Mount&Blade I and its successors Mount&Blade Warband and M&B II: Bannerlord have been designed from the start to facilitate both mod development and the translation of games and mods into any language the users may desire.
For translators, TaleWorlds provides in the distribution of Bannerlord all game texts as .xml files, which are text files that you simply translate and then drop into language-appropriate game folders so that the game is displayed in the language of your choice.
Translating .xml files seems an easy operation since they are simple text files. But in the end, the whole translation operation has enough pitfalls and questions that many beginners in translation get lost along the way or, at least, don't know how and where to start
In the same way that I've written a Warband Translation Tutorial, I decided to write a Bannerlord Translation Tutorial that is the result of the experience I gained during the hundreds of hours spent behind my keyboard, translating into French the successive versions of Mount&Blade and then Warband since 2009 and many other mods up to now, and then translating in French the Beta release of Bannerlord from October 2019 to end March 2020, and finally producing French localization for Bannerlord EA releases up to 1.6.5. Because today Bannerlord is still in early access and mods to translate merely exist and are not stable, this document will talk only of the translation of Bannerlord, even if many rules explained hereunder shall apply to translate Bannerlord mods when they will fully exist.
I’m French, so many snapshots will describe how to realize the French translation of the game. However, the whole process described here is perfectly valid for any language, being understood that each language will have to be dropped in its specific folders: cns, de, es, fr, hu, etc.
Today, August 2022, Bannerlord is delivered with a long list of translated languages (Brazil-Portugese, Chinese, French, Spanish…) since release 1.7.0. Since then the present document may seem become useless to translate Bannerlord in these languages, but it may still be useful for not yet translated languages, to fix the official localization if it has defects or is not complete, and it will be useful when the community will have to translate the big mods that will be put on line when Bannerlord, if it happen one day, will get out the early access state and will be at last stable, something moders are waiting for since more than two years.
Bannerlord is still moving, the file structure may change at any time. Recently I discovered that two additional TW modules appeared into the game in 1.8.0, BirthAndDeath and Multiplayer. There is today no file to translate into these two new modules, so no matter for the moment, but that may change one day. If needed, the Translation Tutorial will be updated.
The document is 20 pages long, so I will not try to expose its full content in this forum.
In the tutorial, you will find:
- The file structure of the game.
- Information upon the files list to translate and how to obtain the English files.
- Description of the content of these files and how to edit them.
- Description of all the variables and special syntaxes that you will find ({SETTLEMENT}, {PLAYER.NAME}, {?X.Y}Case A{?}Case B{\?}...) into the sentences to translate and how to deal with them.
- Understand the language dependent tokens: {.a}, {.d}...
- How to switch from a version translation to another version.
You can take my Bannerlord Translation Tutorial here: https://bit.ly/2W4ClT1
To help me realize all those translations, I've developed since 2010 specific tools for Warband and then Bannerlord. Today remains only one tool, Translate M&B, that can be used for both Warband .csv files and Bannerlord .xml files. This tool have an interface in both English and French. It has a complete User Manual in English that explain in details all its functionality.
This tool is not only a simple file editor. It brings many functions specifically dedicated to Warband and Bannerlord files as Automatic Initialization that will permit you to gain dozens of hours. I invite you to download it and check what this tool can do to help you to realize your translations.
The package of this tool contains:
- The tool Translate M&B, v1.3.0.0 (May 2022),
- The User Manual (May 2022),
- The Warband Translation Tutorial (May 2022),
- The Bannerlord Translation Tutorial (May 2022).
You can take the Translate M&B package here: https://bit.ly/TransMB
Who am I?
Since 2009, after M&B I and Warband, I've fully translated in French more than fifteen different mods and, for most of them, several successive versions. Some examples: ACOK, Diplomacy, L'Aigle, Nova Aetas, Perisno, Star Wars Conquest and Viking Conquest. My translations are directly integrated into the distribution of three mods: The Last Days, Prophesy of Pandor and A World Of Ice And Fire.
Since 2019, I've too fully translated in French the beta version of Bannerlord, then with two friends almost all versions of Bannerlord EA up to version 1.6.5 (official French localization is provided by TW since version 1.7.0).
Outside TW world, I've translated in French a big mod for The Witcher 2: The Farewell of The White Wolf; my translation is included into the mod.
For translators, TaleWorlds provides in the distribution of Bannerlord all game texts as .xml files, which are text files that you simply translate and then drop into language-appropriate game folders so that the game is displayed in the language of your choice.
Translating .xml files seems an easy operation since they are simple text files. But in the end, the whole translation operation has enough pitfalls and questions that many beginners in translation get lost along the way or, at least, don't know how and where to start
In the same way that I've written a Warband Translation Tutorial, I decided to write a Bannerlord Translation Tutorial that is the result of the experience I gained during the hundreds of hours spent behind my keyboard, translating into French the successive versions of Mount&Blade and then Warband since 2009 and many other mods up to now, and then translating in French the Beta release of Bannerlord from October 2019 to end March 2020, and finally producing French localization for Bannerlord EA releases up to 1.6.5. Because today Bannerlord is still in early access and mods to translate merely exist and are not stable, this document will talk only of the translation of Bannerlord, even if many rules explained hereunder shall apply to translate Bannerlord mods when they will fully exist.
I’m French, so many snapshots will describe how to realize the French translation of the game. However, the whole process described here is perfectly valid for any language, being understood that each language will have to be dropped in its specific folders: cns, de, es, fr, hu, etc.
Today, August 2022, Bannerlord is delivered with a long list of translated languages (Brazil-Portugese, Chinese, French, Spanish…) since release 1.7.0. Since then the present document may seem become useless to translate Bannerlord in these languages, but it may still be useful for not yet translated languages, to fix the official localization if it has defects or is not complete, and it will be useful when the community will have to translate the big mods that will be put on line when Bannerlord, if it happen one day, will get out the early access state and will be at last stable, something moders are waiting for since more than two years.
Bannerlord is still moving, the file structure may change at any time. Recently I discovered that two additional TW modules appeared into the game in 1.8.0, BirthAndDeath and Multiplayer. There is today no file to translate into these two new modules, so no matter for the moment, but that may change one day. If needed, the Translation Tutorial will be updated.
The document is 20 pages long, so I will not try to expose its full content in this forum.
In the tutorial, you will find:
- The file structure of the game.
- Information upon the files list to translate and how to obtain the English files.
- Description of the content of these files and how to edit them.
- Description of all the variables and special syntaxes that you will find ({SETTLEMENT}, {PLAYER.NAME}, {?X.Y}Case A{?}Case B{\?}...) into the sentences to translate and how to deal with them.
- Understand the language dependent tokens: {.a}, {.d}...
- How to switch from a version translation to another version.
You can take my Bannerlord Translation Tutorial here: https://bit.ly/2W4ClT1
To help me realize all those translations, I've developed since 2010 specific tools for Warband and then Bannerlord. Today remains only one tool, Translate M&B, that can be used for both Warband .csv files and Bannerlord .xml files. This tool have an interface in both English and French. It has a complete User Manual in English that explain in details all its functionality.
This tool is not only a simple file editor. It brings many functions specifically dedicated to Warband and Bannerlord files as Automatic Initialization that will permit you to gain dozens of hours. I invite you to download it and check what this tool can do to help you to realize your translations.
The package of this tool contains:
- The tool Translate M&B, v1.3.0.0 (May 2022),
- The User Manual (May 2022),
- The Warband Translation Tutorial (May 2022),
- The Bannerlord Translation Tutorial (May 2022).
You can take the Translate M&B package here: https://bit.ly/TransMB
Who am I?
Since 2009, after M&B I and Warband, I've fully translated in French more than fifteen different mods and, for most of them, several successive versions. Some examples: ACOK, Diplomacy, L'Aigle, Nova Aetas, Perisno, Star Wars Conquest and Viking Conquest. My translations are directly integrated into the distribution of three mods: The Last Days, Prophesy of Pandor and A World Of Ice And Fire.
Since 2019, I've too fully translated in French the beta version of Bannerlord, then with two friends almost all versions of Bannerlord EA up to version 1.6.5 (official French localization is provided by TW since version 1.7.0).
Outside TW world, I've translated in French a big mod for The Witcher 2: The Farewell of The White Wolf; my translation is included into the mod.