Can ordinary troops be made to damage buildings?

**Bwian** · 06-25-2006, 22:27

I have been trying to get this to work all day, and can't see any way to crack it. I know it has been done, but I am damned if I can get the trick of it.

Give the unit all the basic attributes of a siege unit, and the game calls it 'artillery' but won't let it attack walls until you assign it a number of siege weapons. Make this zero, and nothing happens.

How can this be done?

I want a large unit that can smash through walls... not lob rocks at it!

**Bwian** · 06-26-2006, 10:00

Just to elaborate a little...

I know you can give a human 'elephant' abilities using the human skeleton, and make it smash through pallisades and gates. This is not good enough for what I want!

I need to do this 2 ways....

1) Have a walking unit that fires missiles at walls and buildings and knowcks them down. Effectively...nobile artillery.

2) Have a human 'ram' that can smash large walls

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 06-26-2006, 11:06

Hmm, have you had a look in descr_engines, descr_engine_skeleton, descr_projectile_new (all in \data), as well as the models_engine folder? I'm sure you know how all the bits and pieces fit together from those files & folders.

Originally Posted by Bwian

1) Have a walking unit that fires missiles at walls and buildings and knowcks them down. Effectively...nobile artillery.

2) Have a human 'ram' that can smash large walls

Perhaps the first one would be similar in many aspects to a siege tower, because these can fire projectiles at opposing units. Perhaps you could tweak this so that they can damage wall sections as well?

For the second one, have you tried creating a new ram entry in descr_engines? By default, the game looks to the tortoise_ram, so make a copy of that. Edit the model entries as you would in DMB, but instead of using ram models, perhaps replace with unit models? You can always redirect the game to look in other folders rather than the defaults; I find myself using a combination of models_strat and models_unit for strat map models lookup for example.

You may need to remove the push points from the ram as well, since units pushing another unit would look a bit out of place.

If you have a crack at this, please post some screens of your progress.

Btw, if you require more info on siege tower characteristics, I've written a short guide as to what some of the characteristics do and how they can be modified:

How To...Modify Siege Tower Aspects

**JuliusCaesar** · 06-26-2006, 20:27

Originally Posted by Seasoned Alcoholic

For the second one, have you tried creating a new ram entry in descr_engines? By default, the game looks to the tortoise_ram, so make a copy of that. Edit the model entries as you would in DMB, but instead of using ram models, perhaps replace with unit models? You can always redirect the game to look in other folders rather than the defaults; I find myself using a combination of models_strat and models_unit for strat map models lookup for example.
ush points from the ram as well, since units pushing another unit would look a bit out of place.

This would not be possible as u cannot change the animations or skeleton of siege engines, only the model or texture. U could change the model to a human, but he would only be able to move in the same fashion as the ram; sliding along the ground, not moving any limbs. Quite a dull unit don't u think? Well, good luck trying to figure out another way.

**Bwian** · 06-27-2006, 17:28

Well....I know some more things that cannot be done now as well...

1) As pointed out by Julius Ceasar, you cannot change the skeleton used by a particular type of siege engine. This means an Onager type will always use an Onager skeleton and animations. Hard coded. You can change the mesh...but whats the point unless you make it Onager shaped!

2) Push points. These can be edited out and the things will still move

3) Crew positions... These CANNOT be edited out. If you do not allow the crew animations to run through the 'load' routine, the engine never fires. The crewman will meander about a bit as though he is looking for the cranking handle, then stop. No missiles fire.

4) You cannot create a projectile fired by anything else that will damage buildings. They only react to an 'engine' type machine fireing. You can trick it into thinking the unit is artillery, but wall damage only happens when the unit is actually an 'engine'.

I am turning my attention now to the ballista cart in the hope that I can trick it into letting me use the horse pulling it to give me my leg animations, and have the ballista on the back fire .... but I can't remember if the ballista cart can actually damage walls.....or if it is like the Scorpion....

**JuliusCaesar** · 06-27-2006, 20:11

The carriage ballistae has the abilities of a scorpion, not a ballista; it can't damage buildings. Sry

**JuliusCaesar** · 06-27-2006, 20:21

Originally Posted by Bwian

I have been trying to get this to work all day, and can't see any way to crack it. I know it has been done, but I am damned if I can get the trick of it.

Give the unit all the basic attributes of a siege unit, and the game calls it 'artillery' but won't let it attack walls until you assign it a number of siege weapons. Make this zero, and nothing happens.

How can this be done?

I want a large unit that can smash through walls... not lob rocks at it!

As stated above, u say this has been done before. You should try looking around a bit for mods that has these kinds of units and take a look into their files to figure out how it's done. I know the Lord of The Rings mod has trolls, and perhaps the "Fourth Age: Total war" have them too. Perhaps they have the desired ability?

**Bwian** · 06-27-2006, 20:50

The LOTR Trolls are 'elephants' in effect. You can replace an elephant with a human skeleton, since it has the same basic movement names etc. and all the routines called for elephant exist in the human animation sets. It works fine. But....they only attack pallisades and gates. I wanted more than this...and I also wanted walking artillery units... but it seems that I can't

So... it looks like I am going to have to stick with fixed artillery and not have it 'walking'. I already have a Nebelwerfer type launcher and a couple of similar artillery pieces to put in, but it would have been so cool to have walking gun platforms.... still...the unit I had made for this can still attack troops with rockets

**JuliusCaesar** · 06-27-2006, 21:28

Since it seems like u have been modding some artillery pieces, could u plz take a look at this thread for me plz:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=66299