4 Pressing Questions

[Magefsx]

1) i modified the EDU before downloading Daves "early christmas present" without removing any units, (just modifying statistics) and then tried to replace his with mine, but the game doesnt load. i cannot think of any reasons for this unless any new units have been added/replaced- see attachment.

2) a strange occurence has happened in game. several regions in have had their border colours changed even though the capital hasn't (eg constantinople- city owned by byzanitnes yet border colour venetian, and registered as venetian on minimap. This also affects some regions in spain, middle east and eastern mediteranian. However it does not affect (as far as i know) AI movement in those regions.

3) so far in the 2 campaigns i have played, no AI faction has taken control of Caffa in Crimea even though they were easily in the position to do so. maybe a bug?

4) this is probably already in a thread somewhere, but how would i script an invasion of america by spain, england, france and portugal. if so, could someone direct me to it.

[Soul Firez]

1 what AI are you using (BAI to be more accurate) i ask this because some AIs there are needed modifications in the edu that are required for it to run ? DID you make the statistics changes on daves edu please more info could help figure what the problem may be

2 have you downloaded any visual mods such as Y2days VIP ? have you modified the descr_sm factions at all .(please state any and all modifacations you have added or done yourself a great many files are interlinked and well hard to trace when someone else has modded them and also many submods do not work with each other due to using the same files (even if for different reasons)

3 I cant say i have seen this one but there can be path finding errors the bigmap can trip up the AI sometimes i can say though in the files i use which include a modified XCAI i have seen this settlement be taken by the AI so i do not think path finding error .

4 well i am in the process of uploading a submod i have worked on for a very long time and one of the features of this submod is infact a scripted invasion of the new world by spain france england (no portugaul though as the new world was not big enough to support this many factions . i wanted to achieve a war with the aztecs and the old world factions all duking it out for control of the rich new world . This has worked to great extent i must say (smiles proudly) you will see the AI send re inforcements from the old world to the new once the initial scripting ends .

This is a far more complicated script then just popping men over there (which would just fail ) it involves forcing them to build in the new world just enough for the AI to click hey this place is good lets run it LOL. stay tunned it will be out in the next few days (i need Miikill to test my changes to the AI as he was the major AI modder on this work but you will find it has a great many other interesting features such as hording and re emerging factions heros and villians(historical ones) many visual and skin improvements and many more features to numerous to mention here

[Achilla]

1 what AI are you using (BAI to be more accurate) i ask this because some AIs there are needed modifications in the edu that are required for it to run ? DID you make the statistics changes on daves edu please more info could help figure what the problem may be
... ... ...

In case of 3.4 XAI, not required to run but to get best performance. XAI performance is heavily dependant on unit statistics. If you had, say, archers with 20 ranged attack and AP, they would chop down the AI melee stacks to bits before they reached the enemy lines. Or, in case of overpowered heavy cavalry in terms of melee endurance but inferior in actual charge, the AI wouldn't use them to their full potential because it would focus on flanking and withdrawing from charges like traditional heavy cavalry instead of using them like highly mobile 'melee' units.

We can't tell the AI (3.4 version-wise) 'hey look, this units has these x,y,z stats, it would do best in this, this and this'. On per-unit basis we can only make sure it knows IN GENERAL what to do with it's heavy cavalry based on our 'balance model' for it (if we assume heavy cavalry should have potent charge and be endurable in melee versus weak troops but get chop down to bits in melee versus heavily armoured, professional AP troops or spears/pikes, then we will encourage flanking and re-charging after withdrawing ... if we seem them as 'charge-once to close the distance and then melee' units instead, then naturally we will encourage different behaviour).

That said, when we have our stereotyped model of preferred actions for the heavy cavalry, we have to dig through EDU and adjust ALL heavy cavalry units to fit the model if we want to get max performance. That's because while AI can decide whether to play defensive or offensive based on total sum of it's strength of troops versus the player, it won't do anything smart on per-unit basis unless all it's units have stats following the AI performance balance design, because it's too stupid to act like the player (and player in this case just looks at the unit type and it's stats and knows for instance than he can abuse his over the top unit to play in non-traditional manner causing the AI troubles and not expect the same behaviour from AI versus his own army).

@ magefsx

The only way to find out is to download 'Kdiff' program (google it, it's freeware) and as first file import the EDU from 'christmas pack' and as the second file import your own EDU.

The program will show in red how different is your file from the christmas one. Then, you can dig through the changes and try to make a random guess why it crashes. If you fail to guess what it is, then you can only recover original sections of the file bit-by-bit to identify the issue. If you will go from top to bottom of the file, the last change which lead to proper game loading is ONE of the issues with 100% accuracy, and all changes restored above might but don't have to be the case. Also, it wouldn't hurt to send PM to Dave to ask what has he changed exactly and that is causing the game to crash. I don't know, perhaps a unit or two has different ownership now? Say, unit X is now recruitable by both Spain and Portugal and not only Spain as before, but your modified EDU doesn't reflect the change done to EDB which allowed such recruitment. You have to find it own on yourself

[Soul Firez]

As stated some AIs require specific edu changes not all most are simply throw in and use (but will work better with edu balance)

I have never used Kdiff but i do use examdiff which is extremely easy to use i guess along the same lines as Kdiff with showing the differences in red but it does have the feature of a simple click to add the changed features to the second file

[Achilla]

I have never used Kdiff but i do use examdiff which is extremely easy to use i guess along the same lines as Kdiff with showing the differences in red but it does have the feature of a simple click to add the changed features to the second file

Examdiff ;d? Didn't hear of this one ;d But I guess the functionality is the same, so ;d

[Soul Firez]

Dont get me wrong everything you gave was indeed sound advice heck i would hire you as my post writer as i have found i am uterly terrible at trying to explain things( i have expressed this many times and many have said some of my directions are confusing)

Thats why you will never find me writing a tut on anything i would most likely confuse more than help My motives for asking the questions i did of the OP was to get to exactly what he had added to KGCM as this may help point to what no longer matches something else be it from his work or downloaded submods

Ps Miikill has forgotten more about AI then i will learn (not my usual modding field ) Him and xyrex(forgive the spelling mate) are masters in AI i am little more than an educated dabbler to that field

[The Holy Pilgrim]

1) There is no attachment but I think you may have changed the EDU too far, as in you went outside the hardcoded limits. Here's the Guide to the EDU (link) and here's the hardcoded limits (link)

2) Are you making sure the mini-map isn't out-dated (not explored in a while)? Toggle_fow reveals the complete (and updated) mini-map, but once you turn it off, it goes off of what you have last seen. Send one of your scouts there and the region should become the normal colors of the controling faction.

3) This is not a bug. It's just the AI has never "wanted" to take it.

4) here's a link to a tutorial (link)

[Magefsx]

sorry, i forgot about the upload. here it is:
@soul firez
1)as far as i know i am using the BAI and CAI that came with original KGCM (4.2+present)
2)only crimson tide. no modification of anything except EDU and the money script for ireland from 10000 to 7000 on VH and H setting
4)jolly good!
also if i can make a recomendation for your mod. Do you think you can change the faction names back to their originals rather than "kingdom of x," because even though it may be more historically accurate, it can create some inconsistencies in grammer(sorry, i know i'm being very picky) e.g. the pope panel - i vaguely remember. Another picky thing is when the lithuanian king dies, it says the "pagan" king is dead, even when he has converted to catholocism. Changing it (if possible) to "lithuanian" would work better.= my pickyness


@holy pilgrim
1)i shall have a look at these in due course, thanks for the links
2)even with toggle_fow i still have this problem, ill upload a screenie at some point
3)at least im not the only one
4)i think i'll leave Soul Firez to it , but thanks again- but how to you see what the (x,y) co-ordinates of locations on the map?- in order to change the locations of some of the custom battle map locations which are a bit odd

[Magefsx]

1)@ holy pilgrim
looked at your links, but they dont change much. Dont worry about it

[Soul Firez]

To see the x,y location on the campaign map you need to open the console (eg by pressing the ~ button ) and then type show_cursorstat hit enter and where ever you have your cursor it will put out the x,y location of that spot

@Holy that link you gave him was a brilliant tut on making hordes more effective not much help in making an invasion script though But the horde AI ideas in it are spot on i used very similar tactics myself as hording and re emerging are quite important in my submod

I dont think he has gone over the hard coded limits of the EDU if he has only altered stats not added troops? ill check his EDU but yes if he added a troop it will instantly no longer work as KGCM is at max units

Although you were joking about the AI not wanting that settlement i actually think your bang on the money with it there are many factors that affect AI attack priorities

[Magefsx]

The problem with the EDU was that one unit has been swapped for another.
The two attachments portray the border problems i wrote about earlier, and im unsure if it is now affecting gameplay, as there is a Jihad on constantinople (city:byzantine, region:venice)but the three full stacks of egyptian armies seem to be walking around in its zone of control
I'm interested to see if anyone has seen this before?