Challenge for all modders out there

[Lord Adherbal]

Then we put all our talents together and develop a strategic game on our own. When a battle occurs, a historical battle script is written. Next you load up R:TW and you play the historical battle. Then we need to extract the outcome of the battle (or perhaps just write up the results) and import it back into the strategic game. Thus you have the excellent battle engine of R:TW but with a proper AI and strategic game that can be as challenging as we want.

that was exactly my idea for a MP campaign game. I would write a program with an MTW style campaigngame, then when a battle occurs it generates a script and the program pauses. The players then fight this battle in RTW via gamespy. After completion the campaignmap program is resumed and it reads the battle results from the battle's logfile (rtw\logfiles\), and the campaigngame continues.

It will probably be my next project after Chivalry TW (if I can still be arsed to play RTW by then :))

[The_Mark]

Mkay.. I bBegan to do a proper battle script, for a battle like the one described by Duke. Currently the script is a follows:

;###############  init  #####################################
	prepare_for_battle

;*************
;player
;*************

	label_unit 0 0 0	plr_general
	label_unit 0 0 1	plr_inf1
	label_unit 0 0 2	plr_inf2
	label_unit 0 0 3	plr_inf3
	label_unit 0 0 4	plr_inf4
	label_unit 0 0 5	plr_inf5
	label_unit 0 0 6	plr_inf6
	label_unit 0 0 7	plr_miss1
	label_unit 0 0 8	plr_miss2
	label_unit 0 0 9	plr_inf7
	label_unit 0 0 10	plr_inf8
	label_unit 0 0 11	plr_inf9
	label_unit 0 0 12	plr_inf10
	label_unit 0 0 13	plr_inf11
	label_unit 0 0 14	plr_inf12

	define_unit_group plr_army plr_general plr_inf1 plr_inf2 plr_inf3 plr_inf4 plr_inf5 plr_inf6 plr_inf7 plr_inf8 plr_inf9 plr_inf10 plr_inf11 plr_inf112 plr_miss1 plr_miss2
	define_unit_group plr_front plr_inf1 plr_inf2 plr_inf3 plr_inf4 plr_inf5 plr_inf6
	define_unit_group plr_missiles plr_miss1 plr_miss2
	define_unit_group plr_reserves plr_inf7 plr_inf8 plr_inf9 plr_inf10


;*************
;AI
;*************

	label_unit 1 0 0	AI_general
	label_unit 1 0 1	AI_leg13
	label_unit 1 0 2	AI_leg21
	label_unit 1 0 3	AI_leg22
	label_unit 1 0 4	AI_leg33
	label_unit 1 0 5	AI_leg23
	label_unit 1 0 6	AI_leg12
	label_unit 1 0 7	AI_leg31
	label_unit 1 0 8	AI_leg32
	label_unit 1 0 9 	AI_leg11
	label_unit 1 0 10	AI_leg_1
	label_unit 1 0 11	AI_rcav
	label_unit 1 0 12	AI_lcav
	label_unit 1 0 13	AI_vel1
	label_unit 1 0 14	AI_vel2
	label_unit 1 0 15	AI_vel3
	label_unit 1 0 16 	AI_raux
	label_unit 1 0 17	AI_laux

	define_unit_group AI_ARMY AI_general AI_leg13 AI_leg21 AI_leg22 AI_leg33 AI_leg23 AI_leg12 AI_leg31 AI_leg32 AI_leg11 AI_leg_1 AI_rcav AI_lcav AI_raux AI_laux AI_vel1 

AI_vel2 AI_vel3

	define_unit_group AI_1line AI_leg11 AI_leg12 AI_leg13

	define_unit_group AI_2line AI_leg21 AI_leg22 AI_leg23

	define_unit_group AI_3line AI_leg31 AI_leg32 AI_leg33

	define_unit_group AI_skirm AI_vel1 AI_vel2 AI_vel3

			
;*************  Locations

	label_location plr_center -590 -134
	label_location AI_prepline -500 -134
	label_location veliteloc -550 -134
	
;************* Declaring variables

declare_counter battlephase	; phase 0=deployment/march, 1=missile duel/skirmishing, 2=closing lines, 3=all-out attack 4=monitor situation
declare_counter skirmphase	; phase	0=closing into range, 1=shooting/throwing part, 2=disengaging skirmishers
set_counter skirmphase 0

;**********************
; start
;**********************

	while ! I_BattleStarted		;standard wait part
	end_while

	ai_active_set off		;disable core AI in favor of scripted one

	unit_set_skirmish_mode AI_vel1 off
	unit_set_skirmish_mode AI_vel2 off
	unit_set_skirmish_mode AI_vel3 off

	battle_wait 4
	unit_group_order_move_formed AI_ARMY -480 -134 run; march AI army to positons
	unit_group_order_move_unformed AI_skirm -500 -134 run

	battle_wait 10

	while I_IsUnitGroupMoving AI_ARMY	;wait until army is in position
	end_while

	battle_wait 10
	set_counter battlephase 1
	unit_set_experience plr_general 1 ;debug nodes, watch for general's exp

	while I_InBattle		; main battle loop
;**********************************
;	== skirmish part ==
	if battlephase = 1
		if skirmphase = 0	;skirmish phase 0: skirmishers move to range, loosen formation
;		unit_group_change_unit_formation AI_skirm square_hollow
		unit_group_order_move_unformed AI_skirm -560 -134 run
		set_counter skirmphase 1
		unit_set_experience plr_general 2
		end_if
; more to come
;		
	end_if
;**********************************
; much more to come
	end_while
	end_script

Script layout plan:
[CODE]init & labels

defining monitors?

move AI army to range

while-loop, checks everything possible implemented in script
{
skirmish-part
{
{
move to range, fire next phase when rdy
}
{
shootout, check for possible threats, fire next phase when out of ammo/large casualties to skirmishers
}
{
disengaging, fire next phase when rdy
}
}
main battle part
{
{
close to precursor range (fire at will), position flank guards according to player's flanks, make flanking movements
}
{
charge
}
}
battle checks
{
{
check front line, assign reserves
}
{
check flanking attempts, assign reserves
}
{
after a delay start to check for free reserves, possibly send them to flank
}
}
possibly a delay to lessen CPU load
end_while
/CODE]

Current problems:
1) The skirmishers don't respond to orders (in skirmish part, the first order is acknowledged)
2) I can't get monitors working. Dunno what it is.

Flanking checks could be implemented by: check flanking attempts-part checks the distance of player's units from lines placed on AI's flanks and on AI's front. Flank line checks (obviously) check if player's unit is on outflanking course, front line checks if player's unit has advanced far enough for the reserves to counter it.

About

Will the game crash if you label unit sixteen when there are only 15 units?

for example,
I_BattlePlayerArmyNumberOfMatchingUnits all > 12
tests if player has over 12 units. One could use this while labeling, assuming that the game doesn't check if-statements beforehand.


Some observations on scripting:
*invalid labeling, using invalid label, using location label in some commands that require a location = CTD on execution of command.
*mistyped command, missing/extra end_* = script doesn't work but battle runs as usual.

EDIT: Groups within groups don't work. They can be defined but some of them won't respond to commands.

[The_Mark]

Just one thing to say about RTW script engine: It's crap. It can't store variables (other than numbers), it doesn't have any functions returning values etc.

Regarding to that, I had an idea

What if one would make a proggy that'd use the information from the battle and would constantly write script commands to a file to be executed every second?

Example: A battle script calls the console command output_unit_positions, saving the positons of all units to a file. The proggy checks this file for positions. The proggy then uses the information to figure out what's going on, for exampl, flanking manouvers. When it recognises a flanking manouver it will write a command (unit_order_attack_unit plr_unit_3) to a separate script file (show_me) that is run by rome regularly.

Benefits: We can have all the commands, calculus, variables we want and need to make the AI smart.

Problems: output-command doesn't output unit status, for example, men left/ammo status/engagement status. If we can work around these there's possibly no limits.

Any thoughts?

[Myrddraal]

Just one thing to say about RTW script engine: It's crap. It can't store variables (other than numbers), it doesn't have any functions returning values etc.

I could have told you that...

I don't know about the whole seperate program idea. The advantage of scripting is that there are loads of things you can check up on like if a unit is being attacked in the flank of back etc...

[SigniferOne]

I think he was saying that you could write scripts that would return all that battle data to an external program, who could at the same time do a lot more with the data than the scripts themselves.

[Myrddraal]

No hes not, there is a command which outputs the unit positions to a file, but it doesn't output anything else...

[The_Mark]

I could have told you that...

Well, I didn't expect much, but I didn't expect it to be (utter) crap either.

And if you only know the units' positions, it CAN tell you a lot of things. As the command also outputs the units' directions. So we can, in fact, check if a unit is attacked fron flanks etc. But yes, there's a lots of things that we can't test. We can assume that two units are engaged by their distance, and we could check whether a unit is attempting flanking much more reliably (and more easily).

So we have a script engine that can test stuff handily but can't do anything with it and we could make a program that would do everything we want but it couldn't check things.

Is there any other ways of extracting battle information than output_positions?