Way to Work Trigger Needed

[Patine]

Basically, I need some way of getting the computer to create some units when a civ with more than one city and more than one unit is destroyed but without killing them with an event (that is, the civ must be destroyed naturally). Is there some hack, trick, programming loophole, or mod that can arrange this?

[AGRICOLA]

The key to what you want to do is knowing which city will be the last one to be captured. Its capture will kill the civ and also be the trigger for creating the units you want.

Select city X to be the last city. Pick a turn and use events to create enough strong enemy units (include "justonce" or events will continue to churn out more enemy units each turn) outside the rest of the cities to ensure that they are captured immediately. On the following turn, do the same for city X and use its capture to trigger the creation of the new units you want.

There might be a problem if you want to keep on creating new units on subsequent turns. I don't know if that is possible without changing events files.

Having events create spies and a supply of gold would also work if your scen has spies. Unless the civ has no capital, the capital city would have to be the last one lost and have to be taken by force.

[Patine]

That seems alright, but I don't think it will work for the idea I intend, which is a purely natural conquest that could happen on any turn. Oh, well, I'll just go with the original idea of triggering it by the capital's capture. That should be sufficient for my needs. Another question I have is how changing terrain works. I was given advice by Cyrion (I think) to create indestructible immovable units to block the creation of intervaled units until said capital is captured, then destroy these units with a terrain change. I have four spaces that need a wipe, and there are four sets of coordinates in the trigger. However, I got two desired spots and four I didn't desire. How does that system work?

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Patine
That seems alright, but I don't think it will work for the idea I intend, which is a purely natural conquest that could happen on any turn

You still would need to know beforehand which city (X) will be conquered last. Is there any way you can use events to periodically reinforce X to make ensure that it is the last remaining city. Can you make city X the farthest from the enemy or do something else to be absolutely sure that it is the last one? If you can, then you should be able to make events do what you want.

Download Red Front 1.5, Colwyn's mod of Captain Nemo's RF 1.4 from the recent RF 1.5 thread in this forum. The Events3 file has 2 CHANGETERRAIN events plus some some subsequent events of the kind I think you are interested in. A brief look at how he does it will tell you more than any written explanation.

[Elok]

I recommend an assassination of their leader causing the collapse of their empire, i.e. a unique unit whose death results in a killciv command. Yes, the cities will all vanish, but the leader could be assassinated at any time, and by tying it to a tech trigger also given when the leader is killed it should be quite simple.

That is, "when BigBoss unit killed" is a trigger, make three actions, "destroy BigBoss civ," a "The boss is killed! His gang scatters! Louie's boys start moving their Enforcers in on his old turf!" explanatory text, and "give Enforcer Hiring tech to Louie's Boys." Then another event saying that if Louie's Civ has that tech, create an Enforcer unit at a given set of coordinates. Without the JustOnce trigger, and of course Enforcer Hiring shouldn't be researchable.

Sorry for the vagueness, I don't know what you're planning so I cooked up some mobster BS for the example. And I don't have the macro language memorized, so pardon my errors in nomenclature too.

[AGRICOLA]

@ Patine

It would help lot if you were much more specific about what you want to do. For example:

Originally posted by Patine
I need some way of getting the computer to create some units when a civ with more than one city and more than one unit is destroyed but without killing them with an event (that is, the civ must be destroyed naturally)

1. How many cities, 3 or 30 and what size?
2. Ditto for units.
3. Do cities have to exist after the civ is destroyed or can a KILLCIV command (see Elok's post) be used?
4. Time frame? Does this have to happen in 10 or 100 turns? What' s your prefence?
5. Can this be a completely passive civ that does nothing?
6. Does a specific enemy civ have to take over the cities?

Similarly, the following raises more questions than it answers:

Originally posted by Patine
I have four spaces that need a wipe, and there are four sets of coordinates in the trigger. However, I got two desired spots and four I didn't desire.

I think your're saying that there are 4 locations where you want to do a CHANGETERRAIN but, beyond that, I don't understand what you're trying to say.


OK, lets get back to the original problem:

1. A civ needs to be destroyed naturally during a random turn.
2. Its destruction is to trigger subsequent events.
3. I suggested that you need to know which of the civ's cities will be the last to be captured, so that its capture will both kill the civ and can be used as the trigger for other events.

I think it can be done as follows:

1. The civ has n cities ( n = whatever the actual number is).
2. Create a special unit ZZZ with D=99, indestructible.
3. Leave city 1 either undefended or with a minimal garrison of a weak unit.
4. Garrison city 2 with only a ZZZ homed to city 1.
5. Garrison city 3 with only a ZZZ homed to city 2.
.
.
.
6. Garrison city n with only a ZZZ homed to city n-1.
7. Set all cities to autoproduce only city improvements and no units.

What will happen is that as soon as city 1 is captured, city 2 becomes defenceless. Capture of city 2 renders city 3 defenseless and so on. At the end of this daisy chain, only a defenceless city n will remain and its capture will end its civ.

You can then use the capture of city n to trigger whatever other events you need.

The time required to complete the process can likely be controlled to some extent by slowing enemy forces through the use of weak blocking units.

[Patine]

Okay, I'll spill the beans. The player I need conquered is an Iraqi player circa 2003 (the headline hogger). Specifically, I need the US and Allies to conquer them. Capturing (er, destroying) a Saddam Hussein unit may work, however. When Iraq is conquered, Iraqi resistance forces (a third player; al-Sadr's boys and affiliates, not Hussein loyalists) begin generating units. This scenario is risky, as the conflict's not actually over in the real world. Any suggestion with this info revealed?

[AGRICOLA]

Clearly you don't want Iraqui cities destroyed. Therefore KILLCIV won't do the trick. What I suggested will work if Iraqui cities are captured in the right order. IIRC, Herbstnebel uses more or less the same technique of very high D units homed to another city as a means of forcing the attacker to follow a particular sequence of captures in order to avoid astronomical casualties.

If you don't like the idea of sequencing captures, you could try putting a heavily garrisoned Iraqui city in remote, mountainous terrain that it is so difficult to get at that it definitely would be the last city to be captured.

Your idea is really cool, a scenario about guerilla warfare. How do you intend to handle "al-Sadr's boys and affiliates" (civ 3)? A city somewhere in Iran or Syria or an engineer in some remote corner of the map? It might be very interesting if the color of civ 3 matched that of its host country.

PS
What if the civ 3 city or engineer icon looked like normal terrain. A player might go nuts looking for it.

[:) Smiley]

or make it outright invisible.

[Patine]

Here's the plan as I have it. I'll use the Holyland map, but all surrounding countries will be under a fourth 'neutral' player under no-negotiation/alliance with all three beligerents. I like the idea of the Iraqi resistance having a camouflaged city in Iran or Syria, actually. I also considered 'missile' land units for suicide attacks. I do need some good modern Middle East units however, more up to date than Exodus. If you have any other suggestions (or know of any good units), I'm always happy to hear them.

[AGRICOLA]

@ Smiley
That's a much better idea.

But how does one end a scenario like this? Do the Allies enter Iran, Syria or another country in the search for the civ 3 (insurgent) base(s), thereby starting another conflict or two. Or do they give up as new insurgent units keep appearing?

This is beginning to sound terrifying close to reality.

[Patine]

I think maybe making the US and Allies the protagonist, with all Iraqi cities being objectives, thus the US has to hold as many cities as possible until they can reasonably handover power to a surrogate regime that will have to maintain order thereafter (at the last turn of the scenario). I think the US could hunt al-Sadr into foreign territory, and I may even allow Iran or Syria to fight back against such intrusion, thus allowing a complete (but costly) victory.

By the way, any ideas on how to handle a Spanish withdrawl.

[tanelorn]

Suggestion: Give Leonardo's workshop to the allies. When the time comes for Spain to withdraw, give a Spanish withdrawal tech to the allies through events, that makes Spanish troops obsolete, replaceable by immobile-non combat units (abbandoned supplies?) of the same shield value. You could even make Spanish withdrawal researchable by the guerilas, then trigger the event that gives Spanish withdrawal to the allies. You could even work in a Polish, Japanese etc. withdrawal the same way.

[Patine]

That's a great suggestion Tanelorn; I think it will do nicely. What I really need now is good unit graphics. Anyone with suggestions on where to look. Tanelorn's 'abandoned supplies' idea unit, plus smaller allied troops (some of whom may be withdrawing) and suicide bombers are a priority; most others are likely easy to locate.

[Patine]

I need an opinion on an idea I thought of to make Syria and/or Iran resist invasion but not arbitrarily declare war. I'd have one or more insurgent 'bases' (camaflaged cities) in each of Iran and Syria (each of which would be a separate player from both the neutrals and three main players) who would still begin, like the neutrals, at no-negotiation/alliance with all three main players and each other (and stay that way with regard to the two Iraqi factions). There would then be barbarian 'border guard' units (one type for each of Iran and Syria) lining their border with Iraq. If anyone but the Allied player destroys one, it would just be recreated in the same spot. If the Allies destroy one, the country their designated to turns to aggression. How does this sound for an idea, anyone?