How do I change / assign starting life totals?

[Kieran]

So, I've decided that my initial life total and that of the AI needs to change in their favor because I want to begin challenging myself by starting off with 15 and let them start with 40. Anyone know where to change this value?

[thefiremind]

There's a file in the original core WAD:
DATA_CORE\DATA_ALL_PLATFORMS\CONFIGS\GENERAL_CONFIG.XML
that you could copy inside another WAD file (never edit the original core WAD directly or you could screw the campaigns) and edit, so that it overrides the original one. The problem is that it changes the starting life totals for everyone, which is not what you want.

The only way to change life totals differently for AI and non-AI, as far as I can think of, would be to add an ability to a card in one of the decks, something like this:

Code: Select all

  <TRIGGERED_ABILITY internal="1" active_zone="ZONE_ANY">
    <TRIGGER value="BEGINNING_OF_STEP" simple_qualifier="controller">
    -- This is probably the earliest trigger you can get
    return MTG():GetStep() == STEP_UPKEEP and MTG():GetTurnNumber() == 0
    </TRIGGER>
    <RESOLUTION_TIME_ACTION>
    for i=0,MTG():GetNumberOfPlayers()-1 do
       local player = MTG():GetNthPlayer(i)
       if player ~= nil then
          if player:IsAI() ~= 0 then
             player:SetLifeTotal(40)
          else
             player:SetLifeTotal(15)
          end
       end
    end
    </RESOLUTION_TIME_ACTION>
  </TRIGGERED_ABILITY>

[Kieran]

As always, the Firemind's Foresight hath given me yet another exploit. Thanks! Your contributions and the wealth of information you share are astounding.