Setting Objectives for Custom Maps

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 6:22 pm

So, I'm making an awesome "Battle of Tarawa" map in the editor but I still haven't figured out the objective thing. I must have made at least 30 maps (most not so great, except my most recent 6) and none have objectives. I know it has something to do with triggers, but I don't grasp either subject very good. Here is my dilema: I put an objective in the objectives box, then I went to triggers and made one with its event as "side captures actor", its condition as "objective is completed" and the effect as "side [that's me] gains objective". I want to finish the game by capturing an airstrip and a village. Any (specific) help will be very appreciated! Smile

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:35 pm

Well Really I Scimmed it (probly speeled that wrong) and if u need a objective for a building and etc. just go to triggers go through conditions, events etc. and find Side Completes Objective and Do what u do before and it should work, otherwise get a good trigger map with objectives to understand them. (make sure there able to be loaded).

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:25 pm

*Sigh* I just don't have the technological know-how to figure out that trigger thing... I'll have to find a techy that can sit down with me and explain it all. Thanks for the reply though. There are many mysteries around that darn editor. Also, do you by any chance happen to know why I'm getting that CD Authentication notice? Thanks again!

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 5:18 pm

what CD notification? give me a screen shot of it when u can. And yes there are many many many secrets to that thing. best map i saw has so many triggers just in conditions, there was about 100+ at least.!!!!!!!!

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 6:46 am

Whoa!! That's a ton of triggers! Yeah I was considering using that RWD Extractor, but I wasn't able to extract anything last time. Also, I realize I wasn't very clear... I was asking what I could do about the "CD KEY Authentication, CD Key is Invalid or Already in Use" pop-up I get whenever I try to enter an online game. I think someone else asked about this but I don't remember which forum I saw it on.

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 4:37 pm

well i can say its a problem with ur CD if u did not ever enter a CD code when u installed the game. When u install and launch it, it should show please insert CD key Here. So, this has happened before but im not sure how it fixed. The last time i remmembered a person getting that was about 1 year ago and it went away in a couple weeks, so u cant ask me. You can ask Time Gate Studios if they have a forum they do have a website. Ill put its link below.
http://timegate.com/games/
Just copy if it dosent let you go to it. They did devolop the game because if u scroll down in the site,it will have axis and allies. U can go to there forum if there is one.
There is also GameSpy which runs the online. You can try to ask them. Im prity sure they have a forum. If not just try to go on google or somthing and find a site where it can help u, but make sure its the Strategy game.
Axis And Allies Strategy Game.
Hope it helps out.
And when ur online, you will be a noob no matter what unless u got some game experiance already. you Start with no rank, Then Lutenite, Captain, Major, Colonel, and General. First its 1 game to lutentite, then its 49 games to captain. Then its 100 or 150 games to major. Then 250 to Colonel and then 500 to General. Well I hope you can get that problem fixed, other wise ur gonna be playing campaign for the rest of your time Sad

. Well Ill Be on in a Couple days, Thanks Very Happy

.

Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:53 pm

Wow, thanks for all the info. I do feel rather lonely not being able to play online. I've been keeping myself busy by playing Random maps vs. the AI on Hard and building my own levels. Thanks for the link, I will check it out in a bit. I hope I can get online soon. I hate the thought of being considered a 'noob' online when I've been playing for 5 1/2 years. I just hope I don't have to reinstall the game, cause that would mean me losing all my custom maps and I would have to redo all those campaigns! Thanks for all your help. If I ever get online, what's ur username? We may be able to play each other one of these days.... Thanks again!

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:29 pm

lawl, i dont belive u will loose ur maps and everything. just put um on a diffrent file (copy and paste), reinstall and then put um back in the same folder they were originally in.

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 12:11 pm

Yeah, that sounds like it may work. If worst comes to worst, I'll probably have to reinstall the game. Thanks for all the help you've given me! It's much appreciated!

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:32 pm

have you made any progress with your objectives? any particular type that you had in mind?

I just posted two custom maps a little while again. they don't have any objectives-- but I'm planning on posting some maps with objectives later. learned a lot about that in the last few months.

giving the player and AI objectives, relatively speaking, isn't TOO bad. if you'd still like some help, explain what the objectives are, and I'll see if I can write out some instructions to help.

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:12 pm

No, I still need help. Really its just capturing things. I would like an objective to be completed for capturing an airfield and two towns. Any help will be much appreciated! Wink

I can't figure out how to set the triggers to make them completed. I can write the objective, but it won't come up in the in-game objectives box.

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:57 pm

aha. so the first trigger should be assigned objectives.

add a trigger in the editor list. then add an effect to that trigger. then when you select the available commands in the effects column go all the way to the very bottom. then scroll up three lines and you should see "Side-Side gains objective". now click that line.

what this will now do is create two pull-down menus. on the left pull-down menu you will see the aforementioned words: "Side-Side gains objective"

underneath it should show you "side:[nothing] gains objective Objective:[objective]."

what you need to do now is go to the right hand pull down menu to select a side.

the right-hand menu will have "0:Side" and "1:Objective"

now you should see a third pull-down menu beneath the left-hand column. select the appropriate side in this lowest pull-down menu.

when you select the objective sub-heading you will get a similar result.

it sounds like the main problem is that you haven't learned how to assign objectives to a side just yet. it took me a little while to figure that out.. because the editor doesn't assign objectives automatically.

I don't have a lot of time tonight. but the first order of business is to assign the objectives. maybe later I'll try and get some screen-captures taken to help clarify things.

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 5:46 am

ohh, thnks so much! You're the first person who has told me how to work this editor! I wish they had included a manual on how to work it! Thanks again. Wink

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:01 pm

how's the Tarawa map coming along?

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:18 pm

Gizmotron wrote:

how's the Tarawa map coming along?

It's still got some kinks I have to work out. My AI ally is very unpredictable. One game he will take the island by storm and complete two out of three of the objectives for me, but then the next game he'll blow all his money on bombing raids and go into bankruptcy and leave me to handle the whole mission solo. Is there any (somewhat) easy way to make his stay in one attitude state instead of him constantly changing his tactics? To anybody who can help, thanks so much. Also, I placed a few Japanese minefields new a village and now I can't capture the village unless i find the minefields and purposely blow them up with my men. This is really annoying and I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue.

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:33 am

well, if he's wasting all of his money on the aerial bombardment I can think of a couple of solutions.

1rst. if he's deploying these strikes from a carrier-- then just give the carrier to the player. that means that the player controls when and where the air-strikes will happen. the AI ally will have no choice but to stick with a winning ground strategy. that seems like the most reliable way of doing that. I assume that the mission will require air-support to be successful, right?

2nd. if you don't need air-strikes to win the game-- and you don't want him to use carrier strikes-- get rid of his carrier.

3rd. if his airstrikes are being ordered from an airfield, put restrictions on his side, so that he can't build them. this allows the player to create airfields as needed to win the day.

4th. if the airstrikes are being ordered from an airfield, give him more money to work with. you could start off by giving him "Military Surplus" technology. you could also create special actors to help bolster his economy.

regarding the minefields. why not get rid of the minefield and use individually placed cut-scene actors? the minefields can't be destroyed unless your regiments, or an allied regiment, destroys them. personally, I like minefields every so often. it makes things more challenging for the invader.

however, I also love using cut-scene actors. it's fun to rotate the camera around and place them in blind-spots. then when your regiments go running through there they frequently will get engaged by the cutscene actors. you have to use some discretion, for example, a goliath cutscene actor won't react to anything apart from vehicles. if you don't actively engage them they will sometimes just sit there and let your regiments waltz right on by.

in that case, you could park unattached regiments in the city to accomplish a similar purpose. the main benefit of using cutscene actors is that they can be easily concealed. do you want to have your troops walk into a mortar attack and have no idea where it's coming from? do they have to search the treeline near the road to stop these attacks? then cutscene actors are the best way to go.

the way to make that happen is to create an area. use the event trigger "actor enters area". when it asks you which actor, select "any". then you add a condition. "actor owned by side". for the "actor" you select" event" and for side you enter the trespassing side you wish to get ambushed. then for the effects you have the appropriate command "actor performs command on actor", "actor performs command on location", etc. so in this way you can have your cutscene actors (or regiments) make a savage attack on the player's regiments who've just tried to capture the city.

if you don't use the EVENT owned by Side 0, this means that any actor that enters the area will trigger the potential mortar bombardment-- and that could be deployed uselessly against allied regiments. so it's important for abmushes to have the "actor owned by side" condition.

personally, I'd keep the minefields there-- but if they bother you that much, replace them with either cut-scene actors or full strength regiments (or both). that way the player will have to fight them to capture the city. unlike mines, these will have a definite reaction to the invaders. minefields just sorta hang out until somebody runs over them.

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:46 am

if you haven't used the RWD extractor on the game-- it really helps to look at the campaign missions. I only recently learned about the ambush trigger by looking at the Guadalcanal map triggers last weekend. I knew it was possible-- but I hadn't made the connection between an "event" being owned by a side yet.

when the game is fully extracted there will be a campaign sub-folder in the maps directory. that should help you out quite a bit.

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 11:08 am

In relation to your first post: Yes the air strikes are from a carrier and i have tried to take it away but he seems severely weakened by it. I have gotten to the point where I am trying giving him an already unpacked Corps HQ and a few marine regiments already on the beach. This seems to gear him more towards developing the land base and not building a ton of marine and air strikes from his navy but this ready-made base of his makes him way to powerful. I'm very perplexed by his behavior. Yes, I am interested by the ambush triggers and did notice them in the Guadalcanal mission. Could you give me more details on how to do this? (Sorry I'm not anywhere close to being good with any level of programming even in this editor where most of it's done for you...) Also, I have attempted more than once to use the RWD Extractor but when I open a file, its not code but just looks like some kind of east Asian language. Instead of instructing me on the triggers could you just explain the steps of how to successfully use the extractor. Once I get the files open, I'm sure I can learn most of the other things from looking at the already designed maps like you did. Thanks so much for all the help you've given me thus far and I'm sorry I'm so hard to teach.

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 11:11 am

Also, I am interested in finding out more about the restrictions because I want to restrict any amour besides light tanks. Thanks again Wink

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 9:53 pm

restricting regiments to light tanks is easiest by simply not allowing an armored HQ to exist. then the only tanks that could be used would be the solitary light tank that's available to the mechanized infantry regiment.

restriction lists are fairly easy, providing you're not mixing and matching generals from one nation to armies from another.

open up the editor

select the Scenario Column, click the pull-down menue and choose Map Restrictions.

you need to click the "New" button in order to create a new restriction list.

then you need to select that new restriction group. (it always starts with 0)

on the right hand side there is a large box with the words "Apply to" above it. you click the box of the appropriate side you want the restrictions applied to.

then you go over to the respective middle columns and start picking items to restrict.

let's start with units, scroll down until you find the unit you don't want this army to have-- then click the right arrow button. it will then move that object into the "Selected Restrictions" category. it means that the AI won't be able to access those units, buildings, or tech during the game.

when it comes to limiting buildings I like to overdo it. if I don't want the side to have artillery I select "Truck Artillery" and move it into the "Selected Restrictions" column. this means that the Corps HQ of that side won't be able to recruit an artillery brigade truck-- and forces them to rely on other methods for obtaining victory.

that's all I can do for the time being... but I'll revisit this subject later.

Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 7:37 pm

penguinlover7 wrote:

Gizmotron wrote:

how's the Tarawa map coming along?

It's still got some kinks I have to work out. My AI ally is very unpredictable. One game he will take the island by storm and complete two out of three of the objectives for me, but then the next game he'll blow all his money on bombing raids and go into bankruptcy and leave me to handle the whole mission solo. Is there any (somewhat) easy way to make his stay in one attitude state instead of him constantly changing his tactics? To anybody who can help, thanks so much. Also, I placed a few Japanese minefields new a village and now I can't capture the village unless i find the minefields and purposely blow them up with my men. This is really annoying and I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue.

you can resolve this by manually selected the SAI profile and AI profile for each AI general in the editor. otherwise the game will randomly assign an SAI profile-- which leads to wild variations in the AI approach to game-play. the SAI profile isn't what you'll see at the end-game briefing it should show you the actual AI general you've picked. so you could have a British general like Montgomery play the game with Zhukov's SAI profile (which means he probably won't be as bad as normal).

I always kinda wondered why there was a seperate SAI and AI profile select-- and this is why. it helps govern how the AI plays the game. that seems like something pretty basic, right? I'm surprised that there was no mention of this in the documentation I've read for the game thus far!