Howto: Night Battles for RTW

[DimeBagHo]

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:

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:

;------------------------------------------
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):

;------------------------------------------
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:

Night_Fighter
Night_Fighter_desc
Night_Fighter_effects_desc

Add this to data\text\export_VnVs.txt

¬--------------------

{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:

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.