Getting castles/Seiges into the game.

[JoshRose]

I'm sure many of us have considered this. I just want to gather a bit of information to find out what is possible with the current mod tools.

Getting some sort of castle layout is fairly easy I suppose. Using the module system and edit mode, we can construct them without any huge problems.

One of the biggest issues is AI. I don't think there are any tools avaliable to manipulate the AI. One work around is to have enemy archers aligned on towers or walls, and putting a barrier behind them so they cannot fall. This way, they would remain at their positions, and they will shoot down at enemies. The only problem is that swordsman or mounted riders would not be able to attack them. They would just run into the wall below, and be easy targets. I doubt anyone except the player would be able to scale the walls and kill the archers. Unless you lumped about 10 sets of stairs together to make a giant slope... but that would still be pretty buggy.

I also wonder if simply modifying a screen, and adding battlements to it will work correctly because troops AI might rely on the terrain code, and I don't think they take any objects into consideration, other than hills/water/etc. Actually, I don't even know if they consider those. They might just wander around toward enemies without any knowledge of the terrain. If that's the case, getting them to go through an open portcullis or draw bridge would be pretty impossible without some way of creating a waypoint system, or creating a structure of walls to automatically guide them through the openings.

If anyone has any thoughts, please share. It would be amazing if we could get some sort of seiges going, even if they are a bit lacking initially.

 

[JoshRose]

On a related note, does anyone know how to access the terrain editor> I realise that armagan hasn't written a tutorial on it, but I'm just curious if anyone is atleast able to enter the mode.

 

[Janus]

Well, I'm not sure if it's everything you're hoping for, but there is a terrain generator available when you have edit mode enabled. From the world map, you'll see a Camp button and Terrain button. Click the Terrain button to go into the terrain generator. You can play with the different values to create terrain looking somewhat like you want. Much of the stuff is random based on seeds, such as water placement. Once you have a terrain you think will work for your scene, get out a pen/pencil and paper and write down the code it gives at the top of the screen. There are Copy and Paste buttons for the code, but they don't work yet so you'll need to write.
Then, when adding your new scene in the Python scripts or in the Unofficial Editor (untested), use your terrain code for it.

EDIT: that's how I got the terrain for the 4 team scene and jousting scene for my mod.

 

[JoshRose]

Ah, thanks. I never saw the button.

 

[JoshRose]

When using your terrain code with the arena, did you change the mesh and body? I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I have been unable to change the arena terrain.

When editing the python scripts, did you simply scroll down to the arena in the scenes file, and add your terrain code? I've tried using the unofficial editor, and editing the python scripts, but the game awalys crashes when I try to enter the arena.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Janus]

Actually in module_scenes.py I copy one of the other lines which uses a terrain (the original arena doesn't use a terrain, it just uses a static mesh) such as the Salt Mine. I add the copy to the bottom, change the name, and change the terrain code.

You then can link to the new scene. For arena matches, you'll need to change the dialog in a few places to point to the new scene.

 

[Wywern]

If you can edit the terrain, then you could use cliffs under your walls. This works even with generated terrain but you need to find a good one and that can be hard.
When you have good cliffs, just create the castle over them. Also small wooden forts might be better than stone castles because the battles are so small.

 

[JoshRose]

What do you mean about using cliffs? Do you mean that soldiers will avoid them? If so, that actually would work. I've seen plenty of soldiers fall down cliffs though, so I have to wonder if they have the ai to avoid them.

 

[Raz]

And oh yeah, can you arrange the spawn points for each party?

 

[Janus]

Yep, you can create a special battle scene where you have the entry point placed for each troop or group of troops (32 entry points is the max), the same way the arena battles are set up. You can actually have up to 5 competing teams as well, and leave the troop's equipment intact or instead replace/remove some or all of it for the battle, however you want it to play out.

As long as it's not a random world map battle you're talking about (which automatically generates it's own temporary entry points), the possibilities are rather wide open.

EDIT:

If you can edit the terrain, then you could use cliffs under your walls.

Well, there's no way to directly edit features of the terrain. The terrain generator consists of sliders for things such as hilliness and x/y size, selection of terrain base type (plains, snow) and whether rivers are added or not, along with some seeded random numbers for the terrain generation. You can have it randomly choose new seeds or manually enter them, but the result is basically random.
One exception seems to be with trees; if you set the seed for trees to 1, it seems there are very very few trees which is nice for clear space to work with. 0, 2, 3 and so forth have a standard fair number of trees.

Unfortunately, no way to directly edit the shape of the terrain and such.

 

[Raz]

Great, just what I wanted to hear , thanks janus, again.

 

[Janus]

No problem. If you need help with anything related to setting up a special battle scene, just ask. I've played around with it a fair bit setting up the new arena scenarios.

 

[Raz]

Great, you'll be the first to ask for help when I need it

 

[Frost_Knight]

this ideea with siege & stuff is prety cool and i think it's kinda necesary
cuz this will also lead to capturing cites
then we can also do some kind of upgrade settlement from a keep to castle or something like that

 

[JoshRose]

Yeah, I think castles are the next big step in the game. I can't think of anything that would make the game more fun than full scale seiges and capturing cities.

 

[HemoGoblin]

why dont you just have a palisade wall in a circle with one gate, instead of having stairs up to the top you simply bit a dirt slope (think its called a rampart) beacause i recon the ai could handle a slope and it wouldnt look weird against the palisade, plus people once upon a time actually did this, i recon it would work.... would it?

 

[Frost_Knight]

Yeah, I think castles are the next big step in the game. I can't think of anything that would make the game more fun than full scale seiges and capturing cities.

U got that right

 

[jrawlings]

why dont you just have a palisade wall in a circle with one gate, instead of having stairs up to the top you simply bit a dirt slope (think its called a rampart) beacause i recon the ai could handle a slope and it wouldnt look weird against the palisade, plus people once upon a time actually did this, i recon it would work.... would it?

Like your avatar. I've had Hobgoblin before, pretty good stuff from the Wychwood brewery. They have another one that I've had, that I can't remember... I'm thinking fiddler something...