CA propositions thread

[Re Berengario I]

10) Be able to have turn based event trigger (not just date).
9) Be able to remove ancillaries

You could set events with <date> <season>, the example in docudemon contains that parametr and it worked in my tests.

remove_ancillary should work as console command but I agree to have something which works within triggers (or at least for character inside settlements where all the console commands fail).

[wilddog]

You could set events with <date> <season>, the example in docudemon contains that parametr and it worked in my tests.

remove_ancillary should work as console command but I agree to have something which works within triggers (or at least for character inside settlements where all the console commands fail).

Thanks for the reply. I'll try it but I'm not sure how that would work if say you had 8 turns per year as you are already into long winded scripting to set seasons? Given that they have the set up for date which doesn't really work on date (just a year from start) to me this aught to be relatively simple and would improve scripting no end. (ie you can then have the randomness that the date events have).

[Russ Mitchell]

Gents, I have two things:

1. First, to please convey actual THANKS for putting up with all of this. Customers or not, a CA guy would need the patience of Job to run through these fora.

2. In terms of modding, I do not have time to go into deep scripting. But I used to (and could again) modifiy the strategic map when I'm not working on research articles, etc.... and there I have only a short laundry list. I could probably figure out how to give the Venetians an increased number of merchants and spies, etcetera, but fairly weak militaries. And I can always mess with unit lists...

But I can't do anything about:

Increase the number of hardcoded limits. Specifically number of regions, and a drastic upward revision in the number of minor (unplayable) factions, in order to actually create the historical circumstances that keep dynastic rulers on their toes. "Rebels" aren't good enough: they're too inert.

For me it's a "10," because, as a history instructor and medievalist, I will never have time to learn any hardcore modding skills... but strategic map files I can handle, and I'm pretty sure I could engineer a Baron's Revolts, Hungarian Interregnum, and Taborite Revolutions (especially if they can be "horded" ala RTW:BI) to make the toughest gamers cry.

[Ashdnazg]

Any chance they reveal how the engine works? - 5
(how attack, defence, morale, dead soldiers and routing units fit together)

[SigniferOne]

I think by far the most important little addition to be had is the ability to generate battle_models.modelDB from XML files. Those XML files don't exist, and there's no tool to generate the modelDB file from them. I suppose hypothetically we could create all our own XML files for our units and attachment sets, and then create our own parser, but if CA released the tool they already created, along with the XML files for vanilla models, it would help immensely. It would be nice if the game itself generated the modeldb file whenever that file wasn't found (same as with .rwm), but if that's out of the question, then a tool generating the file from XMLs would be nice. It's far better than editing the modeldb file by hand. See this thread about how CA themselves generated the modelDB file. I'll go ahead and give this a (9) or even a (10) in desirability...

(5) - It would be nice to know how "e_" commands (in docudemon_commands.txt) work, i.e. "e_select_character" as opposed to "select_character". They've been there since RTW, and I can guess in theory how it could work, but it'd be nice to have some actual examples, to know how it's supposed to be used, what the command was intended for, etc.

(6) - Same goes for the intriguing "ai_gta_" commands (also in docudemon_commands.txt). Do these work on the stratmap level, or on the battlemap level? Do they allow us to affect AI targets and priorities?

[Casuir]

I think by far the most important little addition to be had is the ability to generate battle_models.modelDB from XML files. Those XML files don't exist, and there's no tool to generate the modelDB file from them. I suppose hypothetically we could create all our own XML files for our units and attachment sets, and then create our own parser, but if CA released the tool they already created, along with the XML files for vanilla models, it would help immensely. It would be nice if the game itself generated the modeldb file whenever that file wasn't found (same as with .rwm), but if that's out of the question, then a tool generating the file from XMLs would be nice. It's far better than editing the modeldb file by hand. See this thread about how CA themselves generated the modelDB file. I'll go ahead and give this a (9) or even a (10) in desirability...

The xmls look to do a bit more than just generate the modelsdb, they seem to compile the actual models themselves from the base files, I doubt the tool they used would be any good to us.

[adembroski]

Any chance they reveal how the engine works? - 5
(how attack, defence, morale, dead soldiers and routing units fit together)

Doubtful... that's giving out their 'formula', like giving out the reciple for the secret sauce. It will likely remain internal only.

[Ashdnazg]

Doubtful... that's giving out their 'formula', like giving out the reciple for the secret sauce. It will likely remain internal only.

The real recipe is the code, don't see what reason is there for keeping the formula secret.
They actually revealed it several games back IIRC. (Or was it only guesses?)

[alpaca]

As for the e_ commands: They work, but aren't very useful since you can't select a character on CharacterTurnStart or CharacterTurnEnd for example.
What works is using it with stuff like LeaderOrderedSpyingMission. It selects the leader fine, but it still isn't very useful.