Age of Tribes - Official Thread

Frostion

This thread is for discussions concerning the original Age of Tribes map(s).

Map Description:
This map depicts pure counterfactual history. In this version of history, the ancient tribes of Europe banded together in two large opposing alliances a long time ago. Since that time their sole purpose was to destroy the other civilization and prove their own cultural and military supremacy. But who would be the triumphing part? The Eastern Tribes or the Western Tribes?

This map includes a tech system with a tech tree. Players can purchase technological developments, place them at bases, thereby gaining access to new and better units, while at the same time slowly outdating old units.

The map can have a long playtime. The tech tree can be fully developed by round 85. Because of these conditions, players can choose to jump into the tribal war at a specific time in history. There are five different available versions of Age of Tribes, and they start out in different time periods and can advance from this period and up.

Other special features of this map include primeval wildlife, barbarian tribes, advancing ages/time periods, the Black Death, nuclear attack capabilities, special long range bombardment, over 50 unit types and more.

Frostion

AoT has just been updated to v1.0.6.

The only change is that the XML setting "Abandoned Territories May Be Taken Over Immediately" is now set to true. This should allow attackers that attack a territory but fails to win within the limited 5 battle rounds, to get the territory instantly if they continue fighting and win in another players turn in that same round. So no more waiting for the next round and no need to walk in to the already won territory to capture it.

This setting was set to false before, as I experienced a lot for java errors with the setting at true. But right now I can’t seem to reproduce the errors (using TripleA 1.9.0.0.3627), so I feel it is safe to revert to the old instant capture style.

I hope that players will post here if they experience any game breakdown java errors.

Mahks

@frostion
I see you have 2 production frontiers for each empire:
ie; production_Celtic and production_Celtic_Combat

I can see the combat one never contains the buyDevelop units, but why are both needed?

Frostion

@Mahks
You really do your investigations well It was a little detail @CrazyG did for my when we worked on the XML. The only function the double build sets have is, that the combat version does not show the "develop" units when a player uses the battle calculator. If there was not the combat version, the player would see many develop units when doing a battle calculation.

Mahks

@frostion I think there may be a minor bug.

The axeman is not in any of the "_combat" frontiers.

Frostion

@Mahks OK. I am not at home until a few days from now. Do you mean that the fighting unit "axemen" is not in the combat frontiers? That would mean that players cannot use the battle calculator and see the axemen. Is this the case?

Just for your information, there is no develop axemen unit in the game, as all nations/tribes should has this unit developed from start.

Mahks

@frostion said in Age of Tribes - Official Thread:

Do you mean that the fighting unit "axemen" is not in the combat frontiers?

Yes

Just for your information, there is no develop axemen unit in the game, as all nations/tribes should has this unit developed from start.

True, but players do not have access to the axeman until the Prehistoric Age, only caveman prior to that.

Frostion

Sorry I meant cavemen is a unit that every body should have from start. Not axemen.

This should be the case for the primeval version. That is the version that has ALL units incorporated into the the XML. The other XMLs might have units missing, but I really can't remember how the XMLs look.

It might be impossible that all or some XMLs are missing the Axemen unit in combat frontiers. And this could be errors that must be fixed.

Mahks

@frostion Yup, looks like axeman is AWOL in all scenarios in the combat frontier.

Mahks

Realized I had better check the battle calculator, to see if axeman was there or not.
Found inconsistent results

In primeval, Axeman does not show in the "Game menu item "Battle Calculator". But if you click the "Battle Calculator" button under the territory tab axeman shows up!.
In classical, one begins with axemen on the map but cannot buy them. And so they are not in either frontier. But they still show in the Battle Calculator (under Game). So it seems the BC is using something else to find the units. Or do you have some other way to add units to a frontier than a TriggerAttachment?

This is the TriggerAttachment from primeaval.

<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Brittonic_Develop_Axeman" attachTo="Brittonic" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
	<option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment-Brittonic-Develop-Axeman"/>
	<option name="when" value="after:BrittonicPlace"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyAxeman"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyDevelop-Boat"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyDevelop-Spearman"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyDevelop-Chariot"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyDevelop-Catapult"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyDevelop-Slinger"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:-buyDevelop-Axeman"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:-buyCaveman"/>
	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic_Combat:-buyCaveman"/>
	<option name="removeUnits" value="all:Develop-Axeman" count="1"/>
	<option name="uses" value="1"/>
</attachment>

Axeman does get removed from both frontiers when Develop_Spearman happens:

<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Brittonic_Develop_Spearman" attachTo="Brittonic" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
   	<option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment-Brittonic-Develop-Spearman"/>
   	<option name="when" value="after:BrittonicPlace"/>
   	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buySpearman"/>
   	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic_Combat:buySpearman"/>
   <option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:-buyAxeman"/>
   <option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic_Combat:-buyAxeman"/>
   	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:buyDevelop-Swordsman"/>
   	<option name="productionRule" value="production_Brittonic:-buyDevelop-Spearman"/>
   	<option name="removeUnits" value="all:Develop-Spearman" count="1"/>
   	<option name="uses" value="1"/>
</attachment>

Frostion

@Mahks
I have played a game of AoT Primeval and I can’t see that the game is flawed. I think that the develop system works as it should, giving access to tech and units when meant to do so and removing the access when meant to. (But can’t guarantee!)

It is a complex and comprehensive trigger system done by a huge number of triggers.

The idea is that all/most battle calculations done by the players should not show/involve any of the tech development units, because these units are just meant to trigger the individual player’s access to units on/off and not meant to be in battle.

The goal was that any battle calculations done during a combat round should not show any “develop” units.

Technically I think the units represented in the battle calculator are at all times made up of:
• What unit types the player has access to build (his current productionFrontier) + what unit types he has on the map, at the time of the battle calculation.

This means if you do/refresh a battle calculation while the player has access to purchase tech development units, these units show up in the battle calculation. This can also be tested out by going into edit mode and remove place unit types on the map and then do a battle calculation.

Does it make sense? It is a complex system and I really I hope it works as it should.

General_Zod

@frostion @Mahks

My understanding of what units are available for selection for any given nation (within the battle calculator) depend on 2 factors.

Does the nation currently have the unit available for purchase in a production frontier.
Does the nation currently have the unit available somewhere on the map.

One of two factors must be true or the unit will not be available for selection within the battle calculator. Also note, that most maps share unit types. If a map is truly using unique national units this will be easier to spot. (tww uses truely unique national unit types)

Mahks

@frostion said in Age of Tribes - Official Thread:

@Mahks
I have played a game of AoT Primeval and I can’t see that the game is flawed.

Sorry if I came across as overly critical of your map.
Your maps, in my opinion are the best and the ones I tend to play because there are so well crafted (not to mention their diverse themes). It is why I use them to learn how things work.

What happened was, in testing UBr with AoT the axeman did not show in the unit list. I assumed UBr had a bug and tried to find it. This lead to the discovery that axeman was not in the "_combat" production frontier and lead to the question of why.

Somehow this got spun-off into "how the battle calculator works".

So, back to the question, Why is axeman not in the "_combat" production frontier, and if he does get in there, how do you do that? I cannot find any TriggerAttachment that does so.

CrazyG

@mahks said in Age of Tribes - Official Thread:

So, back to the question, Why is axeman not in the "_combat" production frontier, and if he does get in there, how do you do that? I cannot find any TriggerAttachment that does so.

_combat frontier doesn't do anything other than affect the battlecalculator, I designed it that way. Either myself or frostion just forgot to add axemen as part of that trigger. It never showed up in testing because to date, it appears no one tried to battlecalculate something involving axemen before an axeman was built.

Mahks

OK, Thanks!

Frostion

@Mahks I appreciate your find. If the Axemen are not in the combat frontiers of any player, this is obviously a flaw, and then they are perhaps only shown because they are represented on the map by the player.

I will have to look at the map and XML again. I just played some games to see if things looked right. I maybe did not specifically look for the scenario where a player had access to the unit, had non of the unit on the map and then did a battle calculation.

And I hope we can fix it without messing up anything in the overall trigger system

Mahks

@frostion
I think all that is needed is the following line added to each <attachment name="triggerAttachment_XXXX_Develop_Axeman" ...

<option name="productionRule" value="production_XXXX_Combat:buyAxeman"/>

This was more about me understanding how you did things so that axeman would show up in the UBr.
The game itself is not really affected, except for that esoteric combat calculation.

CrazyG

You also want to change the developSpearmen trigger, so that it remvoes axemen when that happens

Mahks

That is already in place, see example about 6 posts back.

Frostion

@Mahks I have now implemented lines you found missing and it seems to work now as originally intended. Thanks for the find! The new version is called 1.08 and will be downloadable soon.