For strategy gaming enthusiasts, modifying and tweaking game parameters is a time-honored tradition. When it comes to the Total War series—specifically Empire: Total War and Napoleon: Total War —the underlying ESF (Empire Save File) and startpos files govern absolutely everything.
Expand the tree following this exact path: CAMPAIGN_STARTPOS -> CAMPAIGN_ENV -> CAMPAIGN_MODEL -> WORLD -> FACTION_ARRAY
What do you want to make (e.g., editing victory conditions, altering faction relationships, unlocking unplayable factions)?
: Users can change starting treasury amounts, faction relationships, and the number of turns per year (e.g., changing from 2 to 4 turns per year). Edit Saved Games esf editor 148
Inside FACTION_ARRAY , you will see dozens of repeating FACTION_ARRAY sub-nodes. Click through them one by one. Look at the right-hand side panel; the first text entry will display the internal name of the faction (e.g., britain , france , prussia ). Step 5: Edit the Treasury
Before running ESF Editor, ensure your system has the correct framework installed. : Windows 7, 10, or 11.
: Runs efficiently on modern operating systems without heavy asset loading. Step-by-Step Guide: Common Modding Tasks For strategy gaming enthusiasts, modifying and tweaking game
Allows instant alteration of integers, strings, booleans, and floats.
This error occurs if the editor attempts to read a file structure from a newer Total War game that it doesn't recognize. If you encounter this with games newer than Shogun 2 , you may need to upgrade to EditSF or the Assembly Kit. Corrupted Save Files / Game Crashes on Load
Expand FACTION_ARRAY . You will see a long list of FACTION_ARRAY - X nodes (where X is a number). : Users can change starting treasury amounts, faction
The core environment node where the vast majority of your edits will take place.
: It is widely used to make non-playable or emergent factions playable in the Grand Campaign. You can also change a faction's religion, capital, or government type.
When you open an ESF file, you’ll see a data tree with nodes labeled in hexadecimal or plain text. Here are the key ones: