AI Messages

[SwissBarbar]

Someone in this thread: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=124218 had a question concerning Messages about the other faction, and I thought this could be cool for EBII. It's not necessary to show every taking of Land or battle of the AI, but heroic victories of other factions could come as a message, like the "Faction Destroyed" symbol....

[XSamatan]

You already have this sort of messages in Vanilla MTWII, i.e. if a king dies.

Some mods expanded this system to show the player background informations, but these historical events have to be present at beginning of the game and cannot be generated while playing.

A script to check if a battle was fought, and also checking by whom is IMHO possible, but you still have the problem of giving the player ingame access to this information.
Otherwise, a script to check "just" the changing of a region would be possible as you can create those descriptions for any possible variations (199*24) a priori.

XSamatan

[SwissBarbar]

I did not mean historical events, but heroic ingame-battles. Mh, regions are not as interesting as battles. But why should it not possible to identify a battle of the AI? If you check in the "Follow the AI" - Possibility you could see what the AI does, and there are also Sites of Famous Battle of the AI....

[Foot]

We cannot create new message events, though we could create event counters that could track that. But they wouldn't have any infomation about them as we cannot call on variables in event counter texts.

Foot

[SwissBarbar]

Ok, thank you Foot

[seienchin]

But wouldnt be a message like "The saka conquered baktria" or something like that be really cool
I mean the historical feeling of EB would even more improve if you knew about the important news in the known world.

Of course nothing like heroic victories just some messages if a faction conqueres something important it also did in history.
I shouldnt be hard to mod either.

[Foot]

But wouldnt be a message like "The saka conquered baktria" or something like that be really cool

You mean "Faction Destroyed" messages? They are already in.

I shouldnt be hard to mod either.

Possibly the most annoying comment I've read for awhile. Way to trivialise the absolute difficulty of what we do.

Foot

[antisocialmunky]

Are there any ways to could tie buildings to the victory counter?

I seem to remember one mod that did something like that and allowed monuments to heroic victories. MAybe I'm hallucinating...

[seienchin]

You mean "Faction Destroyed" messages? They are already in.



Possibly the most annoying comment I've read for awhile. Way to trivialise the absolute difficulty of what we do.

Foot

Whats up man? Did I offend you by saying that an event message if a certain faction conquers a certain place isnt hard to mod?
Its not that you have this in your mod so suggesting its easy shouldnt offend you in anyway.
Anyway sorry if I offended you or if I didnt make myself clear the first time

[Foot]

Yeah, basically you make statments about how easy everything is without knowing the first thing about modding. And then you go ahead and assume what is difficult and what is not. Nice.

Foot

[Ludens]

Whats up man? Did I offend you by saying that an event message if a certain faction conquers a certain place isnt hard to mod?
Its not that you have this in your mod so suggesting its easy shouldnt offend you in anyway. :book

The thing is that modders have to work with the tools they are given. They cannot create new functions in the program. In this case it means they can only use existing messages, not create new ones. The engine allows for messages when factions are destroyed, when diplomacy, buildings or traits change, when a certain turn strikes, but not when a city is conquered. So unless it could be scripted (which has its downsides as well), I don't think it possible.

[B-Wing]

The engine allows for messages when factions are destroyed, when diplomacy, buildings or traits change, when a certain turn strikes, but not when a city is conquered. So unless it could be scripted (which has its downsides as well), I don't think it possible.

For what it's worth, I've played Stainless Steel for Kingdoms a bit and they have a message that informs you whenever a faction's capital has been lost. Doesn't tell you who took control of it, but it does inform you which faction lost it (I personally don't get much excitement out of it, but it does make the world feel more alive). The mod also informs you whenever a princess of another faction comes of age (really don't see a point in that one).

Whether these messages are effected via scripting or not, I haven't a clue, but if any EB2 programmers wanted to look into either of these ideas, I can email them any relevant SS files.

[Atilius]

Let me address a few of the issues that have been brought up.

The script can detect heroic victories. Then what? Any sort of meaningful message quickly runs into combinatorics problems. If it just says "Faction X has won a heroic victory" who really cares? If it says "Faction X has won a heroic victory over faction Y", you have to write 900 different messages and code 900 triggers in the script.

A complete set of messages saying "Faction X has conquered settlement Y" would require about 6000 different messages.

It's even possible to have the script erect a monument if one of your generals wins a heroic victory. But I'm not sure what the point is. You'd have a building in some settlement and, if you were willing to waste 4 full building trees on this, the building text could be customized to say "In comemoration of a heroic victory over the Xs". I know I'd be thrilled.

I should probably say that the issue isn't the writing or coding - the messages and code can be automatically generated. The issue is the speed of the script. The more we ask it do, the longer it takes to run. For the present, scripting work needs to concentrate on supporting basic game mechanics. If it's still running at a reasonable speed when we've finished, we'll consider moving ahead with lower-priority items.

[Cute Wolf]

For what it's worth, I've played Stainless Steel for Kingdoms a bit and they have a message that informs you whenever a faction's capital has been lost. Doesn't tell you who took control of it, but it does inform you which faction lost it (I personally don't get much excitement out of it, but it does make the world feel more alive). The mod also informs you whenever a princess of another faction comes of age (really don't see a point in that one).

Whether these messages are effected via scripting or not, I haven't a clue, but if any EB2 programmers wanted to look into either of these ideas, I can email them any relevant SS files.

Ah, I see the point.... it was basically place some trigger in a city, and if that original faction lost it's ownership, a message will appear... and about a new princess, it was just search the condition of any princess that coming of age, and then write her name and original faction on pretexted message.

But put aside some really Important city (such as Alexandreia, Pella, Kart-Hadast, Antioch, Sparta, Syrakousai, and Roma), no one will care if Swebostrumanutoz is lost except the Sweboz themself...

[SwissBarbar]

Yeah, that woud be nice. Kart-Hadast has been sacked by.... Roma has been conquered by.... like it.

[chenkai11]

Yeah, that woud be nice. Kart-Hadast has been sacked by.... Roma has been conquered by.... like it.

I like the second one, but not the first.