Dismounting generals...

[Taelok]

Ok I have a few questions as my search didn't show anything:

1) Is it possible to make your family members appear on foot instead of on cavalry.

2) Is it possible to make the default unit for family members a certain unit, say Praetorians.

E.g you get the 'Come of age' announcement, click the picture and see your new general. You zoom to his location and see his portrait on the unit card. When using him in battle, he shows up on foot, with a unit of praetorian at his side.

Is this possible? Thanks in advance.

[Lusted]

1) Yes

2) Yes. In export_descr_unit.txt, try and find the entry for the roman general, and replace most of it with that for the Praetorian entry, making sure you keep the general_unit attribute.

[Taelok]

I tried it, but got a CTD. I was trying it with the Spartans and this is what I did:

type te greek general's guard cavalry
dictionary greek_generals_guard_cavalry ; General's Armoured Bodyguard
category cavalry
class heavy
voice_type General_1
soldier greek_royal_cavalry, 12, 0, 1
mount generals horse
mount_effect elephant -8, camel -4
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, general_unit_upgrade
formation 1.5, 4, 3, 6, 3, square
stat_health 2, 0
stat_pri 10, 9, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 12, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 11, 6, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 1, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground 0, 0, -6, 0
stat_mental 25, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 2840, 172, 110, 160, 1020
ownership seleucid, macedon, romans_scipii, romans_brutii, egypt

type greek hoplite spartan xgm
dictionary greek_hoplite_spartan_xgm ; General's Armoured Bodyguard
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type General_1
soldier greek_hoplite_spartan_xgm, 45, 0, 1.3
officer greek_standard
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, very_hardy, general_unit_upgrade
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 5,square,
stat_health 2, 0
stat_pri 16,8, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25, 1
stat_pri_attr spear
stat_sec 16,4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 8, 9, 5, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 1, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground 2, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 40,disciplined,highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 32, 20000, 430, 200, 200, 1500
ownership greek_cities

The first entry is the original greek_general unit, which I removed ownership from the greek_cities from. The second is a duplicate, but with the Spartans put in the place of the general.

[Watchman]

I understand it'd be a pretty good idea to make the general's bodyguard unit separate. Else you'll need to do a whole lot of additional modding unless you want said unit to be generally recruitable (with generals and all, which AFAIK is a BI feature), and if you go changing unit ownerships I'm pretty sure you'll need to make relevant alterations to export_descr_building too to avoid an error when the game parses the files at the start.

Far as I know the following sequence works, or at least it did when I made a few scratch-built FamiCav units for my copy of EB.

1) Remove the faction from the ownership list of the old GenBG unit.

2) Make a new unit entry for your brand new GenBG (usual method is copy-pasting a suitable elite unit), adding general_unit to the attributes (or general_unit_upgrade if appropriate - recall that you'll need both pre- and post-upgrade BG...) and making sure only the faction(s) you specifically want to use it for are on the ownership line. The game uses the first general_unit(_upgrade)/faction match it finds when it parses the files at the start, you see.

3) Alter at the very least the "type" line so when the program looks up the unit it doesn't hit a double (ie. the original unit and the new GenBG); IIRC the unit id in the "dictionary" line (eg. greek_generals_guard_cavalry) is only used to look up the unit description text in export_unit (in the "text" folder), so that one's not terribly important.

4) Find the descr_strat.txt file in the relevant campaign/map/etc. folder and make sure you alter the factions' initial bodyguards appropriately (if the new GenBG unit is pre-upgrade anyway). Rest assured there'll be trouble otherwise.

5) Delete the file map.rwm in the same folder so the "campaign settings" the game has saved there based on the file parsing it does are reseted. There's almost certainly going to be trouble otherwise.

6) Start a new campaign. In my experience messing with already existing GenBGs to this degree during a campaign causes problems, as what the assorted files tell the game no longer match the data saved. (Just altering stats, models, animations etc. causes no issues - but here you've gone and replaced an entire category of units, and the game gets kind of confused when the units in the saved game (say, Greek Cities GenBGs) no longer match the relevant entry in the EDU.)

[Ghost_loy]

you have an error..
type te greek general's guard cavalry
get rid of the te

[Faris ad Din]

I tried it, but got a CTD. I was trying it with the Spartans and this is what I did:



The first entry is the original greek_general unit, which I removed ownership from the greek_cities from. The second is a duplicate, but with the Spartans put in the place of the general.

Hmm, dunno... did you check if you added the proper skeletons in descr_model_battle.txt? For example "greek_royal_cavalry" (for the "greek general's guard cavalry") would have:

type greek_royal_cavalry ; combat spear
skeleton fs_hc_spearman, fs_hc_swordsman

"hc" probably standing for "horse class"

The Greek Spartan Hoplite unit would have:

type greek_hoplite_spartan_pylos
skeleton fs_slow_spearman, fs_slow_swordsman

You would need to add the proper skeleton to enable the right animation... at the least this is a common mistake I make when I'm modding my own units!

[dvk901]

Here is a working example of a dismounted General:

type greek governor
dictionary greek_governor ; Greek Governor
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type General_1
soldier greek_hoplite, 20, 0, 1
mount_effect elephant -8, camel -4
attributes general_unit, command
formation 1, 1, 0.8, 0.8, 8, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 14, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 12 ,0.7
stat_pri_attr spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec 10, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 10 ,0.7
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 8, 5, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 3
stat_ground 3, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 25, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 2
stat_fire_delay 50000
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 0, 600, 100, 70, 110, 100
ownership greek_cities

If you want this General to be recruitable, it must NOT have this line in it:

'general_unit_upgrade'

It should be: 'general_unit'.....Instant CTD otherwise.

Since the Spartans are a recruitable unit, I think this is your problem.