[TAC] Random Events, Quests and the construction kit

[Ronnar]

I have received a few questions regarding the random events and quests that we have introduced with TAC and thought we should start a thread to collect all information.
Feel free to post any questions or comments about events and quests in this thread.

Why did we add random events to TAC? Well, because we could! Actually it was quite easy to do, as Colonization is based on CIV BTS and all the coding for random events and quests from CIV BTS is also available in Colonization. It's just not used anywhere outside of the tutorial which is a pity!

Following this tutorial from TC01 I started to transfer random events from CIV BTS to TAC. But after a few transferred events, this became boring. Most CIV events don't really fit into Colonization and we wanted to do more colonization related stuff.

That's when we noticed that the event system in Colonization was only halfway done. None of the colonization specific functionalities (e.g. founding fathers, European kings, wares and their buy/sell prices, taxes) was available in the event system.

That would have been the end of the event development for TAC, but luckily RayStuttgart offered me to introduce 4 generic parameters to the event XML files and the functions that would be necessary to read those 4 tags from Python. Now, the possibilities became endless and introducing new colonization specific events and quests was finally possible.

There are currently about 50 different events and quests in TAC, ranging from natural disasters over disputes with your neigbours to your King’s demands.

Even most of the events transferred from BTS have been enhanced. For example when a tornado hits your colony, you will actually see the tornado.

When I started coding the events, I soon noticed that I would never be able to code all events and quests myself. We then decided that we would add a fully documented event construction kit to TAC. This will allow everyone to add their own events and quests with only basic knowledge of editing XML files required.

A number of generic python functions are also provided with TAC and allow many colonization specific events without the need for any python programming knwoledge.

Want to reward father points of the exploration category? The ChangeFatherPoints function is your friend. The category and the amount of points can be set in the event XML file - no programming needed. Other generic functions for both the event and the trigger are available.

If a few modders/users are interested, I can translate the event construction kit documentation into English and we will make it available in this thread and with the final TAC version.

A few examples for events:

Spoiler:

[Jayhawks]

Can you list any non-random triggerable events/quests? I realize it would probably take a long time to list everything, but it would be helpful to list any events/quests we can trigger ourselves. You don't have to list the reward options, we can discover those for ourselves to save some time.

I know that's what I was looking for when I visited this thread.

[Ronnar]

There is a complete list of all events and quests included in the documentation folder of TAC: TAC Dokumentation\Dokumentation Events. The file itself is called Events_Übersicht.xls. This includes all trigger conditions and possible rewards.

Unfortunately at the moment it is available in German only, but it will most likely be translated in our next test version.

[CHERUSCAN]

Is the Fountain of Youth Event included?

[Writing Bull]

Originally Posted by CHERUSCAN

Is the Fountain of Youth Event included?

No, it isn't. But founding father Juan Ponce de León will give you 12 free units. He was an explorer who tried to find the fountain of youth. In Europe his reports were very popular, and many young men went to America to search this wonder.

[CHERUSCAN]

OK ...Even Better........... having Ponce De Leon makes sense. Excellent.


Also, does this mod allow you to abandon a colony?

[Writing Bull]

Originally Posted by CHERUSCAN

does this mod allow you to abandon a colony?

To burn down an own settlement? No, sorry, that's not possible. We have debated that option, but we haven't implemented it.

[CHERUSCAN]

Abandon Colony was a way so get a treasure sent back using a scout to build a colony and then abandon it after the treasure was sent to Europe.

(It can also come in handy when another European Power builds a colony in a bad location. When you capture it, you send out the specialist and other colonists and build a new one closer to good resources).

[Stoepsel]

Originally Posted by CHERUSCAN

Abandon Colony was a way so get a treasure sent back using a scout to build a colony and then abandon it after the treasure was sent to Europe.

This is the main reason why this feature is not included in TAC. This strategy looks like a cheat, because the AI would not be able to handle it, so it is an advantage of the human player.

Originally Posted by CHERUSCAN

(It can also come in handy when another European Power builds a colony in a bad location. When you capture it, you send out the specialist and other colonists and build a new one closer to good resources).

I guess this is the next point the AI cannot do usefully. So you still have to burn down a captured city in a bad location and built a new one.

[thadian]

would be nice to have a modcomp of this idea of abandon a colony if it had a consequence such as the colony becomes a native settlement or when a colony is abandoned, the king owns it and new REF troops have a 50% chance to appear there.

for that matter, selling the king a settlement, or the king seizing a settlement makes sense, especially the latter. what king wouldn't want to seize a developed city to establish his own military presence instead of fully trusting the colonists unattended?

as for when kings war each other, king troops inside of these seized cities would not move out to attack (would be "held" until revolution). if a colonist attacked and actually conquered a city owned by a foreign king, the player would be at war with that king and get a diplo bonus with own king. also, a king-seized city would immediately gain all of the wall-buildings and would be pretty well defended.

[Robert Surcouf]

Hi everyone, Hi Ronnar,

You really did some good job (I mean all the TAC members)! The random events are very interesting and the new python functions are great !

I've tried the in-game Event Popup (Ctrl + Shift + E in cheat-mode). However I don't know how to get inside cheat mode (I've tried Ctrl+Shift+Z, but it "only" triggers AoD's cheat menu...).

How am I supposed to do this properly (for now I simply changed the python code removing the cheat-mode condition!)?

[Ronnar]

That's easy - to activate cheat mode for Colonization (it's not a TAC feature), open your CivilizationIV.ini

In the [GAME] section you should have an entry CheatCode. Set it to chipotle. If the entry does not exist at all, you can just add it in:

PHP Code:

; Move along
CheatCode = chipotle 


[Robert Surcouf]

Oh my !
Yes you're right. Strange thing though... Each time I launch a new mod, the Cheatmode is turned back off. Well ! Never mind, now I know how to do it !
Thanks !

[Writing Bull]

This text of our TAC Wiki contains the most important hints for the job to modify TAC. Sorry, it is a German text, but helpful all the same.