Modding Q&A

[Takhisis]

Yeah, the PRTO entries don't like empty spaces.

You might consider making their golden age triggers buildable with that government. Also, most mods choose to focus on Northern India. It's worth taking a look at the Dravidian culture(s) of Southern India for your mod. Roman luxury imports from Central/Southern India via Africa were lucrative enough that the Roman Senate had debates about balance of trade, to give you an idea of their influence.

I'd recommend taking the Chola dynasty - which spanned from the Classical era up through the 14th century - as your model. Their cultural accomplishments are often referred to as the Indian Renaissance.

I'm pretty sure that Rob made some appropriate leaderheads. There are certainly enough units.

They had an impressive navy for the era. Not as landlocked as the Northern dynasties. It's the era when Indian culture really spread into the Malaysian peninsula. Places like Angkor Wat were built by Indianized states.

*Sigh* One day™ I'll make a scenario for Iran and/or India, those æternally fascinating civilisations.

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

Do I need to change the name of the INI?

 

[Vuldacon]

Tommy Vercetti... The INI is Just the SAME Name as the UNIT and has nothing to do with the Text Spaces that were causing problems for you in the Entries. Simply Keep the INI the same as the Unit Folder... spaces or not.
This will also be the same name as the entry in the "ANIMNAME" entry in the PediaIcons Entry.

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

I tried getting rid of the spaces on everything and it did not work, got an error to boot.

 

[r16]

on a similar vein , ı noticed a Russian scenario called Arda in Blake00's lists . Looks good , ı understand nothing and ı do not have Russian fonts so it is more of a mess . ı changed , after identifying them , with locations on the map and a little translations of letters through the names of identified cities , just 4 Al names , Rohan , Gondor , Dwarves and Mordor and just 4 cities and it crashes while loading , unable to find stuff about the first building in the pediaicons text file ... While the original works without fault . Changing names in the editor would always work , with keeping the PRTO stuff unchanged . Any ideas what's happening ?

 

[Nathiri]

I tried getting rid of the spaces on everything and it did not work, got an error to boot.

When you initially create a unit, you create the ANIMNAME and the ICON section. You probably only changed the ICON section, not the ANIMNAME at the bottom of the file.

 

[Vuldacon]

Should be ANIMNAME_PRTO_US_Marine (Add the underscore line between US and Marine)
Then US Marine

Folder and INI Name US Marine

 

[Predator145]

Has anyone tried using the "king" unit ability? I'm thinking of having the AI use broken existing AI strats like artillery, cruise missile, and tactical missile to make their usual units and have these units upgrade to an identical unit with "air bombard" AI strat and the "king" unit ability. "Air bombard" is the only functional AI land bombard unit strat. But by making a unit a "king", it's hidden from the menu and it can't replace the original strat unit. The AI will build the original unit and then upgrade to the king unit.

So let's say you have the normal tactical nuke (tactical nuke AI strat) upgrade into an identical "tactical nuke2" (Air bombard AI strat) it will rebase to the front and nuke you instead of being stuck in its original city. You can also reassign nuclear subs to "carrier". This way the AI will carry king tactical nukes and king tactical missile ability cruise missiles while normal aircrafts can't rebase there. You may need to do the same routine with the nuclear sub as well since aircraft carriers outclass them statswise.

The whole point of this is to cut down on auto producing small wonders and have the AI shoulder the burden of the unit with the highest stats of its AI strategy flag class.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... The AI Cannot Upgrade to a King Unit if the Unit is ANYTHING other than a Biped Unit. No Artillery, Ship, Aircraft, Nuke, etc...
Hope this helps to answer your question.

 

[Predator145]

Predator145... The AI Cannot Upgrade to a King Unit if the Unit is ANYTHING other than a Biped Unit. No Artillery, Ship, Aircraft, Nuke, etc...
Hope this helps to answer your question.

What's a "biped" unit? Does it have to have the "foot unit" ability? Or is it something hardcoded?

 

[Takeo]

What's a "biped" unit? Does it have to have the "foot unit" ability? Or is it something hardcoded?

A land unit, or any unit except the ones he had listed.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... Basically a Foot Unit as a King Unit for the AI must be a Person. There are some Flags to get around this but basically, the AI wants a Person as a King Unit.

No Wheeled Units either. A Human can Upgrade other Units to King Units but the AI will Not.

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

Got the unit icons working so that is good, btw anyone have a recommendation for icons that could stand in for this unit, the Technical?

 

[Kirejara]

Predator145... Basically a Foot Unit as a King Unit for the AI must be a Person. There are some Flags to get around this but basically, the AI wants a Person as a King Unit.

No Wheeled Units either. A Human can Upgrade other Units to King Units but the AI will Not.

Ehm... I have two major upgrade path for naval and arial king units and the KI is using and upgrading them as intended.

The older path is the Shipyard (Dreadnought):
Hull (non-king) - Super Dreadnought (king) - Fleet Carrier (king) - modern Fleet Carrier (king)

The new path is the Tactical Factory Wing from the Royal Aircraft Factory:
Parts (non-king) - Tactical Bomber (king) - late Tactical Bomber (king) - Stealth Fighter (non-king)

The last game was the first one with the Tactical Factory Wing and I observed (and was also the target) of multiple sorties by KI Tactical Bombers. And the Super Dreadnoughts were also present as ever.

Either I misunderstand something or my king-units have the correct mentioned flags by accident.

PS: Parts and Hulls can be captured together with the city they are in.
To prevent the all-units-have-the-kings-name-bug and to make them non buildable, they require bonus resources (fish and whales).

 

[Vuldacon]

Kirejara... if the Unit is Auto-produced the AI can use King Units but I have not seen the AI Upgrade the mentioned Units that are Pre-placed or Directly Built to a King Unit.

 

[Kirejara]

Thank You, Vuldacon!

then my paths are correct.

As I mentioned both Dreadnought-Hull and Aircraft-Parts are autoproduced and can not be build because they require bonus resources.

 

[tjs282]

As I mentioned both Dreadnought-Hull and Aircraft-Parts are autoproduced and can not be build because they require bonus resources.

Would it not be sufficient (and simpler) to set autoproduced units as unavailable for any Civs to build — just like the ACavs and Crusaders in the epic game?

 

[Kirejara]

Would it not be sufficient (and simpler) to set autoproduced units as unavailable for any Civs to build — just like the ACavs and Crusaders in the epic game?

Yes, but then they would be destroyed if the city in which they are, is captured by another civ.

This way they can be captured together with city (under the premise, that the original owner did not upgrade them into fighting units - which they usually do ).

 

[Predator145]

Predator145... Basically a Foot Unit as a King Unit for the AI must be a Person. There are some Flags to get around this but basically, the AI wants a Person as a King Unit.

No Wheeled Units either. A Human can Upgrade other Units to King Units but the AI will Not.

I've just tested on the WW2 Pacific Scenario. Here is what I've found out:

The mechanism of deciding which unit can be upgraded into a king ability one is hard coded by icon slots on the icon sheet. There are certain slots on the icon sheet that are barred from upgrading to a king ability unit. The AI doesn't care if your unit animation is biped, a tank, a truck or a dinosaur. It doesn't care about the unit's ability either. Cruise Missile, Tactical Missile, Wheeled, Foot Unit, Immobile, etc all don't matter. What matters is the number of the icon slot.

By copying and pasting the icon of the tactical nuke to the bottom of my icon sheet and choosing that slot for my unit, I was able to have a Tactical Nuke with "tactical nuke" AI strat be produced by the AI, which then upgrades it to a "Tactical nuke2" with "air bombard" AI strat. The original tactical nuke icon slot is one of the barred ones from upgrading.

The AI also happily built artillery with AI strat "Artillery" and upgrade them to "Artillery2" with "air bombard" AI strat. Surprisingly, the original artillery icon slot wasn't barred from upgrading to a king ability unit. But I've relocated the entire catapult line just in case.

The AI upgrades land units reliably. In case of air units I've seen some being upgraded right away while others just sat there.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... Please Upload the the units_32.pcx Slots that Allow and Disallow the King Units you Posted about.
The Army and Leader Slots, for example, are indicated in the PediaIcons and I assumed that those slots could be changed if the PediaIcons.txt was changed for them.

If indeed there are particular "Hard Coded" Slots that will Allow the AI to Upgrade any Unit to a King Unit, we need this information... same for the Slots that do not allow AI King Unit Upgrades.