithridates. I also created historical campaigns for Antiochus III. But you don’t have to be limited to this sort of approach. You could have a campaign that focuses on one particular historical campaign or war, you could include partly fictional encounters, this would allow you to make full use of strategic choice pairings that are available. You could have a totally fictional or “what if” campaign. Or you could have a campaign that focuses on something else entirely. For instance, I am (slowly) working on a campaign that will showcase the development of the Roman army from the early Republic to the fall of the Western Empire.
First off, just as in designing a scenario, research your subject and plan out in a worksheet each step (scenario) in the campaign. This only needs to be really simple, you just need the date, name of the battle (or incident), the opponents, who the commanders were. As an example, let’s create a campaign based upon the military career of the famous Roman commander Sulla. Here is my draft worksheet:
106 BC Jugurthine War v Numidians, small skirmish/battle? Sulla v Jugurtha,
101 BC Battle of Vercellae v Germans, Very Large battle, Marius CinC v Boiorix, Sulla only a Sub-general,
94 BC Repulse of Armenian invasion? Sulla v Tigranes,
89 BC Battle of Nola v Italians, not straightforward to do, because I would have to create a Late Italian Army list, sidename etc
86 BC Battle of Chaeronea v Pontus, Sulla v Archelaus, Very Large battle,
86 BC Battle of Orchomenus v Pontus, Sulla v Archelaus, Very Large battle,
83 BC Battle of Capua v Romans, Sulla v C Norbanus, Large battle, First Civil War
82 BC Battle of Colline Gate v Romans, Sulla v Gaius Marcius Censirinus, Very Large battle, First Civil War.
I’ve put down all the more interesting battles/encounters of Sulla’s career. I was trying to keep this simple, so I left out a lot of action. So I am left with 8 possible battles, which is a good number for the campaign, note that you can currently have up to 15 battles in a campaign .
However, the fourth battle in my list, Nola, would require me to create a new army list for the Social War Italians, and while that is very easy for me to do, I don’t want to confuse you with that extra complication during this guide. I will explain how to do that type of modding at another time. So let’s leave that battle out of this campaign.
So the first thing to do is copy an official campaign folder from C/Program Files/Slitherine/Field of Glory II/Campaigns. When you open up this location you will currently see 8 folders. The campaign folders that we are interested in are CaesarCampaign, HannibalCampaign, MithridatesCampaign, PyrrhosCampaign. These are the 4 official campaigns. For our purposes copy any one of them, it really does not matter which, but I am going to copy the CaesarCampaign folder.
Then paste it into your My Documents/My Games/FieldofGlory2/CAMPAIGNS folder.
Rename the CaesarCampaign folder to give it your unique campaign name. In this example I am going to call mine SullaCampaign.
Then open up the folder, you will see a number of items and one sub folder:
Now, all you have to do is modify two of those text files! The CustomCampaign.txt, and the Text1.txt.
Open up the CustomCampaign.txt file. This file determined how the campaign runs, what armies are used, what the strategic choices are etc. The first half of the text in the file is just notes to help you understand what the various codes mean. Notice that the lines all have // at the beginning, this means that the game does not attempt to read them, they are just there for your information:
// Notes for custom campaign designers: [Edited by RBS: Updated to show additional options added up to v1.5.3, so does not match the Julius Caesar file exactly]
// Each "chunk" after the global chunk represents one stage of the campaign, with one battle. It may or may not allow for a choice of strategic options.
// Available strategic choice pairings are:
// CHOICE1 0, CHOICE2 -1 : Open battle. NOTE: The first battle MUST be this or CHOICE1 25, CHOICE2 -1.
// CHOICE1 1, CHOICE2 2 : Pursue or not.
// CHOICE1 3, CHOICE2 4 : Advance through Wooded territory (protect baggage scenario) or Advance through mountains (mountain tribes assist enemy)
// CHOICE1 5, CHOICE2 6 : Enemy allied army has invaded. Fight them with rear echelon troops or fight them with your own allies (if any) [if no allies available force march field army back to fight them].
// CHOICE1 7, CHOICE2 8 : Another enemy army has invaded. Fight them with rear echelon troops or force march field army back to fight them.
// CHOICE1 9, CHOICE2 10 : Call in reinforcements from your allies, or wait for reinforcements from home. If the allies are chosen, the field army units will not be refitted.
// CHOICE1 11, CHOICE2 12 : The enemy are trying to join up with their allies. Fight their allies, or fight the main enemy army.
// CHOICE1 13, CHOICE2 -1 : Own reinforcements battle.
// CHOICE1 14, CHOICE2 -1 : Enemy reinforcements battle.
// CHOICE1 23, CHOICE2 24: Revolt by captured province formerly belonging to enemy. Revolt army will be "rear echelon". Fight with rear echelon or force march field army back to fight them.
// CHOICE1 25, CHOICE2 -1: Supplement field army with local rear echelon troops (if points are available after refitting existing units). Deploy the infantry behind ditches.
// If this option is used for the first battle in the campaign, 20% of the available points will be automatically drawn from rear-echelon troops, and the rest can be chosen as normal.
// CHOICE1 26, CHOICE2 27: The same as choice 9/10, except that the existing field army units are refitted even if the allies are taken. Additional units from allies or home are only recruited if sufficient points remain.
// CHOICE1 28, CHOICE2 -1: Allies send an army to reinstate deposed leader. Previous field army will be disbanded - C-in-C will need to be re-added. Army will be 4/5 allies, 1/5 own nation.
// Will usually need to reset army in next stage, unless it is desired to continue with field army mainly consisting of allied troops.
// CHOICE1 29, CHOICE2 -1: Small open battle using non-field-army. (Not rear echelon though).
// CHOICE1 32, CHOICE2 33: Encounter battle (advance Guard scenario), or Own reinforcements battle.
// CHOICE1 34, CHOICE2 35: Open battle at extra points disadvantage, or Rearguard scenario.
// Can also use CHOICE1 35, CHOICE2 -1: Rearguard scenario with no alternative choice.
// CHOICE1 58, CHOICE2 59: Some player units have not yet arrived. 58 = arrive from the rear. 59 = arrive from the flank.
// CHOICE1 60, CHOICE2 61: 60 = Fight fair and open battle. 61 = Send a flank march.
// CHOICE1 62, CHOICE2 -1: Ambush (Own)
// CHOICE1 34, CHOICE2 62: 34 = Open battle at extra points disadvantage. 62 = Ambush (Own).
// CHOICE1 63, CHOICE2 -1: Ambush (Enemy)
// CHOICE1 64, CHOICE2 -1: Open battle vs overconfident enemy.
// **** IMPORTANT NOTES *****:
//1) Other combinations will NOT work correctly.
//2) Choices not listed above are not needed in custom campaigns because they can be duplicated using other choices and specifying a non-default enemy army list.
//3) The first battle in the campaign must be CHOICE1 0 (or 25), CHOICE2 - 1.
//4) The option pairs 1/2, 5/6, 7/8, 23/24 or 29/-1 should not be used if the previous stage of the campaign used any of those option pairs.
// MAP TYPE:
// 0 = Mediterranean Agricultural, 1 = Mediterranean Hilly, 2 = Mediterranean Woody, 3 = Mediterranean Mountainous
// 4 = North European Agricultural, 5 = North European Hilly, 6 = North European Woody, 7 = North European Mountainous
// 8 = Middle Eastern Agricultural, 9 = Middle Eastern Hilly, 10 = Middle Eastern Woody, 11 = Middle Eastern Mountainous
// 12 = Steppe
// 13 = Desert
// 14 = Tropical
// 15 = Mediterranean Marshy, 16 = North European Marshy, 17 = Middle Eastern Marshy, 18 = Tropical Marshy
// 24 = Mediterranean Plain, 25 = North European Plain, 26 = Middle Eastern Plain, 27 = Tropical Plain
//
// BATTLE SIZE: 0 = very small, 1 = small, 2 = medium, 3 = large, 4 = very large
// Note that SIZE has no effect on the battle size for the following strategic choice pairs: 1+2, 5+6, 7+8. These use the SIZE from the previous battle.
// STRENGTHMULTIPLIER in the global chunk sets the default force multiplier for reported unit strengths. STRENGTHMULTIPLIER in a battle chunk temporarily replaced the default strength Multiplier.
// (It will revert back for the next battle unless set again).
// ARMYLIST0 in the global chunk sets the side 0 default army list. ARMYLIST0 in a battle chunk temporarily replaces the default side 0 army list. (It will revert back for next battle unless set again).
// ARMYLIST1 in the global chunk sets the side 1 default army list. ARMYLIST1 in a battle chunk temporarily replaces the default side 1 army list. (It will revert back for next battle unless set again).
// REVERSEBANNERS in the global chunk tells the system to swap the usual the usual side0 and side1 banner colours, and the unit textures accordingly.
// This is needed for consistency in campaigns where some of the non-civil war battles are fought against Romans or Spartans.
// HERO n in the global chunk gives the name index of the player's eponymous general, who lives a charmed life.
// MAPX0, MAPY0 to MAPX3, MAPY3 in the global chunk specify up to 4 positions to place map markers on the Ptolemy map. The values are the pixel locations in the EpicMap_Ptolemy.dds image.
// VARIABLEUNITPROG in the global chunk will adjust the progression of units after each victory if the campaign contains more than 7 battles. i.e. If there are more, progression per victory will be reduced accordingly.
// GENERAL0 in a battle chunk replaces the existing side 0 CinC.
// The first value after the tag is the index of the IDS_GENERAL string belongin to that general - this needs to be in the campaign text1.txt.
// The second value after the tag is the quality of the general. 0 = Troop commmander, 1 = Field Commander, 2 = Great Commander
// GENERAL1 does the same for side 1 C-in-C.
// ALLIES0 - ally list to be used if side0 has allies.
// ALLIES1 - ally list to be used is side1 has allies.
// Note: Some allied troops will be included in the AI army if an ALLIES1 ally list is specified in a battle chunk, and the strategic choice is 0, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34 or 35.
// ALLYGENERAL0 in a battle chunk is used as Side0 CinC if allied army fights instead of main army
// ALLYGENERAL1 in a battle chunk is used as Side1 CinC if allied army fights instead of main army
// RETIREGENERAL in a battle chunk retires the side 0 general with that name index.
// Side 1 generals will automatically be retired after each battle, as the side 1 army is rebuilt from scratch. Therefore if the same general is to be used again, he will need to be re-added using a GENERAL1 tag.
// RESET0 tag in a battle chunk means that the existing side0 army will be wiped and raised again from scratch. It should NOT be used for strategic choices 1+2, 5+6, 7+8, 9+10
// Note: This will also delete existing generals, so C-in-C will need to be re-added.
// NOCOAST in a battle chunk prevents the random map generator from generating coastal maps.
// COAST in a battle chunk forces the random map generator to generate a coastal map.
// TWEAK in a battle chunk adjusts the AI points by that percentage. e.g. TWEAK 10 = AI gets 10% more points than usual, TWEAK -10 = AI gets 10% less points than usual.
// This has no effect on the following choices: 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15 (should not be used in custom campaign anyway), 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28, 29.
It is all pretty self explanatory, so I won’t go through it line by line now, but let’s get on with the example, and it all should become clear.
The first thing we need to modify is the Global Chunk. The unmodified Caesar Campaign Global Chunk looks like this:
// Global chunk:
STRENGTHMULTIPLIER 500 // Default percent multiplier for reported unit strengths
ARMYLIST0 LR_ROMAN // Side 0 default army list
ARMYLIST1 L_GALLIC // Side 1 default army list
HERO 1 // HERO n in the global chunk gives the name index of the player's eponymous general, who lives a charmed life.
MAPX0 476 // Map marker locations - pixel locations in EpicMap_Ptolemy.dds (up to 4 sets of coordinates)
MAPY0 495
The Global Chunk determines a few default values for the whole campaign, these will be in effect for each battle in the campaign, unless we specifically overwrite them at a later stage.
The STRENGTHMULTIPLIER determines the strength of units in the campaign. 500 means that the units are 5 times their normal size. Therefore a 480 man legionary unit will be 2400 men in the Caesar campaign. We do have a number of big battles in the Sulla campaign, but 500 seems a bit excessive, let’s drop it to 300. We can always change it later in the battle chunks if we have smaller scale battles.
ARMYLIST0 determines the default army list to be used for the player (Side0). For the Caesar campaign this was LR_ROMAN. There are a couple of ways to find the army list codes. I prefer to work straight from the ArmyList.txt file. You will find this in C/Program Files/Slitherine/Field of Glory II/Core. This file determines the army compositions in Custom Battles and Campaigns. Open it up and search for the army lists that you need, but please be very careful not to inadvertently modify this file, as it will cause you online mismatches and other problems, you should be ok as the folder should be security protected, but you have been warned! From the ArmyList.txt you will see that the LR_Roman list covers the period 105 - 25 BC. This covers nearly all of the battles in our campaign, so we can just leave this entry as it is.
ARMYLIST1 determines the default army list to be used for the AI side (Side1). For the Caesar campaign this was L_GALLIC. We don’t have any battles against the Gauls in the Sulla Campaign, so we can change this. Looking at our worksheet we see that we have two battles against the Pontic army (86 BC), and two Roman civil war battles, so we could choose either of these. Let’s go with the Pontic, so searching in the ArmyList.txt for Pontic brings up a few options, but we want the 86 BC army, so we need E_PONTIC (which covers the period 110 – 85 BC).
HERO This is the Title character of our campaign. We don’t want this guy dying, as it will cause some confusion for our players! Imagine someone playing an Alexander campaign, and he dies at Chaeronea when he was 16, but the campaign still carries on through Persia into India. So we want the title character to be immortal. He can still get wounded in a battle, but he will always recover and reappear for the next battle. So just leave this value as 1, and in your campaign’s Text1.txt file write your generals name in the IDS_GENERAL1 field.
MAPX0 476
MAPY0 495
These are the map coordinates for your campaign. This is not essential and maybe beyond many people’s ability to work out, so don’t worry about it, you can just leave it with the values from the Caesar campaign. All it determines is the location of the map marker on the antique world map in the Campaign Selection Screen. Alternatively, you could use the values from one of the other existing campaigns, if it covers the same geographical location as your campaign.
For those who want to get this right you need to open the EpicMap_Ptolemy.dds in your graphics editing software. You will find the map in C/Program Files/Slitherine/Field of Glory II/Data/UI/Textures. Just hover your mouse pointer over the map, and it should show you the map coordinates. You can have up to 4 different sets of coordinates, useful if your Hero fought in multiple locations. My coordinates for the Sulla campaign look like this:
MAPX0 462
MAPY0 694
MAPX1 416
MAPY1 496
MAPX2 866
MAPY2 406
MAPX3 648
MAPY3 520
This will put markers on the map in Numidia, Northern Italy (Vercellae), Cappadocia (for the battle against Tigranes), and Greece (for the two Pontic battles).
The next chunk of information from the original Caesar campaign looks like this:
[GAUL1] // Each chunk represents one battle. They can in fact be named any way you like
INTRO IDS_MPS_GAUL1 // String needs to be in campaign text1.txt. Does not have to be named the same as the chunk
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
MAPTYPE 4
SIZE 3
GENERAL0 1 2 // Name index of new side0 C-in-C to be added - in this case Julius Caesar, followed by quality - great commander
GENERAL1 3 1 // Name index of side1 C-in-C - in this case Divico, followed by quality - field commander
NOCOAST
This is the chunk that determines values for the first battle of the campaign.
[GAUL1] The text in brackets is the title name of the scenario. We will want to change this to the name of our first scenario, Jugurtha.
INTRO IDS_MPS_GAUL1 This tells the game to display the text written in the Text1.txt in the line headed INTRO IDS_MPS_GAUL1. We will need to change this to INTRO IDS_MPS_JUGURTHA, and then create this in our Text1.txt file. Open the Text1.txt file, change
INTRO IDS_MPS_GAUL1 to INTRO IDS_MPS_JUGURTHA and then within the quote marks write your introduction to your scenario. Mine now looks like this:
IDS_MPS_JUGURTHA, "106 BC: You have travelled to Numidia in North Africa, as questor to Gaius Marius. The Numidian Prince Jugurtha has claimed kingship of all of Numidia, Rome has declared war, but has struggled to defeat Jugurtha for the past 6 years. Now Marius, Rome's foremost general, has taken command, and hopes to bring the war to a successful conclusion. You have been sent to Mauretania in pursuit of Jugurtha.",
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
This is the code that determines the strategic choices that are presented to player before the battle. This is explained in the text at the top of the CustomCampaign.txt. This set of codes just gives an open battle. For the first battle of the campaign, it always has to be this set of choice codes, so we will leave this as it is.
MAPTYPE 4
This is the code that determines the terrain type for the battle. Again, this is explained in the text at the top of the CustomCampaign.txt. For our battle against Jugurtha, we will select map type 1, which is Mediterranean Hilly. This battle is only semi historical, we know that Sulla fought some small battles in the campaign and ended up capturing Jugurtha due to the treachery of his father in law,, but nothing much about them. We do know that North Africa was much more fertile than it is now, and so Mediterranean type terrain is suitable.
SIZE 3
This is the code that determines the size of the battle. Again, this is explained in the text at the top of the CustomCampaign.txt. We only want this to be a very small battle, so we will choose Size 0.
GENERAL0 1 2
GENERAL1 3 1
This code determines the generals names for the battle. The other numbers in each line refer to generals names as listed in the Text1.txt file, and the commanders rating. We want Sulla to command Side 0 in this battle (with great commander rating), and Jugurtha (field Commander rating) to command Side 1. So we will need to change this code to
GENERAL0 1 2
GENERAL1 2 1
We are using general name 2 for Jugurtha, so we need to update Text1.txt to read IDS_GENERAL2, "Jugurtha",
ARMYLIST0 LMR_ROMAN
ARMYLIST0 E_NUMIDIAN
We have to add these lines to this battle chunk because neither of the two global chunk armies are to be used in this battle. The LR_ROMAN army list does not start until 105 BC, so we need to search the ArmyList.txt to find the slightly early Roman list, that is the LMR_ROMAN which runs from 199 BC to 106 BC. For side1 we need to find the Numidian list, which is the E_NUMIDIAN it runs from 220 – 56 BC.
NOCOAST
This means that the battlefield map will not include any coast line. If we did want there to be a chance of a coastline we would delete this line. If we wanted to force the map to include a coastline, we could include the line
COAST
So that is the code for our first battle completed. It now looks like this:
[JUGURTHA]
INTRO IDS_MPS_JUGURTHA
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
MAPTYPE 1
SIZE 0
GENERAL0 1 2
GENERAL1 2 1
ARMYLIST0 LMR_ROMAN
ARMYLIST1 E_NUMIDIAN
NOCOAST
We will need to complete the relevant chunks for the other 6 battles in our campaign. My second chunk will look like this:
[VERCELLAE]
INTRO IDS_MPS_VERCELLAE
STRENGTHMULTIPLIER 400
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
RESET0
MAPTYPE 0
SIZE 4
GENERAL0 3 2
GENERAL1 4 1
ARMYLIST1 E_GERMAN_FOOT
NOCOAST
You will see that I have upped the STRENGTHMULTIPLIER to 400 for this battle.
As this battle is not connected to the first in any way, and is a well known battle, I have used the Choice1 and Choice2 code again to give an open battle.
I have used the RESET0 code because this is separated from the first battle by 5 years and I doubt that any units in the first battle would have been present in the second.
New GENERAL codes have been entered for the C in Cs in this battle. For Vercellae, Marius was the C in C, so Sulla will be taking a back seat for this one!
ARMYLIST1 E_GERMAN_FOOT has been used to give the early German army appropriate to this battle.
The third battle chunk looks like this:
[TIGRANES]
INTRO IDS_MPS_TIGRANES
CHOICE1 3
CHOICE2 4
RESET0
ARMYLIST1 E_ARMENIAN
MAPTYPE 1
SIZE 2
RETIREGENERAL 3
GENERAL0 1 2
GENERAL1 5 1
NOCOAST
Here I have given a different strategic choice, 3 and 4. This gives the “Advance through Wooded territory (protect baggage scenario) or Advance through mountains (mountain tribes assist enemy)” option.
Marius was C in C in the last battle, but Sulla is commanding in this one, so I have used the RETIREGENERAL 3 code to remove Marius, combined with GENERAL0 1 2 to add Sulla back in.
Here is the fourth battle chunk:
[CHAERONEA]
INTRO IDS_MPS_CHAERONEA
STRENGTHMULTIPLIER 400
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
RESET0
MAPTYPE 0
SIZE 4
GENERAL0 1 2
GENERAL1 6 1
NOCOAST
I have RESET the Roman army again, as I doubt that any units in the this battle would have been present in the Tigranes scenario.
The fifth battle looks like this:
[ORCHOMENUS]
INTRO IDS_MPS_ORCHOMENUS
STRENGTHMULTIPLIER 400
CHOICE1 7
CHOICE2 8
MAPTYPE 0
SIZE 4
GENERAL1 6 1
NOCOAST
Here I have given a different strategic choice, 7 and 8. Archelaus had been reinforced by another large army Pontic army which had landed at Chalcis. So the 7 and 8 choice gives the player the option of fighting this force with rear echelon forces, or force marching with the field army to meet them.
The sixth and seventh chunks look like this:
[CAPUA]
INTRO IDS_MPS_CAPUA
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
ARMYLIST1 LR_ROMAN
MAPTYPE 0
SIZE 3
GENERAL1 7 1
NOCOAST
[COLLINE]
INTRO IDS_MPS_COLLINE
CHOICE1 0
CHOICE2 -1
ARMYLIST1 LR_ROMAN
MAPTYPE 0
SIZE 4
GENERAL1 8 1
NOCOAST
There are some other codes that we might want to use in these chunks:
REVERSEBANNERS, you can use this in the Global Chunk when you have a non-Roman (or Spartan) Side0 army fighting against Romans/Spartans during the campaign. The Romans and Spartans always use red banners and red themed textures, thereby forcing the player's banners and textures to change for any battle against them. If you use this code the player's banners/textures will start the campaign using the green/blue theme and never change.
ALLIES0 - ally list to be used if side0 has allies.
ALLIES1 - ally list to be used is side1 has allies.
Some allied troops will be included in the main AI army if any ally list is specified in a battle, and the strategic choice is 0, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 34 or 35.
ALLYGENERAL0 in a battle chunk is used as Side0 CinC if allied army fights instead of main army
ALLYGENERAL1 in a battle chunk is used as Side1 CinC if allied army fights instead of main army
In Text1.txt, change the IDS_CAMPAIGN_NAME,"Julius Caesar", to read your campaign name. You also need to complete the IDS_CAMPAIGN_TEXT, and IDS_MPS_CUSTOM_VICTORY text descriptions to make them appropriate to your campaign.
Lastly, we really ought to delete the translated versions of the Text1.txt (TEXT1_FRE.TXT, , TEXT1_GER.TXT, and TEXT1_SPA.TXT) unless we can translate it ourselves.
So that is the campaign finished, you just need to play test it, to see if it works as you intended. Obviously if there are errors to be corrected, or improvements to be made, go back into the two text files and make the required changes.
Good luck!
