Need help with mod

[KaiserWill]

I'm sick of having to laboriously replace all my obsolete units with new ones so I'm writing a mod that automatically updates any units fortified inside my cities to the latest technology. My first effort worked nicely only I used KillUnit to remove the old units which generated several minutes of unwanted sound effects of the units dying. I thought I'd try grouping the obsolete units into armies & then disbanding them but I just can't get them to disband. Here's part of the code I'm using (please don't laugh - I'm new to all this!). Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong?

int_t p_counter;
int_t k_counter;
int_t counter;
army_t UAR_disarmy;
army_t UAR_tmparmy;
unit_t UAR_tmpunit;
city_t UAR_tmpcity;
int_t UAR_citycount;
int_t UAR_whilecount;
int_t UAR_forcount;
int_t UAR_tmploc;
int_t UAR_inf_type;

void_f UAR_ME_Routine() {
UAR_citycount = player[0].cities+1;
for (UAR_whilecount = 0; UAR_whilecount < UAR_citycount; UAR_whilecount = UAR_whilecount +1) {
GetCityByIndex(player[0], UAR_whilecount, UAR_tmpcity);
UAR_tmploc = UAR_tmpcity.location;
if(CityIsValid(UAR_tmpcity)) {
UAR_unitcount = GetUnitsAtLocation(UAR_tmploc);
Event:CreatedArmy(UAR_disarmy);
for (UAR_forcount = 0; UAR_forcount < UAR_unitcount; UAR_forcount = UAR_forcount + 1) {
GetUnitFromCell(UAR_tmploc, UAR_forcount, UAR_tmpunit);
if (UAR_tmpunit.valid) {
UAR_inf_type = UAR_tmpunit.type;
if (UAR_inf_type == UnitDB(UNIT_HOPLITE)
&#0124; &#0124; UAR_inf_type == UnitDB(UNIT_WARRIOR)) {
p_counter = p_counter + 1;
GetArmyFromUnit(UAR_tmpunit, UAR_tmparmy);
Event:UngroupOrder(UAR_tmparmy);
Event:GroupUnitOrder(UAR_disarmy, UAR_tmpunit);
counter = counter + 1;
} elseif (UAR_inf_type == UnitDB(UNIT_SWORDSMAN)) {
k_counter = k_counter + 1;
GetArmyFromUnit(UAR_tmpunit, UAR_tmparmy);
Event:UngroupOrder(UAR_tmparmy);
Event:GroupUnitOrder(UAR_disarmy, UAR_tmpunit);
counter = counter + 1;
}
}
Event isbandArmyOrder(UAR_disarmy); //doesn't work
if (counter > 0) {
while (k_counter > 0) {
CreateUnit(player[0],UnitDB(UNIT_KNIGHT),UAR_tmploc,0,UAR_tmpunit);
Event:EntrenchUnit(UAR_tmpunit);
k_counter = k_counter - 1;
}
while (p_counter > 0) {
CreateUnit(player[0],UnitDB(UNIT_PIKEMEN),UAR_tmploc,0,UAR_tmpunit);
Event:EntrenchUnit(UAR_tmpunit);
p_counter = p_counter - 1;
}
}
}
}
}
}

[KaiserWill]

ACK! Don't know what happened to all the tabs in my post, or what that smiley face is doing instead of the D in DisbandArmyOrder. Oh well, you get the idea anyway...

[Immortal Wombat]

You're new to this ?? Hell it took me ages to get anything like that confident. The appears when you put : D together. Tabs fail unless you use the UBB code - [ code ] (without the spaces)

eg.

Event: DisbandArmyOrder(UAR_disarmy);  // Is there a space in here between event and : ?
if (counter > 0) {
     while (k_counter > 0) {
        CreateUnit(player[0],UnitDB(UNIT_KNIGHT),UAR_tmploc,0,UAR_tmpunit);
        Event:EntrenchUnit(UAR_tmpunit);
     k_counter = k_counter - 1;
     }
}

As for the actual error. I can't help I'm afraid. What exactly was the error message ?

Ben
[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 08, 2001).]

[WesW]

This sounds similar to what Locutus tried to do with the militia code, and he have run into all kinds of problems with it, from functions not working to saved game failures. I doubt that you will be able to get this trigger to work, at least not without reloading slic each time you load the game.

[KaiserWill]

I don't get an error message, and the right number of replacement units show up fine, it's just that the old units I want to get rid of don't disappear. As I said KillUnit does the job but you have to put up with five minutes of "urgh!" and "ach!" as each old unit dies. I think I'll settle for the easy option of automatically creating one or two free new-technology defensive units per city, and then manually disbanding the old ones en masse using the army management screen. If I ever get the unit-replacement code to work I'll package it properly and submit it though, coz it's one big beef I have with the game that you can't upgrade any of your units.

[Dale]

Kaiser:
It's a hellova lot easier to use DisbandUnit event instead of the DisbandArmyOrder. Try this. Extract the unit you want to disband and put it in a temp variable like tmpUnit. You're using GetUnitsInCell anyways, so make use of it! Then just use this command:

Event: DisbandUnit(tmpUnit);

There's no death animations, no sounds, no count against killed units, it just disappears. This is what I use for the withdraw script.

Hope this helps.
Dale

------------------
Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

[Locutus]

Most of the xxxOrder events don't seem to work if you want to call them (listening to them does seem to work in most cases). In order to have some action take place, you'll have to use the event that does the actual job, not the event that gives the order to do it. So, not only is DisbandUnit easier, it's also the only thing that will actually work (I tested it on the Militia code as well, worked fine except that all units disbanded inside cities added production points to whatever that city was building, something I didn't like).

I don't think any of the bugs in SLIC itself (in particular the savegame-bug) will give you any problems with this code, but only by testing it extensively can you find out for sure.
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited May 09, 2001).]