SOW Scenario Generator

So no worries about the second player joining in with a different time on his clock?

The save game file is sent by the host to all the other players which they must download and put into their saved games folders, so everyone restarts at the time the host saved the game. The other issue is that all players MUST have EXACTLY the same named mods as the host. So if you're the kind of person who likes to rename your mod folders this won't work for you and you must rename your folders to match the ones the host uses.

I just confuse myself when I rename folders.

Thanks for the info. As I said, I'm impressed!

Getting a level not found error. Game claims it can't find the PCL3.lsl file for the Nap_Aus_PCL3_RM map. I tried it without the RM version but it still can't find that file.

Any ideas where it might be?

That's a SOWGB map. You have to place the lsl files from SOWGB into a folder in SOWWL.

1. Inside the SOWWL Mods folder, create a folder and name it GB lsl Files.
2. Inside that create another folder named Maps.
3. Copy just the lsl files from SOWGB\Base\Maps to GB lsl Files\Maps.
4. This is a mod, so select it in the Modifications screen.

You can now use all of the GB maps with the KS mod.

Perfect - that got me through the map issue.

Now I'm getting something I never saw before:

It's telling me to "lower" my map and uniform settings because of a memory problem!

It looks like this in the log:

16:36:43 Load your muskets...
16:36:43 16:36:43
16:36:43 Loading NetServ
16:36:43 Loading Map (Nap_Aus_PCL3_RM)
08:00:00 Loading Graphics
08:00:00 ----------------loading: GFX_Obj_Major
08:00:00 ----------------loading: GFX_Obj_UMajor
08:00:00 ----------------loading: GFX_Obj_CMajor
08:00:00 Loading Drills
08:00:00 Loading Experience Levels
08:00:00 KS ReadBattlescripts: Commanders imported
08:00:00 KS ReadBattlescripts: Importing KS battlescript orders.
08:00:00 ERROR: Memory allocation error. Please lower your map & uniform settings.

The battlescript itself looks like this:

Event ToID Command FromID X Coord Z Coord timevar
KS SCRIPT
8:00:00 startscenario
8:00:00 Maréchal d'Empire Louis Nicolas Davout Aorders:Hold
8:00 General'nyy Infanry Mikhail Barclay deTolly Aorders:Hold
8:05 General-Mayor Prinz Eugene von Wurrttemberg Amovespec:loc:235156-163235
8:30 General-Poruchik Zakhar Olsufiev III Amovespec:loc:235156-163235
9:00 General-Mayor Pavel Stroganov Amovespec:loc:235156-163235

Are you supposed to copy the full name and title from the OOB?

And while I was waiting to hear back I made a Single Player version of the same scenario and it loaded just fine. Then I went back in and put the map and uniforms options back to the top where they were and loaded it again.

It still loaded and ran fine.

Obviously, I have screwed something up with the script in MP but I'll be damned if I can see it.

It's probably because you are not using military time.  Use 08:00 instead of 8:00.  The reason it works in single player is because you are not using the battlescript.  To test in SP, you have to copy scenario.csv and battlescript.csv into the netserv folder.  That's where the mod expects to find those two files since that's where MP puts all the necessary files that get passed to the other players when the game starts.

do you have commas separating the battlescript columns? What you've pasted above has spaces rather than commas. That would also lead to a crash.

You should copy everything in column I from scenario.csv to column B of batlescript.csv. It looks like that's what you've done.

I'll give it a shot.

The script is written in Excel. The sample did not show commas in the Excel version.


I'll let you know.

If you write it in Excel it'll need saving as a csv file.

So here's what happened.

Changing to military time did nothing. However, I did realize that I am not using Excel, per se, but rather an open source version of it which has always worked for me in the past. My wife has Excel on her computer. I may try writing that short script on her computer and just transferring the file. Excel, even my open source version, has always saved it as a .csv file.

Before that, though, I tried writing the script in Notepad as per the example given in the guide. That worked. The game loaded although I'm not so sure that it was executing the commands. I'll restart it and send out some scouts to see what the Russians are doing.

Getting closer.

Success!

When I used the Notepad version it saved it as a .txt file instead of a .csv. The log file told me that it could not read the battlescript.csv file for some reason. The reason turned out to be that said file was not present. I changed the extension and it worked perfectly.

I'm still going to experiment with the real Excel program but MP is working.

It's the commas. If you want to see what the enemy is doing add a couple of lines to the sowwl.ini file. It's in the Documents\SOWWL folder. At the bottom of the file add the lines:
[debug]
alphaomega=1

Run the game in normal mode and you'll see all units moving on the command map.

Oh, yeah.... I know about that. It's just an excuse to send my division commanders out for a ride to spot the enemy.

I did try making up the script with Excel and got the same result. Not sure what the problem is but it doesn't matter now that I know how to use Notepad. And you're right. Have to watch the commas!

Okay. I lied. I really could not understand why Excel spreadsheets were not working when they had worked before. Since the amount of work and study you fellows put into KS is truly mind-boggling I figure that you deserve to hear any feedback that turns up.

I consulted the log file and noted that it crashed as soon as it hit the KS Script command. I don't know why it triggered a memory problem but that seems to be a false lead. I began to wonder why there were no commas in the csv spreadsheets? For the hell of it, I added commas behind all of the entries in Excel and it crashed. However, when I checked the log I saw that it had accepted the KS Script line WITH the commas and then crashed on the next line. So I went back and took the rest of them out and it worked.

I also solved the military time problem by changing the start time to 10 AM thereby getting rid of the leading 0.

Computers are weird.

When you save an Excel spreadsheet in csv format it reads the cell divisions as commas so you don't need extra commas. Check that you don't have any commas anywhere in the Excel sheet, you can't use them inside a cell to deliniate two values for example and make sure you have decimal points everywhere and no commas.

So last night after sending my previous post I made up a totally new scenario with the editor. Without the commas behind the phrase KS Script it crashed. With them it loaded fine. I am mystified but glad it works. For the moment, I am happy to accept it as some sort of miracle.

BTW, I am not a complete novice with .csv files. My Dog Rescue gets them all the time for our financial reports from Paypal and such. Never had any kind of problem with them before.

Good to hear you got it working. Commas are your new, best friend.

I've noted that the AI seems a lot sharper. In one test the Austrians were ordered to use roads to march to the objective which they did until they spotted Ney's division taking position astride the road. As LeGrand's division coming up on their right flank the AI shifted its advance from the road to the gap between Ney and LeGrand but still in the general direction of the objective. Luckily for me I had already sent Gudin's Division from strategic reserve to the general area of the gap. In the past the AI would have continued to march straight into Ney's guns so I was fairly impressed.

Yes, that was a recent change. The newest version we are using has a couple more subtle changes like that.

So I've made great progress getting it to work ( Important note: change strategicai to zero is VERY IMPORTANT) in terms of having multiple enemy formations stagger their approach so that one does not end up with a mass of humanity all converging on the Objective at once.

I have noted that the enemy cavalry usually leads the way and while they will break out of column into line they still continue down the road into the teeth of the guns. Once they reach canister range that normally does not go so well. Do you suppose this is because I am using the Auseroad command which was called for in your sample.

When I used the Amovespec command it seemed that the AI was a little more intelligent. Any thoughts?

I saw that exact behavior by cav when I used assault column (3) formation with “Blitz.” Switching to double line (11) and regular “Attack” made the behavior relatively more sane. At least that is what happened to mine

I have noted that the enemy cavalry usually leads the way and while they will break out of column into line they still continue down the road into the teeth of the guns. Once they reach canister range that normally does not go so well. Do you suppose this is because I am using the Auseroad command which was called for in your sample.

That will happen on more aggressive stances and/or if the commander is not nearby. On long road marches, the cavalry outpaces the infantry and often ends up at the front of the column. If the division commander is at the front, he will halt the column away from the enemy and deploy his units. That's the behavior you commented on earlier. Apart from artillery, individual units don't do that. They follow the game engine logic and march down the road to their destination. They rely on their commander to tell them to halt.

So right now I have the orders given by division. Maybe I'll try giving that cavalry brigade commander a separate set of orders and incorporate the ideas that Charmead mentioned above ( thanks for that reply, btw). I suppose I should also check the brigade commander's leadership ratings and make sure he is not set at "Suicidal Maniac."

Yep, don't give Murat or Lasalle command of the lead cavalry brigade.

You can always create a bespoke OOB and dial back some of the commander ratings so they are less gung-ho.