A Beginner's Guide to Scripting & Scripting "How To"s

**Kraxis** · 05-03-2005, 02:19

Interesting, but will the change of ownership always end up in favour of the player? I was thinking along the lines of a city changing hands to another at some point (obviously early).

**Epistolary Richard** · 05-03-2005, 08:49

Jason - I'm sorry to hear you're having problems. I've noticed that the board formatting has put a couple of spaces in between Title and Text1, but that doesn't sound like what's going wrong if just removing the script line gets it working again.

Can you use show_err in your shortcut line and tell me what the error message is (if there is one)?

Kraxis - yes, it's always in favour of the player as far as I can tell but maybe there's an optional ownership parameters in there.

**Meneldil** · 05-03-2005, 09:09

My question might sound obvious, but I'm trying to create a script that would order a AI character to attack a given settlements during AI turn, but I can't really find out what I should do. Is it a campaign or a show me script ?

**Epistolary Richard** · 05-03-2005, 10:19

It would depend on whether or not you wanted the player to be able to save either before the script ran or while it was running. If it was something that happened at the very start of the campaign you can use a campaign script.

What you can do is what Myrddraal does with his scripts and that is use a campaign script to start a show_me script. This means that the script starts running at the beginning of a campaign without player involvement, but all the campaign script does is advance the advice thread and simulate the show_me buttons being pressed. So a second into the campaign, the campaign script has finished running and therefore the player can save. After that, the show_me script is in control and the player can save as normal.

The campaign/show_me division solely relates to how the script is initiated. Show_me scripts are then further divided into event scripts and background scripts.

The difference between the two is essentially whether the script is intended to have a single, instantaneous effect on the game (such as creating a unit or giving more money) or whether the script is designed to be constantly running in the background of the game (such as the multiple turns script).

Both rely on the player to activate them, however an event script requires player interaction on each and every occasion it wants to make a change to the game, whereas once a background script has been activated it can make lots of changes to the game without the player's approval or even knowledge.

Generally speaking, it's better to use a background script for anything that involves the AI.

**Jason** · 05-03-2005, 15:27

Richard,

Yes I noticed the spaces the board put in your notes but after comparison with the file I saw that they werent supposed to be there so I didnt put them in. So I guess I didnt actually follow your instructions to the letter

I will try that show_err command when I get home and report back then.

Jason

**Jason** · 05-03-2005, 19:56

Alas show_err did not give me any errors. It just simply crashes to the desktop whenever I put that script line in AdviceThread Help_Campaign_Keyboard_Shortcuts_Scroll_Thread.

**Epistolary Richard** · 05-03-2005, 20:29

Hmmm... I really can't think what it might be. You are putting the mo_money.txt file in data\scripts\show_me\ and not just in data\scripts\ right? If all else fails, try referencing the advicethread to one of the scripts you get with the original game.