Pablostuka's Spanish Civil War

[McMonkey]

Good point CS. I will be going over the graphics before I finish this mod. The ones in the screenshot were done pretty quickly so we could begin a PBEM game.

Would something like this be more suitable?

[McMonkey]

Just uploaded a new (known) bug free version of Pablostuka's Original SCW v3 (IE no flying Admiral Scheer). I have also uploaded a new version of my mod with more arid looking terrain and corrected flags as well as the same fixed bugs.

[McMonkey]

And the Heinkel He70. I thought it may be possible to convert the Illyushin as it is of a similar size and shape.

[McMonkey]

Can anybody help with these mods?

If nobody helps me I will have to do it and that won't be pretty

Just planning out the additional/revised events and tweaks to the rules. Should be done fairly soon... where have I heard that before

[fairline]

I thought I had already told you yes, just be patient and let me deal with other stuff first!

[McMonkey]

I was actually asking for help from other members Gareth. Your e-mail indicated that I was at the back of a LONG list. I'm glad to be on the list but I was hoping to get some half decent units done so I can release the mod. I can always add better units later on.

I have had a go at a few of the units I need and they don't look too bad. Not perfect by a long shot, but at least you can guess what they are meant to be

Here is the current unit set with several placeholder units:

[McMonkey]

The ones I need to work on first are the Dewoitine D.510 and Heinkel He70 (Il-2). I have just finished converting the Improvement graphics and adding the new units to the rules file. Will start on the events next.

I have made some changes to the game itself. The Armoured Car defence has been reduced to 12 as at the moment a city with a fighter and Armd Car is almost impossible to capture. I have also made city walls 0 cost and added them to every city to prevent them being destroyed so easily.

Will be interesting to see what needs to be done to make the same a really challenging single player game. If anyone wants to volunteer to run a playtest of the game in its current form to help me work out what new events/changes are needed I would appreciate it.

Here are the placeholder units in bitmap form:

[McMonkey]

And to amuse, here are my attempts (mods!) at a Dewoitine D.510, a He70 and Ju87 with Condor Legion markings.

[fairline]

Looking good McM

Reading my previous reply, it's looking a bit rude - didn't mean it that way!

[McMonkey]

No problems Gareth. It can be very easy to missunderstand the tone intended when posting, thats why the smileys are so useful. I'm sure I would have unintentionally offended a few more people with out a few s or s!

As I said before I am glad to be on your list somewher. I think the units I have now will be fine for playtesting and I can add better ones at a later date.

[McMonkey]

Flags and Masks

I have been reading up on Flags and Masks recently and looking at Tech's Frederick the Great events to see how they can be used. I was struggling to get to grips with them until this evening at work. One of the guys there is a bit of a computer whizz-kid and works on programs for other games (I think he may be involved in FreeCiv!). He had a look through the guide I got from Cradle of Civilization and the FTG events and helped me to understand how to use them.

What a revelation! I can't wait to put them to use. I just want to check I have got things right though. I will use an example from Fortress Europe. Hopefully someone can tell me if I have got things right.

I wanted to create a flag/mask for the U-Boat spawning in the Atlantic that would stop them from being created if one of their bases was captured:

@IF
TURN
turn=Every
@AND
Checkflag
Who=Axis
Mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000001
Threshold=1
State=Off
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
Unit=U-Boat
Owner=Axis
Veteran=yes
Count=1
homecity=NONE
randomize
41,35
45,66
70,55
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=Brest
attacker=Allies
defender=Axis
@THEN
FLAG
CONTINUOUS
Flag=0
who=Axis
state=On
@ENDIF

Would this stop them spawning if Brest is taken by the Allies?

What does the 'Threshhold'signify?

Does randomize take up extra events space?

[Catfish]

The Turn trigger is superfluous as flags are checked at the beginning of each turn with CheckFlag. What's more, using the @AND modifier will double the size of the event in memory. The "Count=1" parameter in the CreateUnit action is also unnecessary, as the default value is 1. The maximum Count value is actually 127, not 255 as stated in macro.txt.

Originally posted by McMonkey
Would this stop them spawning if Brest is taken by the Allies?

Yes, but you don't really need to use masks if you're only dealing with one flag.

Originally posted by McMonkey
What does the 'Threshhold'signify?

The condition (on/off) of the flags in the mask is checked against the State parameter. If the number of matches is greater than or equal to the Threshold parameter, then the event action will execute. The Count parameter (in CheckFlag) is buggy and behaves exactly as Threshold, although I do use it when the parameter matches the number of flags in my mask - it's easier to tell what's going on at a glance.

Originally posted by McMonkey
Does randomize take up extra events space?

No.

[McMonkey]

Thanks Catfish. I still have a lot to learn but I am excited by the potential of flags for making the game truly challenging and unpredictable for the player.

I think I have finally come over to the Test of Time faction

[McMonkey]

Just to recap. Would this event set suffice:

@IF
TURN
turn=Every
Checkflag
Who=Axis
Mask=0b00000000000000000000000000000001
Threshold=1
State=Off
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
Unit=U-Boat
Owner=Axis
Veteran=yes
homecity=NONE
randomize
41,35
45,66
70,55
endlocations
@ENDIF

@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=Brest
attacker=Allies
defender=Axis
@THEN
FLAG
CONTINUOUS
Flag=0
who=Axis
state=On
@ENDIF

I think the turn trigger is for producing the U-Boat, not checking the flag!?

When you said "you don't really need to use masks if you're only dealing with one flag" what did you mean exactly?

Don't I need to tell the first event to check whether the flag is on or off? How else will it know whether to trigger the create unit event of not?

I may just have misunderstood what you were saying but I would like to be clear so I can get on with creating events

[Catfish]

Originally posted by McMonkey
Just to recap. Would this event set suffice:

You can't just remove the @AND modifier and leave two triggers bundled together. Have you read macro.txt? It contains the event language syntax. If you want to include two triggers in an event then you need the @AND modifier. Just be aware that it can only be used with specific triggers (see macro.txt) and doubles the size of the event in memory.

Originally posted by McMonkey
I think the turn trigger is for producing the U-Boat, not checking the flag!?

When CheckFlag is the sole trigger, it is checked at the beginning of each turn (before anyone moves). If the trigger returns true then the unit will be created. Since this occurs every turn, the Turn trigger (turn=every) is not required. This is how I would write the first event:

@IF
Checkflag
who=Axis
flag=0
state=off
@THEN
CreateUnit
owner=Axis
unit=U-Boat
veteran=true
homecity=none
randomize
locations
41,35
45,66
70,55
endlocations
@ENDIF

Oh and I noticed you left the "locations" line out of your CreateUnit event.

Originally posted by McMonkey
When you said "you don't really need to use masks if you're only dealing with one flag" what did you mean exactly?

The purpose of the bitmask is to accommodate multiple (up to 32) flags in a single trigger/action. If your trigger is only going to be checking one flag, you might as well use the Flag parameter instead, as I've done above.

Originally posted by McMonkey
Don't I need to tell the first event to check whether the flag is on or off? How else will it know whether to trigger the create unit event of not?

I'll put that question down to a misunderstanding which should have been rectified by the above explanation.