Provinces and map tricks

[komninos]

Hi all,
Some time ago Antalis told me that in one mod (think it was NTW) they used a dummy province to give the rebels extra cash. In my map I had space for some extra provinces and did it. The province was given a 10000 annual income and did not connect to anything else. This was OK and it did not case problems with the game. Total conquest was possible by turning this province to false (as with others that are not in HTW goal).

So I have this idea. To connect this province to the outer northern provinces but only one way connection. This meant that units exiting the province to fight would not be possible to reenter the original province and none would be able to conquest the province too. It would produce barbarian units that would hopefully raid the northern provinces.

Though the game started it CTD when I hit the next year. No messaged were produced.

The next attempt was boulder. I would make the dummy sea region that connected to the left most provinces of the map. A second dummy province was created, given to the Persians, that connected to the dummy sea region. The thought was that since this sea region connected to lands that had no ports in it the way for the Persians would be able when they concentrated an army to pass though the sea and land in the Lydian land in Asia Minor. This way I would be able to generate a Persian invasion similar to the Golden Hoard. The Persians would be a Minor faction at this stage and obstacles like build up of forces and fleet would prevent them from an attack right in the beginning.

Unfortunately this map did not load http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
Do you know other ways to make special provinces to induce trouble and give a form of an external world? Or is there a work around to make a faction pop up at some time frame except the event of the Golden hoard.

[Kekvit Irae]

Wouldnt making a dummy province with no way in and no way out kill your chances of getting 100% of the map during total domination? Just a thought...

EDIT: On second thought, now that I think about it, it worked for the Vikings map, so I dont see why it cant work for other maps.

[komninos]

kekvitirae,

A dummy province can either produce money for who ever has it. Now I went a step further and connected the province only in one way so units only come out of it. Once out of it they can't get back in any way. This is a generation raider province. That Is what I tried to do.
The last one was to give this "Raider province" to a faction and make it difficult for the faction to jump in to the real world. Once they had the army for an invasion they would jump and cause trouble i.e. The Persians on the Lydians
There is no problem for in the conquest since the provinces that are taken in to account for that get a TRUE setting these provinces get a FALSE. In HTW only what was the Greek world (the provinces around Aegean sea the rest don't count in the conquest race)

[Duke John]

I believe I read somewhere that you a connection between 2 provinces needs to work in both ways to avoid CTD's.

But the idea of dummy provinces is handy for my WotR mod. I have 10 factions that are "disabled" and I thought of not giving them faction leaders to let them die out on the first turn. But somehow some factions live on for ten+ years.
Putting them in dummy provinces with victory condition set to false cleans the map up for the 2 enabled factions.

...a bit much words for saying: Thanks for the inspiriration http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

Edit: when you place a unit in one of the disabled factions the faction WILL die out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-party2.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-balloon.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ht_jumping.gif

Cheers, Duke John

[Sir Zack de Caldicot]

Thank you all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
These are some great idea's to try out and see what they produce.

Duke John, A great idea and solution for making a mod with only two playable factions ( The game requires 8 factons to run)

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
Sir Zack

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
I believe I read somewhere that you a connection between 2 provinces needs to work in both ways to avoid CTD's.


That is correct DJ, both Re Berengario and I tried to make "one way" borders a couple of months ago, but we both got CTD. So that makes us 3.

I wanted this for the Fury of the Northmen mod, as I would like the Frankish factions to put pressure on the Danes, but without giving the Danes a chance to wipe them out.

As it looks now, we will maybe make the Frankish factions hold a rich and isolated capital region, in addition to other regions. At least this can offer them a bit more money to build and train units in the regions connected to the rest of the map.


Quote[/b] ]
The next attempt was boulder. I would make the dummy sea region that connected to the left most provinces of the map. A second dummy province was created, given to the Persians, that connected to the dummy sea region. The thought was that since this sea region connected to lands that had no ports in it the way for the Persians would be able when they concentrated an army to pass though the sea and land in the Lydian land in Asia Minor. This way I would be able to generate a Persian invasion similar to the Golden Hoard. The Persians would be a Minor faction at this stage and obstacles like build up of forces and fleet would prevent them from an attack right in the beginning.

Unfortunately this map did not load


Komninos, I may be misunderstanding what you mean, but to me this sounds like a workable idea. That dummy landregion is like an Island right? Connected to the rest of the map by a sea-region, to which no other landregion has a port?

Are you sure it wasn't something else that made it crash?

If this was the reason for the crash, shouldn't the map then work if you make one other region be connected to it with a port? That is after all a simple change in the startpos. I'm no map-expert though so it's probably something I'm missing.

Interesting topic.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Very interesting ideas there.

Excuse my noobity but, do the real map and the map texture have to match 100%? You can make the dummy province two way but "disable" entry graphically maybe? Thus, the raiders themselves will be able to come in and out but not the player. Then what about other AI factions? They wouldn't care about the textures...

Hmm... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-surprised.gif
_

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Excuse my noobity but, do the real map and the map texture have to match 100%? You can make the dummy province two way but "disable" entry graphically maybe? Thus, the raiders themselves will be able to come in and out but not the player. Then what about other AI factions? They wouldn't care about the textures...

Hmm...


The thing is, that the texture map itself has nothing to do with how the game works, except for making an interface between the game and the Human player. You can make the map texture be an image of your girl-/boyfriend, favourite sportsteam, or whatever you want, and the game will still work perfectly. Of course, the human player will then have some problems knowing where to attack and whats sea and whats land http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Yeah, that's my point exactly. You can block the human player easily from accessing the dummy province but not the AI.

Still, this (the original) is a wonderful idea worth tweaking further.
_

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Yeah, that's my point exactly. You can block the human player easily from accessing the dummy province but not the AI.


You can't block human pl. using the texture map(the TGA), just make it initially appear at a glance as if there is no dummy region. If you're in a neighboring region however, the political map(the LBM) will reveal it and the human player will not be blocked in any way.

[komninos]

Hi Norseman,



Quote[/b] ]Komninos, I may be misunderstanding what you mean, but to me this sounds like a workable idea. That dummy land-region is like an Island right? Connected to the rest of the map by a sea-region, to which no other land-region has a port?

Are you sure it wasn't something else that made it crash?


You are 100% at my thoughts and no I am not sure that this caused the crush ... it did not live any traces or bug reports. I think it should work ... I didn't use port coordinates and that might have caused the CTD. I really don't have time for digging since HTW is in the final stages now. Can you check it out make a land that connects on a see region. give it some buildings and a ship unit so they can cross over. no other sea region should connect on to it only a valid land region Make the faction that occupies it a minor so you don't get troubles

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]Hi Norseman,

Quote
Komninos, I may be misunderstanding what you mean, but to me this sounds like a workable idea. That dummy land-region is like an Island right? Connected to the rest of the map by a sea-region, to which no other land-region has a port?

Are you sure it wasn't something else that made it crash?

You are 100% at my thoughts and no I am not sure that this caused the crush ... it did not live any traces or bug reports. I think it should work ... I didn't use port coordinates and that might have caused the CTD. I really don't have time for digging since HTW is in the final stages now. Can you check it out make a land that connects on a see region. give it some buildings and a ship unit so they can cross over. no other sea region should connect on to it only a valid land region Make the faction that occupies it a minor so you don't get troubles


Time to dig up this old thread. haven't been around here much for the last two months, so I'm not sure if anybody has already tried Komninos idea. However, I did some tests on this today.

I used Sicily as a startingpoint:
1) Removed landbridge Naples-Sicily
2) Removed all connections between other seas and the sea surrounding Sicily, both ways. So now Sicily has the only port with access to this sea.
3) Move Sicilian King to Sicily, and make Malta a rebel region. Thus Sicilian faction isolated at Sicily. Added hordes of units.

Started two campaigns, one as Sicily to see that everything worked as planned. The other as Italy, to see that Sicily acted as hoped when played by the AI. It all worked nicely http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
Nothing could be moved to Sicily, and after having built up a large army and a ship the Sicilians attacked Naples
The only way for me to see what was happening on Sicily was to use .matteosartori., so this will be perfect for non-playable "horde" factions.
For non-hordelike factions there is one drawback; no agents could get out, as there were no receiving port.