No defeat in Single player.

[Mystical]

I'm not sure if this has been posted before. But is it possible to cancel the defeat option when resigning to defend an area? Or perhaps postpone it? The first sequence will not start in say... 10 defeats. Game over in 20 defeats.

Now if we could do that, you could also cancel it entirely by setting the first sequence on 1k defeats or something. The reason I ask this is because it will add uncertainty towards the single player campaign allowing you to actually lose territory and have the other two sides battle it out.  :)

[darkd3th]

I don't understand what your saying?

[erjin999]

Thats why I didnt reply, I no undertand !  ::)

[desertway]

I think he's talking about the missions. When the computer attacks you, you have the option to defend or resign. I think if you resign it gives you a defeat(can't say for sure because I never resigned). Sounds like he's asking if there is a way to resign without getting a defeat going against him.

My advice Mystical would be to just play the game and not resign. When the computer fights itself for territories in the campaign, you don't get to be involved. You only see the result of their battle on the territory map. What fun is that?

[JulesG]

What he is talking about is that after 3 battles with no territory gain (definition is set in the PhaseRules.txt file present in the CAMPAIGN0001.RFH, line is Warning = 3) you get a warning that your "performance is unacceptable" to Duke Achillus/Baron/Ordos Executrix etc and that you must improve, otherwise the campaign gets terminated soon after if there continues to be no territory gain (I think it is lose = 5 territories line of code in PhaseRules.txt).

The answer is reset the warning value in the text file (extract to /data) - it may not work though as it has possibly been hard-coded, I can not say I have not played with this feature.

[Mystical]

My apologies if I wasn't clear the first time. JulesG and Desertway got it right though. It was exactly what I meant.

As for an answer to your advice Desertway, I want to add a new variety to the game for once. I have finished the game with all three houses at least twice over the past years. Something like this, though boring as it might be in your eyes, adds a little diversity into the game.

I'll try to find what you are referring to JulesG. I'll do that on Friday. I hope it actually works.

[JulesG]

Dont bother - I have now tested various settings and it makes no difference, the code must be hard-wired rather than a text-file lookup.

Nothing new there then...

[JulesG]

;D

Well good news - it does work!!! I forgot to extract into a new campaign directory.

So if you extract PhaseRules.txt using DuneEx 2 from CAMPAIGN00001.rfh into:

c:/westwood/emperor/data/campaign/

and edit the lines :

//Phase Three of the Campaign Game

//Only moves forward when a jump point is captured

//Warning is displayed after x battles with no territory gained

[Phase 3]

JumpPoint 1

JumpToChoice1 12

Warning 13  (this was originally 3) only edit this

Lose 15      (this was originally 5) only edit this line

then unless you lose 15 battles (including resigns) then you wont get the warning or be killed off out of single player.

I have also been able to disable the Heighliner, Homeworld defence and Guild Worm last missions using this file. I dont want them in my COTL mod as changing some of the buildings for better Arrakis play means the heighliner and homeworld defence missions dont look and flow right. As for the Guild worm mod I may leave this in...

[erjin999]

Learn something new everyday, eh ?

[JulesG]

Learn something new everyday, eh ?

Yes - todays was if the Worm end mission is removed from PhaseRules then EBFD falls over.

If you fiddle with the end parameters (try to get destroy one city then return to map to kill the other enemy- dont work) then you get up a "Choose Homeworld to attack" menu with either a map of Geidi Prime or map of Ordos homeworld but it doesnt work as there are no attack buttons...

...there was so much promise in EBFD that they had to throw away!

So anyway my COTL mod will now not include any heighliner or homeworld defence missions, it will be arrakis and then destroy the homeworld city, and finish off with "kill the worm".

This means a number of units and buildings I created for the heighliner missions are now redundant...

[alchemi2]

Was the promise that they had to throw away ..... due to the drive engine, the code or just the limitations of that times technology?

[JulesG]

Was the promise that they had to throw away ..... due to the drive engine, the code or just the limitations of that times technology?

Now that is a very good question - I seem to remember reading or hearing back in 2001 when EBFD launched that they had to rush it out before the project got cancelled as they had been playing around with too many ideas - one of which was to have more off-world battles...and not getting on with rolling out the game.

...much of those playing around bits lie dormant in EBFD until we stumble across them fiddling with things...

...I thus suspect that the interface between their code and the drive engine (it was a bought in 3D Engine) was not good enough.

[erjin999]

So the 3D engine wasnt developed by the same people that made the code behind the game ?  :-

[JulesG]

No, it was some time after that Westwood launched that C&C FPS disaster (I forget it's name) and said that it used their own internal 3D engine and it transpired that the one in EBFD was bought in (and as we know the xbf format is nasty!).

It is why EA are so proud of the SAGE engine first used in C&C Generals, as it was their first 3D engine success and has been tweaked ever since up to the launch next year (?) of C&C 3.

[christrox316]

the fps diaster...are you referring to c&c renegade?

i thought that EBFD ran off the same 3d engine as that

[Cyborg]

I didn't... The thing looks different.

However, I didn't know it was an imported game engine. Why they imported such a lousy engine is beyond me.

[GUNWOUNDS]

you say it was lousy... but to be honest... emp's engine was the best we had ever seen compared to the original Command and Conquer series.  I know when i first saw it i was amazed.  And even today it is a nice game... and that is 5 years later.  I think the main problem is that the engine is only good for one thing... and that is rending dune atmosphere and terrain.  Anything else doesnt work as is evident in the homeworlds where the grass, water, and molten lava just dont look right

[Dunenewt]

It is good looking, just so damn inflexible.

[Cyborg]

you say it was lousy... but to be honest... emp's engine was the best we had ever seen compared to the original Command and Conquer series.  I know when i first saw it i was amazed.  And even today it is a nice game... and that is 5 years later.  I think the main problem is that the engine is only good for one thing... and that is rending dune atmosphere and terrain.  Anything else doesnt work as is evident in the homeworlds where the grass, water, and molten lava just dont look right

Remember that the looks has little to do with the engine itself. They could have made the game look crappy too with this engine, but they chose to make the graphics look like what it should at the time of release.

The engine is supposed to be a flexible framework for the game... It fails at that.

[erjin999]

...as shown by the vast number of hacks needed to keep it going...?

[JulesG]

Dont forget quite a lot of game developers lease engines out to other developers, it is another way of recouping their investment - of course you may leave out a few nice new bits of core coding so your game looks better...

...Westwood knew 3D models as they had used them in C&C Tiberium Sun/Firestorm but they were weak in 3D world/terrain modelling. I read somewhere that they decided in the late 1990's the quickest way to get a 3D RTS out in 2000/2001 was to buy in an engine (for EBFD) which they then successfully enhanced for modelling Arrakis. In the meantime they began internal development of a 3D engine that was to become C&C Renegade.

The success of EBFD sand modelling (and as said in a previous post poor grass modelling), but poor sales volume and the poor reception given by the gaming press for Westwood's internally developed Renegade was IMHO the downfall of Westwood - I read that EA thought 2D RTS was dead, that Westwood were no good for developing any other 3D games, and EA Pacific had their new (green-grass modelling) in-house SAGE 3D engine ...and so we ended up getting C&C Generals and the death of Westwood...