 In the previous Cede articles, we discussed how the 'Cede Castle' event can be a very useful tool, we demonstrated how to use it in the more traditional sense, and how it can be manipulated to produce some stunning eye-candy effects.
There is yet another twist we can put on this event; Have you ever wanted 'proper' reinforcements? I mean, something other than those green bandit archers and the monk? Well ... you can! Imagine an army full of hardcore steel clad troops to come to your rescue. Or a hundred crossbowmen to man your depleted walls, or fifty knights in shining armour to gallantly save the day! Its all possible, and you can have whatever reinforcements you wish, please read on ... Submitted by Brave Sir Robin
How To Script Basic Reinforcements As ever, the first thing we need to do is get hold of the Cede Scenario Utility map and save and rename it, now remove all the existing script except for the Cede Castle event itself, and also remove its condition. Its a good idea to move the date of the Cede Castle event to a hundred years or so after the start date of your map while you work on other aspects of the script etc. This just keeps it out of the way for a while, when your ready, simply change the date back to where you want it to occur in the script. Lets look at this script from an example map I put together... | Date | Event | Condition | | Mar 1180 | Invasion | | | Apr 1180 | Cede Castle | |
This shows an invasion appearing on the map in March, turning up at the signpost as usual. 
With the Cede Castle event set just one month after this, it will change the colour of these troops to the players own, thus presenting the player with his reinforcements. 
The reinforcements troop type and numbers are chosen in the editor, just like any other invasion, it's the cede event that turns them over to you. It is necessary to have the Cede Castle event set at least one month after the invasion, it will not work if set in the same month. However, there's nothing to stop you scripting several invasions before the cede event. For example you can only get fifty knights in any one invasion, if you want a hundred Knights, script two invasions of fifty dated March 1180 and cede in April. The dates of this method are flexible, you just need to test your map and see when the best time is to enable the cede. For instance, if it is a long journey from where the invasion enters the map to the desired location of where you want the cede to happen, then you will probably need to allow an extra month or so between invasion and cede. So this is the basic or 'guaranteed' reinforcements, the script in this fashion will always allow the invasion to become your reinforcements. Remember though you may only use this once per map, as there is only one cede event per map. Also, anything on the map immediately after the cede event will be turned to the players control, so there are some limitations with this technique. Scripting Conditional Reinforcements We mustn't forget that 'Cede Castle' is just an event and therefore can be set to any condition, this gives us the ability to have an invasion which may or may not decide to join your side. Let's consider the following script extract taken from the invasion map 'Special Brew', (the screenshots are from the playtest version of the map, when the players colour was originally blue, the playable version is purple - see Jalis about that one!)... | Date | Event | Condition | | Feb 1116 | Invasion | | | Mar 1116 | Plague (4 x 1 month) | | | Apr 1116 | Cede Castle | Goods Acquired 132 Ale | | Apr 1116 | Message | Goods Acquired 132 Ale |
As you can see, the first event is an invasion, in this scenario it's the Snake, and this invasion is going to appear no matter what. The critical thing here is the condition set to the third event 'Cede Castle'. If the player has reached the eco goal of 132 Ale in April 1116, the cede event will be triggered and the invasion will become your salvation. 
On the other hand if the player has not managed to collect the ale requirement by April 1116, the Cede Castle event will not occur and the invasion will carry on with it's original hostile intentions. The fourth event is merely a message ("The troops promised by the Snake have arrived sire") set to trigger at the same time as the cede. This was placed to help the player realise the invasion had turned sides, as if seeing three hundred odd yellow troops turn blue wasn't enough! There is one problem with this type of conditional script, by setting the Cede Castle event to a variable condition we run the risk of the map failing to perform as intended. once the cede event/condition is in the script, in theory there is nothing to stop that condition being met at any point in the map thereafter. Let's imagine a worst case scenario from the above script ... The invasion enters the map in February and makes its way to the castle, the player having so far produced say only 125 Ale by April, will not have achieved the cede condition. The invasion begins hacking at the walls of the castle and has broken through, and is starting to kill the peasants, when the player finally reaches the 132 Ale and turns the troops to his own. Having half demolished your city it just doesn't seem right that you would then welcome them with open arms as your saviour! This is where the second event 'Plague' comes into play, it is an attempt to kill the players peasants during this period and hopefully prevent the map failing as described above. once the invasion is inside your castle, we can assume that any stray brewers would be slaughtered as a matter of course. This would be quite enough to prevent the 'failure' thereafter. There are probably very many variations of the method, problem and solution for a conditional reinforcement script, the extract used is just one example. Again, a lot will depend on the story and events you wish to place in the scenario. Hopefully, we've demonstrated how to have proper reinforcements, the 'guaranteed' method is obviously the safest, but if you can achieve workable conditional reinforcements the results can be spectacular. As ever, the only limits are the imagination ... Happy gaming people ... Brave Sir Robin.
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