Efficiency and limitations of sripts in modding!

[Maetharin]

Hi you guys!

AFAIK the only way to properly overcome the stupid limitations of the Vanilla engine right now is through scripting, as Mitch´s Populous mod so flashily displays...
How much can we actually acchieve by scripts? What are their limitations? How much do they slow down the game?

I have so many ideas to make this game better (in my opinon), but neither the knowledge nor the time to properly implement them.
Also would scripting be the means to do so?

First of all, would it be possible to show the background information of the economy? Like how much of a certain ressource do i have, where do i get it from, how do i get to my trading partners, how much does it cost me to transport it? Also, could we implement price control over those things we trade with? If I´m the only faction providing another faction with a certain ressource, shouldn´t i be able to control how much i get per sold amount of said ressource?

Also could food properly be implemented as ressource? A surplus of food could be traded with another faction, not just by edict.

The provision of troops was a very delicate task, if not supplied properly, an army couldn´t march, siege weapons couldn´t fire, soldiers mutinied and so on.
Could this also be handled by scripts? When a food shortage happens due to a bad harvest (events?) or a sunk grain fleet, could one skirt one´s food supplies towards one´s armies,
and ignore one´s population to press one´s campaign?

Additionally, if one were dissolve an army of professional soldiers, like marian legionaries or mercenaries, in an already settled land, could this decrease puplic order and vice versa?

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

There are almost NO limitations when it comes to scripting. only engine limitations with how mutch scripts it can handle but a good scripter can do alot in RTW II i believe its way more accessible then any other TW.

So yes i think you can add new features like that but the only problems you properly would face is that the AI cant use those new features because of being hardcoded.

But im now scripter only know you can do alot when it comes to scripts in RTW II.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What i like to see is a script that connects different historical formations to generals maybe by a trait, So that every faction uses different formations. That can be easy to script and the AI will have no problems.

[Butan]

There is some good scripters in the developer team, they have some really cool ideas for the future. As Sir Pee Alot said, scripting can solve almost everything, but its a really hard work because they have to force the game to do things its not supposed to, so even though everything can be done, not everything will be done because they have to choose what to do first.

You will see more scripts in the future I'm sure, and they will create really interesting things in Rome 2.

[Dresden]

There are limitations to scripting in terms of what commands exist in the lua itself. For example, you can lock a technology but not unlock it. There are many examples like this one.

However, there are also many, many things you can do with scripting. The issue that arises is the amount of lag/load time you add to the game with some of the scripting mechanisms.

.Mitch. is one of the most talented scripters in modding (if not the most talented), so we are always interested in what he is doing and how he is doing it. We do indeed have many future ideas for game mechanics involving scripting, but these will be for later releases of the mod.