02-03-2000 21:35									#1
	A Native transport problem of interest to scenario designers Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

This is not a bug, but it will sound like one for awhile, bear with me:

I modified some of the heroes in the fantasy game, and gave some of them the ability to transport natively to other maps. Then I loaded my current saved fantasy game (around the year 1700), cheated, created some hero units, and the game insisted they did NOT have native transport ability.

After fiddling with rules.txt for awhile, I tried creating an entirely new game. In this game, the units DID have native transport. I could go back and forth between the two saved games, and native trasnport was always there for the new game only.

Then I remembered something. When Mick Uhl gave us the bugfix for Fell Wraiths, I changed rules.txt as suggested in this forum, and it did NOT fix my fell wraiths in that particular game; but subsequently it worked fine. Finally I realized the essence of this problem:

You can use events in events.txt to give native transport to units in the middle of a game, so the save file has to remember the current state of native transport, and this overrides what's in rules.txt. The implications are:

- When you are testing units for a 4-map scenario, you must remember that you can't just use a saved file to check out your unit changes, if you are fiddling with native transport. (I suspect you designers know about other aspects of rules.txt that also cannot be changed in midgame.)

- The tip about patching rules.txt for the fell wraith problem might have mentioned that the change would take effect on new games only.

--toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

	03-03-2000 04:20									#2
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Toby,

Thanks for posting your findings .
[This message has been edited by Cam (edited March 02, 2000).]

	05-03-2000 06:17									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

If you've already built your new world and you run into this problem, another solution might be to add an event that triggers at the beginning of the scenario game, fixing all the transports. You must insert changes for all units to which you've added, or subtracted, native transport capabilites.

- toby

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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

	08-03-2000 11:28									#4
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Toby,

Are you suggesting that a 'continuous' modifier is needed when dealing with this aspect of events? That is, a justonce (or in the case of flags, failing to include the 'continuous' line) is insufficient or may be troublesome?

	08-03-2000 19:14									#5
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Cam,
Sorry, but I made this recommendation without actually trying out the event. I am assuming that a "justonce" event would do the trick, since the game seems to want to remember the current state of transport.

I hope I'm not too lazy to make the experiment and report later today.

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

	09-03-2000 04:39									#6
	Suffering from ads?

Well, if any of you were guessing what would happen when I tried to test out an event that changes transport, I bet you guessed right: I'm frustrated that i could not get anything to work. I tried this, and various variations on it:

@IF
TURN=4
@THEN
Transport
unit=Caravan
state=On
mode=Native
type=0000000000111000
continuous
@ENDIF

Among other things, I am not sure what the argument of "type=" is supposed to be. But basically, nothing ever changed the transport. (I also tried type=4. I also tried without the continuous...)

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

	09-03-2000 06:47									#7
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Toby,

OK.. more fun and games I see. I'm not sure where to go next with your event - looks OK in theory to me. Maybe try to limit the event to one transport link only just between two maps(?). It shouldn't matter, but perhaps if the event was somehow confined to one tribe, and an 'owner' parameter was build in - maybe that might help (left field suggestion - I know).

A variation on a theme...

Native transport for land units - I am wondering if a sea transport unit can take a land-based unit with native transport out to sea and have it successfully make a leap onto another map? My early testing indicates that land units with native transport must go from land-to-land, but if anyone's had a land unit go from sea-to-land by using a sea transporter and activating the land-based unit while on the boat, I'd be pleased to hear about it.

(This is an important plank in my scenario's structure, and might necessitate an entirely new approach.)

	09-03-2000 21:09									#8
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Could John, or anyone, provide an example of an event that will successfully change native transport at all for any unit? That would be a good place to start.

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

	10-03-2000 23:11									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

OK, this worked for me:

@IF
TURN
turn=2
@THEN
Transport
unit=Caravan
state=On
mode=Native
type=4
@ENDIF

I suspect that case is extrememly important in a LOT of this. "type=4" refers to the fourth native transport line, where the first line in the @MAP_ section is line zero.

"continuous" is not needed.

Note that in order to make this test work, I had to also change rules.txt to allow the caravan to exist in the clouds.

See William K's note on transport that the civ.cx site also, for more details on transport.


- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

	11-03-2000 05:29									#10
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Good work Toby.