Jan III Sobieski scenario

[Catfish]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
I still have a problem, however; even when the are created right next to an enemy city, event-spawned units won't move in the turn they are created in. Which means a single cav unit can kill an army of 90+ units (such as the army besieging Kamieniec) with one move. I suspect it may have to do with the fact that I have done the "Set Human Player" thing a few times in order to found some more non-Polish cities, etc. I dunno, has anyone encountered a problem like this before? (And if so, how did you solve it?)

Units do move in the same turn they are created. Think about how the events work. Turn, CheckFlag and ReceivedTechnology triggers, when used without a second trigger (@AND modifier), are checked at the beginning of each turn, before the player turns. A CreateUnit action triggered by one of these will create units at the very beginning of the turn, before anyone moves. That one tribe gets a free shot at your freshly spawned stack depends on movement order.

What about something like this:

Civ0 = Barbarians/An enemy of Civ2
Civ1 = City Defenders
Civ2 = Besieging Army

@IF
Turn
turn=#
@THEN
CreateUnit
owner=Civ0
unit=[WeakImmobileTrigger]
veteran=false
homecity=none
locations
#,# (Some area near Civ2, inaccessible to Civ1*; multiple locations if the tile has a chance of being blocked - no Randomize modifier)
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
UnitKilled
unit=[WeakImmobileTrigger]
attacker=Civ2
defender=Civ0
@THEN
CreateUnit
owner=Civ2
unit=[HordeMember]
count=90
veteran=true
homecity=none
locations
#,# (Adjacent to Civ1's city; again, multiple locations if the tile has a chance of being blocked - no Randomize modifier)
endlocations
@ENDIF

* Secondary maps are very handy for this type of thing.

Or this:

@IF
CheckFlag
who=[Whatever]
flag=#
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Civ2
unit=[Some type they're always producing]
@THEN
JustOnce
CreateUnit
owner=Civ2
unit=[HordeMember]
count=90
veteran=true
homecity=none
locations
#,# (Adjacent to Civ1's city; multiple locations if the tile has a chance of being blocked - no Randomize modifier)
endlocations
@ENDIF

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, Catfish, I tried what you said, I think.

I rewrote the Kamieniec events so that the spawn events were like this

@IF
TURN
Turn=61
@THEN
MAKEAGGRESSION
who=Turks
whom=Poles and Lithuanians
FLAG
continuous
flag=4
Who=Turks
state=on
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Janissaries
Count=12
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Sipahis
Count=6
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Azabs
Count=10
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
unit=Turfekci
Count=10
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Wallachian Inf.
Count=9
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Wallachian Cavalry
Count=4
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
unit=Sipahis
Count=6
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Cannon [Tur]
Count=4
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Cannon
Count=2
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
51,83
50,82
52,82
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Raiders [Tar]
Count=7
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
50,80
49,79
49,81
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Cossacks
Count=3
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
50,80
49,79
49,81
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Raiders [Tar]
Count=7
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
52,80
53,79
53,81
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CheckFlag
who=Turks
flag=4
state=on
@AND
CityProduction
builder=Turks
unit=Janissaries
@THEN
JustOnce
CREATEUNIT
unit=Cossacks
Count=3
owner=Turks
veteran=yes
homecity=None
locations
52,80
53,79
53,81
endlocations
@ENDIF

And they still won't move in the turn they're created. They're just sitting there for me to whack them. Did I get your idea right? What did I do wrong and if so, how can I fix it?

[Catfish]

It looks OK. The idea is to get the units to spawn in the player turn and not at the very beginning of the turn. Post the SAV/SCN, rules and events files you're using.

[GhostOfDisco]

The requested files (I hope it works):

[GhostOfDisco]

Actually, try this:

[Catfish]

OK, loaded up the 26/12 game. To get things rolling I advanced the Turk siege flag from turn 61 to turn 2. I had to forbid government switching to prevent the Turks from adopting Despotism and sending half their cities into disorder. You should save the game as a scenario and then change the file extension of the new SCN file to SAV. This binds the scenario parameters to the file. Anyway, once I got them building Janissaries the Turkish army surrounded Kamieniec and pounded it before I had a chance to move. So I know the method works. Do you have a saved game from around turn 61 where the problem occurs?

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, what I usually do is use the cheat menu to change turn #1 to #60, making turn #2 turn 62. Maybe I'll try your thing or something...

[GhostOfDisco]

OK, I went back and, for testing purposes, changed the date of the seige of Kamieniec to turn 2, rather than 61. I also saved my game as a SCN. Things went haywire - the Tartars wanted to talk to me, it seemed, and when turn 2 came around, the seige army didn't appear! I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong...

Anyway, I did a little work on the scenario today. I tried to place the city of Braclaw on the map, but I'm not sure if I got it right (since the map is taken from McMonkey's European map, where would Braclaw be?)

Also, here's some eye candy: a few tech icons I made up:

[McMonkey]

I would place it where the cursor is.

[GhostOfDisco]

For some reason, I still can't get the siege events to work as they should. Does anyone know why?

Here are the latest files. I did what Catfish recommended (save a game as a SCN and then rename SAV, but it seems to save the events in such a case (the new events won't occur event after Delevent), so...

[Catfish]

Well, what I usually do is use the cheat menu to change turn #1 to #60, making turn #2 turn 62. Maybe I'll try your thing or something...

Shouldn't make a difference. You just need to allow one turn to pass so that the game can initialise the flags - it does this at the very beginning of the turn, before the player turns.

I did what Catfish recommended (save a game as a SCN and then rename SAV, but it seems to save the events in such a case (the new events won't occur event after Delevent), so...

Events are not embedded in the SCN file. Open it with a hex editor and see for yourself. If you later change the extension to SAV and save the game, then the events will become embedded. They will be dropped again if you resave as an SCN file. Delevent will delete all of the events from a SAV file - or anything following the characters 'EVNT' in any type of file for that matter. Do you have more than one events file in your scenario directory? If so, are they named using an eventsX.txt convention or similar?

Anyway, I had it working - again. I think your problem is getting the Turks to build Janissaries. If you want to make 100% sure that the Turks will spawn on the specified turn, then you might have to use the first of my two methods. If it doesn't matter that they may be a few turns late, then use the second method. Part of the problem, when testing with that saved game, is the difficulty level: Chieftain. It takes the AI forever to build anything. When I set the difficulty to Emperor, bang! the Turks appeared on turn 2 and immediately attacked.

[GhostOfDisco]

Great. Now my scenario will only be playable at the highest difficulty level. :P

Nevertheless, I'll try that. And with the Turks attacking in turn 61, rather than 2, in the finished product, I have little doubt that they will attack, as hopefully even at Chieftan the AI will have made some Janissaries by then. (So that's how the Production" thing works!)

The "weak trigger unit" idea sounds good, but I'd have to find a unit to get rid of, as I'm all out of unit slots. But maybe I'll fine something...

[Catfish]

Great. Now my scenario will only be playable at the highest difficulty level. :P

(So that's how the Production" thing works!)

From macro.txt:

CityProduction:

If any city owned by the builder civilization completes the production of the specified item (regardless of whether it's built or bought), this trigger activates at the beginning of the next turn.

Sometimes it pays to read the documentation. Then again, the game doesn't always do what the documentation says it does: the CityProduction trigger fires in the (player) turn of production, not the beginning of the next.

And with the Turks attacking in turn 61, rather than 2, in the finished product, I have little doubt that they will attack, as hopefully even at Chieftan the AI will have made some Janissaries by then.

But they need to produce one on turn 61 to create the army on turn 61. The lower the difficulty level, the higher the probability that they'll be late. Hopefully by turn 61 every Turkish city is pumping out Janissaries and not city improvements.

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, having tested it, and I must confirm that the "trigger-spawn units-attack" trig mentioned by Catfish indeed works like a charm. My dilemma at "what unit slot to get rid of" disappeared when I realized that the trigger unit didn't have to be ipso facto unique - it simply had to be a unit that barbs would proably never use. So I used the Swedish militia unit for the trigger. As for the unit the Turks use to destroy the trigger, when I gave the Turks a unit of Sipahis to kill the rogue Swede , they just fortified and did nothing. When their "killing trigger" unit was a Cannon, however, they attacked, triggered the assault, and got everything working.
My only concern is the possibility that the AI will disband the Cannon in the actual game before the event is supposed to take place. What exactly is the AI's disbanding policy? Oh well, I could always have a Cannon (or other appropriate unit) created there just the turn before...
I also fleshed out the defenses of East Prussia, constructed some roads connecting Braclaw with the rest of the Republic, and completely redid the light cav graphic.

[GhostOfDisco]

Re-applied the tech tree to the game today ... the problem was that the "Cossack Auxiliaries" tech had itself as a prerequisite! Still need to work on some stuff, as there are a lot of techs that aren't used in the scenario.

And here's a new unit ... the Cossack ataman. According to the historical Treaty of Hadiach, the Duchy of Ruthenia (the Ukranian state) would be governed by a supreme ataman, chosen by the king from several elected candidates. This ataman was supposed to be something like a combination of governor and chief general of the duchy.

In the game, if you get the right techs, you'll be able to get the Ataman; he's basically like your Hetmans, except that there's only one of him, as opposed to two of both your Polish and Lithuanian Hetmans.

There's just one problem: which unit slot shall he take? I don't know whether I should get rid of my engineer unit, my tradesman, or give up the hope of ever having a unique Franconian infantry unit in the game...