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Multiple parties


Joe

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Let's say I have an "old" scenario, that uses US, UK and German Forces on the same side (still all "BLUE"). I want to have the US and UK Forces as allies, so each party has its own "look", is off map for the other ones and the ongoing battle is only known by messages and by sight.

Is there any way to copy/move existant parties e.g. the US and/or UK to a new created "ally" (the paths or even the entire staff)? Otherwise I had to recreate the whole battle plan again :(

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No... we don't have a migration path for that. It's an interesting idea but I wonder if it would really save a lot of time in the end, if there are a lot of interdependencies like "embark if ... unit [now gone] has reached waypoint [deleted]". Tracing all the reasons why such a modified scenario no longer works as planned will probably cost at least as much work as re-doing it. I mean, first add the new parties. Then quickly switch between Blue and the new party to create the same units in the same locations. Copy the original units' route chain, and paste it to their twins. then delete the original units. That's probably the easiest way that I would try first.

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... Copy the original units' route chain, and paste it to their twins...

That's what I wanted to know: how to do this? You can copy any thing like regions, text to other parties, but rout chains? Just tried with "Kopiere Pfadkette" but no way to move it to another party. Ok it takes a lot of concentration and work to have the events, triggers and conditions to the according party fit, but maybe it's easier to recreate the sce again, since the player's side only has short paths that lead them to their starting positions.

Don't know if the idea is to strange, but why not have the player (-s) forced reacting not even to the enemy's response but also to allies, that are involved in combat more less successful. Can be done with a new sce, but changing existing ones, that can match this idea seems to be difficult.

Off to work on it, thx anyway

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That's what I wanted to know: how to do this? You can copy any thing like regions, text to other parties, but rout chains? Just tried with "Kopiere Pfadkette" but no way to move it to another party.

Oh, OK. I had hoped that it would work, but apparently not. At the time it was implemented we didn't really think that anyone would want to copy a route chain from Blue to Red, so... We'll have to give the whole user interface a make-over. It's in the work plan, but it's nothing that can be done overnight.

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Related to the multiple parties thing, would it be possible to alter the way it functions so that one side could be optionally or conditionally given control or ownership of the units on another side?

I.E. - We create a scenario with Red, Blue, and Green parties, and specify in the editor that Blue and Green are to be treated as a single side because Blue will always have control of Green. Green only exists in this scenario so that when the player loads the mission some of his units will appear to be painted differently or appear to be a forces from a friendly nation under his direct control. Green units are treated exactly like Blue units during planning and execution phases.

Ideally this could be conditional as well. We have a scenario set up for multi-player use, we expect that Blue is always going to have at least one human player to call the shots, but that there may be a Green player as well. If there is a Green player, they set Trigger 1 before the scenario starts. Otherwise, If Green Trigger 1 is NOT set...Blue controls Green, and it becomes just like the above situation.

(For the record, completely disregard this if it would be a PITA to implement. I would consider all of this to be "nice to have" but far from a big priority.)

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  • 2 months later...

Without opening another thread one more question on multiple parties and their behaviour. Concerning the menu: does it matter what field to click if I set up enemy or allied for a certain event/condition. Does it define an initiator and a reacting party depending on the horizontal or vertical line. Or is there a difference at all?

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actor.JPG.560497e5de045258c031d40b71ce5f

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OK, I'll post my issues here instead of the thread I started.

I have a test set up - using the flat.ter map I create a DMZ that runs the full length of the map.

I create the Green side and place some units on the map

(Blue does nothing for this phase of testing)

I then place some RED units outside of the DMZ and give them a route that takes them 1 click deep into the DMZ, turn north for a click then turn again and travel a click out of the DMZ.

I create two RED conditions:

Into DMZ RED-> operational->friendly forces->in region 1(DMZ)>1

RED Leaves DMZ->operational->friendly forces->in region 1(DMZ)<1

Here I'm assuming that 'friendly forces' applies to RED units.

I then go to GREEN and make sure its units sit astride the RED route.

I then go the the 'configure' matrix for GREEN. Here's where things get very very unintuitive - I click on the upper RED button and set 'enemy-if' RED condition 1 is true and neutral-if RED condition 2 is true. It doesn't matter if I do this for separate red buttons or just on one red button. I click OK.

Then I go to RED and find that I can't configure anything for GREEN but the config of RED for GREEN is showing up in the RED's config matrix. In fact I can't get any config values for GREEN in the RED screen to take.

I start the scenario, RED travels into the DMZ and...nothing happens. Not only that neither RED or GREEN even seen each other (according to map view) even though the pass within a few meters of each other.

What am I doing wrong?

I have screen captures if they're necessary.

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It gets even stranger!

I thought I'd try putting a Blue unit in the DMZ and see what happened. As one would expect it fired on Red. But, interestingly neither Red or Blue 'saw' the near by Green units at all. Neither indicated their existence on their respective maps. Also interesting is that while Red and Blue see each others units Green sees neither of them.

I'll get the screenshots together after Christmas.

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night"

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I give up for now:

On one scenario I'm able to make Green see Red as an enemy if they cross into the DMZ (via a RED condition). But, they don't see them as neutral if the RED condition is not true...as I configed Green to do. They just keep firing at RED once they've left the DMZ. On other scenarios I can't get the same logic to work.

Once my frustration eases I'll gather my screenshots up and post them. But, I have to say that as it is this "feature" in either terribly broken or it's among the most unintuitive I've seen...including in my career as a Sr. Software Engineer ;-)

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I'll be logging a bug on this issue. I've tired several logic combinations and am unable to get neutral-if or friendly-if to work. I've been using a single RED condition...RED become enemy to Green if the condition is true and it's designed for RED to become neutral if the condition is not true. RED does become enemy of Green but when the condition is not true RED remains enemy.

I've tried it with RED having a default of Neutral, Friendly and Enemy of Green. These values were set in Green's config area.

I'm preparing a write up (with screenshots) on this issue. A quick summary is:

1. Neutral-If and Friendly-If seems to be broken whenever Enemy-If is set

2. Control Logic needs to have the following values added (along with 'Enemy" 'Known Enemy' and 'Friendly') Blue, Red, Green, Purple and Neutral

I know there could be some major human errors going on...wouldn't be the first time for me, but without documentation or access to the specs for this module of the code I can't be sure. if anybody has been able to set one side to be Enemy-If and then been successful at getting Neutral/Friendly-If to work please let me know.

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Red CAN'T be neutral (or friendly) to Blue, ever. It has to do with backwards compatibility and a whole host of assumptions in all kinds of places in the code.

If you were talking about some other side that was once hostile and is now supposed to switch back to a neutral state (based on a condition from the Red party), then it probably is a bug.

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Ssnake, yes I'm talking about RED being neutral or enemy of GREEN I didn't bother testing RED against BLUE because of exactly what you pointed out. BTW the issue exists between GREEN and Blue also.

Any input on the idea of adding more side options to the Control Logic?

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It looks to me as if you can only assign one of the three options to a side, Allied if, Neutral if, or Enemy if. Once set, it cannot be undone. It seems these options are treated like events, rather than conditions. So once a side has gone from neutral to enemy, it cannot change from being enemy.

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