Ownership

[jirisys]

Hello, I was wondering what the effects of adding all the 21 factions as owners of every unit in the game are, at least in the campaign.

I'm not sure what the side effects may be, as you wouldn't be able to recruit them if they are not added in the barracks recruitment list, but I do not know of any other problems that might arise.

What about custom battles and model problems?

~Jirisys ()

[Ludens]

The main problem is that of model conflicts. The R:TW battle engine has a strange limitation of one unit per model per faction.

For example: the three Celtic heavy cavalry units (Gallic Brihentin, Belgic Remi Marepos and Galatian Lavotuxri) share the same model. Suppose that you are playing the Casse and you are fighting a battle against the Aedui. If your army contains both Lavotuxri and Brihentin, the game will crash*. However, if you bring only Lavotuxri and the Aedui only Brihentin, the problem won't occur. Hence models can be shared by units from different factions (and also why the EB team did not allow recruitment of Lavotuxri by Celtic factions.)

There is also a special rule for mercenary units (that is: units with the mercenary attribute) - they are counted separately from other units, so you can have two units sharing a model, provided one has the mercenary attribute and the other doesn't. This is why Celtic factions can recruit Remi Marepos - it was given the mercenary attribute to prevent this problem.

I don't know how many EB units share their model, but I am pretty sure it's a significant percentage. R:TW also limits the total number of models, so the team used model sharing to include more units. If you allow every faction to recruit every unit, it's only a matter of time before you encounter model-sharing crashes. (If you only change ownership but not recruitment, this is a lot less likely. Still, ownership also determines whether a unit disbands or changes sides when bribed, so model conflicts are still possible.)

Apart from the model-sharing, there may also be a problem with bodyguard units: IIRC a faction can have only one unit with the general's unit and one with the upgraded general's unit attributes.

Custom battles are a comparatively minor problem: the unit selection-screen cannot handle that many units and becomes impossible to scroll. The only solution to that is a limited EDU file, like the current EB MP EDU.

* I think the crash originates with the graphic engine, so presumably it can be avoided by simply auto-calcing the battle

[jirisys]

I see. I was working on some mod that heavily altered the ownership stats without explanation, and it caught me off-guard. It's a wonder I haven't crashed with it before a battle yet.

~Jirisys ()