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Ever since I entered the modding community, I have constantly seen mods go for graphical variation. Making units in a horde look different, giving them different weapons etc.

One day I decided to go one step further, and attempt to implement a system whereby units in a horde would all differ from each other in statistics (as well as appearance). At the time I had no working computer, so the idea remained in my head for a while as I thought of ways to implement it.

My first try at implementing involved using the random peasant code. I created almost 400 different orc warrior objects, giving them all different armour/weapon sets. It worked of course, but was way too time consuming for something that I wanted to implement for every single unit.

The second method I came up with is the one I'm still using today. While not perfect, I am very proud of it. It uses LUA (which most people use to variate between equipment), but it's really very simple to understand. It's not difficult at all, it's just that I've used the old LUA methods to create a new system.

In this example I will use the Doriath Warrior object, as seen (hidden) in my own mod, WOTS.

First things first, we need to set up the LUA. In your unit INI (not horde!) search for AIUpdate, and in that behaviour block you will see the following:

              

Code

AILuaEventsList = DoriathWarriorFunctions

Basically change the 'DoriathWarriorFunctions' to something suitable for your unit. (NOTE: It is important that you don't give this same set of functions to the horde object otherwise all your work will be for naught).

Next open up scriptevents.xml (in datax.big I believe, where x is a random number depending on the game). You need to add your new function to the list. It should look something like this:

              

Code

<EventList Name="DoriathWarriorFunctions" Inherit="InfantryFunctions"> <EventHandler EventName="OnCreated" ScriptFunctionName="OnDoriathWarriorCreated" DebugSingleStep="false"/> </EventList>

As you can probably see, this is saying that when the unit is created it runs the script 'OnDoriathWarriorCreated'. Now I'll show you this script:

              

Code

function OnDoriathWarriorCreated(self) weapon = GetRandomNumber() armour = GetRandomNumber() health = GetRandomNumber() if weapon <= 0.15 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_WeaponVariation1" ) elseif weapon <= 0.3 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_WeaponVariation2" ) elseif weapon <= 0.45 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_WeaponVariation3" ) elseif weapon <= 0.6 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_WeaponVariation4" ) elseif weapon <= 0.75 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_WeaponVariation5" ) end if armour <= 0.15 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_ArmourVariation1" ) elseif armour <= 0.3 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_ArmourVariation2" ) elseif armour <= 0.45 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_ArmourVariation3" ) elseif armour <= 0.6 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_ArmourVariation4" ) elseif armour <= 0.75 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_ArmourVariation5" ) end if health <= 0.15 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_HealthVariation1" ) elseif health <= 0.3 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_HealthVariation2" ) elseif health <= 0.45 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_HealthVariation3" ) elseif health <= 0.6 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_HealthVariation4" ) elseif health <= 0.75 then ObjectGrantUpgrade( self, "Upgrade_HealthVariation5" ) end end

If you're not familiar with LUA I'm sure your reaction to that is something along the lines of 'O_o'. Basically what it does is get random numbers for 3 variables (health, armour and weapon). Feel free to add as many (or as few) variables as you like here. It then has a simple IF function, saying that (depending on the random number) a unit should be given an upgrade (or not, which means they'd take the default value).

This system is set up to give 6 possible values for health, armour and the unit's weapon.