Galactic Markup

Location: Data/XML/AI/GalacticMarkup

Galactic Markup is an easy way to make particular planets more valuable to the AI in various ways. For example, maybe a planet is the mission goal of a GC. You want the AI to really try to attack it. So you use a Galactic Markup file. It is accessed in the GC using the Markup_Filename tag, and applied to each faction in the GC (since mission objectives may be different per faction).

Tags
PriorityTarget: defines a planet that you want to be an important offensive and defensive target for the AI

Chokepoint: defines a planet that you want to be an important defensive target for the AI.

Note that the usage of these values is tied entirely to Perceptual Equations, and in vanilla they are mostly used in

The markup is called using Variable_Target.Hints.Hintname. See that PriorityTarget and Chokepoint are additional scaling values added to the perception, making planets gain more value to the AI. The markup is used in other vanilla equations as well, so search for examples in the files for more information.

You may also notice Variable_Target.Markup. This is a completely separate system from the XML markup, and is based on the Lua script PathBonusForDistantTargets.lua. That script sends out a "dummy" TaskForce, finding valuable planets that are poorly defended and adding value to a table that contains each planet.