Unrestricted Camera

[FearofNC]

i found this buried in another forum here at twc... this isnt exactly new... but i havent found a single mp player yet that knew about it... or was willing to admit they were using it already...


you can unlock the restrictions on the camera and play online...



i have xp... so if you have vista im not sure but this should help....
look for the file:
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts\preferences.empire_script.txt


open it up and look for the line

default_camera_type 0; # default_battle_camera <card32>, default battle camera: 0-totalwar 1-rts 2-debug #

change it to

default_camera_type 2; # default_battle_camera <card32>, default battle camera: 0-totalwar 1-rts 2-debug #


save and play.... your camera is completely unlocked... you can go as high as you want... so far up you cant even see your whole army... and you can go under the map too... thats not useful but its kinda cool...

some neat things to try-
look inside buildings that are garrisoned
look inside ships ... you can see the gundeck ...


anyways... ive found it improves my ability to watch the battle... and fight in lots of places at once... i guess some might think its cheating to use it online... and it kinda is... but ive been using it for a few days now and i just cant see myself going back... so instead of feeling bad about having an advantage... id rather just share it with all of you.

p.s. if you change any options (like graphics quality or screen size) it will revert to old camera...

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Since 3rd of March I've been asking for an OPTION to let the host choose the type of camera: free, satellite kind, restricted to accomodate every likings. The ones who like to play realistically, with a high FOW can take restricted camera view (which by the way they took off from options after the first patch), the ones who like to watch the battle from the moon (which is sometimes lovely during replays) can set a totally free camera view.

I just hope sometimes multiplayer will deserve the same amount of care reserved to single player (well just one tenth would be enough). It seems even next big patch will deal for the great part with CAI.

[blonkers1234]

thanks NC for letting me into your talk about unresricted cam with lawl Its awesome, except when i double click on a part of a map i go under the ground, under the water and into an abyss which takes about 10 seconds to get out of lol

restrictions to your point of veiw as option would be cool. Lets say you could pnly look from a perseptive of around your units and not in mid air

[blutzeit]

Very cool, i've never liked the camera restrictions anyway, it just doesn't seem like a natural way to restict your view. It's not the point of view you want to restrict but rather the amount of information that can be gathered from a certain point of view. Would be better if moving too far away units got blurred, you could see that there are units there, maybe distinguish between cav and infantry but not the exact unit type.

[edit]
What's really needed are spotting rules, so you [the payer] only can see the enemy units that your own units can see.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Very cool, i've never liked the camera restrictions anyway, it just doesn't seem like a natural way to restict your view. It's not the point of view you want to restrict but rather the amount of information that can be gathered from a certain point of view. Would be better if moving too far away units got blurred, you could see that there are units there, maybe distinguish between cav and infantry but not the exact unit type.

[edit]
What's really needed are spotting rules, so you [the payer] only can see the enemy units that your own units can see.

Yes, that would be a blast, but let's face it, to have a real LOS implementation it's almost impossible.
On the contrary having a restricted camera host OPTION (i put that in capital letters) is something easily achievable as it was once listed in the vanilla version on the interface menu and then removed.

Btw it was always present in the past TW games and cannot understand why it was taken off this time.
I've understood that asking too much is a waste of time, asking something already present can reach the goal.

[Abu of Agrabah]

Thanks you Fear, will try it immidietly :-)

[Brusilov]

i found this buried in another forum here at twc... this isnt exactly new... but i havent found a single mp player yet that knew about it... or was willing to admit they were using it already...

p.s. if you change any options (like graphics quality or screen size) it will revert to old camera...

I've been using it..... The only time I've not used it is when for some reason I've adjusted the graphics and it resets to the default (as you've pointed out).

The other drawback is sometimes the camera at this setting will start looking way down below the map and it can take a while to get the camera up to ground level again...... When it does this you get to see the 'ocean' that is under each map.

[klesh]

The other drawback is sometimes the camera at this setting will start looking way down below the map and it can take a while to get the camera up to ground level again...

When this happens the quickest way to make things right is to doubleclick a unit card. Camera will make a fast b-line right to that unit and take you out from under the ground (or in the clouds).

[finian1712]

where is this on vista?

[Brusilov]

where is this on vista?

The easiest way to find the start of the application data path in Vista is to enter %appdata% in the run dialogue box.

[FearofNC]

here is the original thread i found this in... his instructions are a little better than mine...
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=262909

from that thread he says vista is

For Vista:-- C:\Users\"youraccountname"\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts


im sure its right but i cant confirm it 100%

[Achilleslastand]

Upon zooming out all the way on the Flanders map....you can see its huge and the sea is located in the NE corner........Me thinks this was possible at one time going to be a 3v3 or 4v4 map....possibly more.
Everything about this game just screams........UNFINISHED

[Von Kickyourass]

Thanks for this, i have always wanted to zoom out more si i can see everything.

[Mooncabbage]

I always thought of the battle screen as more of an animated map than a rendering of the actual events myself, so I love the birds eye view i get from this. Fog of War systems should involve the information you get, not what you can actually see of the field, or how much of it you can concentrate on. A high elevation camera plus a reasonably steep viewing angle and the 'n' key make it easy to quickly zoom around the field.

[Lucullus]

Nice finding. Now Im wondering how this worked in RTW and M2TW? Which settings did you have to adjust?

[FearofNC]

going from pure memory here... ill look around the org and see if i can find exactly what it was...

you had to put and extension on the exe file.... something like medieval.exe_un_restricted_camera

[Brusilov]

Nice finding. Now Im wondering how this worked in RTW and M2TW? Which settings did you have to adjust?

With RTW the equivalent was using the -movie_cam switch on the shortcut target. It only worked on replays which had to be from custom battles / MP battles as it wasn't possible to save replays from battles that were started from the campaign/strategy map.

When one of these replays was played with the switch on the shortcut target you could zoom to a lot lower heights - the standard camera did not get very low at all.

[Lucullus]

Yes, I knew about the movie camand also the cinematic editor. But is an unrestricted camera in MP possible for M2TW and RTW?

[Brusilov]

Yes, I knew about the movie camand also the cinematic editor. But is an unrestricted camera in MP possible for M2TW and RTW?

Not for RTW.

[laxaddict992]

just checked and this works for napoleon =)