How to Remap / Change your Key Bindings or Shortcuts for DOW2 Retribution

You're probably new or have trouble remembering (like me), how do I change my key bindings for DOW2 Retribution? This guide is for you!

How to find _keydefaults.lua?

1. Find the file:

For Retribution, the file is here:
My Documents\My Games\Dawn of War II - Retribution\Settings\_keydefaults.lua

For the original Dawn of War 2 and the Chaos Rising expansion, the file to be edited is here:
My Documents\My Games\Dawn of War 2\Settings\_keydefaults.lua

2. Make a copy of the _keydefaults.lua file as a backup, and keep it somewhere.

3a. Open the file using Notepad or Notepad++ or any text editor. Make the edits you want.

How to Change Standard / Non-Gridkey Bindings?

Example: Standard / Non-Gridkey
Let's say I want to change the buttons that move the camera in-game. The default buttons are using the arrow keys, but let's say I want to change them to Shift + WASD

Before:
After:

How to Change Gridkey Bindings?

What are gridkeys?
They look like this (see the abilities and the hotkeys). They're pre-determined with a set number of letters to be used, no matter what race or unit you use.



How to activate and use?
3b. Make sure you have gridkeys checked in the in-game menu!



Then, change the keys as per the below screenshots.

How to Complete Your Changes

4. Next, once you have made your changes (whether it be standard or gridkeys), rename your copy of the _keydefaults.lua as "keydefaults.lua" and save!

5. Your changes will then take effect!

Enjoy!

Why isn't the changes working?

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Why isn't it working?

Now that i did everything as per the steps, it still didn't change anything. Why doesn't it work?

Answer: You have to edit the name _keydefaults.lua to keydefaults.lua, to make your changes working. Common error that happens.

Why isn't it working after a crash?

After my game crashes, my custom hotkeys are not working. How do I fix it back?

Answer: The game will revert to the original file, while turning yours into a backup file. Just find it, and rename it to keydefaults.lua, and it should work good again!

Advance: How to get DOW2 working with WASD

Note: I am directly quoting bacongame's solution word for word.

One of the most annoying things about one of my favorite franchises, Dawn of War II, has been its camera controls. I hate using the mouse to move the camera and the game's menus don't allow you to remap keys. I played the original and Chaos Rising using the arrow keys for the camera and enjoying it just fine. Then playing on Last Stand, I found using hotkeys to be useful for hero abilities, which is also important in single-player. So I got fed up at the start of Retribution and decided to see if there was anything I could do. Well here's the results and I'm really happy with them. This only works if you only care about WASD camera movement and hotkeys around WASD to use abilities. This isn't for anyone who wants hotkeys for more and this isn't for multiplayer.

First of all start the game, go to the main settings menu and turn on gridkeys. If you're on Windows (I have no idea what it is on anything else), go to My Documents/My Games/Dawn of War II/Settings and find _keydefaults.lua. For Retribution, it's under a different folder in My Games, but the process is identical. Open it with Wordpad and you'll see some helpful introductory instructions and a list of commands and the keys that are bound to them. The next thing to do is open find/replace using ctrl+H. All the keybindings are one letter in capital letters enclosed by quotation marks (e.g. "E"). In order to not replace just the letters and only the keys as intended, all the things typed into the fields will have to be enclosed in quotes.

Now, find/replace "W", "A", "S", "D", "Q", "E", "R", "F", "C", and "X" with "". Yes those are two quotation marks with nothing in the middle. I chose to replace them with two quotation marks to avoid any unnecessary double mapping. Once that is done scroll down to the section that has the camera controls near the top and type in WASD in the corresponding areas between the empty quotes. It should look something like this:

camera_left ="A",

camera_right ="D",

camera_up ="W",

camera_down ="S",

Now scroll down near the bottom to the section labeled "gridkeys". Replace all the commands labeled AB_key_1 through AB_key_7 just like with the camera with the remaining letters Q, E, R, F, C and X. For the last one I typed in "Alt" and the game recognizes that but you can choose a different letter. You can in fact choose any letters you want and don't have to assign them the way I did. However as a matter of convenience I chose all the keys closest to WASD in descending order as the abilities work out like that. Here's how it looks on mine.

AB_key_1 = "Q",

AB_key_2 = "E",

AB_key_3 = "R",

AB_key_4 = "F",

AB_key_5 = "C",

AB_key_6 = "X",

AB_key_7 = "Alt",

This last step is very important. Luckily even the document itself will tell you this much. When you're done save the file and rename it to keydefaults.lua (deleting the underscore). This is to prevent the game from overwriting them with the default file _keydefaults.lua which is generated every time you start the game. If you mess up and need to start over, delete keydefaults.lua and restart the game. You'll get a fresh file and you can start again if you want. Then just play the game and enjoy it! Personally I found it much easier to play, especially using TAB to cycle through squads and the number keys to get specific units. Again this isn't for multiplayer but it could work there too I don't know. This works for me but I'm here to help out if it doesn't to the best of my ability.

Reference Link:
https://www.giantbomb.com/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-ii-retribution/3030-32362/forums/how-to-make-dawn-of-war-ii-work-with-wasd-531659/

Credits: Thank you bacongames!

Credits!

- Ever-Faithful Leobuilt for some pics for the gridkey ones.
- Some pictures from my own keydefaults.lua and from the IG Retribution campaign.

[alex_apanich]

@SoulEater THX

[SoulEater]

@alex_apanich, sorry, I don't quite know where the mac files are. You can check pcgamingwiki, or ask in the Steam forum / or even Relic's discord. Some players might know!

[alex_apanich]

Tell me, who knows how to change these settings on mac os. I can't find the specified folder

[✠ OverLord ✠]

all good
ill start a discussion some one might know or done it before.
thanks thou.

[SoulEater]

@Overlord365, I'm not sure cause I have never did that before. Maybe you can give it a try first if you haven't done it yet? You could try asking maybe the Elite Mod community to see if they know anything.

[✠ OverLord ✠]

hi i was wondering if it's possible too bind the camera rotation key witch is default (alt)
too the side mouse button, i'm unable too find it,would i have to write a new line for it?would work?
Thanks.