Problem with a third tier of roads in a TATW submod

**euskingc** · February 27, 2016, 01:41 AM

I'm working on a submod that had a third tier of roads.

I've gone and added a few to descr_strat to see if they're working properly. They're not.

Now they seem to work fine for the human player, no matter who the human player is. But even though the AI clearly has tier 3 roads (highways) in their settlement, they will NOT have highways on their stratmap. They will merely have paved roads. Even though, as I say, the highways exist as a building in their settlement.

The human player will have both the building and the roads on the stratmap.

The tier 3 roads DO seem to give extra movement points to player when it is present compared to paved_roads.
But in the AI towns no extra movement is afforded... so I presume that rules out a problem with the strings.bin files and that it isn't just the tooltip lying, that there actually is only paved_roads there and not highways.

Any insights?

Does anyone know offhand how many levels of roads were in the original vanilla M2TW?

Also, I've noticed that in the submod folder \data\terrain\aerial_map\roads\data\terrain\aerial_map\roads there are texture and dds files for "road_highway" (note no s, highway singular) and "road_stone" but nothing for the dirt roads. Was there a file for the dirt roads in vanilla M2TW? I can only presume so, and that the mod is using it since it is absent in this folder. Correct assumption?

And what file tells the computer to look for these textures and tga.dds files in this folder? Can it be altered? Or hardcoded?

So many questions.

**Gigantus** · March 01, 2016, 11:04 PM

road levels - all models and textures are already in the vanilla game and do not need to be present unless edited. The three levels are road_dirt, road_stone and road_highway, each level has three textures. The models can be found in their sub folders of the ...\data\terrain\aerial_map\roads directory, the above textures are all in this root directory as well.

Your problem of not building will be EDB based - check the building conditions (hinterland_roads tree), eg which factions can build the individual levels and if there are additional conditions.

Edit: compare the texture files of stone and highway, the 'vanilla' textures have not much of a difference compared to dirt. The increase in movement range is due to the road_level bonus, usually starts with zero for dirt (only trade bonus) and then increases for paved and highway.

These are the tooltips entries for the three road levels:

Code:

{TMT_ROADS_TOOLTIP}Road: Allows armies to march further\nAlso adds to trade income\nThe amount of traffic indicates the amount of trade
{TMT_PAVED_ROADS_TOOLTIP}Paved road: Allows armies to march efficiently at speed\nAlso adds to trade income\nThe amount of traffic indicates the amount of trade
{TMT_HIGHWAYS_TOOLTIP}Highways: Allows armies to march long distances\nAlso adds to trade income\nThe amount of traffic indicates the amount of trade

**euskingc** · March 02, 2016, 11:42 PM

Hmm... yeah I tried setting the EDB so everyone could build it, no other conditions.
That didn't seem to make a difference either.

I've changed it back now so only a handful of factions can build it but it doesn't make a difference either. Only the human player will have them appear once they're built.
Strangest thing.

I've noticed that if the AI builds the highways, they still have paved roads on the stratmap, but the instant the human player takes over the settlement they turn into highways on the stratmap.

**Gigantus** · March 02, 2016, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by euskingc

I've noticed that if the AI builds the highways, they still have paved roads on the stratmap, but the instant the human player takes over the settlement they turn into highways on the stratmap.

That's a weird one - are there any 'faction_variant' folders around?

**euskingc** · March 03, 2016, 11:56 PM

I don't know... I'm wondering if it isn't a quirk unique to this machine as I've noticed that my vanilla installation of Third Age 3.2 does exactly the same thing, although in the state they ship it in they are unbuildable, just present from the start of the game.

But no one else has ever mentioned it as working improperly to my knowledge. Unless they shipped it without testing the feature and no one noticed... I have no idea.

**euskingc** · March 03, 2016, 11:51 PM

There are, but only of this type:
data\models_strat\residences\faction_variants

Somehow I don't think that's the droids you're looking for... or could they somehow affect it?

These faction_variant folders... other than residence what else can they be used for? You're opening up possibilities I didn't know I had.

**Gigantus** · March 04, 2016, 02:49 AM

\residences\faction_variants - that's for the settlement models, eg minas tirith
can't offer any other explanation, some graphic glitch it seems

**Frunk** · March 04, 2016, 04:50 AM

Have you reported this problem to the TATW team? They sometimes have a better understanding of what may be wrong, having actually created the mod.

**euskingc** · March 05, 2016, 02:43 AM

I posted the issue in the TATW modding questions thread. So far no one has taken a crack at it. I'm not even certain anyone/everyone else experiences the issue.
Maybe kind of like those crashes for the spider units... not everyone seems to have the issue. I'm not even sure anyone has figured out why yet.

The interesting thing about it is that it doesn't seem to be merely graphical: the movement bonus doesn't take effect until after the human player takes control of the settlement.

Or do movement bonuses in general only apply to the controlling faction of the province?

**Gigantus** · March 05, 2016, 03:03 AM

Movement bonus should apply to everyone.

**euskingc** · March 06, 2016, 12:19 AM

I have a really, really, really old laptop kicking around here somewhere... I'm going to see if I can get it to run med2 so I can test this and that sd regeneration problem to see if it isn't just this particular machine...

**euskingc** · March 07, 2016, 09:34 AM

It seems it does the same thing on the older machine as well.

**Withwnar** · May 27, 2017, 11:21 PM

We're having the same problem in another TATW submod. I even tried adding them to Bare_Geomod and the problem is there too. Exactly as described above: for AI-owned regions it looks like - and says - "Paved Roads" but for player regions it is "Highways". It's like the building's capability is "road_level 1" for AI instead of the correct "2". It's definitely not a graphics/images issue otherwise it wouldn't work for the player - whatever faction they play - and it wouldn't explain the wrong tooltip (nor the movement difference reported above).

Unless there's some mysterious setting somewhere that also needs applying, I'm thinking this is a bug in the engine.

What I don't understand is why this is the only thread I can find anywhere mentioning this bug. There's a Highways Mod with 4000+ downloads, plus surely other mods beside TATW have added highways.

The problem is easily seen in vanilla TATW: highways are named "Trade Route" (using the dirt road images) and are pre-built all through Harad and Rhun. Play as Harad and they'll appear as Paved Roads in Rhun and the rebel region between the two factions (and Trade Route in Harad's regions). Play as Rhun and they'll appear as Paved Roads in Harad and the rebel region between the two factions (and Trade Route in Rhun's regions).