You're gonna love this!

[ScarlettP]

Ok, I didn't want this burried in the Scarlett thread for those of you who don't read that one...

I'm working on some scripts to work on 'guard' creatures in the 'enemy territory'. At first, I made them a Color (Orange) that was allied with the 'enemy' AI color (Red). This was done so that A. The AI doesn't kill them all before the player gets over there & B. They don't turn into 'Creature of the Month'.

This caused a problem because Colored stacks don't 'grow'. So I wrote growth scripts on them, but the Orange turn became SO LONG as to be annoying as heck. Wimfrits suggested a different script which would allow them to be Neutral most of the time, but change to the Allied color (Orange) only on the Enemy (Red)'s turn.

SO - I made a little Test map with one hero of each color set to "Guard" on one side. I put in a stack of Mummies close by, one Orange with the original scripts to 'grow' and one Neutral with the color change and growth scripts. I gave my Human (Purple) hero GM Scouting so I could watch the numbers over the weeks to check the 'normal' vs 'scripted' growth.

Day One:

Neutral Army Stacks = 23, 20, 22, 21, 23
Orange Army Stacks = 18, 17, 18, 21, 19

End Turn. Neurtal Stack runs over and Kills the Orange Stack.
Test over.

*sigh*

[Psychobabble]

The usual way of stopping creatures becoming month of annoyances is to change their alignment just before they're attacked via an "encountered" event. Change them back if they win. There's a lot of maps which have creatures randomly changing their flag as soon as you encounter them, it won't be seen as too odd.

oops, I missed that (a) requirement. Is a gate not possible to keep the red alignment out? otherwise it looks like you'll have to make those other neutrals change their stripes to a third alignment during that turn which is allied to orange but not red. Is that possible?

oops again. I completely missed the whole point of this, didn't I? That'll learn you for posting a new thread for a continuation of a previous discussion . I take it the attacking neutral stack was there purely for testing purposes and doesn't need to be there in-game and you weren't actually looking for a solution to your "problem"? Gotcha, funny story

[ScarlettP]

Sorry to confuse you PB!

But I was sitting here carefully writing the scripts on a little test map so I don't get test scripts lost in all my good scripts on the big map. I put everyone on "Guard" so they wouldn't move around, but placed them fairly close so I could watch and see which option worked better over a few weeks, Allied Color or Nuetral changing... Then screamed a foul word when Nuetral killed Orange and my husband just didn't understand why that was annoying.

[Thelonious]

Mmm, it's to bad there's no 'neutral turn'

lemme think. So you made a test map - with neutral and orange and purple?

And is this a situation likely to happen in the 'big map'? If not, make a fence between 'em. Have 'em separated to see if they 'grow' appropriately.

[wimfrits]

Darn mummies.

[ScarlettP]

Get this. I carefully replaced all the Orange Guard stacks with the color changing 'Nuetral' stacks. I wrote in the extra scripts. I put a hidden Orange & Blue 'place holder' creature in the void of the underground. (Nuetral stacks Change to Orange on Red's turn, then go back to Nuetral on Blue's turn.) Then I loaded the game and I WAS the Blue guy! YEESH! If you play 3 maps of a campaign as the Purple player, why would it LET you switch to Blue even if I did forget to uncheck the "Can be Human" box. Anyway, had to go back, re-edit, re-load. Finished the first turn. The Orange 'place holder' creature ran over and killed the Blue one! I just can't seem to get it through my head to move these little buggers APART!

So I cut and pasted the Blue one in a different spot. Loaded the game. Became the BLUE halfling again!

Don't worry. I got it working. Just get a little miffed at myself sometimes over the stupid little things that I forget to do.

[Thelonious]

Hmm, yeah that is annoying...

[DaemianLucifer]

Yes,those little details are quite irritating.Thats the main reason I gave up all of my maps.

[ScarlettP]

My only real problem is the fact that Heroes is such a memory hog. I CAN run the game and the editor at the same time if I turn off the animations. This way, as I play the game, when I find problems, I can just flip over to the editor and fix them on the fly so they SHOULD all be handled by the time I send it in for Beta Testing.

[Thelonious]

I thing I'd like to have is that I shouldn't have to re-load the whole map every time I edit the map...

[ScarlettP]

Ditto! I had gotten about half way through my 4th map when I discovered that Vel WILL NOT stay put! I put him on "Wanderer - 30 spaces" but ran into him quite far away from his castle. I thought I might have put one of the transporters to close to him as he appeared near one. But no, that wasn't it. I'm going to have to erect gates to keep him in!