Caesar's Gallic War

[fairline]

Catfish's last comment about using the sprite override needs emphasising to all potential ToT designers. Use of this override is the best way to ensure that the vanilla sprites do not appear, given that the in-game disable command doesn't work as advertised. It's also worth noting that the Scotto ToT converter f's about with the sprite override settings in the cheat menu which is generally not a good thing. Set animations in-game to enabled, and control what does and does not use sprites via the advanced rules section.

[Jerec]

@Catfish

Got it. I was also warned about this in Tech's "making a ToT scenario guide on SL.

And 'bout the sprites, I just took all of them out of the ToT folder. Doesn't that work just as well?

[Catfish]

Originally posted by fairline
Use of this override is the best way to ensure that the vanilla sprites do not appear, given that the in-game disable command doesn't work as advertised.

Yep, the two animation lockouts in the Cheat menu do absolutely nothing except prevent you from changing your settings under Graphic Options, ie, they're a waste of time. You'll want to throw in the dummy resource.spr file as well to remove the oil resource frames from the desert and glacier terrain slots (it also means you can leave animated terrain switched on without it affecting the scenario). I suspect this bug affects all looping animated terrain resources; haven't verified.

Originally posted by fairline
It's also worth noting that the Scotto ToT converter f's about with the sprite override settings in the cheat menu which is generally not a good thing.

The sprite override in the Cheat menu is kind of redundant really - when you can exert much tighter control with the ones in the @UNITS_ADVANCED table (individual unit settings + kills animated sprites).

Originally posted by Jerec
I was also warned about this in Tech's "making a ToT scenario guide on SL.

It also warns about the @CIVILIZE2 table when there's no reason to. I don't agree with everything in that guide. Then again, the myth that CIVILIZE2 is written to the SAV file is probably perpetuated by earlier articles like this.

Originally posted by Jerec
And 'bout the sprites, I just took all of them out of the ToT folder. Doesn't that work just as well?

That solves the problem on your machine. What about the people who don't want to move their sprites - because they actually use them? Like me, for instance. If you don't use any sprites in your scenario, set all the SPR file overrides in column G to 1 and include this dummy resource.spr file with your scenario; you can't go wrong.

[Jerec]

All in G to 1, and add in the dummy file. Will do, as soon as my headache gets lost. It's simple, I know, my brain just can't wrap around it yet.

[Jerec]

What part of the G column is used for sprite override, and what part is used for unit flags?

[MacGalleo]

In the rules file, in the "Advanced unit fields" :
; G) General flags
; 00000001 invisible until attack: 1 - invisible
; 00000010 non-disbandable (human players only): 1 - cannot disband
; 00000100 0-range-air-unit damage override: 1 - override damage
; 00001000 barbarian units can't be bought off: 1 - can't buy off
; 00010000 impassable terrain override: 1 - override impassable terrain
; 00100000 unit acquires engineering abilities 1 - engineer
; 01000000 barbarian unit will not expire: 1 - no expire
; 10000000 override .SPR file for this unit: 1 - don't use .SPR

The unit flag used in the events file isn't the same flag. You can read more about it here :

http://coc.apolyton.net/guides/index.shtml

[Jerec]

Great, thanks! But there isn't anything on @UNITSADVANCED on CoC.

[MacGalleo]

the link was for the flag in events files.

[Catfish]

Originally posted by Jerec
What part of the G column is used for sprite override, and what part is used for unit flags?

Might I suggest you reread post #133, including the links. That just about covers everything in the @UNITS_ADVANCED table that isn't self-explanatory. The sprite override in column G is the 8th bit, ie, the leftmost one (reverse programmer notation). What do you mean by unit flags, anyway? Virtually everything in the table is a unit flag of some sort.

@MacGalleo:

All of the bits in those bitmasks are referred to as flags. There are unit flags in the @UNITS table as well.

[Jerec]

Scatterbrained me. I'll go over it all again. I called them unit flags because they are, and I couldn't think of anything else to call them.

[Jerec]

I hope these are correct.

@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=Nitiobriges
attacker=Romans
defender=Southern Confederation
@THEN
TEXT
The Nitiobriges was the dominant Gaulish tribe of the Southern Confederation. With it defeated by Caesar, the Confederation is crushed. However, instead of providing auxiliaries for the Roman army, the Nitiobriges talked the Romans into simply levying a monthly tax.
ENDTEXT
FLAG
Continuous
who=Romans
State=on
Flag=0
@ENDIF

@IF
CHECKFLAG
who=Romans
Flag=0
State=on
@THEN
CHANGEMONEY
receiver=Romans
amount=25
@ENDIF

@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=Nitiobriges
attacker=ANYBODY
defender=Romans
@THEN
TEXT
The Romans have been driven out of the Nitiobriges's lands! With the leading tribe free, the Southern Confederation has now revoked the tax that Caesar had put on them!
ENDTEXT
FLAG
Continuous
who=Romans
State=off
Flag=0
@ENDIF

[Jerec]

Is it possible to switch a flag on if war is declared? I want the universal Gaulish uprising to happen if the Roman civ is at war on all the Gaulish civs at once. Possible?

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Catfish

It also warns about the @CIVILIZE2 table when there's no reason to. I don't agree with everything in that guide. Then again, the myth that CIVILIZE2 is written to the SAV file is probably perpetuated by earlier articles like this.

Catfish, would you be willing to edit the guide? That's what wikis are designed for. I would be honored.

[Catfish]

Originally posted by Jerec
What part of the G column is used for sprite override, and what part is used for unit flags?

Originally posted by Jerec
I called them unit flags because they are, and I couldn't think of anything else to call them.

You've lost me. The sprite override is a unit flag. What is 'them'? Er... never mind.

Originally posted by Jerec
I hope these are correct.

Looks OK structurally. When the Romans capture Nitiobriges they receive 25 gold/turn. If they lose it, the gold stops. If the Romans lose it to the Southern Confederation and then retake it, they receive gold again. If the Romans lose it to anyone else and then retake it, nothing happens. If you don't want the Romans ever to receive tax once they've lost the city, use a JustOnce modifier in the first event. If you want them to receive tax whenever they hold it, you'll need to split the first event: a CityTaken (attacker=Romans, defender=Southern Confederation) event that produces the text message (JustOnce) and another CityTaken (attacker=Romans, defender=Anybody) event that turns on the flag.

Make sure you've got the @INITFLAG line immediately after @BEGINEVENTS. Flag initialisation occurs right at the beginning of the turn, before the player movement phases, so if you're testing your flag events, you need to either start the game as a new scenario or load the save and advance the game a turn (Ctrl+N will do) before you will see any of them work.

Originally posted by Jerec
Is it possible to switch a flag on if war is declared? I want the universal Gaulish uprising to happen if the Roman civ is at war on all the Gaulish civs at once. Possible?

I can't think of anything directly. You'd be looking at UnitKilled and/or CityTaken triggers. The UnitKilled trigger with the AnyUnit wildcard could turn on a flag whenever the Romans killed a Gaulish unit. Use a different flag for each Gaulish tribe. When all of the flags are turned on (CheckFlag trigger, with Mask and Count/Threshold* parameters), an uprising (eg, MakeAggression, CreateUnit events) results. You could use immobile garrison trigger units (specified in the UnitKilled trigger) in the Gaulish cities and/or along borders as another option if you wanted to add constraints. I suppose you could even flag a whole heap of front-line Gaulish cities (CityTaken triggers), but that could prove very expensive in terms of events memory.

Can the Romans make peace with any of the Gaulish tribes following the commencement of hostilities? Tracking that's going to be problematic.

* The Count parameter is buggy. Instead of behaving as described in macro.txt, it behaves exactly the same as the Threshold parameter. However, I use Count whenever that parameter equals the number of flags I want checked. It makes for easier reading.

Originally posted by techumseh
Catfish, would you be willing to edit the guide?

Not at this stage of the game. I'm looking at less involvement not more. That guide is only partially complete; I'd probably end up trying to fill the gaps (that's just my nature) and I don't want to go down that path. A few years back I nearly wrote my own guide/tutorial on how to make a multi-map ToT scenario, but then figured, 'Who reads this stuff, anyway?' Then again, some of my guides arose out of my forum posts.

[techumseh]

Too bad. You've clearly done the most systematic analysis of the ins and outs of ToT, it would be a shame to lose that knowledge.