Question(s) for Pocus

[TimDee58]

Firstly, I love the game....

BUT...

I'm not comfortable with the way that Attacker & Defender are decided, in many cases I enter a battle disappointed because my General is not the right one as I'm unexpectedly attacking or Defending (having planned for the other option).

Q1 - Can the game be modded so that if you own a region you are automatically the defender? Obviously if you have invaded a region you would likewise be the attacker, this seems pretty logical to me.

OR - if thats not possible...

Q2 - Can Leader attributes be edited to a single figure for both attack and defence? examples below:

2-2 = 2
2-1 = 1.5
1-2 = 1.5
2-0 = 1
0-2 = 1
1-1 = 1
1-0 = 0.5
0-1 = 0.5
0-0 = 0

The resulting sum would then be applied to the Armies troop quality, as I believe it is currently.

I've had instances where my troops in Battle A are superior and in B below average against the same opponent in the same region with pretty much the same forces, this makes no sense to me.

Is there a simple fix that could be applied to test this?

[TimDee58]

I should have said that I resolve all battles with FoG2 rather than the in-game engine

[Pocus]

There were some improvements on the attacked/defender determination that are only in the Diplomacy Open Beta patch. The game now traces who has moved last in a region, because ownership is not good enough in case if sieges. The besieged is still the owner but the besieger has all rights to be the defender against a relieving army.

This can certainly all be modded, but here you are asking about changes in the gameplay code, so you'll need to rework some of the functions. They are accessible as all the gameplay code is in text files you can edit, but unless you are a programmer, you'll probably makes more bugs than you'll solve
if you are interested in taking a look, I can give you the file involved though.

[USGrant1962]

I agree that in the new beta the attacker/defender logic is more sensible.

I finally kicked the Boi out of Venetia after trying off and on for 30 years because they had a 2 defender and the marsh. Good stuff.

[Seamus]

There were some improvements on the attacked/defender determination that are only in the Diplomacy Open Beta patch. The game now traces who has moved last in a region, because ownership is not good enough in case if sieges. The besieged is still the owner but the besieger has all rights to be the defender against a relieving army.

This can certainly all be modded, but here you are asking about changes in the gameplay code, so you'll need to rework some of the functions. They are accessible as all the gameplay code is in text files you can edit, but unless you are a programmer, you'll probably makes more bugs than you'll solve
if you are interested in taking a look, I can give you the file involved though.

I would definitely like to see those files. Is the source code C or C++?

[Pocus]

No, that's in the custom language of the Archon engine, which is interpreted by the Archon EXE, itself built in C++.

All gameplay code and such is present in your game directory, look at BSF files...

[Seamus]

I got a couple "Questions for Pocus:"

(1) is there a way to change the way my troops are distributed at the outset of a battle? For example, I would prefer if they all just stack up tight at the bottom left of the deployment area. Terrain is so important, just a standard maniple in the middle is almost never what I actually want, so I spend the time and clicks moving them all 'out of the way' then I move them the way I want them.

(2) is there a way to multi-select units during deployment?

(3) is it possible to hotkey the "next region" and the "next unit" functions in the UI?