Severe limitations of the editor?

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Apparently the scen editors of Civ3 are severely limited. There's no way of scripting events, and perhaps even worse, even no decent way of setting up the cities, units and scenario settings.

And no, Firaxis didn't speak out openly about this. If it wasn't ready, they should just say so. Instead of promising things, they were not able to accomplish on time.

Anyway, the game looks cool and I look forward to playing it. But I know the real lasting value of this game is in the flexibility of the editors, so I hope they'll expand on these. I trust Firaxis, when they say this, (and honestly, even when they said this, I got the eerie feeling that the editing tools were not really finished) :

Jeff Morris, FIRAXIS (Developer Update)
The editors in Civilization III are only the beginning. Based on feedback from the mod and scenario community we will make additional improvements and incorporate new features. The editors are just tools, ones that the fan community needs to make meaningful by creating new scenarios with. As those in the 'trenches' of creating new content run into limitations, we'll work on eradicating those barriers. Firaxis is very interested in Civilization III having an active mod community, but need to know where our efforts are best spent.

"Those digging the trenches" means us. So they'll base the upcoming editors on our feedback. Keep posting, fellows!

My personal wishlist :

1) A scripting editor, with a vast range of triggers and actions. Visual or macro-language, I don't care. As long as its there, and it's flexible as hell.

2) A solid objective system, that allows a vast number of different success/victory criteria to be made

3) A comprehensive, easy to use editor to place cities, units, improvements, borders and individual civ settings. As flexible as the map editor. And why not make it simply an upgrade to the map editor?


What do you think about it?

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

I don't believe they don't have a scripting editor Sure, they want feedback, but that should be a given.

[wotan321]

I plan to play the game and expect it to be a thrill, but I sure am dissappointed about the inability to create scenarios with the editors right out of the box.

I have no doubt Firaxis will implement all that is needed to really make scenario creation easy and painless.

But from that Jeff Morris quote:

The editors are just tools, ones that the fan community needs to make meaningful by creating new scenarios with.

you'd think there would be some ability to make scenarios. The fact is that you just cannot create scenario without
1> Placement of cites and units
2> Events or some scripting language


They have stated now that they just didn't quite have time to give the editor the muscle they wanted.... I just wish they'd have said something before....

[Robespierre]

I think they're going to make a patch for the editor that makes it a lot better, because they opted to release the game early instead of completing the editor as fully as they had intended. That's what I heard, anyway.

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Having thought about it some more, I've decided that this isn't the end of the world. There will undoubtably be a patch in the near future, and until then , we should be figuring out the basics of the game, not toying around with it.

Can we edit images at present?

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I just read the Apolyton release party chat transcript (phew!), and it seems some of the graphics files were in a non-standard format, but they're working on fixing it.

Actually they're working on a lot of things, but it's not really up to the programmers if/when/how the patches will be released. But Mike Breitkreutz (who did the editor) seems to have a pretty good idea about what he'd like to improve upon. And look at those poly guys, already away hacking the files, even if some doesn't yet have the game. All kinds of things are happening, and it's happening really fast!

[BeBro]

Yup, as it currently looks, they have still a lot to do to turn the editor in a good tool. However, I´m relatively optimistic that they know this - and civ2 came completely without an editor first...

We should mail Firaxis our ideas from time to time.

My wishlist includes...

flat map support
events language of course (and enough events space!)
tools to convert anims into the *flc format
map tool that can read other games maps and can turn images into maps

etc, etc. --- more to come...

[CurtSibling]

The scenario thing is a drum everyone should beat until the CIV team take notice!

What the hell are they thinking?

No preset map even!
That would at least held my interest till a patch appeared!

If any CIV programming geniuses out there can create a
patch this would be cool! But that is for the future!

Right now I am slightly disapointed, but I will buy game anyway.

Unfinished games getting released...
A sign of the times!!

[Henrik]

Well, Morten, I think you are right about lots of this being fixed in the future, but this quote from the civ 3 release chat makes me worried:

[Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS] Actually, the lack of a scripting language doesn't bother me -- if implemented properly an editor can be
more powerful AND user-friendly than a scripting language.... in my experience anyway. I've written scripting languages before and I've
noticed users havea much easier time making mistakes.

We will probably get a lot of stuff, but scripting language... Maybe not...

(also, how long did it take you to read through all those chat logs? It tool me 1 1/2 hour, and I still skipped the part where there where no programers present)

[Morten Blaabjerg]

He also said that he'd prefer an events system similar to that of Starcraft, which I remember was suggested by some modmakers in the "editor suggestions" thread on Apolyton (you know which one I mean).

I don't know how the system in Starcraft works, but he said it was basically more visually oriented, and more complicated stuff were made easier. But I trust if some of the hardcore modders say it's ok, it is. Hopefully. Otherwise we'll just have to stick with Civ2. It's not such a bad game afterall.

(But I'll probably buy Civ3 anyway, sooner or later...)

See ya!

PS. Yes it took me some time, too! I was really quite exhausted...(even skipping the parts where the fake Jeff Morris checked in....) Afterwards I found out they cut'n posted the tasty bits... damned, if I'd known that before trawling 8 pages of a chat log.....

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Morten Blaabjerg
He also said that he'd prefer an events system similar to that of Starcraft, which I remember was suggested by some modmakers in the "editor suggestions" thread on Apolyton (you know which one I mean).

True, as long as the "I might" part of Mikes statement means he will actually do it. Maybe Im just being paranoid...

But I trust if some of the hardcore modders say it's ok, it is.

Yeah, they should know I guess

Hopefully. Otherwise we'll just have to stick with Civ2. It's not such a bad game afterall.

Definatly not, im still involved in about 5 projects for civ 2, which Im not about to give up on just becouse of this annyway

(But I'll probably buy Civ3 anyway, sooner or later...)

So, will I, sometimes in March (mac release date moved even further away, from february to March ), ah well, atleast the mac programers post a lot more than the firaxians...

[Ilspana]

I hope they take a few ideas from Starcraft's campaign editor. It was very powerful, while being very user friendly. Its the only editor i could manage to understand in any game I've tried.

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Ilspana, can you tell me more about the editor of starcraft?

What do you mean precisely, when saying, that it's powerful?
Could you maybe post a screenshot, because I have no clue what people means when they refer to this?