Factions Order for Turns

**Zarathos** · June 17, 2014, 12:26 PM

Can someone explain me how to set the factions turns order?
Changing descr_sm_factions.txt order seems to alter it. Someone told me that also changing the order of descr_strat.txt alters it (the entries on the bottom, not on the top, where you give settlements). Anyway, the problem is that, no metter what I do, I never obtain the right order. Now here is my factions script file:

Code:

faction                        sicily
...

faction                        denmark
...

faction                        milan
...

faction                        normans
...

And here is my strat script file:

Code:

playable
    sicily
    denmark
    milan
    normans

Code:

faction    sicily, fortified smith
...

faction    denmark, sailor smith
...

faction    milan, religious henry
...

faction    normans, comfort napoleon
...

And guess what? In campaign I have my local faction coming first (obviously) then denmark, milan and normals. Sicily? Who knows why but It's coming far far later. WTF?!

Also I noticed another problem, when you have A LOT of factions, the ones on the top row in campaign selection (splitted into left and right chunks) are not respecting an order.

Code:

    sicily
    denmark
    milan
    normans
    turks
    scotland
    timurids
    byzantium
    moors
    hungary
    norway
    saxons
    egypt
    ireland
    mongols
    teutonic_order
    venice
    england
    poland
    france
    aztecs
    hre
    portugal
    spain
    russia
    khand

First row top left: england, poland, portugal, russia, khand.
First row top right: spain, hre, france, aztecs.

WTF is going on?!

**Vipman** · June 17, 2014, 02:07 PM

For the actual turn order in the game the only thing you have to change is the whole faction entries in descr_strat ( part starting with faction sicily, fortified smith). Order in playable faction list has no effect I think. As for descr_sm_factions from what I remember it changes the order of factions only in the faction selection screen when starting a new campaign.

**Zarathos** · June 17, 2014, 02:14 PM

Err... so why sicily, which is first in descr_strat, is being placed at 7th position?

**Vipman** · June 17, 2014, 03:34 PM

It most certainly works. Tried starting a new campaign, deleting map.rwm ?

Edit no wait I know the answer. Because when you start a campaign the local faction and the first faction in turn order switch places. Most probably hardcoded and nothing to do. Unless you change it in your project

**Withwnar** · June 17, 2014, 10:13 PM

Originally Posted by Vipman

Because when you start a campaign the local faction and the first faction in turn order switch places.

That's right and it was years before I noticed it happening. If the order matters then you could add another playable faction, make it first, tell players in the faction selection screen that it isn't really playable and if they use it anyway then kill the campaign with script.

**Vipman** · June 18, 2014, 12:06 PM

What happens if you put Papal states first in turn order but do not make it playable? Or even mongols/aztecs?

**irishron** · June 18, 2014, 02:02 PM

Originally Posted by Vipman

What happens if you put Papal states first in turn order but do not make it playable? Or even mongols/aztecs?

Try it and tell us. My modding days are over until at least October.

**Vipman** · June 18, 2014, 04:28 PM

Was just giving an idea that could be better than what Withwnar said, not interested in finding out the answer, and I'm guessing it works that's why I posted

**Withwnar** · June 18, 2014, 11:43 PM

Hey, that works! Great, I can use that for the mod I'm working on. I need papal_states to remain where they are but putting another faction that won't be in the campaign at all in first spot solves everything.

**builder680** · June 19, 2014, 04:40 AM

I have a question somewhat related to this one, I hope it's ok to use this thread to ask it. If I don't want to "see" a faction taking its turn, what do I change? I'm not talking about turning off AI moves and such, what I mean is the faction crests that pass by on top of the screen showing whose turn it currently is. I want to "not see" the Aztecs taking their turn until after the Americas are discovered, if possible. As it stands, I can see their turn from the beginning of a campaign in KGCM. I re-hid the Americas on the map, so I would find it a little more realistic to not see them as the turns pass by.

**Withwnar** · June 19, 2014, 04:53 AM

I don't think that is possible. Not unless the faction doesn't exist until America is discovered.

**builder680** · June 19, 2014, 04:59 AM

Hmm. That's too bad, I could have sworn that vanilla M2TW you didn't see the Aztec banner when they were taking their turn until after discovering the New World, but I haven't played vanilla for a very long time so no doubt I'm just remembering wrong.

**Withwnar** · June 19, 2014, 05:24 AM

Oh, I thought you were talking about vanilla - KGCM I see now.

Check vanilla's campaign_script. It has this...

Code:

freeze_faction_ai aztecs

...and an unfreeze in another section. It also has "undiscovered" in descr_strat. Maybe one of those things does it.

**Gigantus** · June 19, 2014, 09:52 PM

Should be the 'undiscovered' entry that does the trick. I do however believe it means 'undiscovered by any faction' - hence if an AI faction discovers this faction then they will be 'back on the menu'.

**builder680** · June 21, 2014, 12:02 PM

I entered undiscovered in the descr_strat for KGCM like so:

faction aztecs, balanced smith
undiscovered
ai_label aztecs
denari 10000
denari_kings_purse 2000
settlement

Doing so got me a couple of weird results immediately upon campaign start.

1. I got a message at the very beginning of turn 1 (right after the load screen) that the Aztecs had been destroyed. I revealed fow and their armies and settlements had all become rebels.
2. Just as weirdly, the undiscovered demarcation line from vanilla was on my otherwise KGCM radar and campaign maps, such that there was a "straight edge" of the map for undiscovered areas. KGCM's map has no such 'undiscovered' portion of the map, though I have put it back in. However, my map edge is not made straight, it's more of a "ripped edge." Seeing an entry in descr_strat change the way the game rendered my radar and campaign maps was strange.

I took out the undiscovered entry since it isn't doing quite what I wanted. I'll check out the other suggestion in campaign_script a bit later in the week when I have more time to mess around with it.

**Gigantus** · June 21, 2014, 12:10 PM

That's some weird stuff. Never mind the invalid ai_label, don't think that was the reason. Maybe a question of an absent faction leader?
Doesn't explain the undiscovered map, though.

**Knightforger** · March 05, 2018, 12:22 PM

I realize I'm posting this in several places; but I'm searching (hopefully) for a simple solution.

You see I have changed the turn order (and yes, the Aztecs are listed first) and it seems to work fine, but...

There's one Major (albeit cosmetic) problem: The accents are all wrong now. I fear that I'll have to do a lot of modifying to fix this; but, I am still sifiting through a lot of old posts.

I like that a lot of things have been added to the Tutorials and I hope that one regarding changing the Turn order and/or the Order Factions are Displayed makes it's way there as well. With, of course, the Warning about accents being changed (and how to fix that too).

SK

**Gigantus** · March 05, 2018, 10:08 PM

As I mentioned elsewhere: it's not known what fixes accents against the sequence of entries in descr_sm_factions.
There is however the descr_sounds_accents file that is supposed to arrange for that.

I have tested as follows in my Bare Geomod setup:

1. moved hre faction in descr_sm_factions to just above slave faction
2. deleted idx and dat files in data\sound folder of Bare Geomod
3. Started game and checked voices of hre and other factions (england, scotland, egypt) and they still had the same (same) accents.

In other words: generating new idx and dat files appear to fix this issue.

Note: if your mod has idx and dat files that are larger then 1KB (other then the 'event' files) then you will need to unpack these files first. If you are new to this then I suggest to look up the 'miscellaneous' workshop for more details.

**Knightforger** · March 06, 2018, 10:34 AM

Since I was looking for the solution in several and posted my query in several as well...

I found the solution and I'm trying make sure I also post that in those sections as well (for anyone else who stumbles across them).

Anyway, yes, one just has to delete the "events.*" files. That is provided that you have the "descr_sound_*.txt" files in the Data directory (rather than in the "sounds" directory - to err is human, eh). So that's fixed.

I also want to note that I did encounter problems with the "slave" regions all being set to empty "village" settlements. This was do to leaving out the ";" (actualy ";;;" in my case) before a "End of <faction> Section" comment that I had placed in the "decr_strat.txt" file. Thus it was finding an "end" that was throwing everything off.

SK

It's always the little stuff that's easy to miss and makes the biggest problems

**Gigantus** · March 06, 2018, 10:58 AM

It's because of the sound TXT file that I mentioned Bare Geomod, the set up comes with a complete set of sound txt files.

Empty villages is always a sign of a missing settlement entry in descr_strat entry (remember that southern Egyptian settlement in vanilla?) or an error in descr_strat that prevents further reading of the descr_start file (like in your case).