Units in intro text.

Palaiologos · June 9, 2003, 07:22

As you all know you can make units apear in the intro text.

The method i have been following to this day is: take a text that already has a unit appearing in it(such as the intro of the basic WWII scenario), edit the text to my liking and saving it. The unit that appeared besides the text was the unit that was last selected before saving the scenario(f.e armor in the WWII scen.).

Now, i am pretty sure that there must be some kind of proper way to achieve the above and i am unaware of it.

Does anybody know?

And what of the unit? Is there a way to choose a specific unit slot?

Henrik · June 9, 2003, 07:43

No matter what file you are using (even if you use the txt from the ww2 scenario) the only way to get a unti to show up is to have the scenario start during the pratagonists (sp?) turn and have objective victory turned on. The unit that is active will show up in the text.

curtsibling · June 9, 2003, 08:12

The protagonist (warmonger) of the scenario always owns the displayed unit that the scenario was saved on.

Hence, if I saved my scenario on the German's turn,
and they are the protagonists, and if I saved while a stuka unit was selected:

The stuka (or any other unit in the civ's army) will be shown on the title text....

Henrik · June 9, 2003, 08:30

One can use this in a tricky way to display barbarian units as well, if one saves the scenario during the barbarian turn when a certain unit is active.

That way you can actually have a unit that's not part of the scenario show up in the intro text (needen't be a "unit" actually as long as it's in the units.gif

)

I usually edit saves as the barbarians anyway so it's not that hard to do

Palaiologos · June 9, 2003, 08:33

thanks

Arthedain · June 9, 2003, 09:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Henrik
I usually edit saves as the barbarians anyway so it's not that hard to do

sorry for the threadjacking, but how do I do that?

Palaiologos · June 9, 2003, 09:52

Just reveal the barbarian map.(through the cheat mode)

hardjoy · June 9, 2003, 11:39

No matter what I do, I can't get this unit-in-introtext-thingy to work. How does one determine who the protagonist is? -Isn't that always the player-controlled civ, whose unit is selected?

Palaiologos · June 9, 2003, 12:16

Cheat menu-->Scenario parameters-->edit victory conditions-->set objectives protagonist

hardjoy · June 9, 2003, 21:02

Thx

Amazingly it works!

But what does it mean? -is that the only civ objectives will count for or what difference does it make game-wise?

The playercontrolled civ when the scen is saved will still start the game, right? -I've never changed the protagonist in any of my scenarios, so I wonder what difference it makes ?

Is it possible to make the AI play smarter making them the protagonist of a scenario? -will it for example display a more apt tendency for going after an objective victory?

Henrik · June 10, 2003, 01:55

If you have no pratagonist, objective scoring will be calculated depending on how many objectives YOUR civ has taken.

If you have a pratagonist the score is determined by how many objectives the PRATAGONIST has taken.

So anyone but the pratagonist has to ensure that all objectives are in non pratagonist hands...

Incidently the way to have no pratagonist is to set it to "Barbarians", so if you have a barbarian unit flashing during the first turn in a no pratagonist scenario that means that unit is shown without everyone measuring themselves vs. the pratagonist civ

Stefan Härtel · June 10, 2003, 03:43

Protagonists are also generally more agressive.
I tried this once in my 3d Punic War scenario. First, I had the Carthaginians set as protagonists, and the Romans did nothing. Then, I set the Romans as protagonists, and the first thing they did was kill everything in their way.

Palaiologos · June 10, 2003, 04:10

Do AI civs tend to ally against the protagonists?

hardjoy · June 10, 2003, 10:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Henrik
If you have no pratagonist, objective scoring will be calculated depending on how many objectives YOUR civ has taken.

If you have a pratagonist the score is determined by how many objectives the PRATAGONIST has taken.

So anyone but the pratagonist has to ensure that all objectives are in non pratagonist hands...

I still don't understand this

You mean one can get an objective victory if the protagonist has achieved all its objetives.... i.e. the Holy League played by a human player will win the scenario if Spain (protagonist) takes all of England, even though they themselves have no objective cities? -or is it some other way around?? -will anyone but the protagonist lose the game, if the protagonist achieves its objectives?

hardjoy · June 10, 2003, 10:56

After looking at the victory screen, I begin to understand a little.... but this mean, if I read you correctly, Henrik, that everyone elses objective will be to make the Spanish lose? (in the case with the Armada)

Might be some advantages to doing things this way, but if it means that allies will break their strong alliances just because the protagonist ally gets close to its objectives etc. this is a drawback.

How does one make a barbarian unit flash? -or is this a mac thing?

hardjoy · June 10, 2003, 12:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Stefan Härtel
Protagonists are also generally more agressive.

You can say that again!

-had a tremendous effect on my Armada scenario making Spain the protagonist. I've never seen them take Antwerp on the first turn before! The Dutch can no longer play any tricks, settling for peanuts -Spain plays a whole different ballpart now!

curtsibling · June 10, 2003, 13:20

The protagonist flag works well in WW2 scenarios, as you can probably imagine.

Henrik · June 10, 2003, 15:29

Quote:

Originally posted by hardjoy
After looking at the victory screen, I begin to understand a little.... but this mean, if I read you correctly, Henrik, that everyone elses objective will be to make the Spanish lose? (in the case with the Armada)

Might be some advantages to doing things this way, but if it means that allies will break their strong alliances just because the protagonist ally gets close to its objectives etc. this is a drawback.

How does one make a barbarian unit flash? -or is this a mac thing?

This is how I do it:

1:Make sure there is atleast one barbarian unit around.
2:Reveal map: Babarian
3:Reveal map: No special view (note the map will actually continue to be the barbarian one)
4:Set human player :No human player

This will put you in controll of the barbarian civ, be sure to have auto save turned on though as sometimes the ai still continues to move the barbarian units.
If it does, just load the newly created "Attilla.sav" or whataver the auto save named the game, and the units will be yours to move.

I think this requires MGE to work.

I imagine the same can be achieved through hex editing

Something interesting to note is that while playing the barbarians one can test the combat modifiers that apply only to barbs. For instance I found out that a barbarian unit allways loses when attacking an AI capital, no matter what, etc.

When you save as scenario the fact that you where playing as barbarians doesn't matter as they still won't show up in the civ selection dialogue when a player initiates the scenario.