Events

[Archer 007]

We need events to allow for good scenarios. Enough said. They is no other way to allow for the veritiality needed.

[BomberEscort]

I agree, give us events... re-use some of the Civ II language if you have too... [plasma] :rocket: :rocket2:

[yoshi]

Only two replies huh? Obviously all the really good modders are sticking with Civ2. The only reason why Civ3 is still worthwhile with all its drawbacks --namely the slow turn rates and unecessarily high-grade graphics engine-- is becase it has certain esentials that CIv2 lacks like air unit missions (thus land units can't block air units), bombardment (artillary are support not assault, ships can't be killed when bombarding land units), units cost gold to maintain (though they all cost the same amount), ect.

But, without Events Civ2 still beats Civ3's scenarios by a long shot because it has events scripting. It's unforgivable that they haven't included this, but judging by the length of this thread, it's apparently not a priority for most civers, so obviously developers won't spring for something that they believe won't significantely affect sales. It's really too bad though. Maybe if they did, some of the Civ2 guys might give Civ3 a chance --because they sure aren't impressed now.

[LouLong]

I vote for it...

... but it has been made pretty clear that it won't be in.


If it did, Firaxis (and so on...) I would be really faithful and I would not consider anymore that Civ3 is partly a progress and partly a drawback from Civ2.

[Cimbri]

Yeah, I miss the event system...

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by BomberEscort
... re-use some of the Civ II language if you have too...

Ain't the language that's the problem. A language parser is relatively easy. The problem is that Civ3 was not built with events and scripting in mind. This is the kind of change that would require a lot of effort (read this as time and money) to add the trigger-response code to everywhere that it might possibly have a trigger.

[Ian Beale]

I like the idea of more events but what are these events going to be or what were they in Civ 2?

[yoshi]

Events script is usually divided into two catagories, triggers and Actions. The trigger is what is required to activate an event. For instance, a trigger would be 'CITYTAKEN' and an action would be 'CREATEUNIT.' That could translate into, 'if x city captured, then have x unit appear at x coordinates'.

An Example of this typical Civ2:MGE Event:

@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=x
attacker=x (civ name or ANYBODY)
defender=x (civ name or ANYBODY)
@THEN
TEXT
^City of x taken! Attackers obtain weapons tech! Reinforcements conscripted in x!
ENDTEXT
PlayAVIFile
x.wav (place in x scenario's 'SOUND' file)
@THEN
GIVETECHNOLOGY
receiver=x (civ name or TRIGGER ATTACKER/DEFENDER)
technology=x (number in list)
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=x
Count=x (number to create; not in MGE; Test of Time only)
owner=(civ name or ANYBODY or TRIGGERATTACKER/DEFENDER)
veteran=yes/no
homecity=x (name or NONE)
locations
x,y (coordinates)
x,y (alt. coordinates --if enemy occupies first location; optional)
x,y
x,y
endlocations
@ENDIF

As you can see from the example, a city has been captured and reinforcements are on the way.

The most typical trigger would be TURN; i.e. this activates an event on x turn (e.g. create x unit at x coordinates on x turn).

These are only a few of many examples but there are too many of them to list here. BUt just tyo give you an idea, here a few more:

CHANGEMONEY - action; give/take money from civ's trasury
MAKE AGGRESSION - action; civ makes war; only for AI
UNITKILLED - trigger; if x unit destroyed then x (this would work particularly well in Civ3 where you can name individual units)
RANDOMTURN - trigger; event occurs at random (usually accompanied by JUSTONCE which prevents the event from triggering twice) and is based on the integer you set
DESTROYCIVILIZATION - action; you guessed it...no cities, nothing
RECIEVEDTECHNOLOGY - trigger; if civ obtains tech, event triggers
TURNINTERVAL - trigger (it's more of an action that triggers an action); repeates leaving intervals of turn before triggering again (this one is particularly useful when creating units every x number of turns --according to scenario's turn type; i.e. Months/Years)
And so on...
They can be combined to produce a wide variety of events.

Clearly scripting is a huge asset from the scenario-design perspective, although it has potential in the regular game as well.

An example of a NEW event would be TAKETECHNOLOGY which was introduced in Civ2: Test of Time. It means that you can take an Advance away from a civ. Personlly, I used this event action in a WW2 scenario to take the 'Panzer' tech away from the Germans if they lost a key 'oil' city --simulating their historical loss of Fuel as a result of losing control of key oil fields. This event was not in Civ2: MGE and yet it has quite a bit of potential. An example of a completely new event for Civ3 could be RANDOM LOCATION in which a unit would appear at random coordinates within certain parameters. Combined with RANDOMTURN, the randomness of such a scenario could even rival that of the core game. Just think what new events they could come up with for Civ3!

Events essentially allows elements that couldn't be included into a limited, i.e. magnified, map to play a role. For example the problem with a WW2: Europe scenario without events is that you would have to include much of the Eastern US in order to get the to produce the equivilant amount of units that the Americans did historically --not to mention that there is then the problem of the AI not knowing just where to send those units. In this example, Events would allow you to create a detailed European map and have outside units appear according to historical dates (TURN), other triggers such as CITYTAKEN or make it completely random using RANDOMTURN. So in other words, the events add a level of depth to a scenario that scenarios without scripting can't even hope for.

...to add the trigger-response code to everywhere that it might possibly have a trigger.

It would definitely be a lot of work in terms of programming but there's no need to rush it. Just having some basic triggers and actions (e.g. TURN, CREATEUNIT, GIVETECH) would be enough for now. They could gradually add new events based on how popular the new scripting was. Anything would do.
The new Victory Conditions meant to be in Conquests could almost be said to be a very small step in that general direction.

Interesting Fact:
Just to give you an idea as to how developers think: there's an event action in ToT called BUILDIMPROVEMENT. You would think that it essentially lets you give free improvement to your city of choice. Guess again. The program chooses the city for you, usually giving it to a city with a wonder or the largest city!
Note to Self: If Firaxis decides to add events into Civ3 and they include this event action, remind them to give players the option of choosing the reciever city! Unbelieveable.

[Stratofortress]

Great post yoshi, clarified things for me and would be an great thing to implement to a game, would make game much more interesting.

[BomberEscort]

Just curious, but wouldn't the new knights templar wonder have to use some kind of event/scripting to work properly? (e.g.- Create x unit every 5 turns...) I'm not familiar with event technicalities but what do you think?

[warpstorm]

I would love to see events in Civ3 at some point, but I think the actual language used by Civ2 is crude and ugly. Nearly any real scripting language (say, Python, for example) would be much more elegant.

[yoshi]

Great post yoshi, clarified things for me and would be an great thing to implement to a game, would make game much more interesting.

Glad to be of service. There are probably a lot of players who are not familiar with events scripting, thus the lack of player emphasis on this request. Hopefully other players who are unfamiliar with events will see my post and others like it. If Firaxis sees that this is of sufficient interest there is a slim possibility that they might opt for it at some point in the future --very doubtful it will be in Conquests though.

Just curious, but wouldn't the new knights templar wonder have to use some kind of event/scripting to work properly? (e.g.- Create x unit every 5 turns...) I'm not familiar with event technicalities but what do you think?

That sounds like it's a hard-coded addition to the program (i.e. something like an automated repeat build queue) but yes, it's very similar to something a scripting language would do --the two seem to overlap sometimes so player-scriptable events wouldn't be to much of a stretch if that's the case.

...the actual language used by Civ2 is crude and ugly. Nearly any real scripting language (say, Python, for example) would be much more elegant.

As you know Civ2's scripting language was added on as an extremely simple way of giving players the ability to use some of the already existing program information just enough to give their scenarios a little "spice."
Yes, Civ3's scripting language would most certainly use a more advanced format, and would integrate it into the Editor in order to facilitate player scripting. Civ2:FW/MGE included an Editor that allowed players to easily edit various aspects of the game, including Events without having to directly edit through the text/gif/wav files. I would bet that if Civ3 included easy Events and FLIC editing (and got the game to run faster), every single player still messing with Civ2 would make the switch without giving it a second thought. I know I would.

[BomberEscort]

Could you give me a brief rundown on the changes that would be required to the Civ III program and editor to facilitate the use of events. Warpstorm claims that it is a monumental programming change and I was just curious what the details would be. Is it as simple in some areas as making hardcoded into variables, etc... Thanks

[warpstorm]

Pretty much every time that a decision is made, a turn changes, or an action is taken the events processor would have to kick in and see if any of the triggers have tripped and then kick off the associated action (and update any appropriate secondary trigger states). (Note that this is a simplistic approach).

Doing it this simplistic way would mean adding code all over the place (I'm assuming, never having looked at the code, I could be wrong and there might very well be a centralized location to put this in) to check on the trigger conditions. The other area which would need major attention is the AI as they aren't programmed to realize that their actions may trigger unexpected responses (this is probably very tough to program).

It would be good if the editor supported the trigger/response system in a slick way.

The bic files and save files (and their supporting files) would need some changes to support this.

Oh yeah, some things that are hard coded would need to change to variables.

Monumental? No. Time consuming and expensive (time consuming = expensive, if you pay your programmers anything near the going rate)? Probably.

[BomberEscort]

Another thing I do not understand... why doesn't Firaxis just say Events are in or out, this is a major issue (not like arguing over some minor game detail) on the level of diplomacy fixes, and I'm sure the decision has been made. IMO, I believe all this secrecy about game options and features (not just for the Civ series, but for all games) is counterproductive. Reveal information so consumers can make a better descision...

[yoshi]

...the events processor would have to kick in and see if any of the triggers have tripped and then kick off the associated action...

You could also have a seperate buffer zone that stores the Events information associated with a loaded save/bic file; i.e. the events processor would go through the information once initially and when a trigger is tripped, it activates based on that stored information --rather than have to read script every turn (this would probably require more work to implement though).

Doing it this simplistic way would mean adding code all over the place (I'm assuming, never having looked at the code, I could be wrong and there might very well be a centralized location to put this in) to check on the trigger conditions.

Associating events script with different aspects of the Civ3 program information would seem either to require a code modification (info. is modified based on events information directly and saved) or have seperate events codes for each equivilant program code. It's not like it really matters since this is territory programmers would be most comfortable in, thus we can assume that were Events to be included into Civ3 programers would deal with such problems by using the simplest method possible.

...(time consuming = expensive, if you pay your programmers anything near the going rate)...

Clearly. But the question is whether or not the expense would pay off in sales. Doubtful at this point. Then again, even a flop like PTW surely made Firaxis a profit at $20 bucks a pop, so their budget probably wouldn't significantely affacted so as to make this request unreasonable.
(It would be nice if someone from Firaxis or Atari were to post a reply here to clear some of this up.)

Rather than focus on whether or not Events are implementable into the Civ3 program, I prefer to hypothosize on what kind of new events would work with the game.
***If developers do opt for Events, they will want ideas for new ones --rather than for solutions to incorperating Events into Civ3's program code. Any good programmer can come up with a solution to a new events language (if they don't just buy it from somebody else). What isn't nearly as easy, is figuring out new events codes that weren't in Civ2. That's where players come into it.
I think it would be more productive for us to play with new events concepts as well as with ideas for changing already existing actions/triggers.
For instance, a new event like CREATE RESOURCE would place a specific resource on a specific tile --if applicable. This would essentially place control of in-game resource appearance in the hands of the player. Definitely useful.

Note: I'm keeping with the Civ2 macro language because people are familiar with it, not because this is the language I expect to be used.

I'm also interested in just how the Events interface would work if integrated into the Editor. I'm assuming that it would have an 'Events' screen with a list of available triggers and actions (as far as I know, most scripting languages have this in common). If integers were involved (e.g. TURN #), their relative fields would probably be highlighted when an appicable trigger/action were to be selected.

Now for the fun stuff:

Some more ideas for new Events (i.e. not in Civ2/ToT):
IFNEGOTIATION - trigger; if a civ contacts another then x;
MAKEPEACE - action; AI civ immediately makes peace with another;
MADEPEACE - trigger; if civ makes peace with another then x*;
MADEWAR - trigger; if civ makes war with another then x;
CHANGEATTITUDE - action; changes civs attitude towards another;
BUILDIMPROVEMENT - action; unlike ToT, gives free city improvement to a SPECIFIC city --that includes wonders;
DELAY - action modifier; action is delayed following trigger (something like this was in ToT but it so good I figured I should mention it here);
ATTACK - action; AI uses it's own judgement to attack everything in the area of specified tile; better than the MOVEUNIT action;
Plenty more with those came from. Have a go.

* X = action

Some changes to the already existing Events (in Civ2/ToT):
CREATEUNIT - add unique name field; add movement field (in some cases, you may want the unit to stay put for a turn or to have less movement on the first turn);
UNITKILLED - add attacker/defender field (i.e. only triggered if unit that is destroyed is one of the two, or both); add unit type/unique name for attacking and defending units (e.g. only applies if a specific unit destoys, or is destoryed by another specific unit);
RANDOMTURN - add parameters (i.e. within x AND x turns --not just any turn in the scenario as was the case in Civ2); add assured action field (i.e. action MUST trigger within specified parameters, or action MAY do so --the former means that the action will take place within that time no matter what (e.g. Great Leader will appear within this time period but still random);
CHANGETERRAIN - action; add terrain field (i.e. changes terrain of specified type --only terrain of that type is changed within grid; add 'lasso' grid (i.e. lets you select a grid in any shape);
...

What do you think?

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by yoshi

You could also have a seperate buffer zone that stores the Events information associated with a loaded save/bic file; i.e. the events processor would go through the information once initially and when a trigger is tripped, it activates based on that stored information --rather than have to read script every turn (this would probably require more work to implement though).

Of course, this was so obvious (to programmers, anyways) that I didn't bother mentioning it.

But the question is whether or not the expense would pay off in sales. Doubtful at this point. Then again, even a flop like PTW surely made Firaxis a profit at $20 bucks a pop, so their budget probably wouldn't significantely affacted so as to make this request unreasonable.

I seriously doubt that Firaxis made more than a buck or two per copy of PTW sold (I am not talking profit).

Would the profit be worth the cost? Probably not, but the Firaxians that I've met are all gamers first, and businessmen second.

[yoshi]

I assume the businessmen at the co. wouldn't be ones to talk to players. It's logical that the 'Firaxians' you've spoken to are gamers. What is their opinion concerning Events?

BTW, any comments on all that other events-related stuff I wrote?

[warpstorm]

One of the few I haven't talked to is Sid himself and he was out at the time (there really aren't that many people in the company). Each and every one of them is a gamer (and Sid is the biggest of them all from what I hear).

[ww2commander]

This is quite an interesting post. I think that events should be added in Civ 3, but 'dumbed down' slightly.

Obviously Firaxis is not going to rewrite the code (unless making a newer version) so why not just modify the game so that triggers are used only at the beggining of a turn.

The game is slow enough now without having to think about every unit or cities action during a turn.

I suggest something like:

* Create unit or improvement at coords
* Destroy unit or improvement at coords
* Display popup
* Give technology
* Change Terrain
* Change government
* Change victory location