Hotseat Grand Campaign (vanilla) without Retrofit mod?

[Puntolory]

Hi, I am looking into ways to set up the vanilla Medieval 2 game in order to reactivate the hotseat campaign option for the original Grand Campaign. Here's my current situation

- I know that the old medieval2.preferences file edit methods for turning on hotseat mode do not work anymore since the update that merged the kingdoms and medieval2 executable files together.

- I know that the current most commonly accepted method for hotseating the OG campaign is installing and using the Retrofit mod - however, it sounds like every single bit in my computer agrees that every single download or installer related to that mod is dangerous, and as much as I want to believe strangers the way all programs I own (as well as some user comments found via google) agree on the matter that the thing is not trustable I don't want to take my chances.

- I tried installing and using the Bare Geomod I found on TW Center as well as an alternative for retrofit, as suggested by its author/creator. It works perfectly at first sight, hotseat mode is there and it's fully functional, but it unfortunately includes a similar issue with non-English localisation sounds (voices) to the one that affected the main game on Steam around 2013-2014.
Namely: Scotland, Poland, Russia, Magyars, Denmark, Mongols, Timurids and Aztecs factions are all completely mute on both campaign map (armies, agents, etc) and during real time battles (unit responses and general speeches) - I'm using the italian localisation).

I'll open this topic in the hopes there are alternatives/fixes that I could try that any of you can suggest, I I'm not very hopeful but I still want to try asking!

[Gigantus]

Simply download and install my Bare Geomod set up and play hotseat, no fuss: https://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=352216

Non localization: open the descr_sounds_accents file in mods\bare_geomod\data (use Notepad to avoid hidden formatting) and MOVE the mute faction entries to an accent that works BEFORE starting the mod. Else you will need to delete the events.dat and idx files in the data\sounds directory of the mod for the change to take effect.

[Puntolory]

Hi @Gigantus, first of all, thank you for replying, I was kind of hoping you'd show up.

Concerning your Bare Geomod, I actually tried doing that edit with the descr_sounds_accents.txt file, but I decided to do it again while following your instructions to see if there was any change.

So, after doing it, all voices on the campaign map are fixed, which is a big plus. In the Italian localisation the game on the campaign map just uses Arabian and English voices for those mute factions (as far as I know) so it is perfect this way.

On the battle map on the other hand this isn't true for everything. The edit works for general speeches and voice clips for multiple unit orders (that are said by the general), and it also fixes the issue for all voice clips that are generic and valid for all factions: General's Bodyguard, siege weapons (both missile and town siege ones), generic units such as Spear Militia etc.
However when selecting units that are specific for that faction and have a specific voice clip playing for them (Scottish Border Horse and Highlanders, most Russian units, etc) the units will still be mute.

This is already an improvement, but I wonder if there's a way to also fix the last remaining missing voice clips for the in-battle units.

[Gigantus]

The problem here is that the associated sound clips simply don't exist in the localized versions.

Here for example is the highlander entry in descr_sounds_unit_voice:

unit Highlanders
event
folder data/sounds/Voice/Human/Localized/Battle_Map
Scottish_Light_Generic_Light_Infantry_1.wav
Scottish_Light_Generic_Light_Infantry_2.wav
end

This entry only exists in the 'scottish' accent section. To fix this you need to copy that section into the relevant accent's section and replace the wav lines with valid references. Simply check in that accent's section for suitable file references.
After that deleting the events.dat and idx files again will do the trick.

[Puntolory]

Hi, thank you very much for the in-depth replies!

First of all, it woked! I edited export_descr_sounds_unit_voice as you suggested and tried copying over the sound clips for the Highlanders, and now they have the appropriate voice clips while in battle.

One thing I wondered was whether I could apply this also to units that don't have generic responses (akin to Generic_Light_Infrantry for Highlanders) but had voice clips specific for them (like Russian Kazaks). So I tried doing the same with Kazaks, simply changing Eastern_European reference to English but leaving Light_Kazaks, and again it worked! They have the correct voice clips for them during battles now!

The only con of all of this is that I apparently have to manually do this copying step for every single unit entry in the Scottish Accent section as well as the Eastern_European and Mongol accents, but for now the important thing is that it works and I have a working method to fix it. Thank you Gigantus!

I have only one last question while I am here. I wonder, can I check the descr_sounds_unit_voice file that is used by the base unmodded game (as well as the ones in the Kingdoms expansions if I ever want to)? At first I wanted to check them for comparison in order to see if there were any differences between the vanilla file and the file used by your mod (or any other mod) without asking with a steam forum post. Here's the issue though, there are no 'descr_' files whatsoever in the vanilla game's "data" folder, they're absolutely nowhere. Why is that? Are they compressed into the pack files along with all the other game's files, or am I missing something?

EDIT because I forgot a few sentences in the second and third paragraph.

[Gigantus]

I have included the sound text files for modding purposes, BG being primarily designed to be a mod set up\foundation. These files are not available through unpacking of the game but can be found as download at TWCenter - and that's from where I took them for my BG mod setup.

They are also included in my sound and animation 'dev kit': https://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?801425

[Puntolory]

Understood. I'll see if there's something useful I can get from the files available on TWCenter. I was mostly interested in the Italian localisation ones, but for now I'm happy with what I've managed to do.

Thank you for your replies and the help, Gigantus.

[Gigantus]

The 'localized' sound text files don't exist - the sound has been compiled with the existing text files for all language versions.

And then the devs in their wisdom did not include the required sound files in the 'localized' version. that's why you have to edit the text files, eg use other sound files.

Here is a trick that works all the time:

1. set the game's language to english and let steam update.
2. make a copy of the sound\data directory, call it sounds_english
3. set the game to your preferred language and let steam update.
4. rename the data\sound folder, eg sounds_italian
5. rename the sounds_english directory back to just sounds
Personally I have created sub directories for english and german, it only requires the 6 voice files. See this pic - and notice the difference in file size:

https://ibb.co/L8s79Ws

This will result in having the full sound AND your preferred language in the text displays


The language localized files are in the packs directory - localized.pack
You can do the same rename story with that pack if you want - but that would be only of interest if you intend to switch languages more often

[Puntolory]

Again, thank you. I'm looking into it right now. Bummer that in the italian dub they didn't actually try to keep the additional accents, but hey, I still prefer to play with the dub of my birth language whenever possible.

I have another if I may ask that just occured to me and is sort of unrelated to this discussion, does editing and changing this specific part of the game (sounds) in the main data folder (not the ones for the mod campaigns in 'mods') affect multiplayer? I play both campaign and (sometimes) multiplayer so since I looked into some proper sound mods in the past I was curious to know if the game would recognise it and make my version of the game incompatible with the ones of other vanilla players.

[Gigantus]

The editing of the text files is only in the mod - that will not effect the main game, only the mod itself.You would need to upload your edited files if you plan to play hotseat with it.

The 'localized' suggestion of mine will however be seen as a 'change' by any hotseats if I am not mistaken.

[Puntolory]

Understood, once again thank you for replying and for all the help you provided!

[Gigantus]

One is glad to be of service

[To Hell With The Trolls!]

Originally posted by Gigantus:

One is glad to be of service

nice haha