Invisible buildings?

[Monkwarrior]

monitor_event CharacterTurnEnd AgentType = spy
and FactionType britons
and SettlementBuildingExists = stone_wall
and RandomPercent < 20

Hopefully it is so easy.
I thought that you should specify in the script:
- which settlement is that
- that the spy is there at the moment

What I understand from that script is:
- the game check every briton spy
- the game search for a settlement where the stone_wall exists (irrespective whether the spy is there or not)
- then the game applies the random percent

What happens with the spies that are out of a settlement?
Am I wrong?

[Dromikaites]

Hopefully it is so easy.
I thought that you should specify in the script:
- which settlement is that
- that the spy is there at the moment

What I understand from that script is:
- the game check every briton spy
- the game search for a settlement where the stone_wall exists (irrespective whether the spy is there or not)
- then the game applies the random percent

What happens with the spies that are out of a settlement?
Am I wrong?

Every time the spy enters a city which does not belong to his faction, he fires the SpyMission event. This is the event to be intercepted by the trigger for acquiring the ancillary. According to the documentation the event returns among other parameters the region_id, which means the spy and the city are "tied" to each other.

Please try to see if it works. I will do it myself this week-end when I have more time and report back, but I guess you need an answer faster than that.

[Monkwarrior]

Only partial success.

I've created a new trait, wall_builder (useless at the moment) and a new ancillary, wall_builder. These are the entries in export_descr_ancillaries.

;------------------------------------------
Ancillary wallbuilder_ancillary
    Image scribe_ancillary.tga
    Description wallbuilder_ancillary_desc
    EffectsDescription wallbuilder_ancillary_effects_desc
    Effect SiegeDefence  1 
    Effect Construction  10 

;------------------------------------------
Trigger trigger_wallbuilder_ancillary
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    Condition EndedInSettlement
          and SettlementBuildingExists >= stone_wall
          and AgentType = spy

    AcquireAncillary wallbuilder_ancillary chance  100

The effects are only to test the ancillary. The chance 100 is only to speed up the test.
This is the effect in game.

On the left, the spy before entering Rome. On the right, the same spy after staying in Rome for a turn.
Of course, it is necessary to complete also export_descr_ancillaries_enum and export_ancillaries.

The problem comes from the next step. I tried to trigger a show_me script with an advice about the new technology. These are the entries in export_descr_advice:

;------------------------------------------ Barbarian Walls advice below		
AdviceThread Stone_Wall_Technology_Thread		
	GameArea Campaign	

	Item Stone_Wall_Technology_Text_01	
		Uninhibitable
		Verbosity  0 
		Threshold  1  
		Attitude Normal
		Presentation Default
		Title Stone_Wall_Technology_Text_01_Title
		Text Stone_Wall_Technology_Text_01_Text1

;------------------------------------------ Barbarian Walls trigger
Trigger 3001_Stone_Wall_Technology_Trigger
    WhenToTest FactionTurnStart

    Condition FactionIsLocal 
          and FactionwideAncillaryExists wallbuilder_ancillary true               

    AdviceThread Stone_Wall_Technology_Thread  0

Unfortunately the game (still RTW) doesn't seem to recognize the condition FactionwideAncillaryExists, although there is no error message from -show_err.
As a result, the advice appears just at the start of the campaign.

I've been thinking about the possible script.
Do you think that it would be necessary one script per faction and in each script all the settlement must be checked one by one?

Any idea?

P.S.: do you think that it would be better to implement this kind of things through a background script?

[Dromikaites]

Unfortunately the game (still RTW) doesn't seem to recognize the condition FactionwideAncillaryExists, although there is no error message from -show_err.
As a result, the advice appears just at the start of the campaign.

FactionwideAncillaryExists is not implemented in RTW. It will only become available in BI. What you can do before getting your hands on BI is to test the code with a particular spy (one you know his name, say Burubista). You make Burubista enter a city with stone walls and then check only Burubista's ancillary.

Since in RTW you need to go through all the possible names, to check if they are spies and then if they have the constructor de murallas (wall builder), the code is a pain in the butt. FactionwideAncillaryExists simplifies the code.

To me the images show that your code actually works because the dude gets his constructor de murallas. Congratulations!

[Monkwarrior]

@E. Richard
You are probably right, but my idea was to try a more general script, not only for a given faction, if it is possible, of course.
In fact, the ancillary could be restricted to some factions using the ExcludeCultures command, which is often used in export_descr_ancillaries.
In any case, I will try a background script with your idea just to test this syntax.

@Dromikaites
In the meantime, I will try your idea. As I know that Burubista is the spy I'm using, I will work with this just to see if the script is correct.

@ Both of you
I was wondering if we could play a little bit with the faction_capability.
Would there be any type of capability that we can put as requirement for the first, invisible, building? Could we give this capability to a faction through scripting?
The problem with the ancillary is that it is given only to the spy. That means that if it is killed in the next turn, the faction losts the ancillary. The capability would be permanent, irrespective of the characters alive in each moment of the campaign.

Another point is if there is some "general way" to detect the settlements owned by a given faction and to build a building in all of them.
I didn't find anything like this (all the commands of creation of buildings require the name of the settlement), so the script should contain a check for every settlement in the map.

[Dromikaites]

@ Both of you
I was wondering if we could play a little bit with the faction_capability.
Would there be any type of capability that we can put as requirement for the first, invisible, building? Could we give this capability to a faction through scripting?
The problem with the ancillary is that it is given only to the spy. That means that if it is killed in the next turn, the faction losts the ancillary. The capability would be permanent, irrespective of the characters alive in each moment of the campaign.

Another point is if there is some "general way" to detect the settlements owned by a given faction and to build a building in all of them.
I didn't find anything like this (all the commands of creation of buildings require the name of the settlement), so the script should contain a check for every settlement in the map.

faction_capability extends the benefits of a particular building to all the cities belonging to a faction, not to only those having that building present. It turns a building into a wonder.

So it's not about what a "faction can do" but about "what a building can do for a faction". Of course you can indirectly test the faction_capability by testing if a building that gives such faction-wide benefits is present in any of the faction's cities.

As for the second question you are in the "pain in the butt" territory: you need to loop through all the settlements on the map, check if they are local (i.e. they belong to the current faction) and then check if they have the building present. If not, build it.

[Epistolary Richard]

You are probably right, but my idea was to try a more general script, not only for a given faction, if it is possible, of course.

You can extend it to other factions by duplicating the monitor and replacing britons with gauls, for example.

You could get rid of the faction requirement altogether, but you need it to be able to determine which faction needs to be able to get the capability.

[alpaca]

Current status:

Created a new trait

;------------------------------------------
Trait WallBuilder
    Characters spy

    Level WallBuilder
        Description WallBuilder_desc
        EffectsDescription WallBuilder_effects_desc
        Threshold  1 

;------------------------------------------
Trigger wallbuilder
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

    Condition AgentType = spy
          and FactionCultureType barbarian
          and SettlementBuildingExists >= stone_wall

    Affects WallBuilder  1  Chance  100

Created a background script:

script
	
	monitor_event CharacterTurnEnd AgentType = spy
		and Trait WallBuilder >= 1
		and SettlementName Patavium
		console_command create_building Patavium stone_wall_prerequisite
		console_command add_money -3000
		terminate_monitor
	end_monitor
	
	while TrueCondition
	end_while

end_script

Added the building:

building stone_wall_prerequisite
{
    levels stone_wall_prerequisite
    {
        stone_wall_prerequisite requires factions { barbarian, } and hidden_resource stone_wall_pre
        {
            capability
            {
            }
            construction 0
            cost  3000
            settlement_min town
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
}

Edited the require clause of the larger walls:

 requires factions { ct_carthage, eastern, parthia, egyptian, greek, roman, } or building_present_min_level stone_wall_prerequisite stone_wall_prerequisite

This works fine so far, I was able to build stone walls in Patavium after changing descr_strat so that it is a city and spying in Rome ;)
One'd have to do this for every city on the map but that's okay, you can copy&paste and only have to change the settlement name.
The downside of this is that the player may wonder why he just lost 3000 denarii, I'm planning to advance an advice telling him.

I haven't done much more testing yet, I'll post another update this evening.

[Epistolary Richard]

Hopefully it is so easy.
I thought that you should specify in the script:
- which settlement is that
- that the spy is there at the moment

What I understand from that script is:
- the game check every briton spy
- the game search for a settlement where the stone_wall exists (irrespective whether the spy is there or not)
- then the game applies the random percent

What happens with the spies that are out of a settlement?
Am I wrong?

I've not tested this but here is my logic:

This is the event:

---------------------------------------------------
Identifier: CharacterTurnEnd
Event: A Character has finished its turn
Exports: nc_character_record, character_record, faction, region_id, character_type, settlement
Class: ET_CHARACTER_TURN_END
Author: Guy

Note that the event has a settlement export, that export relates to the specific city that the character is in. That is why you can have SettlementName as in the following example from vanilla prologue

monitor_event GeneralCaptureSettlement FactionType romans_julii
and SettlementName Messana

This monitor fires when the general captures Messana, not when the general captures the city and a city called Messana exists somewhere.

So:

monitor_event CharacterTurnEnd AgentType = spy
; Check each spy at the end of their turn turn
and FactionType britons
; Check to see if their faction type is Britons
and SettlementBuildingExists = stone_wall
; Check to see if the settlement they're in has a stone wall
and RandomPercent < 20
; Apply random percent

The only confusion in that script, I think perhaps, will be between whether the agent has to be Britons or whether the settlement has to be Britons. Without testing it, I couldn't tell you how the game is reading it.