And now for something completely different...

[Hairog]

oH WOW,I can't imagine how time consuming this is...wait, I can. Very good mroyer.

[errant904]

This looks incredible! I've been bugging Hubert for years for a space version of SC. Bill gave me the link for this, and I would love to play this!

[mroyer]

ORIGINAL: errant904

This looks incredible! I've been bugging Hubert for years for a space version of SC. Bill gave me the link for this, and I would love to play this!

Thanks, and yeah me too. I'm getting close to something I think might be play-testable and interesting.
-Mark R.

[steevodeevo]

Incredible, sorry just to fully understand, is this intended ever to have an AI side for single play ore is that virtually impossible and/or or impractical?

[mroyer]

ORIGINAL: steevodeevo

Incredible, sorry just to fully understand, is this intended ever to have an AI side for single play ore is that virtually impossible and/or or impractical?

Well, I have no idea whether it's impossible or impractical to implement a full, competitive AI script-set, but it is certainly far beyond my ability and knowledge. I'll be thrilled if I can get a fun player-v-player game going.

Right now, my biggest problem is the game kinda' drags in the early turns as the interstellar diplomacy takes shape and military build up occurs. Unlike the WW2 games, there is no face-to-face combat right off the bat. I'm trying to figure out creative ways to help those early turns.

-Mark R.

[BillRunacre]

Could there be a little skirmish somewhere to maintain interest in the first few turns while the diplomacy takes shape?

A bit like the conquest of Poland in WWII games, although it doesn't necessarily have to be an easy walk over.

[mroyer]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

Could there be a little skirmish somewhere to maintain interest in the first few turns while the diplomacy takes shape?

A bit like the conquest of Poland in WWII games, although it doesn't necessarily have to be an easy walk over.

[:)]
Exactly where I was headed --> the Sapien Brotherhood of Beta Hydri B rise up to support their ancestral home world against the heathen governments of the far-flung stars... The Terran Empire must triumph over all human worlds to insure the survival of mankind in the galactic future.

... or something like that...

I've been slowly writing up stick-figure story-line backgrounds that might then be translated into interesting scripted decision trees. For example:

6.2. Sapien Brotherhood
This pro-humanity movement threads together pockets of political thought that considers homo-sapien humanity superior to all other species, terrestrial or extraterrestrial. Sapiens tend to be highly religious and draw their superiority convictions from divine providence. Sapien organizations tend to seek a reunification of human order under the birth world of Earth, often in the form of another Terran Empire. They also view possible non-human, extraterrestrial intelligence as a fundamental threat to divine providence that must be extinguished before it can infiltrate human space and distort human culture and religion.


6.3. Astra-49 Movements
The Astra-49 Movements are a thread of interrelated political organizations that span human space. Astra-49 advocates the concept of “The Unification” or the uniting the 49 stars of human space under one political entity. The Astra-49 Movements do not specifically support the formation of a Terran Empire, but instead seek The Unification on any terms. In the current political climate, a Terran Empire appears most likely to achieve the goal of the Astra-49. Thus, there is strong, defacto support for Terra within the Astra-49 Movements.
The local movements of the Astra-49 are largely less militant than the Sapien Brotherhood and typically attempt to infiltrate governments by political means employing both overt and covert political tactics.
While occasional partisan activity claiming connections to Astra-49 can erupt in localized areas, the movement generally frowns on violent methods. The Astra-49 Movements expressly disavow connection to the Sapien Brotherhood and condemn the brotherhood’s overtly violent means. That said, elements of Astra-49 will heartily engage in aggressive action when necessary.
Conflict has even been known to erupt between Astra-49 and the Sapiens when elements of the two movements have come into contact.

[BillRunacre]

That's the thing! [:)]

[mroyer]

I just can't seem to get decision events to fire in the latest version of War in Europe (perhaps since the <<Tag>> stuff came into effect?).

In any event (pun intended), the following is a simple example that I expected would fire right away, but it never does. Any thoughts on why?

;========================================================================
; Sapien Brotherhood becomes Belligerant
;========================================================================
{
#NAME= DE 101 - Terra: Support to Sapien Brotherhood? (AI - 100% Yes)
#POPUP=
#MESSAGE= Shall we support the Sapien Brotherhood?%N%NYes or No.
#IMAGE=
#SOUND=
#FLAG= 1
#TYPE= 0
#AI= 0
#LEVEL= 0
#GV= 1[1,100]
#LINK= 0[0]
#COUNTRY_ID= 1
#TRIGGER= 100
#DISPLAY_ORDER= 1
; Set decision value
#DECISION= 101
#MPP_UPDOWN= -10
#MPP_TURNS= 10
#MPP_TEXT=
#NOTES=
#NOTES_POSITION= 341,60
#AI_RESPONSE= 100
#AI_RESPONSE_POPUP=
#DATE= 2525/01/01
#TEXT_RGB= 0,0,0
#SHADOW_RGB= 0,0,0
; New York is in Terran hands and Terra is not surrendered
#ALIGNMENT_POSITION= 184,54 [1]
;Set National Morale Trigger (dummy value)
#NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 0 [0]
; 1st Line - Terra politically aligned with Terran Empire and not surrendered
#VARIABLE_CONDITION= 1 [1] [100] [0]
; Prompus is in Sapien hands and Sapien are at least 25% Terran leaning
#VARIABLE_CONDITION= 53 [1] [25] [0]
; Dummy condition position (always satisfied)
#CONDITION_POSITION= 0,0 [0,0] [0,0] [0] [0]
}


Thanks for any help,
-Mark R.
[font="Courier New"][/font]

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Maybe it is because the #POPUP line is blank?

I haven't tried editing decisions in SC3, but in SC2 a blank #POPUP line designated a dummy event that could fire in the background but wouldn't be visible to the player. Of course, #MESSAGE didn't exist in SC2 so something might have changed there.

You could also try setting #TYPE=1 (assuming this still means 'fire once all conditions are true, one time only'). I've used that for every decision event I've written and it works fine.

Also worth checking that Nation 53 actually starts 25% leaning towards Side 1 (and that 53 is the right one). In my most recent (yet unannounced but will be once its finished) project, I have screwed this up more times than I'd like to admit.

- BNC

[mroyer]

Maybe it is because the #POPUP line is blank?

I haven't tried editing decisions in SC3, but in SC2 a blank #POPUP line designated a dummy event that could fire in the background but wouldn't be visible to the player. Of course, #MESSAGE didn't exist in SC2 so something might have changed there.

Indeed, I've always used POPUP before too - for this campaign, I've tried both POPUP and MESSAGE without success. This is where new scripts from the new official campaigns use the <<TAG_NN>> syntax. <<TAG_NN>> seems to remotely reference language text entries (English, German, etc...) in separate text files. I've fiddled with that too, but I'm not sure I'm doing it right or whether we even need to. I was hoping I could just do it the old way without the <<TAG_NN>> entries. I'm doing it "the old way" in other non-decision events, i.e, not using the <<TAG_NN>> syntax and putting the English text directly into the script.

You could also try setting #TYPE=1 (assuming this still means 'fire once all conditions are true, one time only'). I've used that for every decision event I've written and it works fine.

Yeah, I actually started out with TYPE=1 and switch to 0 without any success. I've used both in the past successfully.

Also worth checking that Nation 53 actually starts 25% leaning towards Side 1 (and that 53 is the right one). In my most recent (yet unannounced but will be once its finished) project, I have screwed this up more times than I'd like to admit.

If it's not something simple (like POPUP or TYPE mentioned above) I suspect this is where the problem lies. Nation 53 (The Sapien Brotherhood) is a new nation created during the game at 50% mobilization towards side 1 (Terran Empire) using a mobilization-3 script. It is given control of a couple hexes with territory scripts. Those seem to be working fine as far as I can tell and the Sapien Brotherhood shows up on the war map and in the diplomacy list as expected. (I can post those scripts later if it would help. I'm at the wrong computer right now.) Once nation 53 exists, the Terran player should be given the decision to support it or not, but that script (listed in orange above) refuses to fire.





I have successfully written 100's of scripts for this campaign of various types (territory, mobilization, loop, partisan, and so on), but have yet to get a single decision script going. It's very perplexing.

Thanks for your thoughts BNC - I will retry those ideas again just to make absolutely sure I haven't done something silly wrong.

-Mark R.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

ORIGINAL: mroyer

Maybe it is because the #POPUP line is blank?

I haven't tried editing decisions in SC3, but in SC2 a blank #POPUP line designated a dummy event that could fire in the background but wouldn't be visible to the player. Of course, #MESSAGE didn't exist in SC2 so something might have changed there.

Indeed, I've always used POPUP before too - for this campaign, I've tried both POPUP and MESSAGE without success. This is where new scripts from the new official campaigns use the <<TAG_NN>> syntax. <<TAG_NN>> seems to remotely reference language text entries (English, German, etc...) in separate text files. I've fiddled with that too, but I'm not sure I'm doing it right or whether we even need to. I was hoping I could just do it the old way without the <<TAG_NN>> entries. I'm doing it "the old way" in other non-decision events, i.e, not using the <<TAG_NN>> syntax and putting the English text directly into the script.

OK I've looked through the Storm over Europe campaign and think I've figured out how the tag thing works.

In _1939/Storm over Europe/Scripts/Events there is a folder for each of the games languages (DE, EN, ES, FR). Each of those has a bunch of text files corresponding to the different script types. (I've copied the one for 'VICTORY' scripts below, simply because it is the shortest.:

&#65279;<<TAG_1>>= AXIS MAJOR VICTORY
<<TAG_2>>= AXIS DECISIVE VICTORY
<<TAG_3>>= AXIS MINOR VICTORY
<<TAG_4>>= ALLIED DECISIVE VICTORY
<<TAG_5>>= ALLIED MINOR VICTORY

Seems to be a localisation file, where an event with text '<<TAG_1>>' will show up with whatever text is listed here, using the set of tags from whatever language is selected (so if the required cities are captured for an Axis Decisive Victory, the same script fires regardless of what language is chosen, but if english is chosen it shows up as 'AXIS DECISIVE VICTORY' but if german is chosen that same script appears as 'GROSSER SIEG FÜR DIE ACHSENMÄCHTE'.

If I'm right about that, then your decision script would need to have
#MESSAGE= <<TAG_1>>

Then create the folder EN in <your campaign folder>/Scripts/Events, and then create decision.txt within that, containing the following:
<<TAG_1>>= Shall we support the Sapien Brotherhood?%N%NYes or No.

If it's not something simple (like POPUP or TYPE mentioned above) I suspect this is where the problem lies. Nation 53 (The Sapien Brotherhood) is a new nation created during the game at 50% mobilization towards side 1 (Terran Empire) using a mobilization-3 script. It is given control of a couple hexes with territory scripts. Those seem to be working fine as far as I can tell and the Sapien Brotherhood shows up on the war map and in the diplomacy list as expected. (I can post those scripts later if it would help. I'm at the wrong computer right now.) Once nation 53 exists, the Terran player should be given the decision to support it or not, but that script (listed in orange above) refuses to fire.

Is 53 created out of a territory script purely, or does it partly exist on the map beforehand? Because I'm not sure if Territory scripts by themselves can (properly) 'create' nations, only add to them. Again speaking from SC2, I tried this at one point and the nation appeared on the map fine, but it had a war entry script meant to bring it in as soon as it was created, and that never fired. If I used the other side to declare war on it though, then it would enter.
To solve that I used a Surrender 1 to create the nation instead, although I'm not sure how well that would fit your campaign. Those fire instantly after a nation surrenders, and you could use a surrender 2 to force-surrender a nation to create this new one.

...Although, you said that the event would fire "right away", which I take means Turn 1? Because if that's the case, wouldn't it be easier to just have 53 on the map from the start? (Perhaps with a popup that says 'Look, these guys recently got created'?)

- BNC

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: BiteNibbleChomp

Also worth checking that Nation 53 actually starts 25% leaning towards Side 1 (and that 53 is the right one). In my most recent (yet unannounced but will be once its finished) project, I have screwed this up more times than I'd like to admit.

This is what I think is the most likely culprit too.

Note that this will only fire if Country 53 is neutral, if it enters the war then it won't happen.

Sounds interesting about the new project. [:)]

[mroyer]

Darn it!! I had the political alignment indexes backwards... aargh....
The comment at the top of the file was backward and I copied it through. Mia culpa.

I'd say that is the singular biggest time sink is that scripts are written with numeric indexing rather than encoded with human-readable text. I've thought of writing a processor to handle that, but it would be a big task - but boy, could it save time in campaign development.

Thanks for the help BNC and Bill. We're off and running again - like getting stuck in the mud every now and then on the long journey.

-Mark R.

[BillRunacre]

Glad to hear you got it fixed, and the scripts used to be done a slightly different way but that method was even harder for both modders and us as developers!

[mroyer]

When a new nation is created with a territory script, while the first city in the territory list becomes the capital, it appears that the rest of the urban resources lose their resource status. So, for example, a remote industrial center is no longer an industrial center and new units of the new nation cannot deploy there.

Is there any way to preserve the urban resource center status of hexes when a new nation is formed?

-Mark R.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

ORIGINAL: mroyer

When a new nation is created with a territory script, while the first city in the territory list becomes the capital, it appears that the rest of the urban resources lose their resource status. So, for example, a remote industrial center is no longer an industrial center and new units of the new nation cannot deploy there.

Is there any way to preserve the urban resource center status of hexes when a new nation is formed?

-Mark R.

I don't believe so. Others have asked something similar about adding alternate capitals and the like, which has been confirmed as not possible (At least at the time of those threads).

On a very slightly related note, I managed to screw up a unit spawn script the other day and spent three test games (each about 9 hours) trying to work out why. The reason:
#CONDITION_POSITION= 81,31 [9,9] [1,1] [0] [0]
The tile and range was ok (one unit within 9 of 81,31). But it was looking for neutral units instead of an alliance's units. [8|]
So be sure to check your scripts carefully [:)]

- BNC

[mroyer]

So be sure to check your scripts carefully [:)]

Indeed.
Never script without putting your text-parsing eye-wear on!!

-Mark R.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Mark,

Just curious if you are still working on this mod and if it was this mod that had that font display issue? I believe I might have a fix for this and was wondering if you could send me an email at support@furysoftware.com

Hubert

[mroyer]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Hi Mark,

Just curious if you are still working on this mod and if it was this mod that had that font display issue? I believe I might have a fix for this and was wondering if you could send me an email at support@furysoftware.com

Hubert

(email sent)

Hi Hubert,

Yes, this mod (Bellum Galaxia) is the mod that wouldn't display the Greek characters properly in certain contexts. For the cases where it wasn't working correctly, I've changed the characters back to regular text words (e.g., &#945; Centauri is Alpha Centauri in places where the &#945; won't display properly).

Sorry for the very delayed response. I just noticed your question. I've been taking a much needed break on this mod while giving Alvaro's very nice WarPlan a go. I intend to circle back here and continue soon.

-Mark Royer