map editor

[eastern storm]

As i am new could anybody enlighten me as what you will be capabale of doing with the editor IE/ is it simalar to sudden strike forevers editor ?
And are we likely to encounter simalar problems/unit/building/terrain limits.
or is it totaly differant setup could somebody please enlighten me as i am asuming you will be able to create your own single/mp player missons etc?or will the editor not be capable of doing this will it use gates locations etc for AI and player anybody any ideas on this

[This message has been edited by eastern storm (edited 08-15-2002).]

[Target]

Hey Storm

The Map Editor is purely for building maps, not historic campaign scenarios or anything like that. You can place buildings, raise and lower the land, change ground textures and arrange trees. There are plans flying about to release a seperate historical battles editor at a later date, but not with the game because it's completely unofficial and not at all endorsed by CA or Activision.

There are limits to each map that you build, namely texture space and the number of models you can place on it, the number of trees allowed, stuff like that. Unit limits are imposed by the game itself, not any maps that you may create - you ( and the other factions you're fighting with ) are still only allowed to command 16 units at a time. Any other extra units come on as reinforcements.

You don't have to set way-points or gate locations for the AI. Routes are determined automatically by the game when a map is loaded up to be fought on, and the men should be able to find their way around pretty much any obstacle without you having to create AI paths in the way you'd have to for, say, a single-player HalfLife map.

Hope this helps you out.

(Edited because I didn't spell "Routes" properly, and it'd just annoy me)

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Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[This message has been edited by Target (edited 08-15-2002).]

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

So not much different from the MI editor except you can now build stunning castles.

I have a question...can you put a castle on a river map?

Such as a moat around the castle, or the river runs across the middle of the map and the castle is where the defenders start?

Could never get that to happen on my maps for MI.

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Jaguara-Spoken like a TRUE SPAMMER Toda!

No Fear Legend.

[Target]

The problem with doing castle-and-river maps in Mongol Invasion was that, as far as the AI was concerned, they were the same sort of map.

In MI, with river maps and castle maps, the AI saw the battlefield as 2 sectors with a number of entry and exit points. With castle maps, the areas were inside and outside, and the entry points were the gates. With rivermaps, the sectors were either side of the river (amd these sectors were also considered inside or outside) and the entry points were the bridges. The AI always considered themselves to be either INSIDE or OUTSIDE, and whether they were attacking or defending, their aim was to get and then stay INSIDE, which in turn defined their aggressive or defensive tactics.

Problems occured when the map was split into three sectors (such as a river with a fork or a castle map with a river running through it) because the AI couldn't cope with the extra area, and then would start to behave a little erratically. I think we stopped this by throwing up a blank refusal to deal with maps of this type.

er...where was I? Oh yeah - Medieval is a little different, because castles can be made up of more than one area (unlike Shogun's castles, which were basically courtyards), so it may be that you can get away with more than one sector. But we at CA don't believe in chucking stuff out, and the old inside/outside system may still be in there somewhere, which will put a spanner in the works if you try that sort of thing.

The upshot is, Toda, that I'm not sure. I don't think moats are a possibility because we haven't done them and we probably would have done if we could. You're better off waiting for Gil to notice this thread and add his pearls of wisdom because he spent a lot longer on the battlemap than I did. Hmm... should have said that to start with - this posting would have been a lot shorter http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[Kraellin]

ok, well that explains a few things on some of my stranger maps, target. thanks :)

do you happen to know if the 3 bridge bug was fixed? the bug was if you had 3 bridges on a map, the max limit, one of them ALWAYS couldnt be crossed correctly. troops standing right next to this bugged bridge, that you ordered to cross it, would do almost anything BUT cross it. they'd shuffle a few across in a single line on the very edge of the bridge while most would try to go down to the next closest bridge and other oddities. any idea if this was fixed?

and toda, you could put a moat around a castle in we/mi. it would be tricky, but to do it it wouldnt act like a river and you wouldnt be able to put a drawbridge or bridge over it...well, in the we/mi editor anyways. you can rest assured that one of the first things i'll be looking at, when i get the game, is the editor.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by Target:
[/QUOTE]

Dude!

Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
do you happen to know if the 3 bridge bug was fixed? the bug was if you had 3 bridges on a map, the max limit, one of them ALWAYS couldnt be crossed correctly. troops standing right next to this bugged bridge, that you ordered to cross it, would do almost anything BUT cross it. they'd shuffle a few across in a single line on the very edge of the bridge while most would try to go down to the next closest bridge and other oddities. any idea if this was fixed?
[/QUOTE]

Yep, that's fixed.

Quote
and toda, you could put a moat around a castle in we/mi. it would be tricky, but to do it it wouldnt act like a river and you wouldnt be able to put a drawbridge or bridge over it...well, in the we/mi editor anyways. you can rest assured that one of the first things i'll be looking at, when i get the game, is the editor.
[/QUOTE]

No drawbridges I'm afraid. The battlemap's tolerance for water isn't quite as limited as it was in STW, but we still aren't really geared towards maps which have large randomly-shaped impassable areas.

You should be able to combine a river and a castle, but I would strongly suggest that if you do, the river should be pretty central and the castle pretty small.

The full list of recommendations for the map editor is in the readme and is much the same as the STW list. The main difference is that in some cases we were fairly sure that you shouldn't do X because it would cause problems. And now we're completely sure http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Gil ~ CA

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

Thanx for the heads-up guys. Well when the game comes out I will see what I can do with rivers and castles on one map. Who knows maybe by chance it will work and that will bring in a whole new diversity to map making in the community.

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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Jaguara-Spoken like a TRUE SPAMMER Toda!

No Fear Legend.

[Kraellin]

thanks gil,

but frankly i'm going to try to make some more flying horses ;) maybe turn a castle upside down and see if i cant get a good game of 'Ramparts' going.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

STW couldn't handle castles and rivers (more precisely: such a map could simply not be made). STW WE/MI could do quite a few things more than STW. The very first map made with the STW WE/Mi editor (Hide) had a river and a castle (hide_rivercast2).

And like Kraellin said: you could prolly fake a moat by using the K'sTheSwamp technique.

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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi

http://www.takiyama.cjb.net

[eastern storm]

Cheers for that target .
But?how does the AI behaviour work
example if i want to defend will the AI attack and vice versa.
So the map editor is not as complicated to use as SSF [not a bad thing but a little limited ]
As for unit limits buildings do you know what the limits are.
You mention factions are they avaliable for single player or just multi and do you use scripts to determine AI/player behaviour that type of thing hope anybody can help.

[eastern storm]

Thanx for that target.
But? the editor is just for making maps like SSF how does the computer determine unit behaviour /ie AI/PLAYER. with scripts?
Do you no what the limits to trees/buildings /etc are ?
For bringing reserves do you use timers or bring them on certain part of the map
The demo you can set for cavalary predetermined way points for counter attacks/feigning flight will this option be avaliable in the editor.
Will the enemy/ie AI what i mean is will there be differant types of behaviour for AI guard/attack/patrol/go to certain locations set up ambushes/etc can anyone help with these querys.

[barocca]

Guys,
in the sample map i created for the demo i tried to surround the hill with water and just have the road that runs up the hill on a causeway,
but the hill was declared (both in wemi and mtw) impassable,
perhaps the final version will view things differently...

[Target]

Morning!

Storm
I can only only tell you the broader aspects of the battlemap AI - for finer details you'll have to pester Gil or LongJohn, but the Ai will indeed defend if he's a Defender and attack if he's an Attacker. The AI makes a series of decisions that are hard-coded into the game. If memory serves, the AI makes its choices by having a number of options and giving each option a score based on a who bunch of criteria.

Er...I'll try an example. Picture the scene - in the middle of a battle, the AI has a situation where he can make one of 4 decisions for a unit it's controlling: send the unit somewhere, adjust formation, withdraw it or attack and enemy unit. Each of these decisions accumulates a score rating based on a bunch of criteria such as: are we on a hill, is there a forest nearby than can hide us, does the unit we want to attack have its back to us, are there 4million enemy units marching towards us, are we out of ammo, are we cavalry, does this unit's morale need bolstering, etc, etc, etc.

Once the AI has run through all its checks, it'll execute the decision with the highest score and run with it. Now, this is a MAJOR simplification of what the AI is doing.

As far as generic unit behavior is concerned (for the player and the AI), this is also done with calculations that are built into the game, but are influenced by the statistics that are stored in the unitprod file. I think you're asking if it's possible to radically alter a unit's behaviour, such as getting morale BOOSTS from the enemy bearing down on them and being happier on their own than surrounded by friendly troops. This isn't possible, because it's an intrinsic part of the game. You can play around with a unit's characteristics somewhat by altering the values in the unitprod file, but that's about as much control over unit behaviour in the battlemap as you're going to get.

I think there's a limit of about 500 trees in each battlemap. I'm afraid I can't remember the limits to textures and models.

Reinforcements:
For the AI, it'll decide to bring on a number of units at once, and then do so when there are enough slots for them. For example, it'll try and bring on 7 units of reinforcements, but if there is only enough space for 5 of them, it'll wait unit 2 more units of the army that's currently fighting are killed/captured/routed and then bring on all 7 at once.

For the player, you get 2 buttons - one positions a flag at an assembly point on the map. This is where reinforcements will walk to when called for. The othe button will summon one reinforcement unit for every click of the button. If the unit can come on (if there's enough space for it) it'll appear at the edge of the map and then walk towards the assembly point. You can control it at any time once it's out of the no-go zone, so it doesn't have to walk all the way to the assembly point before it'll come under your command.

Waypoints aren't part of the map, they are an additional command at your disposal. If you want a unit to walk to a certain point, but avoid, say, a woodland, you can manually set up way points and the unit will march to each of these in turn. These haven't changed from how they were in Shogun.

The AI is quite a bit more intelligent than it was in Shogun and Mongol Invasion. It's got a fair few more tactics at its disposal, including amushes, feints, flanking, etc so it'll hopefully give you a challenge when you buy the game. Of course, if you want a real challenge, nothing beats going up against another human player - we're a bit far off emulating human though, as anyone working in artifical intelligence will tell you.

Barocca
Yeah, that's to be expected. It's a foible of the routing code - in order to help the units navigate terrain, impassable areas of water have an ellipse around them so that, should men ever brush up against them, they are guided around. If you create a lake shaped like a horseshoe, the routing code will place an ellipse around the whole lake, including the open mouth, effectively making the whole thing a no-go area. This is also the reason why castles don't have moats. The upshot is that strange shaped lakes won't work in Medieval.

Mind you, we also said that you couldn't get troops to wade across rivers in MI and you lot proved us wrong http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

Sounds good. This elipse thing though. Surely if you just had two little moats one on each side of the castle and the castle gates at the front it would work. Yeah parts of the castle would be out-of-bounds because of the elipse, but they could be blocked off by walls.

Reading that It doesnt make too much sense. I mean if u had a small most down the side of a castle then only part of the castle would be impassable so cut the impassable part off from the rest of the castle.

Moats could be revolutionary.

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Jaguara-Spoken like a TRUE SPAMMER Toda!

No Fear Legend.

[Target]

Yep, that would work if you made the moats oblong in shape. The other danger of moats is that you make large areas of castles inaccessible to the outside, which would in turn run the risk of turning castle battles back into what they were like for Shogun.

Still, like I've said, you modders seems thrive on doing the impossible with the Total War engines, so no doubt you'll find a way of making it work. Best of luck to you, Toda.

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Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[eastern storm]

thanx again for your reply target .
the two posts one after another were a mistake i went to check the first post no sign? second same again there must be alag of some sorts that gives the apperance that your posts have not shown up,
Like you said wait for the game and take it from there .
Anyway cheers again for such a thourgh reply.

[eastern storm]

one more thing can you set paramiters for victory/defeat by reaching certain waypoints
or when the number of units reach a certain level?or defend a postion for a certain amount of time/IE/20 mins or longer.
cheers for any repleys

[This message has been edited by eastern storm (edited 08-18-2002).]

[Papewaio]

Quote Originally posted by Toda Nebuchadnezzar:
Sounds good. This elipse thing though. Surely if you just had two little moats one on each side of the castle and the castle gates at the front it would work. Yeah parts of the castle would be out-of-bounds because of the elipse, but they could be blocked off by walls.

Reading that It doesnt make too much sense. I mean if u had a small most down the side of a castle then only part of the castle would be impassable so cut the impassable part off from the rest of the castle.

Moats could be revolutionary.

[/QUOTE]

Maybe a string of ponds would have the same effect as a moat. As long as their is a ellipse for each pond it may be possible to constrain the size of the ellipses and their net shape.

Would take a bit of practise (of course). But what are the ratios of the ellipses axis (how flat can they be)... this will effect the dot matrix effect the ponds would need to have in spacing... knowing the ratios we can calculate the size of the required ponds and their spacing or if it is indeed a possibly solution.

[This message has been edited by Papewaio (edited 08-17-2002).]

[Kraellin]

pape,

if the no-go zones and water, and so on, work the same way as we/mi, then yes, a series of ponds would work IF you also followed the other requirements for water that are in the read-me file. we tricked the editor in a couple different ways with water to get water that was impassable and water that was passable. so it depends on a few things.

it's much easier to look at various water maps and that read-me to see how it works both ways than for me to try and explain it. or, if you look in the mods forum and my lengthy explanation is still there, you can check that.

but again, it depends on if they havent changed the rules of the water for mtw.

my question to CA on this is has the way that units handle impassable zones changed for mtw, particularly AI units? units would often bog down quite badly when they hit one of these zones in the previous games, stringing themselves out in a line along the edges of the zone and slowing down to a crawl. they would also tend to bust up and lose cohesion as a group. has this been changed at all?

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.