IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[leo.civil.uefs]

When makanyane asks "any other ideas?" to ME, its a sign that our sucess chances are minimum, lol.

No mak, no ideas, I suppose its imposible then.

I actually dont have many problems with the siege towers size, its just for 1 or 2 of my settlements that the sizes dont match, but the functionality is kept, its just that the soldiers jump to the wall when the tower is bigger than what it should be, but very rare in my mod anyway.

My wish was to make walls and gates some like 50% stronger for dwarves and maybe 25% for gondor, not that necessary anyway, and I would need to think twice about the ballance as the AI builds siege engines and gather siege weapons based on the vanilla values so maybe siege battles would get messed with AI never beeing able to reach the plaza due to the strenght of the obstacles.

Thanks anyway!

[leo.civil.uefs]

Mak what exactly prevent siege weapons from beeing deployed on walls?

I did look, am fairly sure there was an answer to that as the german mod that stuck cannons on the 'walls' did something about it
(as well as/ apart from just needing a huge area up there to deploy things)

unfortunately both my memory, and the forum search function seem to be defunct at the moment so I can't figure out what it was....

I do remember it didn't work that well for them though, you kind of got the option to deploy stuff onto the huge 'wall' top surface area at the game start, but it was quite difficult to do and you couldn't get it to move off again during battle

[makanyane]

ahhh... I think it probably involved the bit in the middle being a 'bridge' instead of a wall/deployment.... erm, anyway will try and re-find the info on that

for gates/wall strength, per faction there doesn't seem to be a lot you can do. but you could possibly manipulate the tower upgrade options
tower_level 2
works as an EDB capability so can probably be limited via the requires factions type thing...

gate_strength 2
type stuff is included in the core buildings EDB capabilities, adjusting that might work, I've not tested it, presumably it's meant to increment the settlement up to the higher levels of the gate options where they exist like

	gateway
	{
		full_health 550
		battle_stats flammability_medium impact_damage_high
		localised_name gateway
		projectile_impacts_all_hit_gate
		medium_wooden
		medium_reinforced
		medium_iron

so strength 1 would use medium_wooden etc... maybe, am not sure if it'll provide a difference or allow a 'requires' condition... wall_level which was my original problem doesn't seem to do anything at all.

[leo.civil.uefs]

I found the link between descr_walls.txt and export_descr_buildings.txt.

In descr_walls.txt you have entries like this:

; SHORT WOODEN WALLS
wall
{
    level 0
    siege_tower_size too_small


    wall
    {
        full_health 250

And in export_descr_buildings.txt you have this:

wooden_pallisade city requires factions { gondor, northern_european, mesoamerican, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, }  and hidden_resource custom_settlement
        {
            capability
            {
                wall_level 0
                tower_level 1

So I just copied and pasted all wall entries in descr_walls.txt and and gave them new levels, the last one for the vanilla ones was level 4 (huge stone walls), so my new ones started with level 5 (short wooden walls) until level 8 (huge stone walls).

Then, in export_descr_buildings.txt, I just removed southern_european (Dwarves) from all core buildings for cities, copied all these core buildings, set them only for southern_european, this way creating new core buildings exclusive for dwarves. And then, in each of these new core buldings I changed the wall_level to match the new ones I created in descr_walls.txt.

Then I changed the names of the new core buildings entries in export_descr_buildings.txt to new ones like dwarven_wooden_pallisade, dwarven_wooden_wall, dwarven_stone_wall etc.

And then added all these new core buildings names to the line

levels wooden_pallisade wooden_wall stone_wall large_stone_wall huge_stone_wall

so it became like

levels wooden_pallisade wooden_wall stone_wall large_stone_wall huge_stone_wall dwarven_wooden_pallisade dwarven_wooden_wall...

Then the game crashes and the log says that there is a maximum number of levels... wich is, hardcoded, I guess.

Any idea of how to by-pass this obstacle?

[leo.civil.uefs]

ahhh... I think it probably involved the bit in the middle being a 'bridge' instead of a wall/deployment.... erm, anyway will try and re-find the info on that

So it is a matter of editing the settlement itself and not any other engine file wich could add this possibility for all units in all settlements?

If so, nevermind, thats not something that could work for us. (at least not for me).

[makanyane]

So it is a matter of editing the settlement itself and not any other engine file wich could add this possibility for all units in all settlements?

If so, nevermind, thats not something that could work for us. (at least not for me).

yeah I think it's a settlement thing, not anything to do with other text files... will try and find it, am sure I posted the answer somewhere in this thread earlier... but search & google search aren't helping

very sorry to see that you might not be able to release some of your revised settlements

EDIT: can you remember what the mod was called that had the 'cannons on wall'? If I could find that it'd probably help find the rest....

[xHolyCrusader]

[...]
EDIT: can you remember what the mod was called that had the 'cannons on wall'? If I could find that it'd probably help find the rest....

It's the 1648 mod (dreißigjähriger krieg): http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forum...y-Years-of-War

[leo.civil.uefs]

very sorry to see that you might not be able to release some of your revised settlements

[Arandir Tur-Anion de Bodemloze]

Yes, there is only ten level of a building tree in the EDB. But another idea would perhaps using something like :

level 0 requires faction { gondor, } or whatever the faction is

The only problem is that it will depend of the faction owner of the walls. if I remeber there is a code in the EDB using the faction builder

Found it, it seems to be the function, building_factions. i gotta make some test after I shut down my computer

My idea definitely does not work. Something should be hardcoded somewhere

[Arandir Tur-Anion de Bodemloze]

So, this are my return for my test. I manage to create a new city level in the EDB, so the game didn't crashed because of the EDB, but haveing in the descr_walls something like :

wall
{
    level 5
    siege_tower_size too_small


    wall
    {
        full_health 250

makesthe game crashing (it is sayed in the log). So it seems the descr_walls cannot accept more than 4 level of walls.

[makanyane]

The link between wall level in edb and descr walls doesn't work anyway , changinging the level of existing core buildings doesn't do anything . Tried that before...

What I meant was immeediarely after the gate strength bit in EDB add requires factions { northern_european, }

Then copy just that line and paste immediately below it, and change gate strength number and cultures

Still might not workmbut its about the only thing I haven't tries... am on phone or I'd test it myself

[makanyane]

The link between wall level in edb and descr walls doesn't work anyway

am getting the impression no-one's listening to me..... check the vanilla citadel castle
it says in EDB it's
wall_level 4
it doesn't use level 4 from descr_walls.txt - only the huge city does (Leo will know this from the ladder/tower height issue)


EDB does accept
gate_strength 1 requires factions { northern_european, }
gate_strength 2 requires factions { mesoamerican, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, nativeindian, }

but not sure if that's working either - needs some extreme values in the gates section to test....

[leo.civil.uefs]

am getting the impression no-one's listening to me..... check the vanilla citadel castle
it says in EDB it's
wall_level 4
it doesn't use level 4 from descr_walls.txt - only the huge city does (Leo will know this from the ladder/tower height issue)


EDB does accept
gate_strength 1 requires factions { northern_european, }
gate_strength 2 requires factions { mesoamerican, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, nativeindian, }

but not sure if that's working either - needs some extreme values in the gates section to test....

So no walls, we can only change the gates.

Mak your english is complicated for me sometimes.

PS: You are the person I dont know that makes me laugh more. My wife does not understand why I laugh alone in front of my pc.

[leo.civil.uefs]

So, this are my return for my test. I manage to create a new city level in the EDB, so the game didn't crashed because of the EDB, but haveing in the descr_walls something like :

wall
{
    level 5
    siege_tower_size too_small


    wall
    {
        full_health 250

makesthe game crashing (it is sayed in the log). So it seems the descr_walls cannot accept more than 4 level of walls.

yes descr_walls accept more than 4. I did 8.
copy and paste all the wall entries and change the level, thats what I did. And the game did not crash.

[Arandir Tur-Anion de Bodemloze]

This is strange. Can you perhaps copy your work here (only the descr_wall)

[BM309K58SMERCH]

Just a simple question: How do I patch this if I download it?
IWTE seems to be updating very constantly, and I'm afraid if any differences in versions mean I might have to redo my work all over. Also, I am a bit lazy when it comes to updating...

[leo.civil.uefs]

Just a simple question: How do I patch this if I download it?
IWTE seems to be updating very constantly, and I'm afraid if any differences in versions mean I might have to redo my work all over. Also, I am a bit lazy when it comes to updating...

Dont worry about this. You will not in any means need to redo your work in a custom settlement. The newer version will always be able to read the 7 files that compose a settlement.
The new versions just bring new features and bug fixes.

[wilddog]

Just a simple question: How do I patch this if I download it?
IWTE seems to be updating very constantly, and I'm afraid if any differences in versions mean I might have to redo my work all over. Also, I am a bit lazy when it comes to updating...

Dont worry about this. You will not in any means need to redo your work in a custom settlement. The newer version will always be able to read the 7 files that compose a settlement.
The new versions just bring new features and bug fixes.

Just to add to Leo's point. The current updates have all been in relation to 1) having no 'default' objects and handling the very first object being set to a main object. They have been fixed now and I don't anticipate any further changes there. 2) adding an ability to correct (via IWTE) the DBM settlements which have several areas of corruption in them (they were not created via IWTE but via Johnwhile's 3dsmax tool). This isn't really an issue for vanilla or IWTE created models but was to help the EB team convert those models for their use.

Main items I am working on are the shading of structures and impact of effects on structures. Currently these are simply defaulted (which effectively removes them). Any change here for the first item will allow a carry over of existing shading or resetting of existing shading as an option. So no real impact for that. For the effects bit this will simply be automatic to correctly assign them and will be behind the scenes.

Whenever a fault has been found with IWTE I generally release with a process update that self corrects. Only occasion we couldn't that I can remember was the items Leo recently raised which was tied to the first point above... I just hadn't expected anyone to do that but as said thats fixed now.

[Kull]

Just to add to Leo's point. The current updates have all been in relation to 1) having no 'default' objects and handling the very first object being set to a main object. They have been fixed now and I don't anticipate any further changes there. 2) adding an ability to correct (via IWTE) the DBM settlements which have several areas of corruption in them (they were not created via IWTE but via Johnwhile's 3dsmax tool). This isn't really an issue for vanilla or IWTE created models but was to help the EB team convert those models for their use.

For which we are very, very grateful!

Whenever a fault has been found with IWTE I generally release with a process update that self corrects.

Does that mean the current IWTE "C" version has been retrofitted with the two changes affecting .worldterrain files? If not, no worry, I'll wait patiently.

[wilddog]

Does that mean the current IWTE "C" version has been retrofitted with the two changes affecting .worldterrain files? If not, no worry, I'll wait patiently.

Hi Kull, the changes have been made but not released. They will be released with the next version which will be a 13_12_A version ( it only indicates year and month and any updates to that). I was mostly working on the shading item and need to tidy that up to release but I'm struggling to work out an algorithm for determining interior v exterior corners (and that won't take forever to run on a large model).

I had meant that generally if I've done something wrong on IWTE I then try and build in a process which looks for the incorrect settings and then corrects them in order to minimize throw away effort by people using it. The DBM models are a little bit different as the bugs have been created from their 3ds max process not IWTE... beats me if that makes them enhancements for IWTE though

Once I've sorted out the effects bits and the shading then I'll add a process to IWTE to generate them. This will correct IWTE models which have effects. The DBM models don't look like they have any effects although they used the same 'incorrect' defaults for the shading and effects bit that we introduced for IWTE. The process I put in for IWTE will also allow the correct settings for no effects.

I'll probably launch the new code in the next few days its only me trying to progress on the shading issue that's delaying it as I thought it would be a bit more straight forward... sorry.

For info the shading issue is used to darken the internal corners. I think CA use it to help cover the issue that light seems to come from them if you look very closely. You can prevent that by amending the models (which is what we were doing in PKH but it adds a lot more time to something that already takes enough time). As I want to use this process myself that's why I'm spending a bit more time on it. In Milkshape I may add a process tied to the joint weighting to allow the shading to be carried from vanilla models (its currently lost) and then amended but as its a vertex basis and there are a lot of them in the larger models I doubt people will really use it to amned themselves unless its for an obvious correction.