Didz's Dumb Question Thread

[Didz]

Ok! I've been playing the game for a while now (including one alnighter) but I'm still confused on a number of points so I thought I'd start thread where I can ask all the dumb questions you lot probably think are obvious but I'm still trying to work out.

1. Where do the screenshots go?

I took a few of my last battle, but try as I might I can't find a screenshot folder anywhere.

2. Is there a manual?

Obviously, I can't find it if there is, so, a supplementary question is, where is it?

I mean I've gotten used to game companies skimping on 'in the box manuals' to same paper and distribution costs, but usually I find a .pdf manual tucked away somewhere in the game folder. Can't see one with ETW, so does it exist, and if so where have they hidden it.

3. Do I have to do anything to get scholars to schol?

I've been stuffing them in schools, but not really noticed any difference. Do you actually have to tell them to study something to get the benefit or do they do it naturally. Also, do they stack? e.g. if you stick two in the same school do they learn faster, or ignore each other?

4. Where's the school list?

Sort of supplementary to the above is that a way to obtain a list of schools, and preferably what knowledge the possess. I sort of assumed it would be an option in the list menu but coudln't find it. At the minute I have to resort to manually scanning the world map looking for 'school like' building icons, which seems a bit silly, and the only way to determine if the school has any knowledge worth stealing is to open a diplomatic negotiation and offer to trade knowledge, then note down whats on offer. Which seems a bit long-winded and fiddly, so I'm sure I'm missing a trick somehwere.

5. Wherez the blockage?

Ok! you get a very helpful message telling you that your lucrative trade route with the Umpalumpa's has been blockaded and the Trade Route List clearly shows that your losing a fortune as a result. But where does it tell you where its being blocked and by whom?

It most frustrating when you've launched a major naval expedition destroyed the enemy fleet and then check the list to find there's still a blockage somewhere you haven't flush out.

6. What Do Trade Ships do?

I have one, it has a funny little yellow dot on the unit counter saying '1', which none of my other ships have. But I have no idea what to do with it. I seem to be getting trade without using it so I'm a bit confused. Is it just a poor quality warship?

Right thats the immediate head scratchers posted, if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated, and if anyone know where the manual is it might avoid further dumb questions being posted.

[Merak]

1. as far as i know there is no folder were they are put but you must paste it in paint or use fraps

2. manual
if you have downloaded it the manual (i think) must be downloaded. if you purchaste it, it´s on the dvd folder were the game is
but a better manual is here:
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...Total-War.html

3. move them to a school and they will start by them self (a green icon will show it)

4. in the techlist you have a bunch of buildings with heads over them that trepresent how many is in that school and help with the reaserch

5 when you get that message you can click on the magnifying glass to see were it is.

6. move it to a trade theater and it will make money for you.

but as i said the manual i crappy read the one that i have linked in the first post you have a pdf that is very goot to print.
if there is something unclear pleace state so and i will try to explain better

[crpcarrot]

1. no idea

2.dont kow i am looking for one too :P

3. you can place your different shols in different schools they get traits depending on what technologies the school researches. so one a schollar gets say +1 one to military research i use the school he is at exclusively for military research. as far i know scholars benefots do stack but at a diminshing rate

4. school list is on u research screen at the top u will se an icon for each school. thats where u tell which school to research which tech. so if u have 5 schools u can be researching 5 different techs simultaneously. two scholls cannot research the same tech. as far i have seen changing techs half researched does not reset research time

5. i've been confused by this too. possible reasons port if under blockade by trade partner's enemy. no port for the partner, land route has hostile army on it. maybe not hostile to you but your trade partner.

6. just leave them on the trade spot they increase the amount of trade goods u have. the more ships u have the more goods u will have. u can stack ships on the same spot as well. u get more goods from stacked ships but at a dimishing rate

[Didz]

1. as far as i know there is no folder were they are put but you must paste it in paint or use fraps

Really?

Thats a bit dumb...I couldn't do that anyway as when I have the game running ALT-TAB doesn't work. I'd have to close the game down to save the screenshot. Nah! it must be saved somewhere, all the other TW games had a .tga folder they went in.

2. manual
if you have downloaded it the manual (i think) must be downloaded. if you purchaste it, it´s on the dvd folder were the game is
but a better manual is here:
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...Total-War.html

Thanks I'll take a look. I have the disks too, so I'll check those out as well.

4. in the techlist you have a bunch of buildings with heads over them that trepresent how many is in that school and help with the reaserch

4. school list is on u research screen at the top u will se an icon for each school. thats where u tell which school to research which tech. so if u have 5 schools u can be researching 5 different techs simultaneously. two scholls cannot research the same tech. as far i have seen changing techs half researched does not reset research time

Didn't explain that very well, I want to know not just where my schools are but where other peoples are, so I can send my sholars to steal their books. At the minute the only way I know of finding one is to scanning the map screen by screen until I spot one, then I have to try and remember where I saw it, whilst I got and check using the diplomacy tab that it knows something I need to know.

5 when you get that message you can click on the magnifying glass to see were it is.

5. i've been confused by this too. possible reasons port if under blockade by trade partner's enemy. no port for the partner, land route has hostile army on it. maybe not hostile to you but your trade partner.

Not always...I have two trade routes currently blockaded and clicking on the 'show me button' does nothing. One of them is Sweden for example which means the blockage could be anywhere from the Med to the Baltic. I might not be able to do anything about it but I'd like to know where it was if possible.

6. move it to a trade theater and it will make money for you.

6. just leave them on the trade spot they increase the amount of trade goods u have. the more ships u have the more goods u will have. u can stack ships on the same spot as well. u get more goods from stacked ships but at a dimishing rate

Trade theatre?

Are those the shaded sea zones I sometimes see when watching the computer moves?

So, they work a bit like merchants in MTW2, do they get taken out by anything. Presumbly you can sink them?

[A Very Super Market]

LOL

Okay, those boxes are transport zones that you put ships into to travel around the world. The three major theatres are linked by this.

In between, are trade theatres. They do not hold any land territories, but have slots that you can send trade ships into to gather resources.

[Merak]

Really?

Thats a bit dumb...I couldn't do that anyway as when I have the game running ALT-TAB doesn't work. I'd have to close the game down to save the screenshot. Nah! it must be saved somewhere, all the other TW games had a .tga folder they went in.

i think there was a config file you needed to edit to make that work in the old version but i am not sure

Didn't explain that very well, I want to know not just where my schools are but where other peopls are, so I can send my sholars to steal their books.

do not think it is a list from were you can see it

Not always...I have two trade routes currently blockaded and clicking on the MG does nothing.

have not seen that but you must be right could be a annoying bug then.

Trade theatre?

Are those the shaded sea zones I sometimes see when watching the computer moves?

i mean the ones you see when you zoom out with the minimap and you have too travel to it.
for example brazill madagascar and africa

[Didz]

Ok! just did a complete scan of my hardrive listing every image file and the screenshots I took this morning weren't saved anywhere. In fact there were no images created today at all.

So, obviously the 'Print Screen' button isn't working, or perhaps you have to press something else in this version of the game. Previous games have always used 'Print Screen' and saved to a the tga folder.

[Merak]

i just think no one has found the right config file to change for taking screens in the mean time i have heard FRAPS do the same thing

[Didz]

i just think no one has found the right config file to change for taking screens in the mean time i have heard FRAPS do the same thing

Hmm! well hopefully someone will sort this out soon. I usually like to do AAR's on my games but I'm not even going to try without a folder that saves all the screenshots I take.

I have FRAPS but I've enever used it. I thought it was only used for movies, so I'll have to check it out.

[Merak]

if you do AAR:s i would love to read it.

and what does your signature mean?

[magnum]

Ok, wait. Didz said something that now gave me a stupid question to ask (bound to happen as I haven't read a manual. We don't need no stinkin manual!)

Scholars can steal tech by moving them into enemy schools?

[Merak]

yes but it is from the beginning realy hard to do (10 - to 13 % is the most i have seen) so i never bother with it i do like to kill the oponents gentlemans though

[Didz]

Scholars can steal tech by moving them into enemy schools?

Yes...I've had limited success stealing knowledge from Georgia just before my Ottoman army swept in and annexed their state and now I'm targetting the Novgorod College in northern Russia.

The percentage chance varies according to the technology you target and the skill of your scholar but in the case of Georgia I managed to pilfer two techs before I annexed them, the %chances were something like 24% and 22% per turn, and the worst that seems to happen if you fail is that your scholar gets expelled. But he can walk straight back in again, so as long as you aren't worried about your reputation it doesn't matter.

The pain is finding the target schools, and checking whether they have anything worth stealing, hence the question.

if you do AAR:s i would love to read it.

and what does your signature mean?

I did one for MTW2 which actually won a prize, so I'll probably give it a go if I can sort out the screenshot business. I've been on my Sega Pass Account and raised a ticket asking for clarification of where the screenshots are stored. According to their knowledge base screenshots are stored as .tga files in the tga folder just like previous TW titles but I've already checked that and they are there, in fact there is no tga folder.

PS: Just the record I check the CD's that came with my Special Forces Edition Boxed Set and there is no manual included on the disks. And be careful if you decide like me to google for a download, there are a lot of scam sites offering you a free copy. I just tried downloading one and my anti-spyware system lit up like a christmas tree.

[quadalpha]

The manual is on Steam. It would have answered quite a few of your questions (about trade ships, for one).

You do have LOS along all your trade routes; can't be that much trouble to look.

There is no list of foreign schools, but surely it can't be that much trouble to look for them.

[Didz]

The manual is on Steam. It would have answered quite a few of your questions (about trade ships, for one).

Nah! thats just the little pamphlet that comes with the box, I have that already. I was looking for a proper manual that explains how to play the game

You do have LOS along all your trade routes; can't be that much trouble to look.

Don't think so...not unless there is a bug thats reporting my trade route to Sweden as blockaded when it isn't. But I'll double check.
[Having double checked]
Hmm! ok I think your right though it needs a bit of detective work to sort out exactly whats going on, and even so there is a bug with the maginifying glass in that it never pointed me at any of the causes I think I've worked out.

This is what I think is happening.

Trade Route with:
Barbary States (worth 69 per turn) - It looks like their trading port at Surt has been captured by The Knights of St.John, and as thats their only trading port it has severed my trade route.

Savoy (worth 78 per turn) - Nice their trading port is being blockaded by The Barbary States, annoying as the Barabary States are my allies, and their fleet would be better employed dealing with the Morrocan's but <shrug>.

Denmark (Worth 107 per turn) - It looks like their trading port Aarhus has been captured by the Swedes, they have another port but it has no trade route to it so I assume its not a trading port. I know for a fact that when I clicked on the 'show me' button for this report it showed me the straits of gibraltar and there is no reason there for Denmark to be blockaded.

Sweden (worth 260 per turn) - Rostock is being blockaded by the Danish Fleet which explains that, but again I wasn't shown that when I clicked on the show me button. I was actually shown the Morrocan fleet in the Straits of Gibralter.

[AH! hang on sussed it] The reason I was shown the Morrocan fleet in the Straits of Gibraltar was that I was at war with them, and so they were blockading all my trade through the straits. The problem is that defeating the Morrocan fleet and opening the Straits of Gibralter to my trade has merely uncovered secondary reasons why that trade is still blocked which weren't reported to me by the 'show me' button because they were not the main reason at the time.

So, whats actually missing is a 'show me' button on the trade screen that says this is why your trade route is blocked now. Rather than just the one on the report which only shows you the cause that turn.

There is no list of foreign schools, but surely it can't be that much trouble to look for them.

Not if you don't mind pawing over the map of the world screen by screen and hovering over every settlement until the mouse over text tells you whats there. I mean I found a couple that way but it takes ages and I assumed the game would provide a simpler method as its a key aspect of gameplay.

The other issue of course is that even having found a school, you then have to find out if they have any knowledge worth stealing, which at the minute I can only do by calling up the diplomacy screen and asking to trade technologies with that country.

I was just expecting there to be some simple report somewhere that listed all the schools and what technologies were available for stealing from each. It seemed like a sort of obvious feature given the role of scholars.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

When your gentlemen enters a foreign school, the tech list comes up and you can chose what to steal. It is like researching a tech. After being successful you have to walk back to your territory I believe since I have never been successful in stealing a tech. My agents were always detected.

With FRAPPS you could take better screenshots then was possible in M2TW. It works very easy.

[Didz]

When your gentlemen enters a foreign school, the tech list comes up and you can chose what to steal. It is like researching a tech. After being successful you have to walk back to your territory I believe since I have never been successful in stealing a tech. My agents were always detected.

Yes! when you enter the school. But quite honestly it can take four or five turns to reach the school and I don't want to waste all that time just to find that there's nothing there worth stealing. Incidently, the affects of successfully stealing one is instant, the tech is added to your tech tree as soon as you have stolen it.

With FRAPPS you could take better screenshots then was possible in M2TW. It works very easy.

Well I'm still waiting for a response to my ticket with Sega Pass, but I did try and find a download site for frapps and all I got were American college websites. Do you know where I can get it?

[quadalpha]

It's spelt fraps (one p).

I thought one of the patches has fixed the alt+tabbing. It works for me, at least.

I don't think there's a way around the diplo screen for seeing other nations' tech. And you'll probably learn what schools look like in a while :) Personally I found gentlemen much more useful sitting in a school of my own rather than faffing about and probably getting assassinated.

[andrewt]

There are two ways to trade.

1. There's a land route from your capital to the other faction's capital. You must control the provinces in between.

2. There's a route between your home port and the other faction's home port. If their home port gets blockaded, you don't get trade no matter how many other ports in other provinces they have.

[magnum]

Ok, that was a forehead-keyboard moment. Thanks! Good to know not so much as I intend to steal tech from the AI, but I now know that the AI isn't sending Gentlemen to my schools just to conduct honorable duels. Need to be killing those scum.

[Ordani]

gfx_screenshot_folder ./screenshots; # gfx_screenshot_folder <folder>, Folder to where save screenshots relative to Empire directory #

is defined in the preferences scripts but doesn't exist by default. They have code to do it, question is whether or not it's turned on.

[Didz]

gfx_screenshot_folder ./screenshots; # gfx_screenshot_folder <folder>, Folder to where save screenshots relative to Empire directory #

is defined in the preferences scripts but doesn't exist by default. They have code to do it, question is whether or not it's turned on.

I had a scan through that earlier but didn't spot anything to do with screenshots I'll have another look. As I said, Sega Pass claim the screenshots work the same way in ETW as they did in previous games but that doesn't seem to be true, unless its a case of turning the feature on somehow.

The parent folder is there where they say it should be e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire but the tga folder is missing.

So, the line in the preferences.empire_script file reads

gfx_screenshot_folder ./screenshots; # gfx_screenshot_folder <folder>, Folder to where save screenshots relative to Empire directory #

Do you think its just a case of replacing <folder> with C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire\tga ?

[quadalpha]

Can't hurt to try.

[Didz]

Couple more dumb questions that sprung to mind last night.

1) Can socket bayonets be unfixed?

Wiggy says they can, but I see no button to do so. Also does having them fixed slow down reloading as in real life.

2) Do bridge battles work the same way as in MTW2?

I've noticed various bridges and fords on the map, but wondered if positioning your army ON one actually triggers a bridge battle as it does in MTW2. Anyone tried this yet?

[quadalpha]

I think you can only unfix plug bayonets. Don't think there's a performance hit though.

[MikeV]

Fortis balore et armis

Fortis balore et armis roughly, "fearsome force at arms"

[quadalpha]

Fortis balore et armis roughly, "fearsome force at arms"

Balore ... bleating?

[MikeV]

RI want to know not just where my schools are but where other peoples are, so I can send my sholars to steal their books. At the minute the only way I know of finding one is to scanning the map screen by screen until I spot one, then I have to try and remember where I saw it, whilst I got and check using the diplomacy tab that it knows something I need to know.

It's not really that easy, but you don't need to go to all that much trouble.
At the start of the campaign, each faction's home region has one of each building type (well, regions that have enough towns ...): Religious, Research, Entertainment, and Economic (either metal or weaver, some have both). Even though a faction can build a school anywhere, these starting ones will be the most advanced.

I haven't found a way to tell what they're researching, just as I never found a way to examine another faction's family tree in M(2)|R:TW.

As far as scanning the map, about the only thing I've noticed are the little icons floating above a settlement/army/fleet that has a (visible) agent "in residence." There's a green circle with black mask overlay for Rakes, a pair of yellow praying hands for Missionaries, and a yellow mason symbol for Gentlemen. If you can spot them, you can see where the buggers are hanging out. Generally, they'll be in the home region's building of the appropriate type.

As others pointed out already, to steal a tech you have to move your Gentleman agent into their college/university. You'll get a dialog asking whether you want to perform the steal tech mission, or just visit. Your agent won't succeed at stealing any tech if they don't have any you haven't already researched -- to find out if they do, you can use the Diplomacy screen as you described. If there are one or more Gentlemen there, you'll have a 3rd option, which is to challenge one to a duel.

Also, you can duel vs. an opposing Gentleman anywhere on the map (they generally have a higher % of success than Rakes of the same rank). You're likely to encounter them coming to your college/university, especially if you have the tech lead. Left alone, they tend to steal your tech (you'll notice this as them wandering to your college/university, then popping out some distance away).

[MikeV]

.I have two trade routes currently blockaded and clicking on the 'show me button' does nothing. One of them is Sweden for example which means the blockage could be anywhere from the Med to the Baltic. I might not be able to do anything about it but I'd like to know where it was if possible.

At the start of your turn (after hitting the end turn button and letting it run through the other factions, but not when you load/continue from a saved game file), among the info droppings on the left will be one or more with an anchor symbol stating "Trade route raided." Bring up the full dialog and click the magnifying lens: it will take you to the fleet that's sitting on your trade route.

[MikeV]

Trade theatre?

Are those the shaded sea zones I sometimes see when watching the computer moves?

So, they work a bit like merchants in MTW2, do they get taken out by anything. Presumbly you can sink them?

Check out http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...Total-War.html Section VI covers trade and trade theaters.

The shaded rectangular areas at the edges of the three main theater maps are teleporters to the "adjacent" theater/zone. When you zoom the campaign minimap all the way out, or use the globe icon, you get the overview of the whole (abstract) E:TW world. It shows the three main theaters (America, Europe, India) as rectangles, and the four trade zones as circles, with links among them. When you sail a fleet into one of the teleport rectangles, it asks you to select a destination (or stay in the current theater/zone).

And yes, you can attack trade ships (even those on a trade spot) like others. Beware the larger ones, like Spanish galleons or Dutch fluyts: they're a lot tougher than Indiamen.