Scenario making for beginners.

[Catfish]

but they always show up in-game undynamic.

What does this mean? See here.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Undynamic = not changing; no tribe mask.

Thanks for the link; took me a while but I got it working. Some of the units end up a little too dark, but that's something I'll have to sort out myself.

 

[Catfish]

Undynamic = not changing; no tribe mask.

OK, I couldn't tell whether or not you were referring to static, as opposed to animated, sprites. Lost in translation.

Thanks for the link; took me a while but I got it working. Some of the units end up a little too dark, but that's something I'll have to sort out myself.

I greyscale the unmasked areas before I run SpriteGen or CivSprite; I find it easier to eyeball the brightness levels and make adjustments. Funnily enough, I updated a bunch of these for an Original Game mod pack the other night.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

What do the @Initial_Settings section in ToT's Rules.txt do anyway? A search revealed only 3 posts about it, only saying it was for map generation. Considering I'm working on having the game generate maps for me, I think I would find info on it useful.

 

[Catfish]

The @INITIAL_SETTINGS section determines on which map and with which types of units each tribe begins the game. So it's more of a setting for mods, as opposed to scenarios with fixed starting positions. It probably also applies to restarted eliminated players. Here's part of the section from the Fantasy game:

@INITIAL_SETTINGS
0,0,14	;Infidels
0,0,11	;Humans
0,71,8	;Goblins  
0,73,52	;Stygians 
0,69,12	;Merfolk  
0,72,9	;Elves     
0,70,13	;Buteos

The 1st column is the starting map (0-3), the 2nd column is the primary starting unit type (0-79) and the 3rd column is the secondary starting unit type (0-79). The unit numbers correspond to the row numbers (starting at 0) in the @UNITS table. In the Fantasy game, above, the Humans begin on map 0 (the first map) with Settlers (primary) and H Housecarls (secondary); the Stygians begin the game with S Settlers (primary) and S Barrow Wights (secondary).

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Thanks. I now have an additional question.

With the way I have this mod/scenario I have in my mind (the one I mentioned in my thread anbout map generation), I'm naturally needing to prohibit communications between Earth and the alien planet, although instead of having a tech advance enable comms, I want the completion of the SETI wonder to do that. At the same time, I want to prevent actual travel between the two maps until the alpha centauri ship arrives, which if it happens before SETI is completed, it gets to clear the no negotiations restriction instead. And vice versa; if the aliens beat us to seti or get their ship here first, the no communications rule is lifted as well. Finally, I'll need to give the default engineers unit the ability to construct the spaceports only after the AC ship reaches the destination. Same for the native transport abilities for pre-existing native transport unit.

I think I figured out most of the events macros for the improvement built and AC arrive, however I tried reading some of the info about flags and masks, and was admittedly in over my head. I know the binary part is from right to left, 32 flags for 8 civs (barbs counted), but what do each of these 32 flags represent individually? I tried looking at Extended Original's evens.txt negotiation masks, but was again confused.

Also, the alien system is nearly three dozen LY away, rather than at Alpha Centauri. Does that change anything?

 

[Catfish]

I think I figured out most of the events macros for the improvement built and AC arrive, however I tried reading some of the info about flags and masks, and was admittedly in over my head. I know the binary part is from right to left, 32 flags for 8 civs (barbs counted), but what do each of these 32 flags represent individually? I tried looking at Extended Original's evens.txt negotiation masks, but was again confused.

Have you read these two articles?

• An Introduction to Flags
• Flags and Masks for ToT

The Extended game events file is a bad example, because although it includes the @INITFLAG event at the head of the file, it doesn't actually contain any tribe flags. Try the Midgard scenario. Oh and use this version (It contains bug fixes.). For information on the Negotiation trigger, see Macro.txt in the main ToT folder.

Also, the alien system is nearly three dozen LY away, rather than at Alpha Centauri. Does that change anything?

I've got no idea what you're talking about.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Sorry for taking so long to reply; got distracted.

Have you read these two articles?

• An Introduction to Flags
• Flags and Masks for ToT

The Extended game events file is a bad example, because although it includes the @INITFLAG event at the head of the file, it doesn't actually contain any tribe flags. Try the Midgard scenario. Oh and use this version (It contains bug fixes.). For information on the Negotiation trigger, see Macro.txt in the main ToT folder.

Actually, yes, those were the articles I mentioned having already read but still couldn't understand. Sorry, I should've been more clear.

As for the Midgard part, I already got the update from the all-in-one pack you provided on your site.

I've got no idea what you're talking about.

I was under the assumption the Spaceship had to be non-FTL, so if I had the ship originate from the alien planet, which is 35 light years from Earth, the ship would have to take more than 35 years to get to Earth.

I know the Lalande Scenario has a FTL drive tech, but considering the system is only 8 LY away, and a fully built ship with fusion takes 11.7 years with default Mass/Thrust settings (which the Lalande scenario has, I think), it's kinda pointless to have a FTL tech in the tech tree.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Question: What would trigger the events.txt file to fail when it got to a command containing the name of a particular civ, citing missing civ or spelling error, even though it was spelled perfectly and they precisely matched in Rules and Events?

Basically, i got this from the Report.txt:

@IF NOSCHISM found
looking for whom=
Could not find Belle Hadeans, check spelling
found defender=Belle Hadeans, but Belle Hadeans is not valid
Illegal NOSCHISM statement

And yet:

Events.txt

@IF
NOSCHISM
defender=Belle Hadeans
@THEN
@ENDIF

Rules.txt

Nucleoid Nuclei,Nucleina Nuclei,   1, 6, 1, Belle Hadeans,Belle Hadean, -1,  1,  1,

Even more curiously, right before the no-schism for Belle Hadeans, there was a no-schism that worked perfectly fine with another civ:

Events.txt.

@IF
NOSCHISM
defender=Plutonian Empire
@THEN
@ENDIF

Rules.txt

(me),???,   0, 4, 3, Plutonian Empire,Imperial, -1,  1,  1,    4, President, President, 5, Ice Lord, Ice Lady, 6, Ice God, Ice Goddess

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

When manipulating the image files for MGE and ToT, if one is using Gimp on 64 bit windows, how or what is the best way to save them so they can be used by the game normally?

 

[CivPartisan]

I use bitmaps whenever I am working with a specific version of Civ2. Kobyashi is really good with these versions so it would be nice he would reply here too...

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I knew that part, I just couldn't remember if I should save as full rgb, or with an indexed palatte.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Edit: Nvm, figured it out; but I do have a new question.

I have a scenario I made in MGE that I converted and imported into ToT, and I added extra map layers. The issue is, how do I get the engineer units to build the transporter sites? I've got the transport relationships defined and the appropriate flags set to 1 in @UNITS_ADVANCED, I believe.

 

[Rocket Scion]

I really am sorry for needing to ask such a silly question, but I'm not having any luck finding an answer.

I want to make a Test of Time modpack. I worked on one for vanilla Civ II a long time ago, but it didn't get very far. I have Tot, but haven't used it much, because my laptap doesn't have a proper numpad, and I forgot about it.

Tot is supposed work with both scenarios and modpacks, but I can't find out much about modpacks. I want to make something like the scifi and fantasy worlds included in the game, where you can change features of the game, instead of the scenarios where everything is set. I like large worlds to explore, and its not as much fun if the map is the same all the time.

Is it possible to make modified basic games, without changing the ones that come with the program, or possibly make a scenario where the player can change the features of the game?

Also, it appears that changes to scenarios are made through the cheat features. Will I miss features if I edit the text files instead?

 

[Catfish]

Is it possible to make modified basic games, without changing the ones that come with the program, or possibly make a scenario where the player can change the features of the game?

Unless there's some yet to be discovered method, it's no to both. You can only modify the existing ones: Original, Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Having the ability to run mods independently of the official ones would be nice. The person to talk to about that would be TheNamelessOne.

Also, it appears that changes to scenarios are made through the cheat features. Will I miss features if I edit the text files instead?

Changes to scenarios are made through text files and the Cheat menu. The Cheat menu is used to modify SAV and SCN files exclusively, so if you plan on making a mod that begins its games from the world-building phase, then it's not required.

 

[Rocket Scion]

Unless there's some yet to be discovered method, it's no to both. You can only modify the existing ones: Original, Fantasy and Sci-Fi.

Bummer. I'll do more research to figure out the best way to work around this. Thank you for the help. It's a big help to know this isn't an option.

Having the ability to run mods independently of the official ones would be nice. The person to talk to about that would be TheNamelessOne.

That patch is amazing!

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

How do I get Audacity to set the proper sound format for my custom sounds for units in Test of Time? I know the formats needed, I just don't know how to get there.

 

[Catfish]

Note that I haven't used Audacity for probably half a decade, and had to download and install the latest version. The following worked for me:

1. Project Rate (Hz) [bottom left corner] → 22050
2. File → Export → Save as type: Other uncompressed files → Options... → Header: WAV (Microsoft) → Encoding: Unsigned 8 bit PCM → OK → Save → OK

Keep your originals; you never know, you may get better audio support down the track.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Awesome. It works now, thanks!

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

When working with events.txt in ToT, when I use an @AND modifier to trigger a transport site build enable, does it matter which goes first when using both "receivedtechnology" and "alphacentauriarrival"?

Example: tech 1 allows build and use between map 1 and map 2. Alpha centauri enables build and use from all maps to map 3. So if AC happens before tech 1 is discovered, units go to map 3 and then to map 2. So when I add my @AND modifier, and if I use AC arrival before @AND & received tech for tech 1 after @AND to force the game to wait until tech 1 is discovered; will the game still set the transport flags between Maps 2 and 3 even if tech 1 was already discovered before AC arrival?