Activating Allies

[Thomas Niksa]

Here's the situation: I'm playing the Ottomans in 1852, and Russia declares war on me. Britain and France declare war on Russia (the Crimean War). Several huge Russian armies bear down through the Caucasans and the Balkans towards Constantinople, eventually depressing Ottoman morale below 70. The French make an incursion west of Odessa, then disappear. A brigade of French appear near Symrna, then do nothing. Where's Lord Cardigan? Indeed, where are Raglan, Lucan, Scarlett, the lot of the red coated host? Nowhere to be seen. I always knew AI allies aren't worth spit. I have to wait for the Czar to offer a ruinous peace.

My question is: if I want to take over a allied country during the course of a war to use their armies and navies and prevent the above from happening, and then return them to AI control at a later time, is this possible?

[sagji]

Yes.
If you go into settings and open the file GameRules.opt in notepad and change the line
rulNoOrderFileForAI = 1
to be
rulNoOrderFileForAI = 0
now when you next process the turn it will produce .trn files for all playable nations.

Load these in the same way, but you will need to press the show AI turns button above the files in the load window to see them.
So load as the British do their orders and then save the turn (button above the process turn button), then load as the French and do the same.

Turn processing will take slightly longer, if that is an issue simply set the line back to 1. You will still get .trn files for nations you put orders in for, so you can still give orders for Britain and France.

Once you don't want to give orders for them simply stop saving turns for them. You will get a prompt that they will go back to AI control. You need to accept that, and press the process turn button again. If you haven't already done so set the value back to 1. Now when you process the turn you should not get any extra .trn files.

[Thomas Niksa]

Thank you ever so much! -Abdülmecid I, the Shadow of God On Earth

[ShadowofGod]

Well, it worked on one game fine - will not work now, even if I hit "Show AI." Any reason why it has stopped displaying AI files?

[ShadowofGod]

Let me note that I added China since the initial installation. I've flicked the "rulNoOrderFileforAI" and the file above it back and forth between "1" and "0" a number of times. No go. I'm wondering if adding China to playable nations has anything to do with the failure of the .trn files to appear. I have gotten it so that the .trn files appear at the beginning of the game, so if I keep playing Great Britian, France and S-P until the breakout of the Crimean War I will have active playable allies; but I would rather have the allies appear 'on demand.'

[sagji]

After you save the setting you have to start an new instance - so exit the game and run it again. If it is set when you process the turn you will get .trn for all playable nations under AI control.
Changing China should not matter - but for China .trn file to appear it needs to be marked playable in the game not just in the scenario.