Question about movement points

[SigniferOne]

There's no way to edit movement points other than through descr_character.txt, is there? You can set the captain movement points to zero, and the overall army group can't move on the map, but units within it still can. Hence the question.

And besides, what defines that cavalry have more movement points than infantry anyway? Please don't tell me it's hardcoded... EDU doesn't set it, as far as I can tell.

[nikolai1962]

never seen anything other than the action points setting in the descr_character. *might* be something somewhere about the movement cost of various terrain but i couldn't find it in rtw. i'd guess cavalry getting extra movement is hard-coded based on the class of the unit in the EDU.

[Re Berengario I]

I can confirm that the cavalry movement bonus and artillery movement malus are hardcoded. There isn't any value for them anywhere in files.

[SigniferOne]

Hmm, that's kind of buggy then, because units within a 0-movement captain still retain all their moves, and can move out, even though they themselves are 'captain' units also.

[SigniferOne]

Interestingly, there is also a setting of default movement points, across the board for everyone. Ideally I want all armies to have 0 movement points and only be able to move in the presence of a general. That's what I'm trying to accomplish. But as above, setting captain's movement points to zero did not affect soldiers within the captain's army.

Now that I found this default movement points setting, I made everyone have 10 movement points, and gave named characters 200 points to counterbalance. All units within captain's army have 10 movements, but named chars don't seem to benefit in any way from the very large amount of moves given to them, and still maintain 10 movement points just like everyone else.

[nikolai1962]

can you do it with traits as movement point bonuses are a percentage (i think) so you'd have your default ten and then give all family generals a big movement trait.

[Monkwarrior]

I can only speak about RTW, but I suspect that the system in M2TW is the same.

I was trying something similar to that described by SigniferOne, units with very short movement, generals with much improved movement and admirals with very very very long movements.

I reduced starting movement points to 20, and I gave bonuses by traits to generals and admirals. It worked for generals, with bonus 200 (I agree in the idea that it is a percentage), but increasing this number for admirals had no effect at all (hardcoded?).

In an attempt to give admirals higher bonuses, I made three different traits with bonus 200 each, but again the movement of fleet was the same.

I cannot find any other method to do this and I'd like very much to find one.

[Re Berengario I]

In an attempt to give admirals higher bonuses, I made three different traits with bonus 200 each, but again the movement of fleet was the same.

I cannot find any other method to do this and I'd like very much to find one.

Each point in movement bonus through traits is a 5% so basically you gave for each trait a 1000% increase which, pretty probably, hits against the hardcoded limit (that I guess is about 160 in descr_character.txt).

[nikolai1962]

that I guess is about 160 in descr_character.txt

if you mean 160 action points i've have up to 320 i think when i was trying something

[SigniferOne]

Ah so, adding movements through Traits works, even though adding them through descr_character.txt doesn't work? Well that's a big relief, means named_characters can regulate movement. It is surprising admirals don't get this. Firstly... how can admirals even get traits? They are captains for all intents and purposes, aren't they? Captains can't receive traits.


EDIT: Ok right, movements given through traits are relative. Setting default movements to 0 truly gives characters zero moves, no matter how high their movements through traits. However, setting that default number to some small amount, like 20 allows increasing movements through traits.

Unit-specific movements completely don't work, and seem to be utterly bugged. NamedCharacter-specific moves are disregarded in favor of the default amount, and captain-specific moves do not apply to units within the captain's army (units inside the army get their moves from the default amount).

Captains cannot receive traits, and therefore admirals cannot augment their movements through traits (all other characters, diplomats, spies, can compensate for this lack with their traits). If you set default moves to very low, prepare to make your naval-game obsolete.

Nikolai, can you test this in your bare-bones map -- give everyone 0 moves and augment named character moves to a reasonable amount. Does this produce better more fully stacked armies, or does it produce no armies at all as the soldiers cannot trickle down to meet the general and join his army.

[Re Berengario I]

Captains cannot receive traits, and therefore admirals cannot augment their movements through traits

Not true, just play my mod and you'll see admirals with huger movements than default ;)

Captains and admirals CAN receveid traits, and the formers can also keep them once they become named character eventually.

Further on, named characters, captains and admirals in descr_character.txt have action points values which won't ever be used by the game because it uses the action point value of the units they are linked to (bodyguards, armies or ships) which basically is the main value at the start of the file so the only system to modify their action points it's thorugh traits. Be careful though because armies with captains or admirals with traits won't merge.

[Monkwarrior]

Sorry, I explained myself very badly.

Admirals CAN receive movement bonus. In fact fleet moved long distances in ITW, because the default points was high (90) and they had a high bonus (200).

In my case, the problem is the limit. I'd like to make much higher the difference between movements in land and movements by sea. But with those limitations is not possible.

@Re Berengario I

How do you give traits to captains? I tried to do it, but I didn't succeed.
I tried to put different terms in character (in export_descr_character_traits): all, general, named_character, family. In any case the captain fulfilling the requirements got the trait. Only in case it was a family member.

[Whacker]

The maximum value for the starting_movement_points value is apparently quite large, at least 4 bytes. I've set it as 1000 for all types playing the Bigmap mod, and it works fine. End turn takes forever while the game figures out what the AI wants to do, but it definitely works.

[Re Berengario I]

at least 4 bytes. I've set it as 1000 ...

4 bytes = 32 bits = Signed 32-bit numbers have a range of -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647.

[nikolai1962]

Nikolai, can you test this in your bare-bones map -- give everyone 0 moves and augment named character moves to a reasonable amount. Does this produce better more fully stacked armies, or does it produce no armies at all as the soldiers cannot trickle down to meet the general and join his army.

I'll try it and see what happens, the AI normlly prefers to keep generals as governors unless they have spare ones so i wonder what will happen.

[SigniferOne]

Fyi, the hard-code limit for move bonus through traits seems to be 10. With 20 base moves, that's less than vanilla, as I've found out. So go with 30 or 40 default moves if you want the total amount to equal vanilla levels.

[alpaca]

I think the limit is 20 and corresponds to a bonus of 100%

[rorarii]

On a similar topic. - defencless settlements

I tried to create home-guard units for cities with zero movement points but found out i had to create charatcters for each unit. I created a fixed governor (allowing other generals to move and fight), a home guard general (fixed) and a civil defence general (fixed) .. thus i would always have 3 units guarding a settlement ... only problem is that these characters eventually die and the 'undefend towns' problem reappeared.

I think the ulimate answer to most problems - is get rid of the AI, TW should be a multiuser strategic game. If it wants to compete with others like World or Warcraft etc it will need to go in this direction.


R

[SigniferOne]

But how did you make it so that your 0-move generals also had 0-move units within their army? That was my problem. Even if you make a 0-move general, the whatever units in his army still have all of their old moves intact.

I found that you have to drop the default moves to zero, if you want to have any kind of general effect.

[rorarii]

But how did you make it so that your 0-move generals also had 0-move units within their army? That was my problem. Even if you make a 0-move general, the whatever units in his army still have all of their old moves intact.

I found that you have to drop the default moves to zero, if you want to have any kind of general effect.

You can only do it for the 1 unit the general commands, all other units in his army can move .. and do!!!

R