Activation Veteran Option and Scripts Activation

[AndrewKurtz]

I am using RC3 with Veteran Activation. Scripted event for McDowell said he was activated. However, in the messages after processing the turn, it appears he reverted to defensive stance.

Out of curiosity, does the Veteran Activation ignore automatic activation through scripts and roll for each general, regardless of whether they are supposed to be automatically activated?

[grimjaw]

I assume you put him in attack posture previously. Were there other factors during the turn that would have changed his stance? Big battle during the turn or something?

Out of curiosity, does the Veteran Activation ignore automatic activation through scripts and roll for each general, regardless of whether they are supposed to be automatically activated?

I think it's the other way around, but I'm not sure. I think the script that enables McDowell runs after the activation roll, so it will override the roll. Although now that I think about it, the activation roll on other difficulty levels must run at the end of turn processing. So I'm really not sure.

For reference, this is the script that works its magic on McDowell.

StartEvent = evt_nam_USA_McDowellActive1861|999|1|NULL|NULL|$Prince_George_MD|NULL

Conditions
MinDate = 1861/07/15
MaxDate = 1861/09/15
EvalEvent = evt_nam_USA_ArmyInManassas;=;0
EvalUnqUnit = Irvin McDowell

Actions
SetLeaderActivity = 1

EndEvent

[AndrewKurtz]

I guess step one is to understand what causes this message:

"Irvin McDowell issues conflicting orders and Northeastern Virginia Army reverted to a defensive stance"

This is the second movement message, while the Movement to Manassas was 7 entries later.

Here is what appeared to happen:

1. McDowell was put on Offensive and ordered to Manassas.
2. McDowell was changed before any moves to Defensive Stance. Right now my theory is that this is because the Activation rule I am running checks after the turn is being processed, and so the script was ignored.
3. McDowell moved into Manassas, which had CSA MC, so he was changed back to Offensive, but now with a big penalty.

[Captain_Orso]

The Advanced--or hidden--Activation rule does the following:

• At the end of each turn's execution it sets every leader to activated.
• At the start of each turn before any of your movement orders are executed, but after orders for creating divisions have been resolved, a dr is made for each leader to resolve if he is activated during this turns execution.

This allows for a leader who was activated per an event to still become unactivated by the dr at the start of the next turn's execution.

The above listed event sets McDowell explicitly to activated at the end of each turns execution from 1861/07/15 through 1861/09/15, but will not affect the Advanced Activation dr made before movement execution other than insuring that McDowell was activated when the Advanced Activation dr is made,which will have him a slight advantage to remain activated. It gives him a +1 to his activation dr.

[AndrewKurtz]

Thanks. That confirms what I suspected. Using "Advanced" negates the guarantee that a leader will be activated via scripts. Improves the likelihood, but no longer guaranteed.

[grimjaw]

Thanks Orso!