Berserking in Medieval 2

**SigniferOne** · July 28, 2008, 07:28 PM

I've had some problems importing the RTW berserking ability into MTW2, so I thought I'd open it up to everyone for discussion. As everyone knows, if you change the moral of a unit to 'berserker', the game starts up normally but crashes at some point during battle -- presumably right when the game tries to make the unit go berserk. I thought this was easily fixed by adding the appropriate berserking animation which the game requests but cannot find, so I added the berserking CAS file, and created the following skeleton:

Code:

type		MTW2_S1_Berserker
parent		MTW2_2H_Axe
anim		default					data/animations/MTW2_2H_Axe/MTW2_2H_Axe_basepose.cas

anim		berserker_swing_attack_left		data/animations/berserker_2m_swing.cas


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Surprisingly, the attack animation doesn't have an "impact frame" in RTW:BI, so I left it blank here. I also made the following changes to my unit:

Code:

attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, can_withdraw, warcry

Code:

stat_mental      9, berserker, untrained

Long story short, the game still crashes. I thought that maybe berserking is coded out of the game, but medieval2.exe contains loads of berserking-related things, such as

Code:

... HIDE    GO_BERSERK  AMOK    ...
... CANCEL_BUTTON_IMAGE_DISABLED    BERSERK_STATUS_ICON TOOLBAR_BG   ...
... TT_ACTION_FIGHTING  TT_ACTION_BERSERK   TT_ACTION_HIDING    ...
... BMT_STATE_SWIMMING  BMT_STATE_BERSERK   BMT_ACT_BERSERK BMT_SHIELD_WALL_SPECIAL_OFF ...

etc.

It even contains two berserking animation keywords:

Code:

berserker_swing_attack_right    
berserker_swing_attack_left

(i.e. two different attacking animations can be defined, each used randomly).

So anyway, the game is clearly still set-up for berserking, the in-game "events" related to it are still in, RTW's animation keywords are still there, everything should be working. But the game still crashes.

My last idea was that in RTW:BI, the banner would blink red when the unit was in berserk mode, and as far as I know that isn't specified in either battle.sd.xml, or in shared.sd.xml of Medieval 2. So maybe it crashes by not finding the appropriate GUI reference in those files.

**uanime5** · July 31, 2008, 06:00 AM

I've tried to get berserk to work and I noticed something odd. The mod seems to crash either when the berserk unit kills another unit or a berserk unit is killed. You might want to test this by having a weak berserk unit fight a heavily armoured unit and vice versa. I have no idea why this occurs.

**Icedie El Guaraní** · July 31, 2008, 07:44 AM

the game crash after click on the war cry ability, i still think is more like what signiferone said!! or may be C.A never found out what was it. so they left it!!

**SigniferOne** · July 31, 2008, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by icedie

the game crash after click on the war cry ability, i still think is more like what signiferone said!! or may be C.A never found out what was it. so they left it!!

Actually for me, I have a much better situation -- I click on warcry, and the units charge towards the enemy! Their status even changes to "berserk", and their morale is sky-high. It's only when they reach the enemy and start fighting him, that at some point the game drops the CTD on me.

**Serious Spamurai** · July 31, 2008, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by SigniferOne

Actually for me, I have a much better situation -- I click on warcry, and the units charge towards the enemy! Their status even changes to "berserk", and their morale is sky-high. It's only when they reach the enemy and start fighting him, that at some point the game drops the CTD on me.

This is what I got. Was early days when I tried it, so I couldn't pursue the animations route. Perhaps if you look through the RTW files there are animation files with "berserker" or something, if attack files renamed to these were put in, the game might work.

As for the testing I did, did it a while ago for WotN, 1h axe and shield unit, berserker, warcry. Warcry triggers berserker, if you don't use Warcry, they don't Berserk. Tested it about 4 times, it's when the first person dies that it CTDs, perhaps the "go flying" anim is the one missing (since all RTW berserkers made the enemy get thrown in the air).

This has become relevant to my interests again as I am starting a small mod to get a chance to try all aspects of modding while I wait for ETW. So I'll be willing to (try and) help as far as I am able.

**Icedie El Guaraní** · July 31, 2008, 01:22 PM

But what about the William Wallace ability that was a war cry, wasn´t it? i think in the actual patch is not included but in the 1.0 release they have an it was crazy, but i am not sure of what i am talking about ´cause that was almost a year ago!!

**SigniferOne** · July 31, 2008, 01:56 PM

Warcry is actually the game's way to trigger berserkness. If you don't specify the morale as 'berserk' but still give the warcry ability, then they'll simply warcry and (I think) raise their morale thereby. There's absolutely no crashing from just the warcry. It's the berserking that's the actual CTDer, for units with that ability.

**Icedie El Guaraní** · July 31, 2008, 06:08 PM

yeah i did try the warcry ability and it did not crash, and serious spamurai , the throwing units to the air, it has it when i 10 to the unit mass in edu, when they charge the other units get thrown into the air , so i think the animation is there.

**GatorMarine1833** · July 31, 2008, 11:00 PM

The animation of the 'launching' for warcry may be called something different in the berserk animation from RTW than it is called in M2TW.

Like maybe it calls for "yadda yadda" animation (from RTW) but in M2TW the exact same animation is called "blah blah."

**SigniferOne** · August 07, 2008, 05:20 PM

So who else has some more ideas?

Icedie can you explain your observation about launching units in the air?

**Icedie El Guaraní** · August 07, 2008, 07:15 PM

it happen only in the inicial part of the charge but only if the two units are charging against each other, i was trying to make a strong spear unit i even have pics of that battle.

that was all!!
These happen when i elevate the mass value and giving then mount effect +10
and Btw my 300 post hehe. but this ability does not make them very powerful or unbeatable units is when charging ones against another, but against cavalry , yeah i must say they are over powered!!

**redxavier** · August 08, 2008, 11:11 AM

Like you say, there are several events relating to berserking in the docudemon, three to be precise:

Identifier:BattleUnitGoesBerserk
Event: A unit has gone berserk
Exports: unit
Class: ET_BATTLE_UNIT_GOES_BERSERK

Identifier:BattlePlayerUnitGoesBerserk
Event: One of the player's units has gone berserk
Exports: player_unit
Class: ET_BATTLE_PLAYER_GOES_BERSERK

Identifier:BattnemyUnitGoesBerserk
Event: One of the enemies' units has routed
Exports: enemy_unit
Class: ET_BATTLE_ENEMY_UNIT_GOES_BERSERK

Are you sure that these haven't been omitted somewhere? Problem with the exports?

**Mythic_Commodore** · August 08, 2008, 12:57 PM

You mentioned in the OP that you thought that the problem might be related to the fact that the flags flash red. This is not the problem. I was doing testing for a guide I was writing to the export_descr_units.txt file and found that giving the unit the berserk ability allowed them to go berserk - with a flashing red flag. However, it was when they started to engage the enemy that the problem occurred. Hope this helps!

**uanime5** · August 08, 2008, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Mythic_Commodore

You mentioned in the OP that you thought that the problem might be related to the fact that the flags flash red. This is not the problem. I was doing testing for a guide I was writing to the export_descr_units.txt file and found that giving the unit the berserk ability allowed them to go berserk - with a flashing red flag. However, it was when they started to engage the enemy that the problem occurred. Hope this helps!

Like I said the problem is when the Berserking units fight other units. If a unit went berserk but there were no nearby enemies to attack there would be no problem.

The problem occurs either when a berserking unit kills another unit or a berserking unit is killed. This can easily be tested by having a weak berserking unit attack a strong enemy with lots of hit points and a strong berserking unit, with lots of hit points, attack a weak enemy. If the former crashes first then it's the death of a berserker that is causing the crash, if the latter crashes first then the death of a unit by the berseker is causing the crash.

**Icedie El Guaraní** · August 08, 2008, 01:05 PM

so can it be that the stat have to be set up in a the i did it plus the berserk ability. could you make the test ?

If so add this line to the edu.txt
soldier "what ever soldier unit you like", number of units, 0, "here goes the mass value" is up to 10 i think, it should look like this
soldier berserkers, 16, 0, 6
mount_effect horse +10

**GatorMarine1833** · August 08, 2008, 02:49 PM

mount_effect only adds a bonus to the unit for fighting that mount.

IE: "Mount_effect horse +10" gives the unit a +10 bonus when fighting a horse mounted unit.

You may need to add "launching" to the stat_pri_attr field

**Icedie El Guaraní** · August 08, 2008, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by GatorMarine1833

mount_effect only adds a bonus to the unit for fighting that mount.

IE: "Mount_effect horse +10" gives the unit a +10 bonus when fighting a horse mounted unit.

You may need to add "launching" to the stat_pri_attr field

i have it in spear_bonus_4 and it does throw units in the air.

**Mythic_Commodore** · August 08, 2008, 08:47 PM

Yes, I was clarifying that the problem is not due to any problems with the banner flashing. It is a problem with the fighting aspect. It may be that a crucial bit of code is missing from the engine.

**GatorMarine1833** · August 09, 2008, 01:35 AM

It is either throwing units because you have the unit mass set to 6 (when it is normally at 1) or because you have the launching trait (it's probably because of the unit mass). I made my own "Berserkers" in a mod for myself based on the Britannia campaign and they too launch units. but they don't have mount_effect traits, they do have hugh unit mass and "launching" attack attribute. It's pretty well known that mount_effect does not necessarily affect wether or not units get launched.

back to topic, it may be that the berserking animation either has a seperate animation it calls for when a unit dies that isn't being found or when a unit gets killed. Or maybe it needs the unit to have the "launching" attribute to function the way it is supposed to.

**Kinjo** · August 09, 2008, 01:54 AM

There has to be an animation file that is missing that is causing the CTD. Maybe we can add all of the files that are associated with the berserker skeleton to the M2TW folder.

BI descr_skelton

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