Olympia PBEM

wait

Wait for one of the the specified conditions to occur. The first condition which is satisfied will cause the wait command to terminate. If one of the specified wait conditions is true when the wait order is issued, no wait will take place, and the order will complete in zero time.

The following conditions may be waited on:

clear

Wait until it is not foggy, windy or rainy.

day n

Wait until the day of the month is n

turn n

Wait until it is turn n

ferry n

Wait for the ship n to sound its horn with the ferry order.

Units waiting to board a ferry should use wait ferry instead of wait ship. This will allow passengers on the ship time to disembark. When passenger unloaded is complete, the captain will sound the ship's horn, and those wishing to board may proceed.

Otherwise, those waiting to board may try to get on the ship before the current load of passengers has left, causing board orders to fail because of ship weight limits.

flag f [n]

Wait until character n, or a character belonging to player n, signals with flag f. n defaults to the player issuing the flag order. If n is zero, wait until any character signals with flag f. See flag for more details

fog

Wait until it is foggy in the noble's province.

gold n

Wait until the character has at least n gold

item n q

Wait until the character has at least quantity q of item n

loc n

Wait until arrival at the given location.

not

Invert the sense of the following condition.

owner

Wait until the noble is the first character in the location list.

rain

Wait until it is raining in the noble's province.

ship n

Wait until the specified ship arrives in port.

shiploc n

Many players have been bitten by using wait loc while they're on a ship to wait for the ship's arrival at a particular port. Don't do this! wait loc waits for the noble to arrive at a particular location. If the noble is on a ship, the ship is the location the noble is in, not the ship's location.

Use wait shiploc to wait for the ship's arrival at a particular place.

stack n

Wait until the character and unit n are members of the same stack. Position within the stack is not important; The condition is true whenever n and the character share a common stack leader.

time n

Wait for n days to elapse

top

Wait until the unit becomes a stack leader. This could happen if the units's current stack leader unstacked or promoted the unit.

unit n

Wait until the character and the specified unit are in the same location

wind

Wait until it is windy in the noble's province.

For example:

1: > wait time 1
1: Wait finished: one day has passed.
2: > wait time 10 day 5
5: Wait finished: today is day 5.

The first condition to become true will end the wait. This can be used to specify the maximum amount of time that the character will wait for something.

For instance, suppose we want to wait for [5499] to show up, but we don't want to wait past day 15.

> wait unit 5499 day 15

This order will finish on day 15 or as soon as 5499 shows up, which ever comes first. If 5499 is already here when the order is issued, no wait will take place. Likewise, if it is already past day 15, no wait will take place.

Keep in mind that the order priority mechanism eliminates the need to use waits in many cases. Consider synchronization in the following example:

Feasel [502] arrives at Osswid's [5499] location. Feasel gives Osswid some gold, and then leaves. Osswid departs after receiving the gold.

unit 502   # Feasel
  move ...
  pay 5499 100
  move ...

unit 5499  # Osswid
  wait unit 502
  move ...

The orders above will work; no additional waits are needed. After the wait unit becomes true, both 502's pay and 5499's move are ready to execute. Since pay has a lower priority than move, pay will happen first.

This technique also works with stack and give, since they also have a lower priority than move.

The NOT keyword inverts the sense of the condition which follows. For example:

> wait not rain time 7

Will wait until it is not raining, or for seven days, whichever comes first.

> wait not rain not wind

Will wait until it is not raining or not windy.