Caucasus Mountain top bug?

[CrimsonStorm]

I am playing through Caucasus and remember seeing the text about having to capture the mountain and objectives changing. However I then ended up reloading the previous turn and never got the message. Now I seem unable to complete a DV. Whats the actual trigger for this message?

[ThvN]

Hello CrimsonStorm, I've been a bit busy lately but since your question still remained unanswered, I just had a look with the editor. I'm not a map modder, but the editor is a big help in understanding some of the things that happen during play. It seems there is a certain amount of randomness; the changing of the objective to a certain mountain top seems dependant on the random appearance of some off-map trigger units on the Allied side.

Each turn the chance increases that one of these units will appear in the Allied turn, and when it appears the scenario objectives change. I just tested it by playing it as a seperate scenario, and by playing with hotseat mode I could see when the Allied trigger unit would spawn, if I than proceeded to the Axis turn I got the message and the game would focus the map on the extra objective.

So, say that the first trigger unit has a 25% chance of appearing from the second Allied turn on, and each turn after that an extra trigger unit can spawn with the same probability. The probability that the objectives change increases very rapidly between turns 2 and 8. But in the first few turns I wouldn't be surprised that it won't appear when you reload and replay the Axis turn, because the probability of it happening in the first few turns is low.

[CrimsonStorm]

Thanks, been looking at the editor. What causes off map units to appear though?

[ThvN]

OK, a tutorial on how I found them, step-by-step since you didn't mention how good you are with the editor:

Open your scenario editor, and open the Caucasus. You can see a row of Allied capital ships sitting off the map on the northwest corner, these are the trigger units. They are not there when the scenario starts, but what causes them to appear? Now:

Select 'Edit' and in the pull-down menu select 'Scenario Params'

In the 'Scenario Params' screen, select the Tab 'Scripts'

See the first entry, on the first turn a 'tag' gets added, called 'cruiser'. See that? Good, now press 'Cancel' to close the screen and go back to the main screen of the editor.

Scroll all the way the the northwest (upper-left) corner of the map. There is a line of light cruisers with custom names, from hex (0,5) to (0,11)

Now make sure you are in the proper mode to edit units. Select 'Edit', and make sure that in the pull-down menu 'Units' mode is selected (has a dot in front of it). Now you can edit the units on the map. OK, see the first light cruiser at hex (0,5), called 'Kerch'. Press SHIFT and hold it down, and left mouse click on this unit. A new screen should appear, and you can release the SHIFT key. If the unit disappears or nothing happens, check all the previous steps.

On the screen that appears, from the bottom row of four buttons, select 'Edit Trigger'. A new screen appears, with three 'conditions' listed, see for an explanation by highlighting the condition and selecting the 'Edit' button near the bottom. Let's just say, cruiser 'Kerch' has a 25% chance of appearing on turn 2 only, and if the 'cruiser' tag is active. Remember that the 'cruiser' tag is added on the first turn, so it should be active.

Next cruiser in line, 'Komintern', has a 25% of appearing on turn 3 only, if the 'cruiser' tag is active. Etc. for the rest, so each turn from 2 to 8, if the tag 'cruiser' exist, there is a 25% chance of a certain cruiser appearing. Great.

Now, select 'Cancel' in each screen until you are back at the main map screen. Select 'Edit', and in the pull-down menu select 'Scenario Params'. On the 'Scenario Params' screen, select the Tab 'Scripts'.

Highlight the second script, and select 'Edit' (under 'Actions', this script has 'Remove tag 'cruiser''). On the next screen, highlight the only condition ('Remove tag 'cruiser'') and select the 'Edit Trigger' button near the top.

Next screen, it should show the trigger, 'Number of allied units in all map is 0'. Highlight this, and select 'Edit' button near the bottom of the screen.

Now, this screen sets a 'map condition': An allied capital ship (i.e. a cruiser) exists on the map. When this condition exist, it triggers the script, which is to remove the tag 'cruiser'. So when an Allied cruiser spawns, the tag 'cruiser' is removed. Because that tag 'cruiser' needs to be active to allow any other cruiser to spawn, so no more cruisers can spawn fron now on. So if any of the random cruisers spawns between turn 2-8, it triggers a map condition that prevents any other ones from spawning.

And why do the map objectives change? Well, all the cruisers have a different name. The game checks for a map condition: if there is a unit on the map with a specific name, it will add a tag depending on which name it is (the tags from 'one to 'seven', corresponding with the seven different cruiser names). So when one of the seven random cruisers appears, the script will had a tag depending on which ship spawns. This tag in turn triggers the changing victory condition, causing one of the mountain tops (linked to that specific tag) to change into a victory hex.

[CrimsonStorm]

Thanks for that, very helpful.

I'd figured out the scenario parameters but didn't know how to see the spawn chance for each cruiser, couldnt see the shift click mentioned anywhere.

I ended up rolling back to turn 9 to not capture sochi and thus get the secondary that way without a cruiser.