Possible errors in Scenario 08 Orient Express

[Batchman]

Hi, all,

 

I'm new here, but have been playing RRT2 on and off for well over a decade. It's one of the games I come back to every couple of years for a few months.

 

Have been playing through the campaign at one of the more difficult levels, and have run ino an issue. The AIs keep starting their companies in France. If it were just one of them, I would not mind so much, but four railroads trying to run in the same country, when there's this huge map with multiple other countries they could get their starts in seems kind of silly and unfair.

 

I decided to poke around in the editor, and try to see how difficult it might be to set it up so the AIs stayed out of France. At this point I have to guess it is pretty difficult, since there already seems to be code in the scenario forbidding the AIs from building in France or in Constantinople ... it just doesn't seem to work.

 

I can't remember if I had this problem in the past or not, so I can't say for sure if this code was always there, but never worked properly, or if maybe something was glitched when Steam adapted it for their site (since this is the first time I ever played it from Steam, rather than from a disc) but the AIs are supposed to avoid Paris and France, and Constantinople and the country it is in for the first five years of the game.

 

If there is anybody still around here that knows the editor well (and it certainly looks like there is a good chance, reading the posts) would you consider going in and checking out the coding for these events, to see if you see anything wrong? I'm not advanced enough with the editor to figure out what might be incorrect.

 

Thanks for anyone willing to poke around!

[jeffryfisher]

Looking into the editor...

The default rights are a mixed bag: France and Switzerland are turned on, but Germany and Italy are off. I didn't look at them all. The reason that AI companies are starting in France (and maybe Switzerland) is because of that and...

There are setup events. They grant an AI company access to all territories. Then France and Ottoman Empire are taken away... but the setup events doing so are coded incorrectly.

1st, the territory number is coded into the logic triggers. This will work, but a one-territory event should put its territory number into the box to the right of the per-territory checkbox instead.

2nd and most critical: Each is set to "one time only". That means that only the first AI company will be setup correctly. All other AI companies will be left with the default access specified by the territories (because the events, having each fired once, will never fire again).

3rd, probably meaningless: Each tests for the year being greater than 1850. If there's no good reason to suppress the exclusion in the years prior to 1850, then the year testing is unnecessary and can be removed. (However, some logic must remain; the word 'true' or the number 1 would suffice).

4th: AI companies are all supposed to be excluded from Constantinople forever, but it too is a one-time event, so only the 1st AI company will be.

5th: The bottom event (Called "Sync") tests territoryID = 13 and 16, which it can never be simultaneously. This event can *never* fire.

The author of this map knew little about writing triggers for events. I didn't look into the other events, but I fear that they too are riddled with errors.

[Batchman]

Thank you ... that gives me some things I can try to tweak, to see if I can get these working right.

 

So they are supposed to be blocked for five years, by the thing being set for temporary ... was that part at least set up correctly?

 

With the input you've provided, so I'm not just completely cluelessly poking around, I'll get to work on it. Thanks!

[Batchman]

Wow ... you aren't kidding, a lot of the events are coded wrong!

 

I managed to fix it to keep them out of France and Constantinople, though I may not have done it absolutely correctly. I moved the territory number to the box, then removed the second half of the trigger condition, so it just checks if it is 1850 or later. It is, and none of the companies can start in France. I cannot verify if they gain the rights to France after 5 years, because the AIs build so slowly during that scenario, they never get near France, anyway. (In 40 years, the most cities any of them expanded to were 5.) Also removed the one time only check box, of course. Anyway, that part seems to work.

 

But there is another event in there ... you are supposed to be rewarded with a little announcement and a 5% improvement in good will each year, if you hauled the most loads. The problem is, they used the same variable in two different events ... so the only year it is *possible* to be awarded for this is the very first year. After that, the variable is rewritten. I have not yet figured out how to fix this one, but I am working on it.

 

And just think ... this scenario was *already* fixed ... and it still has these problems. 8-D

 

Again, thank you for the info that allowed me to fix that problem!