CivIII Scenario Creation

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Quote from Dan of Firaxis in previous thread :

"The current plan is that we will have GUI-based editors that allow you to modify
everything that used to reside in the rules.txt file. These are in development and are coming along nicely.

So, long story short, you should be able to do anything you would previously have edited
in the rules.txt, it'll just take place in a binary file now instead of our old friend, rules.txt.

Dan
Firaxis Games, Inc."

--------------------------------------------

I was wondering to how large a degree alterations for scenarios will be possible with CivIII.

-As I understand, there will be a full game editor equivalent of those with games like Age of Empires and others. Is this correct?

-Graphics : -Will importable GIF's for terrain, cities, units, icons, city improvements, wonders etc. -altered with an image processor- still be possible?

(Which I prefer over an in-game graphics editor which can never be as userfriendly as Paintshop Pro per example.)

-In game messages and events? -will you stille be able to customize these completely?

-Editing tribes, leader pictures and characteristic, advisors -and especially the NUMBER of tribes available? -Will it be possible to add more tribes for a historical scenario, which will simulate complex historical situations? If this is possible, CivIII will hold really great potential for very accurate History simulations -also for educational purposes.

-"The king is dead! Long live the king!"
Will there be any way of simulating the rise and fall of different leaders, as government and political circumstances change?

-One thing that I find a bit silly for historical scenarios in CivII, is the way Elizabeth is still queen of the English, or Ghandhi leading the Indians, from the Stone Age to the Nuclear Age. It was very entertaining with CivI, as this was highly satirical with the leader pictures etc, but if CivIII takes on a more "realistic" approach, it could be nice with an opportunity, via the events par example, to change leader names, pics and characteristics. -This shouldn't be very difficult to implement, either.

Yours Truly,
Morten

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Just a thought.

An obvious way to implement the "king is dead! long live the king!" concept would be, if leader units (generals, "heroes" etc) became strong enough with popular support to overthrow the existing government. This would very nicely simulate a Hitler or Napoleon, as well as a billion other cases with great historical leaders who did well in war, and utilized this power to overthrow the king and became king, dictator, caesar etc in his place. -and could possibly also make for scenarios where an objective could be to overthrow this leader and install proper government -as would be the case with WW1 and WW2 for instance. The Americans didn't "conquer" Germany. Instead they set up a new government under influence of their "strong culture" and left the Germans going about their business.

Yours Truly,
Morten

 

[Mongol Horde]

I would love for their to be different leaders for a civ over time however the main argument for being able to do that would be to make the game more realistic. For scenarios that is great with generally shorter turn lengths. In the real game it would be really difficult because you would have to have 4000 years worth of leaders.

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Morten Blaabjerg:
I was wondering to how large a degree alterations for scenarios will be possible with CivIII.

-As I understand, there will be a full game editor equivalent of those with games like Age of Empires and others. Is this correct?

-Graphics : -Will importable GIF's for terrain, cities, units, icons, city improvements, wonders etc. -altered with an image processor- still be possible?

(Which I prefer over an in-game graphics editor which can never be as userfriendly as Paintshop Pro per example.)

That's the plan. In fact you'll probably need your own external image editing app, as we will probably not try to reinvent the wheel with that. Our terrain system is very complex (mathematically speaking) and while we may put out a doc explaining how to make custom terrain for the hardcore editing gurus, there won't be an easy way for the average person to do custom terrain.

-In game messages and events? -will you stille be able to customize these completely?

I think you can still do this, yes. Can't see why not.

-Editing tribes, leader pictures and characteristic, advisors -and especially the NUMBER of tribes available? -Will it be possible to add more tribes for a historical scenario, which will simulate complex historical situations? If this is possible, CivIII will hold really great potential for very accurate History simulations -also for educational purposes.

Don't how much control you'll have over the maximum number of Civs in a game, but you should be able to alter every aspect of a Civ. Unlike other versions of Civ, however, there are a lot more art assets than just one sprite page per Civ.

-"The king is dead! Long live the king!"
Will there be any way of simulating the rise and fall of different leaders, as government and political circumstances change?

Not sure about this, it sounds like a pretty serious use of scripting and triggers, right now the editors are too young to know if those kinds of hardcore features will be able to be implemented. I know the team is aware of the desire to do things like this because I mention it to them almost daily =)

-One thing that I find a bit silly for historical scenarios in CivII, is the way Elizabeth is still queen of the English, or Ghandhi leading the Indians, from the Stone Age to the Nuclear Age. It was very entertaining with CivI, as this was highly satirical with the leader pictures etc, but if CivIII takes on a more "realistic" approach, it could be nice with an opportunity, via the events par example, to change leader names, pics and characteristics. -This shouldn't be very difficult to implement, either.

Yours Truly,
Morten

Actually, if anything Civ III is closer to the original Civilization than Civ II. Civ II was a very serious game, with all kinds of pop-ups and just an overwhelming amount of data and information. With Civ III we really went back to the first Civ for inspiration. We are definitely taking the lighthearted aspects of the first game and putting them into Civ III. It's probably deeper than Civ II, but it's not "in your face" right out of the gate, it's neatly organized so you can get as into it as you want.

Dan
Firaxis Games, Inc.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

All in all, superb news, Dan!

With a good built-in editor CivIII will be as flexible as one could wish for when it comes to scenario design!

-I know many scenarios which uses creative ways of altering terrain, though. Like modifying ocean to space in Startrek, or recreating Chicago in the Mafia scenario etc. But if the game system allows the hardcore modpack writers to do this, no problem! -Anyway, I like what I've heard about the attention to ressources and geography. Those are the real fundamentals of life. Many of the differences between cultures in history can be explained by geography.

I like too what you're saying about the accessibility of the game. Sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun! -And that surely has top priority!

Yours Truly,
Morten

PS. Mongolhorde, that must be 6000 years worth of leaders? (from 3900 BC to 2100 AD?)
Anyway I agree, this would probably mostly be useful for scenario creators.