alpaca's Script-O-Rama

[SigniferOne]

This is the classic spawn_army hint, considering the fact that the docudemon explanation always stumps newbies:

spawn_army 
                    faction romans_julii
                    character	Foedus Chaerea, general, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 20, , x 54, y 124
                    unit		roman generals guard cavalry,				soldiers 20 exp 9 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
                    unit		roman legionary first cohort ii,				soldiers 40 exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
                    unit		roman legionary cohort ii,				soldiers 60 exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
                    unit		roman praetorian cohort i,				soldiers 60 exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
end

What's changed is that there is a comma after every unit name. This comma is absent in docudemon example of spawn_army, thus causing endless crashes and headaches for those starting out.

Great idea Alpaca, I should have a few more examples soon.

[alpaca]

Well spawn_army works like this now:

spawn_army
		faction slave
		character	Primus, named character, age 18, x 147, y 379
                traits GoodCommander 1
		unit		NE Catapult				exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
	end

Not sure if the soldiers thing still works, the attributes are handled through traits now.

[SigniferOne]

Ok right, that's better syntax. But you forgot the comma, after unit name :)

[alpaca]

Nope, it's a working code example.

[SigniferOne]

Hmm ok well I'll test it out soon enough, this is puzzling for me. Meanwhile, I dug up Epistolary Richard's two scripting threads, which are frankly worth gold. I really think you should make a prominent link to them, or else incorporate them somehow: Beginner's and Intermediate Guide to scripting.

There are some fascinating tidbits from the Intermediate Guide. For instance, say you want your script to automatically automerge all units for you, but there's only one problem -- there is no scripting command to automerge. No worries, because TW scripting allows you to call shortcuts! Thus, you can create a script to automerge, or to automatically call Ctrl+S to periodically save your campaign, or any other shortcut like that. Here's the code, from the Intermediate Guide:

monitor_event CharacterSelected FactionType romans_brutii
     and FactionIsLocal          
     call_object_shortcut campaign_hud automerge_units
end_monitor

monitor_event SettlementSelected FactionType romans_brutii          
     and FactionIsLocal          
     call_object_shortcut campaign_hud automerge_units
end_monitor

monitor_event CharacterSelected FactionType gauls          
     and FactionIsLocal          
     call_object_shortcut campaign_hud automerge_units
end_monitor

or if you want your script to speed things up,

here is a neat scripting command which I found whilst working on the MP campaign:

call_object_shortcut

Here is an example of the syntax:

call_object_shortcut strat_ui speedup_ai

the strat_ui bit is the category of the shortcut. If you open data\text\descr_shortcuts.txt and scroll to the bottom end, you'll find a list of the shortcuts with their categories to the right.

Here's a list of all ui_elements that can be called: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...25&postcount=5

One interesting thing from there is that you can have your script order a "order_halt" shortcut (Backspace), and trigger it whenever an enemy character becomes visible. Without this feature, normally your issued movement orders will be continued to full, even if enemies become visible in the meanwhile; else, you need to carefully watch all your characters' movements and quickly press backspace, not a pleasant alternative. Of course this script would need to be balanced, because you don't want it preventing your characters from movement altogether, when within sight of enemies. So you'd have the script disable itself after it first triggers.

[alpaca]

Yep I was planning to go through these again to see what I can incorporate here.
Would be cool if you could explain a bit about the scripts you mentioned so I can copy&paste them into one of my above posts as examples, or about the call_shortcut as a concept (that was actually one I had planned but I am not at all averse to somebody else doing the work )

[nikolai1962]

I think it's the create_unit command that doesn't work if you leave out the comma after the unit name.

[SigniferOne]

Yep I was planning to go through these again to see what I can incorporate here.
Would be cool if you could explain a bit about the scripts you mentioned so I can copy&paste them into one of my above posts as examples, or about the call_shortcut as a concept (that was actually one I had planned but I am not at all averse to somebody else doing the work )

Sure, no problem. I'll do it in a little bit, when I get everything straightened out over here.