[Tutorial] How to change region ownerships + enable emergent factions to be played

[Quixote07]

Well, I'm playing as britain, I'll check to see if I get an India minister when I use this method.

I do have an India minister. I honestly have no idea what's causing this crash.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

Well it can be due to AI .esf definitions.

They are vast in number.

Basically every faction have an AI faction associated with it. You will look at the faction ID in the esf and then look through the AI faction till you see one that have a data element with that number in it. Then you can look at OWNED_DIRECT and you have the AI Faction ID. The same applies to looking for the AI region definitions.

In the end the only definition to change is the settlement to set it to be OWNED_DIRECT to the new AI faction ID. all the other parts of a region use OWNED_INDIRECT which will be pointing to something part of the region eventually reaching to settlement and resolving to that faction.

Doing all this you will then be able to play but when it is the turn of the faction who had owned that place the game will enter an infinite loop.

So I find what I think is why and the part that is hard. In AI is something called BDI_POOLS which are available to each faction. In these there are reference to factions and regions and settlements and populating the AI with some preliminary info on these items. I can find the ones to edit, but each faction have 1000+ entries and I am only able to see what the index of the entry is and for instance with greece one of the entries in the Ottoman BDI_POOLS was the 651st element. I have no time to count to 651 and then again for other elements because every faction that have knowledge of this settlement that changes hands will need to be updated with proper info in its BDI_POOLS

[eric2min]

game crashes when i click on grand campaign tab in game

anyone know what i did wrong?

[Lazy Knight]

The strange thing is that you once managed to get past that turn without a crash. Since then you must have altered something though...

[Quixote07]

Either that or there were some weird conditions that caused the Mughals to not try to do anything in Calcutta.

Time to see if I can dig through this stuff and fix it.

Update - I changed the settlement's OWNERSHIP_DIRECT, and I still had the same CTD. It didn't hang up on the Mughals turn.

Updated Update - I just realized that I changed the OWNERSHIP_DIRECT to GB, not the 13 colonies. I switched it to the 13 colonies and I had the hangup.

How do I find out what element the province is of the BDI_POOLS? What did you mean when you said I'd have to count again for other elements because of other faction's knowlege?

[Quixote07]

Well it can be due to AI .esf definitions.

They are vast in number.

Basically every faction have an AI faction associated with it. You will look at the faction ID in the esf and then look through the AI faction till you see one that have a data element with that number in it. Then you can look at OWNED_DIRECT and you have the AI Faction ID. The same applies to looking for the AI region definitions.

In the end the only definition to change is the settlement to set it to be OWNED_DIRECT to the new AI faction ID. all the other parts of a region use OWNED_INDIRECT which will be pointing to something part of the region eventually reaching to settlement and resolving to that faction.

Doing all this you will then be able to play but when it is the turn of the faction who had owned that place the game will enter an infinite loop.

So I find what I think is why and the part that is hard. In AI is something called BDI_POOLS which are available to each faction. In these there are reference to factions and regions and settlements and populating the AI with some preliminary info on these items. I can find the ones to edit, but each faction have 1000+ entries and I am only able to see what the index of the entry is and for instance with greece one of the entries in the Ottoman BDI_POOLS was the 651st element. I have no time to count to 651 and then again for other elements because every faction that have knowledge of this settlement that changes hands will need to be updated with proper info in its BDI_POOLS

Where can I find this BDI_POOL tag that tells me which element it is?

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

CAI_INTERFACE/CAI_INTERFACE_MANAGERS/CAI_INTERFACE_MANAGERS for the faction you are looking for. In there are 1000's of entries. I can find the ones I need with my own parser that I can use to search with, but doesn't help when it is an element in the middle of 1000 elements. Also I meant that since each faction have its own BDI_POOL manager that I found that each faction who have knowledge of the region at the first turn will need to be updated with new information about who owns it now.

[Quixote07]

I guess my question is how do I know which entry references the settlement I want to change?

Just so I understand - I'd have to edit this entry for every faction, not just the one that has control over it in the vanilla game?

How would I edit the entry once I found it? Change the ID tag from the old faction to the new faction? would I do that for every faction?

[Cipher*]

CAI_INTERFACE/CAI_INTERFACE_MANAGERS/CAI_INTERFACE_MANAGERS for the faction you are looking for. In there are 1000's of entries. I can find the ones I need with my own parser that I can use to search with, but doesn't help when it is an element in the middle of 1000 elements. Also I meant that since each faction have its own BDI_POOL manager that I found that each faction who have knowledge of the region at the first turn will need to be updated with new information about who owns it now.

Hurm where can I find this OWNED_DIRECT

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

Well that depends because in the BDI_POOLS is not using an OWNED_DIRECT etc. It is dependent on what is inside the specific element as to what you would edit. There are many different possible elements in each BDI pool. But if you look out for the old faction's AI ID then you can change any reference to it to the new faction AI ID.

[just]

The default script does faction handovers for AI in turn 2, but doesn't actually give the faction until turn 6 to 15, perhaps put in a delay?
It does faction handovers for human players by a custom mission, try setting one up with the home region as goal, most players should be able to succeed keeping that for a turn or 2.
As the main campaign doesn't crash and the default script doesn't do anything extra for the faction handovers, it really should be possible to make it work.

[Cursisanafou]

handing over your faction might just give you a "faction destroyed you lose and suck at this game" message.

[Quixote07]

Ok, I'm still confused, so I'm going to lay out my specifics to see if that clarifies anything.

I'm trying to give Calcutta to Great Britain, and I'm trying to give Cuttack to France. I have my script currently set up to give the North American protectorates to their parent countries at the very start of the game. To give Calcutta and Cuttack to those countries and bypass the bugs caused by the more traditional method, I gave Calcutta to the 13 colonies and Cuttack to Louisiana. When I start the Grand Campaign, I have total control over those two regions as either Great Britain or France, everything seems to be working fine. I have full line of sight, all of the prices are correct. I end the turn, and when it cycles back to the country I'm playing, it CTDs. I used the first part of your method and set the OWNED_DIRECT for Calcutta to the 13 colonies. I know have what you described in that post, it hangs up at the Mughal Empire's turn.

What I need now is clarification on how to find Bengal/Calcutta in the BDI_POOLS. I've found the Mughal Empire's BDI_POOLS directory, and found in general the place that I'm looking for. What I really need help with now is how to find Bengal/Calcutta in that directory, and if you know how I should change it to remove the Mughal Empire's control of that province.


I realize I'm asking a lot but I think if I can get this working you guys could use a similar method to give completely functional regions (bug free) to any non-emergent nation.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

Yes, this is why I have not finished the tutorial.

There is no easy way to find them short of going through a huge array. I have my own parser to see the elements that have possible interest but I cannot spend time to count from 0 to 650 for instance.

[Quixote07]

Well, if you could just give an example of how you knew to count to 651, that would get me started.

[Cursisanafou]

Yes, this is why I have not finished the tutorial.

There is no easy way to find them short of going through a huge array. I have my own parser to see the elements that have possible interest but I cannot spend time to count from 0 to 650 for instance.

I downloaded your parser from the older other thread... does it not work with Vista 64-bit? Or do i need something else?

I made the batch file and it gets to where it should load the parser but then crashes.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

it is bugged outside of debug mode so it can't be released

[Cursisanafou]

damn lol

[borya1978]

Thank for the tutorial GeorgiaPeanuts, at least we can play almost all the factions.

But I still cant get the US to work right. Has anyone here figured out how to get the US with the capital set to be Pennsylvania?

If anyone has created a file where the US works with Pennsylvania as the capital without crashes, can you send me the file? I'll rep you if you do

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

Here is a xml version of startpos it make searching easier and it also let you see id number of each element of arrays of sections.

Remember though to add 1 to the id when counting ;P

Another thing you can do with this is take the offset you find in esf editor and convert to decimal and search for offset=xxxx and it let you jump to where that is quick.

http://rapidshare.com/files/219163819/startposxml.zip