Mods: Installation & Troubleshooting FAQ

[Jubal]

HOW TO INSTALL A MOD

I'm writing this mostly since I'm kinda fed up with having to give these explanations constantly: if you're struggling to install any RTW mod, do comment below, but hopefully this gives you clear enough step by step instructions.

Step 1: Check compatibility

Check that your mod is for the right version of RTW that you have: some mods are for RTW 1.5 (which is the version you get with gold edition), some mods are for Barbarian Invasion and some require Alexander. Mods installed on the wrong version are unlikely to work correctly.

Step 2: Installation

To install the mod, you first need to unzip the files and place the folder directly inside your Rome - Total War folder.

The file structure should be roughly like this:

- Rome - Total War
------- Data
-------------- (Various subfolders)
------- Mod Folder
-------------- Data
------------------------ (Various subfolders)
------- (Various other folders including savegames, any other mods, etc)

Or to give a graphical illustration:



Please remember that the mod's data folder should be exactly ONE LEVEL below the mod folder. Rome - Total War/modname/modname/data, for example, WILL NOT WORK, and often happens as a result of people getting a folder created by the unzipping process that surrounds the actual mod folder.

Step 3: Launcher

- Make a new Rome - Total War shortcut by right-clicking on RTW.exe and then creating a desktop shortcut
- Go to your desktop and right-click on the new shortcut
- Select "Properties"
- At the end of the box that says "path" or "target", type -mod:modname. modname must be the name of the mod folder, and must be AFTER the closing quotes, like so (in this example a number of other command-line additions (-nm, -ne and -show_err) have been used, which you can ignore:



Note: For some mods, whilst doing this you can also use the "Change Icon" button, navigate to your mod folder, and change from the standard RTW icon to a different .ico file if the modders have provided any.

You should now be able to double-click the shortcut and run your mod, though there are some common problems in the next section:

FAQs

All RTW Versions: I double clicked my shortcut and it booted the original game, not my mod!
Either you put the mod in the wrong place, or you wrote the command line wrong. Check the above section again. If the problem persists, please post here with screenshots of your folder structure and your shortcut like the ones provided above.

Steam RTW Version: I double clicked my shortcut and it did nothing!
Open up the main steam program. You'll probably find that steam has popped up with a notification checking that you want to open RTW with these command line instructions. This is a normal steam feature, presumably provided to protect users from other games that have more powerful command line options, and unfortunately seems to be impossible to work around: you'll need to open steam and hit the "OK" button whenever you want to boot up the mod.

[Phoenix_Rising]

just tried to install a mod for rome total war following your instructions it didnt work it just loads the original game

[Jubal]

Is there a data folder directly inside the Emergent Factions folder (assuming that's the mod folder you were trying to use) or does it go Emergent Factions/Emergent Factions/data or similar?

Also, that docx doesn't seem to have a shot of the edited shortcut in which would be useful. Thanks!

[Phoenix_Rising]

sorry bout that here the shortcut and inside the emergent faction folder

[Phoenix_Rising]

i cant send you the screenshot of the shortcut for some reason no matter how much i crop it it wont go under the 500kb limit

[Phoenix_Rising]

"C:\Program Files\The Creative Assembly\Rome - Total War\RomeTW.exe" -mod:Emergent Factions.

this best i can do ive copied what i have in the shortcut target

[Jubal]

Your shortcut is fine, but that mod folder isn't. It doesn't look like the mod is set up to be properly put in its own mod folder at all, there should be a load more files there which are missing. Where did you get the download for it? In a couple of days when I get home from the Caucasus I can try setting it up myself and work out what the problem is.

[Phoenix_Rising]

got it from here

https://www.gamewatcher.com/mods/rome-total-war-barbarian-invasion-mod/all-factions-playable-including-fully-playable-emergents

[Jubal]

Right, I'm back, I'll try and look at this properly soon - I suspect it's the sort of mod that requires a complete copy of RTWBI and overwrites files in the original rather than running in the more usual "modfolder" system, though.