Challenge for all modders out there

[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?

[The_Mark]

Ahh.. Guess what: Show-me scripts are parsed at startup, so there's no way to modify them during a battle.. I guess this attempt was doomed to failure from the very beginning..

*Damn you CA*

[Myrddraal]

Hey, don't give up

It may not be possible to edit in game, but DJs idea of having a program which generates historical battles with decent AI is a good one....

[The_Mark]

Anyone wanting to start writing AI script library, go ahead, and don't read the following.


Yes, it could work, providing that player doesn't, for example, move his army.
[DESPERATE HALF-RANTISH TEXT]There's just too many variables (which cannot be stored nor used in any way if tested, we can check that a flank unit is going to getting it's ass whupped but we can't send reinforcements there 'cause we don't know who's whupping his ass nor where the whupping is happening; that'd have to be pre-labeled location), implementing even a simple flanking manouver with a reserve unit is, as previously stated, horrendously complicated, if the player moves from his position. We'd have to pre-label most positions found on that flank, make monitors for each reserve unit that'd check if the unit is engaged or half-strenght and then make monitors & commands for each waypoint of the flanking manouver etc.[/DESPERATE HALF-RANTISH TEXT]

All in all, we'd have a 500 kb script file when complete.

Previous statements to be disregarded:

Tricky, but possible. [sp. about pattern recognition]

But then, of course, we could just try to write them..

Any statements about jury-rigging

Any external proggy stuff

Anyways, I'm having a break from battle scripting before I thrash my computer/monitor/TV/something valuable. Instead, I'm having a go at campaign scripts, though it might still lead to general thrashing.

*sigh* Only if we'd have a proper script engine *sigh*

Anyways, let's keep the challenge on, and I might even give the scripters a real prize.