A question about hordes

[Invoker]

I posted this partly in the Imperator thread, but I thought I'd ask a broader audience so I could get a good answer.

How can I enable to faction to horde? I assume I have to add lines in descr_sm_factions.txt
And I believe I also must give the units I specify for the horde the can_horde ability in export_descr_unit

Am I correct in these steps? What else do I have to do, if anything, to make a faction horde. I play Imperator II, and would like to turn the more nomadic and barbaric factions into hording factions when they are wiped out, just to better simulate, in my opinion, the movement and displacement of these people when they were conquered.

Any help would be appreciated, I'm fairly new to modding myself, and just curious.

[Maximus Lazero]

Haha....a Roman horde....

[The Walrus]

I posted this partly in the Imperator thread, but I thought I'd ask a broader audience so I could get a good answer.

How can I enable to faction to horde? I assume I have to add lines in descr_sm_factions.txt
And I believe I also must give the units I specify for the horde the can_horde ability in export_descr_unit

Am I correct in these steps? What else do I have to do, if anything, to make a faction horde. I play Imperator II, and would like to turn the more nomadic and barbaric factions into hording factions when they are wiped out, just to better simulate, in my opinion, the movement and displacement of these people when they were conquered.

Any help would be appreciated, I'm fairly new to modding myself, and just curious.

Not too sure. Check the vanilla BI files

[Invoker]

Not too sure. Check the vanilla BI files

That is a good idea...thanks

[AngryTitusPullo]

That is a good idea...thanks

Add can_horde attribute in EDU for unit listed in the dsm_faction.txt and you're done.

[Invoker]

Add can_horde attribute in EDU for unit listed in the dsm_faction.txt and you're done.

Right now I'm trying to make sarmatia a horde. It seems numidia is already, but I decided to mess with sarmatia. So I put several of their units under ;horde_unit in dsm_faction.txt, then took those units and added can_horde to their attributes in EDU. The game still crashes however on launch, saying that I have assigned a hording unit to a non-hording faction.

I seem to have discovered the problem. For some reason my desc_sm_faction file I got with Imperator II had listed before horde_unit a semicolon, which seems to be causing the error message. After removing all horde abilities from units and factions, I gave Parthia's units the can_horde atrribute and added these units to the desc_sm_faction file along with the necessary text for horde factions taken from the bi folder. Without the semicolon the error messages disappear; I am not sure that the faction will horde when destroyed, but its not crashing immediately. I'll have to play a while to find out.

I'm considering giving these factions the horde ability: Numidia, Sarmatia, Parthia, Germania, Gallia and Iberia. I feel these societies were quite mobile and had the potential to respond to invasion by moving and fleeing. Any comments on this list?

[AngryTitusPullo]

Did you add this entry in the dsm_faction.txt for hording faction ?

horde_min_units 60
horde_max_units 100
horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde 20
horde_unit_per_settlement_population 300
horde_min_named_characters 4
horde_max_percent_army_stack 80
horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture 33
horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture 50
horde_disband_percent_on_settlement_capture 100

Double check you DS file as not to give hoede units in the starting army if your hording faction already starts with a city/town.

[Oddball_E8]

hording doesnt work with the RTW.exe
neither does shieldwall, generals or the swimming feature...

these were all introduced in BI

[lebr]

Wasn't there in the original BI game a button to leave a town and start a horde? I don't know much about modding faction/map/town abilities, but it would be cool to get that function back in RTR for some hordeable (is that a word?) factions.

[The Walrus]

Thanks Angry. This might go into my mod in a patch

[Invoker]

Still messing with my horde factions, now should I not make factions with the horde ability start with horde units if they have a city? If so, do I just give them units without the horde ability (which should be few to none in my opinion)? I'm about to add the horde ability to a single factions and some units, then just blaze through turns and wait until they get eliminated (by taking away their resources in descr_strat) and see if the function works right,

For some reason, I keep thinking of the horde like unit from Command and Conquer Generals, the angry mob you can equip with molotov cocktails and ak-47s...

[The Walrus]

Still messing with my horde factions, now should I not make factions with the horde ability start with horde units if they have a city? If so, do I just give them units without the horde ability (which should be few to none in my opinion)? I'm about to add the horde ability to a single factions and some units, then just blaze through turns and wait until they get eliminated (by taking away their resources in descr_strat) and see if the function works right,

For some reason, I keep thinking of the horde like unit from Command and Conquer Generals, the angry mob you can equip with molotov cocktails and ak-47s...

I don't know how to do that. Try looking at the Huns or Vandals in vanilla BI

[Invoker]

Eh, my continued experimentation has yielded only CTDs. Parthia was my chosen guinea pig faction, and after giving all their unique units the horde ability and listing these units in descr_sm_factions along with the necessary horde steps, then taking away all of their settlements since I've heard they shouldn't start with horde units. This yielded an errorless CTD, I may have made a typo in one of the files.

But for now I'm tired of dealing with this for today, I'll try more tomorrow maybe.