questions of MP construction

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

sorry about the delay, wanted to run multiple test just to be safe

taking beta5 MP and using the MP unit prod from beta8, (removing all entries for factions 1 to 7 and 25 & above),
and including the "new" unit prod in a the beta5 mp startpos,
AND NO other updates
desyncs every time

the game does not care that the unit prod "calls" the wrong animation files, and thus what you see is all messed up,

it looks like there is an error in the unit prod file for MP beta8
and that is not my area of expertise,
i cannot even imagine an easy way to fix it, you would have to rewrite the unit prod, maybe by simply adjusting the beta5 unit prod and not removing the extra entries for crusader/muslim/viking units??

i am going to take a break now, if you rewrite the unit prod soon i can test it tomorrow,
(i am uncertain how long i can keep this lan in place - other people normally live here and it's rather crowded with 6 PC's up and running, wires, cables and extension cords all over the place - a few days at most, everybody will be home by wednesday evening and then we will need the space back)

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

and as a cross reference test, beta5 stats and startpos files work fine in beta8 - as long as you dont mind the funky sideways floating horses because beta5 points at old style horse bifs, but uses the new style action pages.

so a new beta8 startpos is required before we can continue debugging

[Puzz3D]

taking beta5 MP and using the MP unit prod from beta8, (removing all entries for factions 1 to 7 and 25 & above), and including the "new" unit prod in the beta5 mp startpos, AND NO other updates desyncs every time.

the game does not care that the unit prod "calls" the wrong animation files, and thus what you see is all messed up,

it looks like there is an error in the unit prod file for MP beta8 and that is not my area of expertise,
i cannot even imagine an easy way to fix it, you would have to rewrite the unit prod, maybe by simply adjusting the beta5 unit prod and not removing the extra entries for crusader/muslim/viking units??

I made the beta8 unit prod file from the beta5 unit prod file using the gnome editor. The gnome editor is known to sometimes introduce junk at the end of the saved file. It's possible that there are other bugs in the gnome editor. In any case, I'll make a new beta8 unit prod file starting with the beta5 unit prod and editing it with a text editor, and I will not remove any MTW/VI units.

[R'as al Ghul]

It's very well possible that Gnome has introduced an error in the unit_prod.
I think you don't notice it if you play a custom battle with beta_8_MP.
If it's just the unit_prod, it should be easy to fix. I don't think we've looked into that possibility yet.

is there any reason why every troop type is listed as missile, shock, spear, cavalry - even yari ashi?

Yes, it's a required entry but is not really relevant for MP. The AI uses that to determine which is which but I'm not not certain if this column is still used. Some of the columns need to be there but are leftovers from Shogun and not really used anymore in MTW.

R'as

P.S: Sorry for being vague, I write this all from the top of my head. I don't really have time to look it up. I do have the stuff with me on an external harddrive, though and if needed can provide more accurate info.

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

i understand "talking off the top of my head" only too well, neither of you have been at all vague,
it is obvious you know the subject very well.


on a side note:-
the org's file download system has become a nightmare,
trying to find the old utilities is, well the only polite thing to say is impossible.
Many have vanished from 3Ddownloads, and even getting to the 3D (Atomic) downloads is challenging.

I also noted some mods have vanished from 3D as well,
War of the Roses for Medieval1 for example - completely gone from the downloads area.

The new system "claims" to have 5 pages in the tools download area, yet all those "pages" display the same set of categories, and it is slow to load pages. Not as slow as being forced to wait the 5 minutes at 3D/Atomic.

I too have been having to go to my external data storage to find tools,
but a stack of cd's a meter high is not an efficient method of storing data for fast retrieval...especially when one counted on the org always having them in download and thus has not catalogued each CD
(I had an ancient but efficient archivist catalogue tool around here somewhere, i can see the need for it again... will send the elves to delve for it...)

[Puzz3D]

Here is a new MP unit prod file carefully created from the beta5 STW_MP10_unit_prod.txt file with the notepad text editor. I've named this STW_MP12_unit_prod.txt. You can edit \campmap\startpos\Samurai_Wars_MP.txt to point to this file.

STW_MP12_unit_prod.rar

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

please test this.

based on Puzz new unit prod,
- added the religion Pagan to samurai units - allows Hoganji to have units,
- fixed references to the new cav bifs,
- fixed references to the new ninja bifs.

tested stable in 3v3 (6 players)

requires Samurai Warlords Single Player version 8 (THIS fix makes that an MP version!)
Samurai_Warlords_MP_v8.2k8 (in the org's medieval beta file upload area

and here is a mildly different version of the startpos file,
with Tokugawa, Taira and a couple of other clans that were "latent", they work fine, so 29 clans now
beta8.2k8.1.zip


BUT the fight animation for heavy cav has a mistyped reference set in one of its actions pages,
(i think R'as will know how to fix that?) there may be one or two others, but thats all i spotted.

[Puzz3D]

Many thanks TechnoMage of Shadows. I'm not sure how soon we can get this tested online. Previous online tests of the beta8 unit prod with beta 5 were inconclusive because we didn't have enough players in the test.

requires Samurai Warlords Single Player version 8 (THIS fix makes that an MP version!)
Samurai_Warlords_MP_v8.2k8 (in the org's medieval beta file upload area

Just to clarify, SW beta8 supports both singleplayer and multiplayer using two different unit_prod files by the player selecting either the "smap_8" or "Samurai_Wars_MP" era. I can modifiy the unit stats in this new multiplayer unit prod file to generate the required singleplayer unit_prod file for the next beta9 version of the mod.