Version 2.0 RELEASED // Archaon's Loyal Allies // Compatible with TA:TW 2.1

[SmurfDude]

I like this mod as I believe in a LotR game evil should remain allied with evil and good allied with good

[Archaon]

I do not agree that evil factions will get along all of the time - orcs and goblins fight constantly and for that matter they ARE evil and will/should back stab one another lol. The ideas you have are not bad but even the good guys do not get along all of the time, the third age is a classic example of the tensions between kingdoms of men, even elves and dwarfs have their own tensions... they should not be restricted completely from attacking one another.

But if you need assistance getting your ideas into play maybe i could assist with some things - pm me with any specific issues you encounter and i will offer technical assistance - however, i do not want to collaborate ideas ect.

good luck!

[SmurfDude]

I do not agree that evil factions will get along all of the time - orcs and goblins fight constantly and for that matter they ARE evil and will/should back stab one another lol. The ideas you have are not bad but even the good guys do not get along all of the time, the third age is a classic example of the tensions between kingdoms of men, even elves and dwarfs have their own tensions... they should not be restricted completely from attacking one another.

But if you need assistance getting your ideas into play maybe i could assist with some things - pm me with any specific issues you encounter and i will offer technical assistance - however, i do not want to collaborate ideas ect.

good luck!

Maybe so, but in the grand scheme of things the good side will have the sense to put their differences to one side for the sake of defeating evil. An evil will work together because Sauron has ordered them to. Besides, it makes it more fun for me personally if me and my allies work together against evil factions and vice versa, rather than having to worry about my neighbours attacking me

[Archaon]

Maybe so, but in the grand scheme of things the good side will have the sense to put their differences to one side for the sake of defeating evil. An evil will work together because Sauron has ordered them to. Besides, it makes it more fun for me personally if me and my allies work together against evil factions and vice versa, rather than having to worry about my neighbours attacking me

Thus the reason i created this mod

Enjoy!

[Beorn]

Very good stuff, Sir. I'll try this immediately...

[Arvedui]

just to comfirm that the AI will definatly break an alliance with you if you dont treat them properly. I was being Eriador and askes the high elves for military access and they broke their alliance with me, shortly followed by two rather large armies

[Achilla]

I will most propably wait for 1.1 release because it might change things dramatically. Getting additional AI labels or making AI factions set to never attack each other is not much of a problem. My concern is, that with such low number of regions on such a huge map and placement of 'good' factions in north-west part of map, I have a feeling that even their combined force doesn't stand a chance against mordor. They are blocked by allies without military access exchange so they can't really help out gondor and rohan - they sit up near their borders to not upset allies and as such Isengard can literally 'rape' Rohan almost freely at it's southern border. From my experience Elves so far are very defensive and just try to get rid of OOMM but without any success. OOMM after 109 turns took one Silvan province and lost Grey Mountains to the dwarves. Looks like in current balance they can hold off Elves, Eriador and Dwarves at once but leak the power to change the things around them. Similar situation is with Harad unable to fight Gondor effeciently because of lack of military rights and serious inability to launch sea assault. End result is simple - good factions get wiped one after another because they don't act like cohesive body (alliance, trade rights, military access). If there were way more settlements on the map at some point one or two factions might not stand up for the competition and get wiped out, making some space for the rest. To be honest I think Eriador is efficiently blocking 'good' factions from assaulting Isengard effectively or getting rid of OOMM. Of course I'm in opposition of making 'good' factions love each other, but in current game as soon as Mordor takes over West Osgiliath it's game over. Likewise, I will finish my Rhun campaign and await version 1.1 ...

[Arvedui]

I will most propably wait for 1.1 release because it might change things dramatically. Getting additional AI labels or making AI factions set to never attack each other is not much of a problem. My concern is, that with such low number of regions on such a huge map and placement of 'good' factions in north-west part of map, I have a feeling that even their combined force doesn't stand a chance against mordor. They are blocked by allies without military access exchange so they can't really help out gondor and rohan - they sit up near their borders to not upset allies and as such Isengard can literally 'rape' Rohan almost freely at it's southern border. From my experience Elves so far are very defensive and just try to get rid of OOMM but without any success. OOMM after 109 turns took one Silvan province and lost Grey Mountains to the dwarves. Looks like in current balance they can hold off Elves, Eriador and Dwarves at once but leak the power to change the things around them. Similar situation is with Harad unable to fight Gondor effeciently because of lack of military rights and serious inability to launch sea assault. End result is simple - good factions get wiped one after another because they don't act like cohesive body (alliance, trade rights, military access). If there were way more settlements on the map at some point one or two factions might not stand up for the competition and get wiped out, making some space for the rest. To be honest I think Eriador is efficiently blocking 'good' factions from assaulting Isengard effectively or getting rid of OOMM. Of course I'm in opposition of making 'good' factions love each other, but in current game as soon as Mordor takes over West Osgiliath it's game over. Likewise, I will finish my Rhun campaign and await version 1.1 ...

Maybe the solution would be to start all the good factions allied all with military access the player and the AI can both break alliances but that seems to take a while just an idea, im no expert on the AI so i dont know weather it would help much, also i dont know about everyone else but whenever i play good side i make it a priority to help gondor and rohan as much as possible as they seem to have the most trouble on my campaigns, (that and i play high elves alot and its fun when i get my uber people to go and "save the day")

[Alkarin]

i dont see any files to overwrite in the text folder. are they normally not there and i just put them in?

[nairagorn]

That's correct, no files to overwrite.

[playa]

good stuff,i will DN now,thx +rep

[Archaon]

If anyone is interested in the code to change starting faction alliances, here it is;

 faction_relationships         england, at_war_with      slave, sicily, mongols
  faction_relationships       england, allied_with        france, hre
  faction_relationships       france, at_war_with        slave
  faction_relationships       france, allied_with          england, hre, venice, spain
  faction_relationships       hre, at_war_with             slave, moors, mongols, egypt
  faction_relationships       hre, allied_with   france, england, venice, spain
  faction_relationships       spain, at_war_with         slave, sicily
  faction_relationships       spain, protectorate_of     england
  faction_relationships       spain, allied_with           france, hre, venice
  faction_relationships       venice, at_war_with        slave, scotland
  faction_relationships       venice, protectorate_of    england
  faction_relationships       sicily, at_war_with          slave, england, spain
  faction_relationships       sicily, allied_with            milan, moors, turks, egypt
  faction_relationships       milan, at_war_with         slave
  faction_relationships       milan, allied_with           scotland, egypt
  faction_relationships       milan, protectorate_of     sicily
  faction_relationships       scotland, allied_with       moors
  faction_relationships       scotland, at_war_with     slave, venice
  faction_relationships       moors, allied_with          scotland, sicily, egypt, mongols, turks
  faction_relationships       moors, protectorate_of    milan
  faction_relationships       moors, at_war_with        slave, hre
  faction_relationships       turks, at_war_with          slave
  faction_relationships       turks, allied_with            scotland, egypt, mongols, moors
  faction_relationships       turks, protectorate_of     milan, sicily
  faction_relationships       egypt, at_war_with         slave, hre
  faction_relationships       egypt, allied_with           milan, mongols, moors, turks
  faction_relationships       egypt, protectorate_of     sicily
  faction_relationships       mongols, at_war_with     slave, hre, england
  faction_relationships       mongols, allied_with       mongols, moors, turks, egypt, sicily
  faction_relationships       mongols, protectorate_of            milan

Translated to show ingame faction names;

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

MORDOR, at_war_with BANDITS, GONDOR , SILVAN ELVES
MORDOR, allied_with ISENGARD , ORCS MM
ISENGARD , at_war_with BANDITS
ISENGARD , allied_with MORDOR, ORCS MM , EASTERLINGS, HARAD
ORCS MM , at_war_with BANDITS, DWARVES, SILVAN ELVES , HIGH ELVES
ORCS MM , allied_with ISENGARD , MORDOR, EASTERLINGS, HARAD
HARAD , at_war_with BANDITS, GONDOR
HARAD , protectorate_of MORDOR
HARAD , allied_with ISENGARD , ORCS MM , EASTERLINGS
EASTERLINGS, at_war_with BANDITS, DALE
EASTERLINGS, protectorate_of MORDOR
GONDOR , at_war_with BANDITS, MORDOR, HARAD
GONDOR , allied_with ROHAN , DWARVES, ERIADOR, HIGH ELVES
ROHAN , at_war_with BANDITS
ROHAN , allied_with DALE, HIGH ELVES
ROHAN , protectorate_of GONDOR
DALE, allied_with DWARVES
DALE, at_war_with BANDITS, EASTERLINGS
DWARVES, allied_with DALE, GONDOR , HIGH ELVES, SILVAN ELVES , ERIADOR
DWARVES, protectorate_of ROHAN
DWARVES, at_war_with BANDITS, ORCS MM
ERIADOR, at_war_with BANDITS
ERIADOR, allied_with DALE, HIGH ELVES, SILVAN ELVES , DWARVES
ERIADOR, protectorate_of ROHAN , GONDOR
HIGH ELVES, at_war_with BANDITS, ORCS MM
HIGH ELVES, allied_with ROHAN , SILVAN ELVES , DWARVES, ERIADOR
HIGH ELVES, protectorate_of GONDOR
SILVAN ELVES , at_war_with BANDITS, ORCS MM , MORDOR
SILVAN ELVES , allied_with SILVAN ELVES , DWARVES, ERIADOR, HIGH ELVES, GONDOR
SILVAN ELVES , protectorate_of ROHAN

And for those whom do not know how to implement this I have attached the descr_strat.txt that needs to be placed in;
"SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\third_age\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\" directory.
NOTE: And you must delete the file called map.rwm found in “"SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\third_age\data\world\maps\base\" directory.

[Blooo]

Thank you!

[Archaon]

Currently looking at creating 4 individual profiles in descr_campaign_ai_db.xml
1) Good
2) Evil
3) Default (e.g. DALE, any advice welcome)
4) slave (Bandits)

So far i cannot see any change made by King Kong's team, they still have profiles for pagan, islam, mongol, catholic, ect and showing no real structure..

This is probably the biggest issue with the AI in the campaign – their decision making has been based on the presets originally intended for vanilla cultures.. This definitely needs fixing!

[Achilla]

Currently looking at creating 4 individual profiles in descr_campaign_ai_db.xml
1) Good
2) Evil
3) Default (e.g. DALE, any advice welcome)
4) slave (Bandits)

So far i cannot see any change made by King Kong's team, they still have profiles for pagan, islam, mongol, catholic, ect and showing no real structure..

This is probably the biggest issue with the AI in the campaign – their decision making has been based on the presets originally intended for vanilla cultures.. This definitely needs fixing!

XAI 3.4 will be out soon and since this mod is incorporating XAI I believe all of the issues will be ridden off once coding buttheads (lolz) start customizing 3.4 to the game. At this point making a submod that I suggested might be nonsensical, although I doubt we will see integration in 1.1 ... more like 1.2

[Big Pacha]

Nice job Archaon I'm gonna try your file right now (daybreak today) but without the protectorates, Id on't like that because I don't like to play a "vassal" faction.
I've edited your descr_strat and erased the protectorate_of lines. Crash test begins, I'll let you know guys
+rep 2U

[Archaon]

Nice job Archaon I'm gonna try your file right now (daybreak today) but without the protectorates, Id on't like that because I don't like to play a "vassal" faction.
I've edited your descr_strat and erased the protectorate_of lines. Crash test begins, I'll let you know guys
+rep 2U

Thx but i warn you that by removing the protectorates you will notice allied faction who do not border an enemy turn very inactive - they seem too afraid to march across allies land to reach the battlefront.

In my test campaign i set on auto AI (i do not control any faction) all factions spread out filling up the map and fought constantly afaik the protectorates do not suffer any noticeable disadvantage, they expand and send armies out to conquer the enemy even if they do not border their regions.

[Azim]

Very interesting. So, how does this script work?

...
And how do you turn on auto AI?

[Archaon]

Hey little brother!

Very interesting. So, how does this script work?

This mod doesn't use any scripts - it simply does what it states on the box. It removes the ability for AI and human alike from being able to attack an ally. take a peak into the files and see for yourself

And how do you turn on auto AI?

since RTW we have been able to use it, this is how my shortcut looks;
.exe" -ai -show_err -nm

others i occasionally use are;
-movie_cam
-enable_editor
-multirun This allows you to run more than one instance of the game at a time.

The -ai switch gives the AI control over all factions. This allows you to watch how all the factions progress without human intervention.

[Seleukos_I.]

somehow this doesn't seem to work. in every campaign im playing eriador declares war on high elves at round 15-20