Iphicrates campaign

[julianbarker]

Not seen this before - first battle of the Iphocrates Campaign and both sides have the same coloured banners and minimap colours. Decided it is too late and my eyes are too old to play this.

[julianbarker]

Tried it again and same result. So Red on Red seems a feature of the campaign.

[jomni]

Looks like the banners assignment is not done in the BannerSideID.txt

[Paul59]

Tried it again and same result. So Red on Red seems a feature of the campaign.

Interesting.

Although they look the same at first glance, the banners are actually different. The Spartans are using their normal Red banners, with a laurel wreath on the general's banners. While the Iphicrateans are using the Roman Crimson banners, with a sculpture bust for the general's banner.

Jomni is quite right, the problem is caused by the campaign lacking an edited BannerSideID.txt for the new armies/sidenames that the campaign includes. It seems that if an army is not listed in the BannerSideID.txt, then they use the Roman banners as a default.

I am more than happy to help vakarr, if he wants to add a BannerSideID.txt to his campaigns, I have a lot of experience with it.

An edited RandomGeneralName.BSF file should also be included, so that sub generals for the new nations are allocated appropriate names. Without that file the generals are just called "General".

[rbodleyscott]

Tried it again and same result. So Red on Red seems a feature of the campaign.

It should only affect the battle against the Spartans. (Spartans always use red except in a civil war, but because the Iphicratean banners have not been defined, they are using Default red Roman ones).

[rbodleyscott]

I am more than happy to help vakarr, if he wants to add a BannerSideID.txt to his campaigns, I have a lot of experience with it.

An edited RandomGeneralName.BSF file should also be included, so that sub generals for the new nations are allocated appropriate names. Without that file the generals are just called "General".

Probably best to add instructions re this to Part 3 of your Campaign creation guide.

[Paul59]

I am more than happy to help vakarr, if he wants to add a BannerSideID.txt to his campaigns, I have a lot of experience with it.

An edited RandomGeneralName.BSF file should also be included, so that sub generals for the new nations are allocated appropriate names. Without that file the generals are just called "General".

Probably best to add instructions re this to Part 3 of your Campaign creation guide.

Yes, I was thinking that this morning. I will get around to it, Xmas allowing!

[vakarr]

I read about the reverse banners thing in the campaign construction notes but didn't understand what it was for. I'll look out for that problem in the future (have just finished an Alexander historical campaign except for including RBS' latest suggestions re Unicode and names).

Do you have a list of generals for the RandomGeneralName.BSF file? Or can that file be copied from somewhere else (eg a web page or book that provides lists of names for campaigns)? Often just finding one correct general name (for an ally general or opponent) is difficult. Sometimes books have an index of names but it's not common. Thanks for trying out the Iphicrates campaign, I hope you like it!

[rbodleyscott]

Do you have a list of generals for the RandomGeneralName.BSF file?

It is in /Data/Text/Text6.txt

Or can that file be copied from somewhere else (eg a web page or book that provides lists of names for campaigns)?

If only. The internet can be good for individual nations.

[vakarr]

If only. The internet can be good for individual nations.

Phil Barker's "Alexander the Great's Campaigns" has some useful, if short, lists at the back. I think Tony Bath did something like that, too, but I can't find his sacred tome at present.

[rbodleyscott]

If only. The internet can be good for individual nations.

Phil Barker's "Alexander the Great's Campaigns" has some useful, if short, lists at the back.

I think I might have lent that to someone and never got it back. Anyway, I can't find it.

[vakarr]

Actually I think I created some lists of my own for one of my old campaigns, but I don't hold much hope of finding that file, either. Where is RandomGeneralName.BSF located?

[rbodleyscott]

Actually I think I created some lists of my own for one of my old campaigns, but I don't hold much hope of finding that file, either. Where is RandomGeneralName.BSF located?

/Data/scripts

[vakarr]

I put REVERSEBANNERS in the global segment of the CustomCampaign.txt file for the Iphicrates campaign, but the first battle is still red on red. What else should I do?

[rbodleyscott]

I put REVERSEBANNERS in the global segment of the CustomCampaign.txt file for the Iphicrates campaign, but the first battle is still red on red. What else should I do?

The problem is that your new sideIDs have no banners assigned to them. You need to assign them banners in a clone of

/Core/BannerSideIDs.txt

which I think you can put in the main directory of your custom folder. (Not in a /Core subdirectory).

[Paul59]

Actually I think I created some lists of my own for one of my old campaigns, but I don't hold much hope of finding that file, either. Where is RandomGeneralName.BSF located?

Have a look at this guide to creating new nations names:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 91&t=81328

Hopefully I've explained all you need to know about assigning banners to new nations, but just ask if there is anything you don't understand.

[vakarr]

thankyou, Paul! For those who haven't found it yet, here's a summary of the above plus the new section Paul has posted on the scenario design page plus some other useful information from RBS

Unit Names
You don't need to use the same name in the unit name strings (IDS_UNITNAME) as in the Squads file/army lists - they are only for display purposes so don't have to match the machine readable version. In particular you don't need to use underscores in the strings.

Battle Descriptions
Note that the strings are unicode and will not display certain characters that word processors tend to automatically insert - e.g. it won't display apostrophes unless the straight up version is used, and it won't print hyphens unless the short hyphen version is used.

Banners
If the enemy (side 1) is Roman or Spartan, it will have red banners – which means both sides have red flags - and you need to include REVERSEBANNERS in the global section of the customCampaign.txt file. Also need to add a BannerSideID.txt if you create any new army lists as if no banners are defined then the side will have red banners. You can find the main BannerSideIDs.txt in C/Program Files/Slitherine/Field of Glory II/Core. Copy and paste it into your main campaign folder.

"At the risk of stating the b******g obvious, another very good reason for choosing the sidename 14 to represent the Aetolian League, is because the game is already set up to use Greek banners, “civilized” rally horns, and Greek generals names for it. It’s best to match your new nation to a very similar existing sidename number, otherwise you might get some strange banners and generals names appearing!

However, there might be circumstances where the only option is to create a completely new sidename number. It could be that there are not enough similar existing nations to reuse, or it could be that you are designing a mod that adds nations/armies to the existing set. If that is the case, there are a couple of extra steps that you need to take.

1) Add the line IDS_SIDENAME_XX, "Your new nation name", to your Text1.txt, as described above.

2) You now need to edit the BannerSideIDs.txt, so that your new nation displays the banner that you want. You can find the main BannerSideIDs.txt in C/Program Files/Slitherine/Field of Glory II/Core. Copy and paste it into your main campaign folder.

It is a “read only” file, so once you have copied and pasted it, right click on it, select “Properties” and uncheck the "Read only" box, click "Apply" and then "OK".

When you open the BannerSideIDs.txt it will look like this:

[Banner1]
SIDEID 32

[Banner2]
SIDEID 32

[Banner3]
SIDEID 8 23 35 44 48 50 52 57

[Banner4]
SIDEID 8 23 35 44 48 50 52 57

[Banner5]
SIDEID 3 7 9 10 11 12 28 34 38 41 42 49 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 70

[Banner6]
SIDEID 3 7 9 10 11 12 28 34 38 41 42 49 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 70

[Banner7]
SIDEID 0 1 4 13 14 16 18 19 21 22 26 30 31 37 39 40 43 46 53 54 55 65 66 67 68 69 71 72 255

[Banner8]
SIDEID 0 1 4 13 14 16 18 19 21 22 26 30 31 37 39 40 43 46 53 54 55 65 66 67 68 69 71 72 255

[Banner9]
SIDEID 2 5 6 20 24 25 27 29 33 36 45 47 56

[Banner10]
SIDEID 2 5 6 20 24 25 27 29 33 36 45 47 56

[Banner11]
SIDEID 17 51

[Banner12]
SIDEID 17 51

[Banner13]
SIDEID 15

[Banner14]
SIDEID 15

What this is telling us (and the game) is that there are 14 Banners (numbered 1 to 14), and below each banner is a list of the Sidename IDs that use that particular banner. The banners are grouped in pairs (ie: Banner1 and Banner2 etc). The first banner in the pair (warm colour) is used when the nation is Side0 (players side in a SP battle) in a scenario, and the second banner in the pair (cooler colour) is used when the nation is Side1. This is to ensure that the two banners used in the battle will be easily distinguishable, especially to us old codgers with dodgy eyesight!

You will notice that the same set of Sidename IDs are under both banners in the pair.

The banners broadly represent the following nations:

1 2 Roman
3 4 Carthaginian/Seleucids etc.
5 6 Celts/Gauls/Germans/Spanish etc.
7 8 Greeks/Hellenistic/Italians etc.
9 10 Persians, other Iranians etc.
11 12 Indian
13 14 Hun

So all you need to do is select the pair of banners that you want to use for your new nation, and add your new sidename ID number to the list of numbers underneath the two banners. Save and close."

Generals
An edited /Data/scripts/RandomGeneralName.BSF file should also be included, so that sub generals for the new nations are allocated appropriate names. Without that file the generals are just called "General". The list of generals is in /Data/Text/Text6.txt.

"Lastly, you need to edit the RandomGeneralName.BSF, this will ensure that your sub generals have appropriate names. You can find the vanilla RandomGeneralName.BSF in C/Program Files/Slitherine/Field of Glory II/Data/scripts. Copy and paste it into your campaign folder’s Data/Scripts sub folder.

Again, it is a “read only” file, so once you have copied and pasted it, right click on it, select “Properties” and uncheck the "Read only" box, click "Apply" and then "OK".

It is highly recommended to use a Text Editor, such as Notepad++, to edit the .BSF file. Notepad++ can be downloaded for free.

When you open the RandomGeneralName.BSF you will see a function called FUNCTIONGetRandomGeneralName. Most new nations can just be added to this function. Roman/Italian names are a bit more complicated, and need to added to the two other two functions in the file as well.

To add a new sidename number to the Function, find the correct language group, and add a side ID bracket, with the new number, to the function.

For instance, the part of the Function that lists the Armenian speaking nations is currently this:

// Armenian (also Colchian/Iberian and Caucasian faute de mieux)
if ((sideID == 5) || (sideID == 47) || (sideID == 57))
{
min = 5000;
max = 5070;
}

If we want to add a new Armenian speaking nation, with Sidename ID 100 to this list, we need to change it to read:

// Armenian (also Colchian/Iberian and Caucasian faute de mieux)
if ((sideID == 5) || (sideID == 47) || (sideID == 57) || (sideID == 100))
{
min = 5000;
max = 5070;
}

Be careful that you get the spacing and the right number of brackets in the right place.

Save and close.

The only other concern is selecting the “civilised” or “barbarian” rally horns for your new nation. Unfortunately, this is too problematic to mod, and the game has been set up to allocate the “civilized” horns for any non vanilla nations. It is something we will have to live with for now, maybe a solution will be found in the future."

[Paul59]

Banners
If the enemy (side 1) is Roman or Spartan, it will have red banners – which means both sides have red flags - and you need to include REVERSEBANNERS in the global section of the customCampaign.txt file.

Sorry vakarr, that is not quite right. In any battle, if side 1 is Roman or Spartan, they will always have Red banners, and Side 0 will have the "Cool" colour banners.

So in a campaign where some of the battles are against the Romans/Spartans, and some of the battles are against other nations, the Side 0 banners will normally be "Hot" colour and then change to a "Cool" colour when fighting the Romans/Spartans. Ideally we would like the player's army to use the same colour banners throughout the campaign, no matter who they were fighting against, so to stop the banners changing colour against the Romans/Spartans we should use the REVERSEBANNERS code in the CustomCampaign.txt. If you do that, then Side 0 will use "Cool" banners throughout the campaign.

The reason why both sides have Red (ie; Hot) banners in some battles of the Iphicrates campaign, is because the Iphicrateans were not assigned a banner using the BannerSideID.txt. Therefore the game gave them the default banner which happens to be the Roman Red flags.

[vakarr]

OK I've added the banners and generals to all my campaigns, got rid of the underscores in the names, and made a few other corrections, so I suppose now they have to be tested all over again and uploaded again, with the new Alexander campaign, and (unless you have some other suggestions) then I can start on the Darius campaign.

[julianbarker]

vakarr, thanks for looking into this. Not only does it sort out my red banners problem, but has taught me a lot about campaign building.