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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2014 11:13:59 GMT -6
Hi All,
I wanted to congratulate the developers for this outstanding game. I picked up SAI-The Great War last monday.
I am off and running and I had a few questions for the forumites.
1. When I request a night (generated) battle, the map color changes to a green shade with a gray dot pattern. Is this normal, because other shades of weather (good, bad) are solid colors. Is it possible for a user to tell the application to use a solid color to indicate the night condition.
2. I have already been able to easily create a battle generator for the Pacific Northwest (Sea of Japan etc.), so Russia and Japan can be advesaries from 1906-1918. In developing this generator, I noticed values for start points (1,2,3) and home (1,2,3). Can anyone explain the relationship of these values to one another an their role in the generation of a battle.
Thanks so much for such a great game.
Regards,
Stwa
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Post by randomizer on May 23, 2014 13:03:02 GMT -6
Hi, thanks for the input. I will attempt to answer your questions.
Not as such. Twilight and night use darker shades of the water/land colours selected in the Player Preferences dialog but there is no specific night colour. Twilight and night conditions for the selected unit/division/formation is displayed as text in the information line at the bottom of the screen.
Essentially you have the three start point (SP) options and their corresponding homes, SP 1 with Home-1 etc. Think of the start points as areas rather than points with opposing start points some 35-50 nm apart where Side A SP-1 will be matched to Side-B SP-1 when the generated battle is run. This should prevent forces starting intermingled or at unreasonably short ranges. Home provides the AI with a direction to withdraw towards should it determine that it is over matched or defeated.
Hope that this helps.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2014 9:19:50 GMT -6
Thank you, your reply was of great help, and now I have 1 battle near Port Arthur, 1 near Vladivostok, and 1 in the Tsushima Strait.
I made a new briefing map for the generator using the scenario editor and renamed it The Tsushima Strait 1906-1918. I know, very original. You have to pretend the real Tsushima never happened, and so Japan and Russia keep arguing into the Great War era.
I also added the interwar ships of super dreadnoughts that appeared on the forum. I added these ships to The Pacific Ocean 1906-1925 generator.
So, does anyone know if you can specify more than 3 sets of start and home points (i.e. 4,5,6 ...) for a generator.
I really can't imagine having any more content at this point. This game seems very complete. I will probably download a few custom scenarios just so the menu isn't blank.
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Post by Fredrik W on May 24, 2014 14:42:43 GMT -6
Glad to hear that you like the game!
There is a maximum of three sets of start points in one battle generator file. If you want more variety you can make several different files for different areas and/or time periods.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2014 9:16:50 GMT -6
Thanks for the suggestion regarding different areas and time periods.
So ... I got started right away. Your game is so cool, addons are easy, and I made a Straits of Florida 1914 - 1918 generator. As it turned out, the Rough Riders were wiped out (except Roosevelt), when they charged up San Juan Hill, and Spain was able to retain Cuba after all!
First, I used the Ship Design thing, to make all the classes on page 283 (the section for Spain) in Janes' WW1 book. So ... that was BB Espana, B Pelayo, and CA Cataluna.
I even obtained the proper Spanish ensign. So now, I can play Spain vs. United States. There are only 2 problems with this.
1. Spain is a minor power.
2. Spain is not listed in the Nation drop-down box of the Ship Design Editor. So, I selected Austria instead. It is not really a problem, except when you display the big ship status screens during the game. Then the game identifies Spanish ships as Austrian and displays the Austrian (not Spanish) flag on the popup form.
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Post by randomizer on May 25, 2014 17:14:46 GMT -6
My recommendation would be to Spain as an Unspecified nation in DesignShip2 rather than using Austria.
The Battle Generator reads the name of the ship class and individual ship name from the [Ships#] paragraph of the *.qbf file so the country of origin is irrelevant but the ship will carry the national characteristics of Austria when a generated battle is loaded.
You can edit the characteristics of navies by editing the Nations.dat file but save the original somewhere safe and be sure to retain the *.dat file extension. Editing the combat characteristics of Unspecified ships allows you to customize the Spanish Navy as allowed by the SAI perimeters in the Nations file.
The Spanish American War battle generator from SAI-RJW uses Spain and all the Spanish ships there were created as Unspecified ships. Your Spain flag needs to be in *.bmp format and must be placed in the Flags OR Custom Files folder where the FlagFile= line points to its name rather than its location.
Good Shooting.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2014 10:19:41 GMT -6
Thanks again for your ideas. One thing is clear, you really can't add a new nation without some consequence.
When you set ships to the Unidentified [Nation], then that is what you get ... a ship with no identity.
Such ships are decribed by the system as Generic, and there is no flag on the various status popups to futher identify them.
You can't use Nation=11 because the game knows any value over 10 is illegal.
So, in my situation, I am going to decide between Greek and Spain, and implement one or the other, but not both.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2014 10:41:11 GMT -6
Just some random things, I am changing on my system, if anyone is interested.
I moved all of the Unidentified classes, ships and land targets to the Custom Files folder. Mainly because I want to edit them, but also so they will not appear on the Ships list.
Also, I noticed when you request a Generated Battle, the windows title reads as "Quick Battle". Perhaps it could read as "Generated Battle".
I am not disuaded from my long term goal, despite not being able to add new nations. I am going to mimic pre-dreadnought action, like Tsushima, Cuba, etc. with facsimilie ships from the dreadnought/superdreadnought era.
I am going to do the same with WW2. So I am thinking, I will make custom scenarios of WW2 battles using their same names, but changing out the WW2 ships with dreadnought era ships. For battle dates, I will simply subtract 20 years to get the dates I need. Roughly speaking that means "WW2" facsimile warfare will begin in 1919 and end in 1925.
And finally, here is a script that I use to copy files that I found necessary (for whatever reason) to copy from the Custom Files folder to the other game folders.
COPY Adriatic.qbf ..\Scenarios\ COPY Baltic.qbf ..\Scenarios\ COPY NorthSea.qbf ..\Scenarios\ COPY Pacific25.qbf ..\Scenarios\Pacific.qbf COPY StraitsFlorida.qbf ..\Scenarios\ COPY Tsushima.qbf ..\Scenarios\
COPY Florida.env ..\Scenarios\ Copy FloridaBrief.env ..\Scenarios\ COPY Tsushima.env ..\Scenarios\ COPY TsushimaBrief.env ..\Scenarios\ COPY NationsSpain.dat ..\Data\Nations.dat REM NationsGreece.dat ..\Data\Nations.dat COPY Spain.bmp ..\Flags\ COPY Preferences ..\
COPY Espana.sdf ..\Designs COPY Pelayo.sdf ..\Designs COPY Cataluna.sdf ..\Designs COPY Bustamante.sdf ..\Designs
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2014 13:57:50 GMT -6
I thought I might attach 1 image to show the Spanish dreadnoughts in action. I might try to increase the prestige of Spain (in the game), by adding a few fantasy BBs to the Espana class. The historical ships are Espana, Alfonso Trece, and Jaime Primero. But, I might add a fictional Rodrigo Diaz! Attachments:
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2014 2:45:37 GMT -6
Thanks everyone for helping me along.
In the end, I made installers for both Greece and Spain. When you run the Greece installer it installs Greece and removes Spain. By that I mean it removes any nation data, ships, scenarios, and generators associated with Spain, and then installs any nation data, ships, scenarios, and generators associated with Greece. The Spain installer just does the reverse.
I made some shortcuts to the installers so you can execute them from the desktop. Attachments:
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2014 14:55:08 GMT -6
Since it may have seemed that Greece was not getting any respect, I threw together an Agean Sea 1914-1918 generator, which provides Greece and Turkey a suitable venue for combat. ... And, as I mentioned above, I was planning on doing "WW2" Custom Scenarios, dating them from 1919 to 1925. But I thought I would try a WW2 generator first! So ... I made the Denmark Strait 1919-1925 generator. It's the Germans vs Great Britain. There are only two ships for the German forces. The BB Bayern, and the CA Blucher. However, Great Britain gets every BB, BC, and CA, in the fleet. I recommend that you play as the Germans, and use "Pick Force" if the generator refuses to include Blucher. You just never know what the generator is going to pick as your opponents. Attachments:
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2014 5:39:10 GMT -6
You can edit the characteristics of navies by editing the Nations.dat file but save the original somewhere safe and be sure to retain the *.dat file extension. Editing the combat characteristics of Unspecified ships allows you to customize the Spanish Navy as allowed by the SAI perimeters in the Nations file. The Spanish American War battle generator from SAI-RJW uses Spain and all the Spanish ships there were created as Unspecified ships. Your Spain flag needs to be in *.bmp format and must be placed in the Flags OR Custom Files folder where the FlagFile= line points to its name rather than its location. Right, but if you indicate "Spanish" or the Spain flag in the data row for an Unpecified Nation, then all land targets (and probably the generic merchants, trawlers, etc.) become Spanish. (see attachment) Attachments:
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Post by randomizer on May 28, 2014 8:03:05 GMT -6
Probably because SAI was not intended to support adding additional countries and there are likely going to be issues with any work-around's a user can create and I was referring solely to custom battle-generator (*.qbf) files. So it's working as designed and your screenshot indicates that you have edited the Nations.dat file to add the Spanish flag to ALL unspecified objects in the game.
To get the Spanish flag showing in a Spanish inclusive BG the instructions above work provided the only reference to Spain is in the *.qbf file and no edits have been made to the Nations.dat file. From the SAW.qbf included in SAI-RJW so we know it works for generated battles using a specific *.qbf file.
[Environment]
[Side0] Name=Spain FlagFile=Spain.bmp BInLine=1900 CAInLine=1900 StartPoint1=857800W 223000N StartPoint2=767200W 226500N StartPoint3=759500W 279200N Home1=810000W 210100N Home2=734700W 205100N Home3=647100W 189500N [Side1]
There is no work-around that I am aware of for when Spain is a side in custom scenarios created with the scenario editor or means to get the effect that you seem to want without replacing a major county as you have already done swapping out Greece for Spain. Changing the Nations.dat file adding any flag to the Unspecified "country" should exactly produce the effect shown in your screenshot.
This probably is not the reply you want but it's the only one I have.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2014 10:00:14 GMT -6
Probably because SAI was not intended to support adding additional countries and there are likely going to be issues with any work-around's a user can create and I was referring solely to custom battle-generator (*.qbf) files. So it's working as designed and your screenshot indicates that you have edited the Nations.dat file to add the Spanish flag to ALL unspecified objects in the game. To get the Spanish flag showing in a Spanish inclusive BG the instructions above work provided the only reference to Spain is in the *.qbf file and no edits have been made to the Nations.dat file. From the SAW.qbf included in SAI-RJW so we know it works for generated battles using a specific *.qbf file.. Me thinks we are having a failure to communicate. Here are 2 sceens that are interesting. SAI V 160 NO mods to Nation.datSpanish ships typed as "Unspeified". Spanish Ship status screens are HOSED! Attachments:
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Post by randomizer on May 28, 2014 13:29:33 GMT -6
Perhaps, I do not understand what you mean by "hosed". Your Spanish flag displays on the customized Quick Battle screen so I don't see what your problem is. Sorry.
You cannot add new major countries to SAI, just replace existent countries with the cost of scenario functionality should you run a scenario that uses the replaced country's ships.
If you alter the Nations.dat file to create a new country using "Unspecified" as the root, all unspecified units will adopt the new country attributes in any scenario that uses Unspecified designs.
Ship types created as "Unspecified" will also display as "generic".
You can create battle generator files that use unique flags and have done so.
Swapping out edited data files is an option and you easily can use a file-swapping utility like John Scone's Generic Mod Enabler with SAI and you have already done something similar creating unique installers.
All seems to be working as designed although apparently not as desired.
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