IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[Falconwatch]

Alright we're giving it a try, gonna take some time for them since it's such a large structure.

I have another question although I'm not sure if this is the right place to post it, it's about siege AI.
Because some of our custom cities have unbreakable walls (no animation), is there anyway to let the siege attacket AI
to use their artillery to target the gate instead of walls? As it has no effects at all.

[Falconwatch]

Sorry for the double post, but another urgent issue just showed up for us, its with regard to importing stone forts,
which txt file do we need to edit and how do we write the pkg file for this since u said it's different last time.

[makanyane]

Ahh, oops forgot to reply to first post sorry

Sorry for the double post, but another urgent issue just showed up for us, its with regard to importing stone forts,
which txt file do we need to edit and how do we write the pkg file for this since u said it's different last time.

I was assuming you were pre-placing them... in which case you need to change/check “descr_campaign_db.xml”
and have this in it - so they don't dissappear and generals can't build them

<destroy_empty_forts bool="false"/>
<can_build_forts bool="false"/>
<fort_fortification_level string="3"/>

you then want a pkg pointed to the path for your fort .world - the Name: entry inside the pkg should be something unique (in case you've been copying them) - so say something like "my_fort_4" and the Variant: should be the same name, and the Type: should be 'default_fort.

to place it/them, you add the forts just above the "script" line at the bottom of descr_strat.txt like;

region My_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 309 129 my_fort_4 culture northern_european

I have another question although I'm not sure if this is the right place to post it, it's about siege AI.
Because some of our custom cities have unbreakable walls (no animation), is there anyway to let the siege attacket AI
to use their artillery to target the gate instead of walls? As it has no effects at all.

trouble is what they do normally is break the wall first, then if there's artillery left attack the gate, I'm not sure if that's changeable in the AI files - best ask elsewhere about that bit...

within the .world files you can change the wall breach type to 'blocked' which stops the AI firing artillery at it - unfortunately it also stops them sending ladders to it... which isn't really helpful!

if you want the wall to be able to be demolished you can make damaged models for it and just have it jumping between stages, and not animated (that's what we're going to do in PKH)

if you don't want it demolishable you could just have one damage state where it just looks a bit dented (but people don't fall off the top of wall, and attacker can't walk in) - then the artillery should move on to other targets... I'm not sure though if that might mess up the rest of the ai attack/defend decisions, it's probably something I should try to experiment with but not sure when I'll get to it.

[AntonisTheGreek]

How to open existing settlements with IWTE,and convert them to .ms3d?

[makanyane]

How to open existing settlements with IWTE,and convert them to .ms3d?

To 'open' settlement - use "worldFiles" tab at far left, and "Read 3 Binary Files"

existing settlements have lots and lots of structures you can only convert one at a time to ms3d go to
"structures" tab - select structure in Structures window, and click "Write ms3d File-incl damaged"

some structures are too large to make into and ms3d file - due to milkshape's hardcoded limits, if you need part of one of those then you need "split structure ms3d"


if you're just starting out there's a load of tutorials in here that you should have a look at

[Falconwatch]

@Mak

Ahh that explains why the fort was always disappearing when we test it
So it's basically like the pkg files before but with some name changes, thanks!

Appreciate it, saved us lots of trouble.

[wilddog]

Still working on the next IWTE version but its getting close. Its mostly tied around the strat map bits as I said before. Need to tidy up a couple of bits and highlight the map_heights pixels which count for the regions map. It now reads in a maperitive satelite data map and converts it to a map_heights TGA or HGT format capped at 3000 height (to avoid flat hills). It also can convert into a few other hypsometric formats for ease of editing and creation of radar map (stlill to add save for that).

[wilddog]

version 14_11_A is now released

with version 14_11_A
1) 3D views to support editing of map_heights.HGT
2) 3D views to support editing of map_heights.TGA.
3) Conversion between map_height.HGT and map_heights.TGA (both directions). You just need to decide when you go to open the files.
4) A loader for a TGA and PNG file which will be converted into a map_height.HGT file based on color bands. This has been set up primarily for data from maperitive (satelite data) created with the command :

generate-hypsometric ramps=0:#000001;1:#000000;2:#020000;550:#FF0000;1100:#FFFF00

(use iwte file Type -> Strat mapping Files -> Map Heights -> Import map to HGT -> IWTEscale)

5) for the HGT option you can select scales 'NEmaphgt' to display in a more natural set of hypsometric colors or 'grassmaphgt' for a more 'colored' look.

[AriovistusSuebus]

hi, guys. thank you very much for this amazing tool, once again.
here is my current work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaJz...yHAe7_&index=6


I got a question, is it possible to create unique cities?

[wilddog]

@AriovistusSuebus - thats basically the main function of the tool How unique depends on how you set the package info and whether a city can grow etc. e.g. its fairly straight forward to set a specific city for each settlement/castle level that a faction can have.

[leo.civil.uefs]

hey mak please refresh my memory, do you remember when we messed with the ambient buildings, you turned them all into small rocks to me.

Do you think it is possible to enlarge its terrain? I mean, most of them have really small terrains. cant remember exactly but I think there is some problems in enlarging the terrain.

I can enlarge tech tree terrains, like I did with the dale city that shows up in front of erebor.

[makanyane]

I think "ambient buildings" can have almost any terrain size... some of the vanilla ones like the hamlets are already quite large.
And if you want to do a custom thing to add via the battle editor you can do it via an ambient with a large terrain. (If you do actually do that, delete it's .worldpkgdesc after you've made the custom tile, so it doesn't pop up anywhere else!)


But erm, why? What are you trying to do?

[leo.civil.uefs]

Im actually thinking about adding new custom ambient buildings to replace our lovely rock, but not for them all of course, just one or two.

as in TATW factions are divided in cultures in someway that things can bring good possibilities. For example... a small dwarven fort, with some statues and all, and walls, ramps, platforms to deploy catapults etc. that would bring some random battlefield dynamic to the game.

Do you think it would be possible to add gates? towers?

[wilddog]

Hi Leo, nice to hear from you. Assume your Church project got completed?

Not sure the AI would really use any ambient battlefield item either knowing how to attack it or how to defend it. Also, not sure the gate would really work as the AI also probably didn't bring any siege weapons (other than maybe catapults) to get in it if the human player was the one who occupied it.

[leo.civil.uefs]

Hi Leo, nice to hear from you. Assume your Church project got completed?

Not sure the AI would really use any ambient battlefield item either knowing how to attack it or how to defend it. Also, not sure the gate would really work as the AI also probably didn't bring any siege weapons (other than maybe catapults) to get in it if the human player was the one who occupied it.

Hi Wilddog. Church was ready month ago or such, working in a school project now, reading one million standarts about space inside classes to accomodate all the brats, boring, so I decided to give myself some time with fantasy buildings.

The AI will not know/want to use the forts, thats just for the player.
This feature is already present in vanilla med2, some ambient buildings are farms with small fences that you can use as blockage against cavalaty charges for example.

Ok you are right about the gates, without siege engines it would be a fail.

What about towers and walls?

[makanyane]

Hi Leo, nice to see you.

Easiest way to test is just to set up an existing vanilla castle as an ambient... either by making it an additional worldpkgdesc, or by copy/paste/renaming it's .world and .worldcollision to replace an ambient you know turns up.

I've definitely tested it via using the 'battle editor' to place one on a custom tile. What I think happens (from memory) is that you, as player, can try to use it defensively, but AI won't necessarily choose to attack, same as if you park your army up a hill, they might not charge... Gate should work to get in/out, but isn't "owned" so rams aren't used and anyone can get in. You should be able to get onto walls, but towers won't fire, and as wilddog said the AI won't use it as a defense. (Can't find where I wrote down results, so memory might be wrong... if you find something different let us know!)

[leo.civil.uefs]

Hey wilddog, Im back to modding after so many IWTE versions passed.

Was comming here to complain about the new versions as I was too lazy to learn the new functions but then I got some patience and decided to try it, guess what, for my surprise, now I come here to praize you for the new functions are really good, it makes everything faster and more simple. Thanks.

Still I will keep looking for bugs to complain about... just for the sake of not loosing the habit...

preview of Gundabad movie based (The hobbit battle of five armies) on my thread.

[leo.civil.uefs]

hey guys.

Think we already talk about this but cant remember.

Im going to add trebuchets tied to walls to work as cannon towers.

Any chance of having it with proper animations? The engine accepts animations for towers beeing destroyed, walls and gates so I suppose it is virtually possible.

[wilddog]

Hi Leo
Glad you finally liked the newer painting process. Think the main bugs are tied to fidling with stratmaps and battle maps at the same time as one will block the other but I am assuming people won't really do that as there would eb no point. Next version will have the correct colors added for stratmap climates, ground types and probably features (I just need to increase the size of one of the fields to show text). I should really start to do a map with it then as I want to see the effect of having heights closer to zero than the current TGA strat mapping supports).

Regarding your question I don't see how it would be possible. If a trebuchet is part of a wall or a tower then the trigger as you said for an animation is when it is destroyed. You can't animate the trebuchet separately as its not an independent unit unless there is something you tie to the tower firing animation but that's probably just the type of arrow that's fired rather than the animation leading up to the firing.

[leo.civil.uefs]

ok so no animations.

anyway almost perfect. I found something very interesting.

Settlements can have both ballista and cannon tower buildings in stratmap. Associating this with proper edition in IWTE (Keeping 2 groups of levels for ballista towers and 3 for cannon ones), you can have both of them working in youre settlement in battlemap. Minas Tirith has now a line of ballista towers in the first line of walls and cannon (trebuchets) tied to the second level of walls, each one firing its respective shots.

I can make cannon towers to be already in Minas Tirith when the campaign starts so no risk that at some point they would be actually fire ballistas in case you only have ballista upgrade for the settlement.

It works.