Ardennes MP reinforcement trigger

[Juno]

What triggers the Allied reinforcements on the MP Ardennes map?

[ThvN]

If this is the same map as in the normal PzC campaign, it works as follows according to the editor:

There are 4 cities on the East side that are victory hexes and are also zones that trigger the reinforcements: Aachen, St. Vith, Bastogne and Luxembourg. If the Axis player has units adjacent to all of these cities (checked at end of turn), then the Allied player will receive 4700 prestige.

Then, when the Axis have conquered all of these same 4 victory hexes, another 4700 prestige is given to the Allied.

[Molve]

If the Axis player has units adjacent to all of these cities (checked at end of turn), then the Allied player will receive 4700 prestige.

Please note that for this trigger to... well, trigger, there needs to be units around all four cities simultaneously.

As a general programming construct, this is a fairly major error. As a script for a friendly game, perhaps less so.

But still; all the Axis player needs to do to avoid triggering this particular helping of Allied prestige is to conquer and completely evacuate one of the four cities before moving close to the last one. (Which is actually quite easy to do completely by chance, even if you have no intention of "cheating"!)

More solid code would count an axis flag too for purposes of triggering the prestige. Better* still, restructure the scripting code to first individually set flags for "adjacent to city X" instances, and then check when all four flags are set. You can't "unset" a flag once set the way you can move out units.
*) "Better" as in "showing and fixing the error", not necessarily as in "working better"...

Like this:

Code: Select all

Number of axis units in zone 1 is no less than 1 --> Add tag 'adj1'

Number of axis units in zone 2 is no less than 1 --> Add tag 'adj2'

Number of axis units in zone 3 is no less than 1 --> Add tag 'adj3'

Number of axis units in zone 4 is no less than 1 --> Add tag 'adj4'

Tag 'adj1' exists AND
Tag 'adj2' exists AND
Tag 'adj3' exists AND
Tag 'adj4' exists AND --> Add: 0 prestige to Axis, 4700 prestige to Allies

As you can see, this is more or less the same script. Only decoupled into five individual scripts.

Cheers

[Molve]

Then, when the Axis have conquered all of these same 4 victory hexes, another 4700 prestige is given to the Allied.

This one is solid.

Of course, it can still be gamed. Wipe out the Luxembourg defenders, for instance, but don't take the town. Just place and hold one aux infantry in an adjacent hex to prevent allied reinforcements, and then move into the empty victory hex on the last turn.

This way, the Allies only gets their prestige far too late for it to do any good.

Scripts like this could really do with a timer. Say, if the script hasn't triggered yet on turn 12, it does so, regardless.

Same with the other helping of prestige. Say it hasn't triggered either, it too triggers on turn 12.

This way, any Axis dodging (intentional or not) are rewarded by 9400 Allied Prestige on the same turn...