Macros

[ruoxiaohai]

This may be a question that has been answered in the manual or readme.txt of FW, but exactly how powerful is the macro in making scenarios?
For example, if I want to make a "stasis" city, that will not pass a certain population level or ever be destroyed, could I do that?
Is it possible to prevent the player from selling some improvements?
(It is possible that while you guys are reading this, you are wondering what exactly I'm planning, but hopefully if this stuff works you'll be able to see.)

[Hendrik the Great]

The events, I think that is what you mean, can be very powerfull in making accurate scenarios! Many things can't be done without them.

You could make sure a city never passes a certain size by preventing that civilization from ever gaining the needed advance to build the city improvements that allow it to grow beyond. Additionally you can change the size when a city needs an aquaduct or sewer system in the Rules.txt.

I don't know how to make a city indestructable but perhaps it could work if you put a unit in it that cannot be attacked. Only works if there are no units with the attack units in flight flag.
Make an air unit that cannot move and has no attack rating but a very high defense and hitpoints along with firepower (just like impassable Terrain). Place that unit in the city. I don't know if this works but perhaps you are lucky.

quote: Is it possible to prevent the player from selling some improvements?

Not really, however if you lower the maintainance cost to 0 chances are low it will be sold. Wonder cannot be sold ever btw.

quote: (It is possible that while you guys are reading this, you are wondering what exactly I'm planning, but hopefully if this stuff works you'll be able to see.)

A quite accurate deduction. I am very curious what has been going in your civer mind.



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Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.nbci.com/thalys

[ruoxiaohai]

Well, I'm making a fantasy campaign based on a novel which I really like, and there's a fortification that should never be destroyed (Dragonlance's High Clerist Tower). To make it a normal fortification means that it's liable to pillage, which is too easy. The tower is also conquerable, so that's why the invincible unit idea probably wouldn't work.
Hmm....I'll read the macro.txt thing again.....

[techumseh]

Here's how I handled this problem in "Prince of Darkness." Each time the castle (a unit) is destroyed, a tech is given to the attacker. A second event creates a new castle, belonging to the receiver of the new tech, in effect, the new owner.

@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Castle of Mhyrr
attacker=ANYBODY
defender=ANYBODY
@THEN
TEXT
The Count of Mhyrr asks you to capture the Prince of Corsairs, Capitan Valasquez." He preys on
our commerce and kills our subjects. He has dealings with the Stygians, that we know. His fleet is
now active in the Gigian Sea, south of this continent."
ENDTEXT
CREATEUNIT
unit=Corsair
owner=Stygians
veteran=yes
homecity=none
locations
49,139
49,135
54,135
endlocations
JUSTONCE
GIVETECHNOLOGY
receiver=TRIGGERATTACKER
technology=19
@ENDIF

@IF
RECEIVEDTECHNOLOGY
technology=19
receiver=ANYBODY
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Castle of Mhyrr
owner=TRIGGERRECEIVER
veteran=no
homecity=none
locations
41,107
endlocations
JUSTONCE
@ENDIF

[ruoxiaohai]

Ok, watch out....this is me being creative:
I wonder if I could change the defensive bonus of a square of pollution, then make it impossible for the people to build settlers/engineers. The tower wouldn't be a city or a fortification, it would be a square of pollution with defense jacked up. Then I would need to change the rate that pollution affects the world or something so that the map doesn't become jungle all of a sudden, but this might work.....
So, what do you think? Crazy? Might work?

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

[Hendrik the Great]

Creative Idea however the defense rating of a poluted square is the same as always.

I never bothered to try but perhaps it would be possible to remove the pillage command?

Another idea. Give that city that represents the fortress the Great Wall wonder renamed and with appropiate grafics. The wonder cannot be sold and you can arrange that it will never become obsolete.
This way the fortress(city) will always have city walls which means that if it is conquered or attacked it will not lose population points.

You can then also put it on a terrain with a very high defensive bonus so to make it very hard to capture the fortress.

------------------
Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.nbci.com/thalys

[ruoxiaohai]

I think I have a rather unsightly solution to my problem: you notice that when you make a city sized 128 or more it becomes a negative number? Well, I found that when you conquer a negative sized city the population doesn't change.
This could work, but it doesn't look very nice....

[Alinestra Covelia]

One trick you can use to prevent an AI city from ever being captured is to place an event stating that every time a certain unit (say, a City Defender or something) is defeating belonging to that civ, another City Defender is created in the city square. Thus, an enemy can hammer at that city as much as they want and it will never fall. Provide the city with a City Wall or the Great Wall wonder, and it will not even lose pop points.

There is a dodge to this trick - units that are annihilated by nuclear attack are never considered "defeated" in combat. So make sure you remove Nukes and Nuclear Fission (I think) civ advance, since that advance allows spies to plant nuclear devices. Also make sure that Nuclear Plants cannot be built otherwise there is a slim chance of meltdown occurring in the city and wasting all the units.

Hope this helps your scen building attempts! I'd like to see the scen if possible, maybe even playtest!

[Alinestra Covelia]

If the city (let us call it "Mhaputa") is meant to be held by the AI, then why not try putting a single stupidly powerful defender in it (the term "My Brain" comes to mind), and setting its obsolescence tech to an off-limits advance (say, "Literacy").

Then give that faction the Leo's Workshop wonder, making sure that you provide it with new, normally-skilled units generated by the new off-limits advance. (eg, "NormalBhaps".)

Then, at a predetermined turn number, give that faction the off-limit tech advance. The huge defender in the city will become obsolete, AND will be force-replaced by a new, weak unit. Thus, My Brain will become useless and be replaced by a confused looking NormalBhap. This will make the base of Mhaputa much easier to conquer.

[St Leo]

Why not make the tile a unique terrain or a special resource?

------------------
St. Leo
http://www.sidgames.com/hosted/ziggurat/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[jcarkey]

St. Leo,I thought of that. I don't think it should be solved that way. That takes a terrain type away for making more detailed maps and that wouldn't be that good.

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

[ruoxiaohai]

Well, I think I should outline my needs again:
the square needs to be able to stack units. (terrain changes then aren't a possibility).
It needs to be able to change owners if it's a city. (making an invincible city is not really that great of an idea in this case).
It can never be destroyed. (normal forts and cities don't work, they can be pillaged and destroyed through combat).
It should give defensive bonus, but I guess I could design the units to get around that.
If it's a city, a "stasis" city would be preferable, where it doesn't grow. Growth means that it can die.
I don't think the negative city size idea will work, because it will grow. I'm wondering about size 0, though.
[This message has been edited by ruoxiaohai (edited January 03, 2001).]

[St Leo]

Try placing 7 immobile units (1 from each side) in the same square and see what happens when:
-a unit tries to enter that square
-a unit tries to enter that square while it's occupied by some other unit

Or you could always make it an immobile unit that gets regenerated to its killer's side every time it's killed - of course, that might require anywhere from one to forty-nine events since ANYBODY and TRIGGERATTACKER don't always work as intended.

------------------
St. Leo
http://www.sidgames.com/hosted/ziggurat/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[Alinestra Covelia]

The "Mhaputa" situation I outlined above would work for this... but only so far as to make the city really tough when held by the AI. When held or captured by the player, it ceases to be so great.

Try this:

Give AI faction holding the city, the Great Wall wonder plus a huge defender with movement 0.

Give this same AI Leo's Workshop wonder.

Assign a weak defender unit to an unresearchable tech, which is also the huge defender's obsolete tech.

At your discretion, program in "GIVE TECHNOLOGY" in the macro to the AI. This will accomplish what I described above, viz. destroy the powerful defender and replace it with the weak defender as per Leo's Workshop rules.

The city can now be conquered by the player more easily...

Then program in an event that states that when the City is conquered by the player's faction (or "ANYBODY"), that faction is given the same huge defender unit and placed in the city. Because the conquering faction does NOT have the obsolete tech, this new unit will not become obsolete and only a fool would sell it. The city will once again be very tough to assail.

To ensure that the AI faction doesn't trade or otherwise accidentally give the obsolete tech to the player, you may have to block negotiations between AI and player factions. You may also have to doctor the abilities of spies and diplomats, or eliminate them altogether. Go to game.txt and alter the activity menu of the Spies and Diplomats... this will prevent the player from ever selecting "STEAL TECH" option, but *NOT* the AI. So be careful.

Hope this helps.
[This message has been edited by Alinestra Covelia (edited January 03, 2001).]

[ruoxiaohai]

Arg! I must be really thick or I'm not communicating properly (this also could be due to me being thick).
If I follow the "Mhaputa" suggestion, then theoretically the city could eventually be destroyed. I guess I could make the city some really high population number so that the chances of it being destroyed would be lessened.....
Mmm....I don't think a stasis city can be made with FW macros.

[Markus The Mighty]

quote: Originally posted by ruoxiaohai on 01-02-2001 11:25 PM I don't think the negative city size idea will work, because it will grow. I'm wondering about size 0, though. [This message has been edited by ruoxiaohai (edited January 03, 2001).]

With a city size 0 being conquered, it's pretty sure the game will crash.
I tried something that way several times with always the same result (crashing), so I don't think it's supposed to work.


------------------
"Am Anfang war das Wort" - J.W. Goethe, "Faust"

"So they've learned from me" - Napoleon
Bonaparte, during the Battle of Leipzig

[Alinestra Covelia]

quote: Originally posted by ruoxiaohai on 01-03-2001 10:33 PM I must be really thick or I'm not communicating properly (this also could be due to me being thick).

...Well, I didn't want to be the first to say it...

quote: If I follow the "Mhaputa" suggestion, then theoretically the city could eventually be destroyed.

Would that still happen if the city had the Great Wall? If you made it such that the Great Wall was never made obsolete, it would basically mean that the city would have a permanent city wall around it and would never lose population due to combat. I think.

You would have to doctor the abilities of Spies so that they could not poison water, though. Remember that Diplomats cannot do this anyway...

[ruoxiaohai]

Thanks for the support, Allie.
I was thinking of making a permenant city wall around it (using the Great Wall), but I'm not exactly sure how that would have affected the rest of the scenario.
(Qbasic is better than C)
Um, yes, what does that little computer picture at the top right of each message mean?
[This message has been edited by ruoxiaohai (edited January 04, 2001).]

[Alinestra Covelia]

ruoxiaohai: I'm not sure, but the ALT tag states

"IP: Logged, admin only"

So I guess it's there to stop people from posting under different forum names using the same computer. (EZBoards doesn't safeguard against this, so you often get an awful lot of fake persons on them.)

[Theben]

I'm not sure what your plans are but would it be acceptable to surround the city with "invincible air units"? Would ZOC's be a problem? BTW, putting the unit inside the city won't work, as ground units can attack air units in a city.

[Thoth]

quote: Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia on 01-03-2001 01:33 PM them altogether. Go to game.txt and alter the activity menu of the Spies and Diplomats... this will prevent the player from ever selecting "STEAL TECH" [This message has been edited by Alinestra Covelia (edited January 03, 2001).]

Alinestra: Could you go into a little more detail on the specifics of how this is done? Which lines in particular are changed, and what are they changed to? There are times when I'd like to muck around with the spy/diplomat abilities, I'm just not sure how.

[Shadowstrike]

I'm pretty sure they are in game.txt

[CyberChrist]

Toth:

The way to alter the options available to diplomats/spies is to open the GAME.TXT file and search for ie. Steal Tech, then delete the text (you MUST leave an empty line though - only delete the text) and save the file.
Next time you start a game your diplomats/spies wont be able to perform that action

[Thoth]

quote: Originally posted by CyberChrist on 01-11-2001 06:17 AM Toth: The way to alter the options available to diplomats/spies is to open the GAME.TXT file and search for ie. Steal Tech, then delete the text (you MUST leave an empty line though - only delete the text) and save the file. Next time you start a game your diplomats/spies wont be able to perform that action

It's that simple? *&%$!

Thanks.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I should point out a single caveat with this method, though: You are only altering what the player sees on the pop up menu for that situation.

Therefore, when you delete STEAL TECH, you only remove that from the pop up window.

The computer player does NOT use the pop up window! It does actions automatically! So you must bear in mind that you are only limiting what the player can do, not what the computer can do. Even if you wipe STEAL TECH from the game.txt file, the computer will still be able to steal your techs with its spies.

One possible solution is to make spies available only to the human player...

[CyberChrist]

So true, the no good, cheating, son of a ... AI don't even need a diplomat to bribe our units