map editor season cycle

Modding, Map Editor, IES Scripting and Other Questions
Andrekk
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Andrekk »

Dr.MonaLisa wrote: 03 May 2019, 11:05 Hello again.

I tested, and you're right. For some reasons the Seasons Cycle doesn't work on EE2: AOS, and also the starting season is always Summer, even when Winter is selected.
I tested it also on the official version 1.0 of AOS, and the same problem occurs. Unfortunately, fixing it might be impossible and for now it's not a priority thing, especially when there are not many AOS maps available.

I noticed that loading the EE2 map (Battle of Nile) works on AOS and also seasons are working. Maybe it's a good thing to test when you get a chance.

EDIT:
Seems like AOS remembers seasons applied by the "Preview Seasons" in the map editor. When you apply settings, then game will start from the selected month, but still will not cycle :(
correct me if I didn't get you; so if we edit map on ee2 and then play the map on AoS it could work? or is it impossible for a map to be played on both game versions? I don't know sry

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Dr.MonaLisa
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Andrekk wrote: 03 May 2019, 19:10 correct me if I didn't get you; so if we edit map on ee2 and then play the map on AoS it could work? or is it impossible for a map to be played on both game versions? I don't know sry
Good question.
Normally it doesn't work, but some "EE2 Bonus Maps" from 2005 (which were available on the EE2 Bonus CD) work. This is "Battle of the Nile", etc.
I'm not sure why.
For now I'm adding all "bonus maps" to be available in AOS after the next Minor Update of UP1.5.
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Andrekk
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Andrekk »

ohh I see.. Right.. What a pity but maybe I will play on EE2, not big deal. Anyway, thanks a lot man!
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Sat42 »

Using my phone so forgive any spelling mistakes...

@DrMonaLisa: I understand about the last 2 points you made (thank you for the explanation by the way!) however regarding the problem with cycles in AoS... Ok it's launcher dependent making things tricky, BUT I wanted to draw attention to the fact that there MUST have been a version of AoS that had functional seasons because of all the reviews referring to that "snowy Russian campaign" (I can easily point to another such review), and you can't have snow unless the scenarios can have other months than June, right?
So maybe finding that launcher of the release version of AoS which worked fine would help correct the problem in 1.5 now? (Both for developers and normal versions)
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Sat42 wrote: 03 May 2019, 19:26 Using my phone so forgive any spelling mistakes...

@DrMonaLisa: I understand about the last 2 points you made (thank you for the explanation by the way!) however regarding the problem with cycles in AoS... Ok it's launcher dependent making things tricky, BUT I wanted to draw attention to the fact that there MUST have been a version of AoS that had functional seasons because of all the reviews referring to that "snowy Russian campaign" (I can easily point to another such review), and you can't have snow unless the scenarios can have other months than June, right?
So maybe finding that launcher of the release version of AoS which worked fine would help correct the problem in 1.5 now? (Both for developers and normal versions)
The seasons cycle is not related to the UP1.5 or the Launcher itself. This bug is present on the unpatched version of EE2: AOS as well.
The users.cfg problems which I mentioned in my previous message are related to the new campaigns which were added in UP1.5 (I think Calsh's Survival mode).
It's because we were unable to display new campaigns in the menu at all, or they couldn't be selected. Then I noticed that adding a new user in game solves this problem. Then I compared users.cfg and I saw that on new user creation it's fixed, so I made the Launcher function to automatically insert new campaign entries to users.cfg file, without damaging this file (so users didn't lose their campaign progress, etc.). The only problem is, that when campaign files are not present in the game folder, and user played the custom campaign the "missing" filename is present in users.cfg file to allow resuming last played campaign. However, for security's sake Launcher clears those entries every time the game is started. So theoretically it should never be a problem. If it still crashes, even when using the Launcher (from either normal or Developers version, they're the same), then it's a bug which needs to be checked.

Regarding the AOS problem:
- I think EE2 developers tried to allow custom months for maps/scenarios. They changed something, that when user applies the month under "Preview Seasons" tab, then saves file - the map/scenario will start with the selected month. However, they didn't notice it ruined seasons cycle and the other season-related functions.

I might know how to resolve this issue with a settings.cfg "hack". Some player reported problems where changing months in Seasons Preview had no effects. We detected that restoring settings file using https://www.ee2.eu/help/#lostsettings resolved this issue. Then I noticed that some new map-editor-related settings were added to his settings.cfg file. It basically even allowed to change game pace and things which we are usually not able to configure in campaigns.
If you guys are interested I can try to find that file and explain where to put it in.
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Andrekk
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Andrekk »

oh well, I haven't understood everything u said but I think it would be nice to try. :D
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Sat42 »

Hell yeah, Mona! Sounds very interesting, indeed please, if you can give us a way to fix this darned problem, it would be fantastic! (After all I intend to use AoS for scenario making)
Do you think this would fix the original AoS campaigns? Sorry if I am being pedantic, just I would like to experience the Russian winter when I get round to playing that campaign! After all, that was the developers' original vision...
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

No, it will not fix existing campaigns. But are you sure the Russian campaign is affected by this bug? I played it few years ago and I think weather worked normally... After all weather can be enabled/disabled/changed with IES scripts, so why wouldn't they do this this way?

I'll try to find that file tomorrow. Need to check a big Support Chat database and find it.

I think user "placeboholic" should know details about it.
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Ok! I found it.

I remember user "placeboholic" had issues where he was unable to Preview Seasons using the Map Editor. When he fixed the issue by Restoring Settings from UP1.5 backup, I asked him to send me the "broken" settings, so I could check what's wrong.
His settings.cfg file contained some weird section which I never seen before.

1. For EE2, go to:
C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Sierra\Empire Earth II\settings
For EE2: AOS, go to:
C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Sierra\Empire Earth II The Art of Supremacy\settings
2. Make a backup of file: "settings.cfg" (copy it to the same folder, and rename to "settings.cfg.backup").
3. Open file "settings.cfg" with Notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v7.6.6.html (64 bit version)
4. Find section "GameSettings mp_UserGameSettings", and insert a new section after the last bracket " } "
Screenshot where exactly insert it to (click)
bracket-last.PNG
bracket-last.PNG (47.57 KiB) Viewed 2074 times
5. Paste the following code:

Code: Select all

GameSettings ScenEdit_UserGameSettings {
   startEpoch = 1
   endEpoch = 15
   lockSpeed = 1
   teamPlacement = 1
   gameSpeed = Normal
   resources = Standard
   eTerrPopCap = p40
   eTournamentMode = Medium
   eMaxPopulation = p800
   staringForcesBasic_CitCount = n5
   mapSize = Small
   riverAmount = Random
   forestation = Random
   elevation = Random
   geographyRandom = 1
   climateRandom = 1
   pTournamentMode = 
      {
         fBuildTimeProduceMod = 1.0000
         fBuildTimeConstructMod = 1.0000
         fHitPointMod = 1.0000
         fResGatherRateMod = 1.0000
         fBuildCostMod = 1.0000
         fEpochUpCostMod = 1.0000
         fTechPtGatherRateMod = 1.0000
         fCaptureResMod = 1.0000
         fConversionResMod = 1.0000
         fTechResTimeMod = 1.0000
         fMovementSpdMod = 1.0000
         fDamageMod = 1.0000
         fStaticDefense = 1.0000
      }

   bUnbreakableTreaties = 1
   bLockedHandicaps = 1
   eMPDestroyPlayerMode = CreateAI
   eMPDestroyPlayerAIDifficulty = Normal
   Players = [
      {
         name = "Player 1"
         difficulty = Normal
         epoch = 15
         handicap = Good
         active = 1
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 2"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = English
         color = Red
         handicap = Good
         active = 1
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 3"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Roman
         color = Green
         handicap = Good
         active = 1
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 4"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = American
         color = Orange
         handicap = Good
         active = 1
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 5"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Greek
         color = Magenta
         handicap = Good
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 6"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Chinese
         color = Cyan
         handicap = Good
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 7"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Korean
         color = Yellow
         handicap = Good
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 8"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Japanese
         color = Lavender
         handicap = Good
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 9"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Egyptian
         color = Purple
         handicap = Good
      }
 
      {
         name = "Player 10"
         difficulty = Normal
         civ = Turkish
         color = Gold
         handicap = Good
      }
   ]
}
As you can see, it's a configuration file for the Map Editor game settings! So basically you can set most of things here, even those which can't be changed with IES scripts.
So let's start by adding the following lines right before " startEpoch = 1":

Code: Select all

   enableSeasons = 1
   startingSeason = Winter
   minutesPerSeason = 5
   enableWeather = 1
   enableWind = 1
If you set any wrong value in this file, it will reset to default settings, so you will need to copy "settings.cfg.backup" to "settings.cfg" and try again.
When you finish testing and/or creating your scenario, please remove the entire "GameSettings ScenEdit_UserGameSettings" section as we don't know if it has no other negative effects.

Please let me know how it works as I didn't have time to test it.

By the way, if you want to enable Cycle Time of Day (1.5 feature), for your scenario, you can use one the following values:

Code: Select all

   timeOfDay = DynamicTwo
   timeOfDay = DynamicFive
   timeOfDay = DynamicTen
   timeOfDay = DynamicFifteen
Best regards,
Dr.MonaLisa
Ministry of Game Affairs
Department of Control and Complains
Sat42
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Re: map editor season cycle

Post by Sat42 »

Awesome thank you so much! Will reply more completely later when I can communicate properly, but again thank you! (And for raising my hopes concerning the Russian winter, I didn't think of weather through IEF scripts!)
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