Fortress Europe

Thanks a lot Catfish. This will really help me out a lot, your assistance is invaluable. It is good to try and gain a better understanding of the game mechanics so I don't have to keep asking for help. In this scenario I have opted for the simple solution (Panzers spawning on city squares) but I will make use of these methods when I resume work on ACIII, which will be as soon as Fortress Europe is completed . I will save all this info and the info from the Apolyton to my Guides folder.

At the moment I am going through all the events and testing them one by one. A tedious process but a worthwhile one as I have found and fixed loads of minor bugs and improved a lot of events. When this is completed I will do a proper playtest to get the final balance right. The economy is my major concern but this can be tweaked really easily now with a few minor changes to events (gold output for Lend Lease and Strategic Bombing). The scenario has been vastly modified since JP's playtest so if anyone would like to give it a go please let me know. When this playtest is completed and any tweaks are done I will be ready to release (upload issues allowing!).

I' m the middle of testing the events and I have found some puzzling behaviour. For example this event:

;4.1 Rocket in Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Groningen, Bremen - (Count=20 after UNIT)
@IF
TURN
turn=1 ;126
@THEN
TEXT
Nazi Germany begins is V1 flying bomb 'vengeance' attacks against Britain.
ENDTEXT
GIVETECHNOLOGY
receiver=Axis
technology=53
@ENDIF

;4.1a
@IF
RECEIVEDTECHNOLOGY
technology=53
receiver=Axis
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Missile
count=2
owner=Axis
veteran=no
homecity=NONE
locations
94,70
96,66
98,64
107,61
113,61
endlocations
@ENDIF

For some reason the units spawn in the fourth co-ordinates. There is nothing blocking them from spawning at the first three as far as I can tell. AH HA, wait... I have seen a theme. The cities that won't allow spawning are all on the Defences terrain!

So what's up. I will need to make a list of all cities with the defences terrain and work out which units are intended to spawn there. I can then either give them alternative spawning co-ordinates if I want them to respect defences (mostly allied units) or give them the Ignore impassible terrain ability (mostly Axis units). Problem solved! I'm glad I found this as several crucial events would not have worked and aircraft could not attack many cities!

Sorry for thinking out loud but I guess anyone using a similar system in future would encounter the same problem so I may as well share!

McMonkey said:

I can then either give them alternative spawning co-ordinates if I want them to respect defences (mostly allied units) or give them the Ignore impassible terrain ability (mostly Axis units).

Click to expand...

Yes, even air units, which can enter impassable terrain automatically (to my annoyance), require the impassable terrain override to spawn (CreateUnit) on those terrain types.

Very informative.

I need a little help with this event set. Basically I want the Spanish to join the war on the Axis side if Malta falls to the Axis and the Allies have not taken Vichy North Africa. I'm pretty sure I have got it wrong as it does not seem to trigger (should it trigger straight away?). I could just simplify it and drop the flags and have the fall of Malta as a trigger (plus a brief delay) but that could lead to a historical accuracy anomaly if the Allies have landed in North Africa. Anyway here it is:

;14.0
@IF
CityTaken
city=Tunis
attacker=Allies
defender=Axis
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
flag=0
Who=Spanish
state=On
@ENDIF

;14.1
@IF
CityTaken
city=Casablanca
attacker=Allies
defender=Anybody
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
flag=1
Who=Spanish
state=On
@ENDIF

;14.2
@IF
CityTaken
city=Oran
attacker=Allies
defender=Anybody
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
flag=2
Who=Spanish
state=On
@ENDIF

;14.3 - FREE

;14.4
@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=Malta
attacker=Axis
defender=Allies
@AND
Checkflag
Who=Spanish
Mask=0b000000000000000000000000000000111
Threshold=3
State=Off
@THEN
JUSTONCE
CREATEUNIT
unit=Wehrmacht Infantry
owner=Spanish
veteran=Yes
Count=12
homecity=NONE
locations
36,150
34,150
33,149
35,145
endlocations
@ENDIF

;14.8
@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=Malta
attacker=Axis
defender=Allies
@AND
Checkflag
Who=Spanish
Mask=0b000000000000000000000000000000111
Threshold=3
State=Off
@THEN
TEXT
Convinced that an Axis victory is assuerd
General Franco agrees to allow german troops
to cross Spanish territory to attack Gibraltar.
ENDTEXT
MAKEAGGRESSION
who=Spanish
whom=Allies
@ENDIF

The Macro document says that the @AND modifier works with both CITYTAKEN and CHECKFLAG. I'm stumped. I will check other event files to see if can figure it out but any help is welcome.I just know I have missed something really obvious

EDIT: Still not working, which is strange as I have very similar events for the Turks joining either the Allies or the Axis and they both work.This makes me even surer I have made a simple error that is so obvious its eluding me!

Found the problem and I could kick myself!!! It was something really stupid as predicted. Instead of putting Valetta as the city name I had put Malta. When I was reading the event I was thinking everything looked fine. OMG What a muppet!

Don't worry, dude! These kind of oversights are common in events.

I have at least 20 instances of these bugs every scenario!

I'm surprised the debug report doesn't pick up on this error. I guess it just checks if the events structures are correct but doesn't go looking in the save/scenario file to check if the cities/units etc... actually exist. Something to bear in mind next time the report comes back all clear!

It definitely checks rules.txt for unit name matches. Testing it now, it doesn't appear to check city names. I suppose that would make sense. A designer may wish to write an event for a city that is yet to be built: one from the city.txt list.

I guess it is fairly simple to for debug to check the rules and other text files for matches. What about incorrect map co-ordinates? I guess the debug utility would have to check the save/scenario file to see if there are any erroneous (IE off the edges of map) co-ordinates. I'm guessing debug doesn't check the save, but I would have to experiment to be sure. It is worth bearing in mind that even if the report comes back clean you still need to test the events individually to pick up on errors. I have found a ton so far (both broken events, typos, redundant events and nonsensical ones that need altering) so the process is well worthwhile!

Another batch of events, another problem

Here is the event for strategic bombing:

;17.0
@IF
CityTaken
city=Cologne
attacker=Allies
defender=Axis
@THEN
FLAG
continuous
flag=12
Who=Axis
state=On
@ENDIF

;17.6
@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Factory
attacker=Allies
defender=Axis
@AND
Checkflag
Who=Axis
Mask=0b0000000000000000000001000000000000
Threshold=1
State=Off
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Factory
owner=Axis
veteran=yes
homecity=NONE
randomize
locations
130,66
130,62
124,70
117,63
118,56
124,58
132,72
130,84
122,90
113,89
109,89
105,85
106,74
105,69
107,67
110,78
111,63
endlocations
@ENDIF

For some reason event 17.6 continues to trigger even when Cologne is captured by the Allies. I have tried capturing all the cities and it still keeps triggering. I know its bound to be something really obvious again but I just can't see what's wrong!

NOTE: Event 17.0 is repeated with cities all along the Rhine and is designed to stop the re-spawning of Factories when the Allies cross that river.

EDIT: All my testing is done, now onto the playtest as soon as this Strategic Bombing issue is fixed. Anyone fancy helping me playtest?

McMonkey said:

What about incorrect map co-ordinates?

Click to expand...

No. Odd-even and off-map co-ordinates pass muster.

McMonkey said:

I'm guessing debug doesn't check the save, but I would have to experiment to be sure.

Click to expand...

Tribe names are checked against the SAV/SCN file. That's about it, I reckon.

McMonkey said:

Another batch of events, another problem

Click to expand...

How are you testing the events? Are the flags initialised? If you're reloading a saved game (as opposed to starting a scenario), then you need to advance the game by a turn before the Allies take Cologne.

Seventeen locations? The game can only store 10 (see macro.txt). Don't need Mask when you're only checking one flag.

I'm testing by loading the scenario, using cheat mode to destroy all units in Cologne and then I'm cheating an Allied unit next to the city and capturing it. Then I destroy a factory and see if it pops up somewhere else. I will try reducing the number of co-ordinates to ten and changing the mask to a checkflag:

;17.6
@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Factory
attacker=Allies
defender=Axis
@AND
CheckFlag
who=Axis
flag=12
state=off
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Factory
owner=Axis
veteran=yes
homecity=NONE
randomize
locations
130,66
130,62
124,70
117,63
118,56
124,58
132,72
130,84
122,90
113,89
endlocations
@ENDIF

Do you think that's the problem? Will test again now.

Nope, factories still spawning. I will try going to the next turn and see what happens.

It looks like waiting the turn has done the trick! Thanks for the help. That's it then. Fortress Europe is ready to be playtested. I think it is in very good shape and I'm hoping that it only needs some minor tweaks now so any playtester should have a fun game, no rough edges etc... Step right up

McMonkey said:

Do you think that's the problem? Will test again now.

Click to expand...

No, I don't.

McMonkey said:

Nope, factories still spawning. I will try going to the next turn and see what happens.

Click to expand...

Shouldn't make a difference. The flag should be set. Only when CheckFlag is used alone will it be checked at the beginning of the following turn. [Edit: Never mind me. My mistake. Double checked in a mock-up. Had to wait a turn.

You had this issue once before. Got the right answer last time.]

Thanks for checking that Catfish. It gives me a bit more peace of mind to know someone else concurs. I'm going to start my playtest in the morning. If anyone would like to help me out and have a go that would be great

Here's my response from Apolyton:

Catfish said:

Assuming that you've properly initialised your flags and there are no typos in the strings (@DEBUG), I think MacGalleo has it. Therefore, if the two events occur within a turn of each other, ie, within a full cycle of player turns, the success of the second event will depend on movement order.

Flags are initialised only once. That basically sets up a blank flag matrix (all set to off). Thereafter, the table is read by the game at the beginning of each turn, probably at the same stage as initialisation, so you're pretty close to the mark anyway.

Click to expand...

Early Alzheimer's.

Catfish said:

You had this issue once before. Got the right answer last time.]

Click to expand...

Unfortunately whenever I learn something new in one ear another chunk of information is pushed out of the other. I can't believe how long I have been working on this scenario. I guess if you count WWII Europa which is the basis then I've been working for about five years on and off. Its good to finally have the finishing post within sight (touch wood!).

McMonkey said:

Unfortunately whenever I learn something new in one ear another chunk of information is pushed out of the other.

Click to expand...

Same here, apparently.

My god, this forum is slow right now.