Fixing the AI money script (preliminary tests)

[The Errant]

This looks good

playing as the ptolies, I have had a very slow and painstaking war of attrition against the AS... but after 3000 odd battles they are still coming with tons elite stacks of mercenaries, and the frequency of the battles has meant the game progresses very slowly

2 questions

any instal instructions for Erants script, do I run the EB script now still?

can I use it with my current campaign (save game compat)?

thx for your efforts

Install instructions are easy. Just replace your EBBS script file (should be in Your RTW folder/EB/Data/scripts/show_me). My money script is the standard EB background script with modifications done to those sections that deal with AI population bonus and AI money bonus. Once you have replaced the file run EB and activate the background script normally at the beginning of the game. And whenever you load a save game too. It should be savegame compatible, but the full benefits don't really show up unless you've used it from the beginning of the campaign.
Also remeber to make a backup of the original background script.

About the Rebels. The RTW engine treats all the Rebels or Eleutheroi as one big faction with a shared treasury. To you they may look like a collection of independent petty kingdoms and city-states but they aren't really. In practical terms that means that those cities that border another AI or the human player are border cities. Since they are the most immediatly threatened they will also be the most heavily garrisoned. Often with a roving "fieldarmy" outside the settlement itself. Those northern cities don't have an immediate threat from another AI faction or the Human player. Hence the Rebel AI can concentrate on upgrading their infrastructure rather than use most of their population for recruiting garrisons.

I suppose I could place some reagional conditionals to spawn additional Eleutheroi armies to fight the AI invasion, but there is no guarantee they'll attack the AI or even stay in their cities, once their first, immobile garrison commanders die out. Anyway that is just a big maybe. I won't do any more tinkering with script until the next version of EB comes out.

There have been hints about a completely reworked Pahlava, so if they get a lot tougher, the current balance may fly right out the window. And that means back to being King of the Casse and tweaking out a new balance for the money script. *Shudders*

[Watchman]

What, you got something against being the True King Of Britain ?

[The Errant]

What, you got something against being the True King Of Britain ?

It reminds me a bit too much of my current location. Limbo. Try to imagine a place of white light, white ground, white sky. There is ground since you don't float but if you try to touch it with your hand you encounter nothing solid. Now add the fact there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. There is no up, down, left, right or anything else for that matter. I'm not even sure if it's air I'm breathing. Or am I breathing?

Don't move. Don't act. Don't think. Just click "End Turn" after "End Turn" and take the occasional screenshot. And then there are those wonderful occasional CTDs. If I could do it in my sleep, I would. Either that or I'll have to "loan" a monkey from the zoo to do it for me. Hmm.
*Goes off in direction of the zoo*

[Watchman]

Ah. Burnout.

[bovi]

Errant, I'm not sure if you know this already, but you can get the AI to play completely without your intervention. Add a -ai switch to your command line and they'll go to work all by themselves. If you want to stop them to take a look around you can run the console command halt_ai and resume with run_ai. I may have remembered the actual commands wrong but the functions are there. Sure alleviates the boredom of clicking every 3 minutes. Also be sure to use the -ne switch so it's windowed and you can do other stuff on the computer while waiting.

Downside is, apparently you can never gain control of any faction once you've started the game with the ai switch, it'll be written to the savegame. Also, the faction you choose at game start will be unaffected by all bonuses due to the FactionIsLocal condition, I suggest choosing Casse as they have little effect on anyone else.

[Foot]

Errant, I'm not sure if you know this already, but you can get the AI to play completely without your intervention. Add a -ai switch to your command line and they'll go to work all by themselves. If you want to stop them to take a look around you can run the console command halt_ai and resume with run_ai. I may have remembered the actual commands wrong but the functions are there. Sure alleviates the boredom of clicking every 3 minutes. Also be sure to use the -ne switch so it's windowed and you can do other stuff on the computer while waiting.

Downside is, apparently you can never gain control of any faction once you've started the game with the ai switch, it'll be written to the savegame. Also, the faction you choose at game start will be unaffected by all bonuses due to the FactionIsLocal condition, I suggest choosing Casse as they have little effect on anyone else.

Unfortunately you will need to transplant the EBBS (modified or not) into the campaign_script.txt, as in the -ai game you cannot start the EBBS script. I'm not entirely sure how you do this, but my guess would be to copy all the bits inbetween the start and end script lines into the campaign_script at the end of the file (before the end script line) as is. But very good for churning off test games. Be wary of ctds though. It cannot save, so you'll need to be checking on things all the while, just in case it ends unexpectedly.

Foot

[Ower]

Is the -ne a aditional comand like -ai, or does it replace the -nm