Map moding question

[Stormbinder]

I've been playing with limited map moding (forcing Jotun AI to play not broken theme, removing Ermor AI and changing victory conditions in Warorania scenario)


It seem to be working well (I think), however I found out that I am stuck at default settings (indep 4) and I can't find command that would change change it in scenario .map file.


Obviosly it was not acceptable, since I was loooking for challenging orania game before upgrading to Peter's Orania Nasty Edition mod.

So I've removed "scenario" title from .map file, changing it into regular map.


Now when I start the game I can select the all settings, including indep strength, and if I select 1 as number of starting provinces than it would still give every nation 5 provinces and 2 castles as stated in old oraniawar .map file, just like I wnted it to be.


The reason why I am messing with OraniaWar scenarion and not Orania map is that I figured out that since AI do not build castles, which is its major weakness, perhaps it would help him to have 2 castels from the begining. Not sure how it'll really work but at least it seems logical to me.


Now the "workaround" that I've described above seem to be working, however since this is my first humble attempt at map-moding I am not sure if everything really works as I intended. Besides this workaround seem a bit fishy to me.


So what do experienced map-makers think about it? Will it work well? Is there a better way to reach the same goal?

[Peter Ebbesen]

#independents value

value = 1,...,9

Undocumented in the mapmodding doc as far as I remember, but a search for keywords in the .exe turned it up and it works. Check the Nasty Edition mapfile in case I have made a typo in the above.

[ April 05, 2004, 08:32: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:
#independents value

value = 1,...,9

Undocumented in the mapmodding doc as far as I remember, but a search for keywords in the .exe turned it up and it works. Check the Nasty Edition mapfile in case I have made a typo in the above.

Great, thanks Peter. Aye, coudn't find reference to this command in mapmoding.doc as well.

So do you think that the end result for my game would be the same (but of course your solution is more elegant) as with the changes that I've made with .map file for oraniawar as I've described below? I am asking because I am on turn 10 already, and I would prefer not to restart, unless the changes that I've made lead to some unexpected results.

Brief description from my post below:

Basicly all I did was:

1. changed oraniawar scenario into map
2. removed Ermor provinces
3. removed victory points
4. put "forced Niefelhem" theme for Jotuns
5. selected 1 as number starting provinces, despite the fact that me (and I hope everybidy else) still get 5 province with 2 castles each as the result, just as I wanted to.
6. And of course set indep strength just as I wanted it to be - 7 (based upon things that I've read on this forum I got an impressiion that this would give Impossible AIs on large map such as Orania the best fighting chance vs human player(btw is it indeed so from your experience?)

[mlepinski]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:


So do you think that the end result for my game would be the same (but of course your solution is more elegant) as with the changes that I've made with .map file for oraniawar as I've described below? I am asking because I am on turn 10 already, and I would prefer not to restart, unless the changes that I've made lead to some unexpected results.

The changes you made should do exactly what you expect them to do. I have made similar changes to a map file (and left out the #scenerio tag) and I have had no unpleasant suprises.

Additionally, if you are looking for ways to strengthen the AI, consider sprinkling the map with independent forts for the AI to conquer. (Although the AI will not build forts it makes good use of conquered ones. I have found the AI to be appreciably stronger if there are a handful of forts near it's territory that it can conquer relatively early in the game).

- Matt Lepinski :->