Things we can fix?

[zowrath]

Everyone that's modding is doing a great job, and we're having fun!

Looking at what CA talks about concerning what to change in the future and not I am wondering if any of these things we can fix ourselves. When I started out to remove VP/CP's I knew it would take a while, and I wasn't even sure it would work but going through loads of files I finally figured it out. But as anyone who's gone through lots of these files know it's not only many of them, they reference each other some times in a weird and confusing manner as well leaving a lot of trial and error.

Things people wish CA would fix/remove/return to the old:

1. Loose formation as a choice

This is referenced a lot on the files, and thus it must be a way to turn it back on. Also because some units has this as an innate ability, like skirmishers. My guess is that if we find the right designation, we could add it to a table and make it a unit's ability.

2. Guard mode on/off

Same as above, lots of references and it is the default setting for units. Help files also has this referenced.

3. Torches removed

All units carry torches, which lets them torch gates. People wish that he AI just use siege equipment like before. I've found some reference to torch in warscape, but not like earlier incarnations of TW. If we could remove these from their inventory perhaps they can't use them? Or any other way to remove this innate ability. A workaround would be to make gates not ignitable at all, and I've tried referencing the gate as a wall but that only made it immune to damage from the torches and not the subsequent damage from the fire.

4. Continued politics and intrigue after the end of civil war

I've tried to figure out this one, but my best guess is that there's some script that turns these functions off at the start of the civil war and perhaps forgets to turn it back on. Or at least perhaps we can?

5. Manually entering the gold you want to use in diplomacy

Feel like not having to give Egpyt 10000 gold for a trade agreement when they would be ecstatic if you gave them just 3000? Yeah, me too. How?

Any other things? What you guys think?

[redxavier]

Loose formation seems the more possible fix, since there's icon for it in the game UI (change_formation_spacing.png) and every unit has both spacing values for close formation and loose formation - so a lot of the basis for it should still be there somehwere.

I'm struggling to find a db that governs guard mode, or any unit behaviour whilst in battle. There's no guard mode in the ability list, but then there wasn't one in the Shogun 2 list either.

special_ability_phases includes a column headed "requested stance", which includes entries such as taunt, cheer, raise_weapon, and bash_weapon. It will be interested to see what the full list of options for stances is, and whether you can force a unit to follow a particular behaviour for a duration determined by the rest of the entry.

unit_special_abilities then includes a column headed "assume_specific_behaviour", which activates things such as catanbrian_circle and other special formations, as well as "manual_charge" (which is not actually used by any unit). But nothing seems to govern what happens with each of these behaviours. Are they hardcoded? Only the stats (in special_ability_phase_stat_effects) seem editable, and not really in any particularly great ways. I'd love to be able to tweak the spacing or even the animation sets followed by the ability. For instance, "steady_retreat" would be awesome to actually have as a shield wall or pike wall that steps backwards.

[zowrath]

I found an entry called 'ability_defend' in the 1-day DB-files, I am not sure if that's in any way related to the Guard Mode though. Since all these are used already they are bound to be registered as a key somewhere. I've looked through the .exe and .dll to see as well. Tables hidden in the .exe/.dll is nothing new, but there's an ability key there it can be used in the outside tables as long as we find it. If it exists.

There's a lot of smart and investigative people here, I just feel confident that we can solve some or all of these issues if we put our heads together. I also added 'Continued politics & intrigue after civil war' to the first post, this should be possible as well. My guess it's a script/lua thing.


EDIT: Perhaps giving manual_charge as an ability to a unit will let it continue fight & pursuit if the enemy disengages?