The function of the hidden resource 'arguin'?

[Gigantus]

Lately I came across it again and I am still wondering what the hidden resource arguin does. It's not script related so I am guessing it's something hard coded like the no_brigands and no_pirates hidden resource. Which leads me to believe that regions with this hidden resource will not be part of the AI's strategic calculations, eg attack.

Can anyone shed light on this?

Edit: unlike no_pirates and no_brigands it's not in the executable - so is it a dud?

[Withwnar]

I thought that atlantic was unused too until I found it in the guilds file. But yeah, arguin isn't used anywhere by anything. Maybe it was for something that was never implemented, like an AOR.

[Gigantus]

Yeah, the atlantic one popped up when I did a content search of the whole unpacked game - but no arguin. Guess it's just some unimplemented stuff as you said.

[Withwnar]

Maybe it's only for argument's sake.

[Callistonian]

This thread mentions that no_brigands and no_pirates have some sort of hard coded function. Does anyone know precisely what they do? And are there any other hidden resources that I should avoid deleting?

[Gigantus]

They do exactly what they say: no pirate and no brigand spawns in that region. Can be reverted via script - for that see the 'Aztecs discovered' script section in vanilla.

[Callistonian]

OK so, we have no_pirates, no_brigands, and rome which definitely do things. Then in the 'maybe' pile we have atlantic, arguin, and the guild HRs. Does horde_target do anything? Are there any others?

[Gigantus]

horde_target designates a target for hordes. Limited range of effect, there is an article in the text workshop about horde mechanics and the target effect.
crusade and jihad designate a target for the respective mechanics, no range limit

[Withwnar]

Then in the 'maybe' pile we have atlantic, arguin, and the guild HRs.

I was under the impression that atlantic has no hardcoded special meaning. Its only 'speciality' is that it is used in vanilla export_descr_guilds, but any HR could be used instead for that purpose. "atlantic" is not mentioned in the exe, ergo no harcodedness associated with it.

Guild HRs were discussed around here somewhere recentlyish - 6 months ago?

[Callistonian]

crusade and jihad designate a target for the respective mechanics, no range limit

Do they though? This thread seems to imply that there is no way to pick specific settlements are crusade/jihad targets. Do these hidden resources actually contribute somehow to the selection of targets? I believe you can still have crusades and jihads without these hidden resources, which would mean that the presence of the hidden resources only influences, to some unknown extent, the selection possible targets.

[Gigantus]

In vanilla without fail the first crusade goes to Cairo (designated in descr_regions) if it is AI triggered. The player gets a selection of targets on requesting a crusade - I am not sure if it is comprised of the designated settlements in descr_regions, possibly is.

[Nordlaender]

I was under the impression that atlantic has no hardcoded special meaning. Its only 'speciality' is that it is used in vanilla export_descr_guilds, but any HR could be used instead for that purpose. "atlantic" is not mentioned in the exe, ergo no harcodedness associated with it.

Guild HRs were discussed around here somewhere recentlyish - 6 months ago?

My understanding of the HR atlantic was that it allowed either the Explorer's Guild to be built there or that faction or region could send ships to America, whereas those regions without the HR atlantic could not sail to America. Of course, I could be totally wrong about this.

[Gigantus]

The first part is correct, as mentioned by withnwar, the second part is not. That is achieved by the 'world is round' event which unlocks the building of ocean going ships.

[Nordlaender]

OK so, we have no_pirates, no_brigands, and rome which definitely do things. Then in the 'maybe' pile we have atlantic, arguin, and the guild HRs. Does horde_target do anything? Are there any others?

Horde_target does designate a city that the Mongols will try to capture. However, it only works if it is closer than some other city. Since the Mongol Horde spawns in the Urgench region in Stainless Steel 6.4, it immediately moves south and destroys the Kwarezms and then on to Baghdad and then Jerusalem every time.

If you change their spawn location to an area further north, they will attack the Russian cities that are labeled (or not labeled) as horde_target on their way to Novgorod and Poland, which historically they actually did. They did take Baghdad, but never marched on the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and did not spend a lot of time hanging around in the Caucasus mountains, as far as I know from my reading. They swept over Russia and attacked the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and possibly went into Hungary. In SS 6.4, they don't do that. You need to change their spawn points so that they will follow that path.

[Nordlaender]

The first part is correct, as mentioned by withnwar, the second part is not. That is achieved by the 'world is round' event which unlocks the building of ocean going ships.

So, all factions are allowed to sail to America in the vanilla version? I never got that far because I won before that event or before anyone could sail there, so I never knew the answer to that question. Do you know? (Thanks!)

[Gigantus]

Nearly all factions (except mongols, timurids, aztecs and slave) are able to build ocean going ships after the event. All ships that have the heavy warship classification are ocean going:

baghlah (egypt, turks, moors)
caravel (portugal, spain)
carrack (england, france, hre, scotland, denmark, normans, saxons, venice, sicily, milan, papal_states, russia, poland, hungary, byzantium)
grande carrack (portugal, spain)

[Jadli]

Atlantic is used as target for explorers guild missions. It means that you can receive the specific guild_take_settlement mission only for regions that have atlantic hidden resource

[Callistonian]

My list of hidden resources with confirmed underlying code is as follows:

;    crusade - hard coded, target for crusades
;    jihad - hard coded, target for jihads
;    italy - hard coded, specifies region that when upgraded to Large City triggers Marian Reforms, default bodyguard switcher for 'roman' culture factions
;    no_pirates - hard coded, prevents slave fleets from spawning, can be toggled off in script
;    no_brigands - hard coded, prevents slave armies from spawning, can be toggled off in script
;    horde_target - hard coded, target for hordes to settle

It's still not clear to me how (where, when, why) the AI decides to settle a horde. It's definitely not as simple as picking the closest region with horde_target from where the horde spawns. You can have 1 horde_target HR on the entire map, and that won't necessarily be where the AI settles. That HR may be one of several parameters the AI takes into consideration such as settlement level, population, income, garrison, turns distance, etc. It would be nice to know exactly how the AI picks their target and if there's a way to force the AI settle somewhere.

[bitterhowl]

I made AI profile for Mongols in BellumCrucis submod. There are more than 10 horde_target in descr_regions in original mod and it's used there as AOR HR. There was a problem with horde behavior on initial stage of it's appearance because stacks went chaotically between target settlements. So I made only one horde_target in nearest region to spawn and everything became just perfect! After conquering target settlement Mongols are proactive and by 100-th turn after being spawned they're near Krakow without any additional scripting except second and third waves spawn.

Without any horde_target they just stand on one place in a region next to their spawn point and do nothing.

With 2 horde_target regions located near each other their initial behavior became less effective.

[Gigantus]

Memory tells me that somewhere in the workshop there is a fairly detailed investigation of the horde behavior, just can't find it right now.