How to add night battles to the Imperial Campaign
It is a while since I did this so I might have missed some stuff. Also I am using RTW:BI 1.6. Your mileage may vary if you don't have BI installed and patched. Let me know how it goes if you use this howto. There are five steps to adding night battles to the Imperial Campaign.
1. Activate night battles in the campaign.
2. Add night battle character traits.
3. Add torches to units etc. (optional)
4. Add lighting for night time. (optional)
5. Add prebattle UI images. (optional)
6. Add window lighting to city buildings. (optional)
1. Activate night battles in the campaign.
To do this you need to add two lines to data\world\maps\campaign\[campaign_name]\descr_strat.txt. You need to add "options bi" just below the campaign name (required for 1.5/1.6, but skip this step if you are using 1.3/1.4), and "night_battles_enabled" just above the brigand spawn line (might be optional). The top of your descr_strat.txt should look something like this:
Code:
campaign imperial_campaign
options bi
playable
romans_julii
romans_brutii
romans_scipii
parthia
egypt
seleucid
carthage
gauls
germans
britons
greek_cities
macedon
pontus
armenia
dacia
scythia
spain
thrace
numidia
end
unlockable
end
nonplayable
romans_senate
slave
end
start_date -270 summer
end_date 14 summer
night_battles_enabled
brigand_spawn_value 15
pirate_spawn_value 32
Note: The "options bi" line changes a few other things apart from night battles. (1) If you have BI installed you might get the sparckle effect when units gain rank (you can switch this off in preferences.txt). (2) Everything in the unit descriptions will be displayed including the now obsolete unit capabilities and "code fix" stuff. (3) Faction death videos will stop working, so you will just get a text message when factions are destroyed. Other videos will continue to work fine. If anyone manages to fix this, let me know.
2. Add night battle character traits.
To activate the chacter traits you need to add the NightBattleCapable trait and triggers to data\export_descr_character_traits.txt, along with suitable entries in data\export_descr_unit_enums.txt and data\text\export_VnVs.txt.
Here is the trait entry:
Code:
;------------------------------------------
Trait NightBattleCapable
Characters family
NoGoingBackLevel 1
AntiTraits Noctophobia
Level Night_Fighter
Description Night_Fighter_desc
EffectsDescription Night_Fighter_effects_desc
Threshold 6
Effect NightBattle 1
The tiggers look like this (I think the Noctophobia and Noctophila traits are already there, the triggers will make them active):
Code:
;------------------------------------------
Trigger diet_of_carrots_1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnStart
Condition Trait NightBattleCapable = 0
and IsGeneral
and Attribute Command >= 5
Affects NightBattleCapable 6 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger diet_of_carrots_2
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition IsGeneral
and Attribute Command >= 1
and IsNightBattle
and Trait NightBattleCapable = 0
and WonBattle
Affects NightBattleCapable 6 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger night_battle_crushing_victory_attacker
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition WasAttacker
and IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and BattleSuccess >= clear
and BattleOdds >= 0.5
and BattleOdds < 2
and IsNightBattle
Affects Noctophilia 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger night_battle_crushing_victory_defender
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition not WasAttacker
and IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and BattleSuccess >= clear
and BattleOdds >= 0.5
and BattleOdds < 2
and IsNightBattle
Affects Noctophilia 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger night_battle_crushing_loss_attacker
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition WasAttacker
and IsGeneral
and not WonBattle
and BattleSuccess >= clear
and BattleOdds >= 0.5
and BattleOdds < 1.5
and IsNightBattle
Affects Noctophobia 1 Chance 66
;------------------------------------------
Trigger night_battle_crushing_loss_defender
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition not WasAttacker
and IsGeneral
and not WonBattle
and BattleSuccess >= clear
and BattleOdds >= 0.5
and BattleOdds < 1.5
and IsNightBattle
Affects Noctophobia 1 Chance 66
Add this to data/export_descr_VnVs_enums.txt:
Code:
Night_Fighter
Night_Fighter_desc
Night_Fighter_effects_desc
Add this to data\text\export_VnVs.txt
Code:
¬--------------------
{Night_Fighter} Night Fighter
{Night_Fighter_desc}
This trait allows a general to fight a battle at night.
{Night_Fighter_effects_desc}
+1 Command when fighting at night
If you want starting family members to have these traits you can add them to the descriptions in descr_strat.txt like this:
Code:
character Lucius Julius, named character, heir, age 31, , x 91, y 80
traits GoodCommander 1 , PoliticsSkill 2 , GoodAdministrator 3 , Energetic 2 , NightBattleCapable 1 , Noctophilia 1
ancillaries freeman_clerk
army
unit roman generals guard cavalry early exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit roman hastati exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit roman hastati exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
3. Add torches to units etc. (optional)
For this you need to have BI installed. Copy the following stuff from bi/data/ to data/
Everything in bi\data\models_unit\attachments\
Everything in bi\data\models_engine\
Everything in bi\data\models_effects\
bi\data\descr_effects.txt
bi\data\descr_effects_engine_torch.txt
bi\data\descr_effects_torch_fire.txt
Note: You can also get these files from XGM or from Archer's SkyMod.
4. Add lighting for night time. (optional)
The BI weather and lighting settings look better for night battles than the vanilla RTW stuff. Copy the following files from bi\data to data\.
bi\data\descr_battle_map_lighting_and_fog_control.txt
bi\data\descr_daytypes.txt
bi\data\descr_skydome.txt
The weather and lighting settings from Archer's SkyMod look better still. Copy the following files from SKYMOD_BI\data for Bi only\Data to data\
the models folder
descr_battle_map_lighting_and_fog_control.txt
descr_daytypes.txt
descr_skydome.txt
5. Add prebattle UI images. (optional)
If you skip this step the engine will use a default image that looks weird. All you need to do is put a suitable .TGA image called prebattle_night.tga in every data/UI/[culturetype]/eventpics/ folder. A good image to use is bi/data/UI/roman/eventpics/prebattle_night.tga.
6. Add window lighting to city buildings. (optional)
For this you need to have BI installed. Copy the folder bi\data\models_building\textures\glowing to data\models_building\textures.
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