How-to: Custom Population Cap

In this tutorial you will learn how to set a custom population cap limit for your map. To do this, you will need a basic text editor. Microsoft Notepad is suitable for this job and you already have it. In case you'd like to consider getting a bit better tool for this, I would recommend using notepad++, which you can download from notepad-plus-plus.org



One thing you should notice and understand before going any further:
Every time you save your map in WorldBuilder, yourMapname_ID.scar will be re-generated by the WorldBuilder. This means you have to add the code every time after saving the map if you wish to export the package. If you haven't saved your map yet, do it now!



Have you ever looked into your map folder? Perhaps you have and you know there are bunch of files laying around related to your map. For example the yourMapname.sgb file, which is the main file containing all the data of your map. There are also other files, such as yourMapname.tga, yourMapname.info, yourMapname.options, and yourMapname_ID.scar.
The one we are interested in this tutorial is yourMapname_ID.scar.



Well, what is this file in particular and why are we so interested about it?
yourMapname_ID.scar contains the list of Scar markers, entity groups aka. egroups, and squad groups aka. sgroups from your map. This file is sort of a directory of items listed above. This file also gives us the ability to include custom SCAR script to the map. In this tutorial we will use it for a very basic implementation.



Open yourMapname_ID.scar in notepad / notepad++. It should look something like this:

function OnInitID()

	-- [[ Markers ]]

	-- [[ Squad Groups ]]

	-- [[ Entity Groups ]]

end

Normally, when no Scar markers are placed nor squad/entity groups assigned (sgroups and egroups) yourMapname_ID.scar will look exactly like this. Let's get into adding the custom population cap code!

Add the following code below the line function OnInitID():

	--Population cap override value
	g_popCapOverRide = 200
	
	for i = 1, World_GetPlayerCount() do
		local player = World_GetPlayerAt(i)
		Player_SetPopCapOverride(player, g_popCapOverRide)
	end

The result should look something like this:

function OnInitID()
	--Population cap override value
	g_popCapOverRide = 200
	
	for i = 1, World_GetPlayerCount() do
		local player = World_GetPlayerAt(i)
		Player_SetPopCapOverride(player, g_popCapOverRide)
	end
	
	-- [[ Markers ]]

	-- [[ Squad Groups ]]

	-- [[ Entity Groups ]]

end

Save the yourMapname_ID.scar and close the file. Goto WorldBuilder and DO NOT SAVE the map! You should have done that earlier. Just do File -> Export Package, run the game, start a match with your map. You should now be able to see the population cap of 200 in your map.



I assume you are not happy with the population cap of 200. Perhaps you'd like to make it 300? Well, doing that is quite easy. I assume you already know how to do it if you spent some time reading the code you pasted into yourMapname_ID.scar. You can edit the population cap by changing the value of popCapOverRide, e.g. change it to 300 by doing following:

g_popCapOverRide = 300

Hit save, Export package, run your map and voilà!



In this tutorial you learned how to set a custom population cap for your map. I tried to spend some time to explain stuff a bit more briefly instead of making this tutorial as humanly short as possible. Hopefully this will give you a better understanding of what you did instead of just adding the code to a file and getting results without knowing why. If you have any additional questions, feed back, or suggestions for future tutorials, please let me know in this thread!

thx a lot for this instructions.

the popcap on standartmaps is too low.

thanks for the great work janne

Are there any documentation for the API some where?
How do you know there's global functions named World_GetPlayerCount and Player_SetPopCapOverride?

I don't want the fish, I want to learn how to fish!

Are there any documentation for the API some where?
How do you know there's global functions named World_GetPlayerCount and Player_SetPopCapOverride?

I don't want the fish, I want to learn how to fish!

Here ya go, a very basic instructions on how to use a fishing rod.

Imagine if Qvazar gets up to speed and forms an allegiance with Janne... Ultramegamoddingteam !

Here ya go, a very basic instructions on how to use a fishing rod.

EXACTLY what I was asking for, thank you, instant bookmark!

EXACTLY what I was asking for, thank you, instant bookmark!

Keep in mind that some of those functions might be outdated. For example BP_IsPropertyBagGroupValid(groupname) does not exist in CoH2. That is the only major function missing. Others are more or less already useless.

cant get it to work.

function OnInitID()
--Population cap override value
g_popCapOverRide = 200

for i = 1, World_GetPlayerCount() do
local player = World_GetPlayerAt(i)
Player_SetPopCapOverride(player, g_popCapOverRide)
end

-- [[ Markers ]]

-- [[ Squad Groups ]]

-- [[ Entity Groups ]]

end

this is the code in my testmap file. Also i cant find downloaded maps with worldbuilder

is it still possible to increase popcap?

Are you sure you have exported the map after saving <mapname>_ID.scar with that content? The code seems fine to me. Please note you have to add the code again if you save the map in the WorldBuilder.

Thank you very much !

Hi there.
i used this and it worked very well so thanks for that but... now the ai just sits there on the spawn point and just is well stalled any way to fix this and keep the pop cap?

I think it is the way the AI is programmed.

This works very well, thanks. Would you happen to know how or even if it is possible to increase the manpower rate independent of the points?

@paddlefiddle, here's a link to another helpful tutorial about Resources by Janne.

How-To: Custom Starting Resources (have no fear if you read through it a little way you will find the resource rates Janne added to the page)

hello admin im question about company of heroes 2 in steam. can i use cheat code in skrimitch offline bots example automatch vs Ai or Custom Game not get banned ?

hello admin im question about company of heroes 2 in steam. can i use cheat code in skrimitch offline bots example automatch vs Ai or Custom Game not get banned ?

If you play customgames, camp. etc then yes. But never in automatch.
And this is offtpoic here