Dragonlance Scenario

[Wyrmshadow]

Who here would be interested in a Dragonlance Scenario? Or more to the point, does anyone even know what Dragonlance is or has ever heard of The War of the Lance?

I started this about 3 years ago on my own and recently dug it up, the only thing I'm completely satisfied with is the map, take a peek.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Has no one here ever read Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's series? The Dragonlance series?

No one has ever heard of Huma Dragonbane and the silver dragon??

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Well, yes, I confess. I did read'em! At the time I was immensely absorbed with them, and they are in many ways more exciting than Tolkien. In fact, I loved them so much, I have them right here on my shelf, along with all my history books.

It could be nice to see a GOOD scenario around the characters and tribes, and especially around the war, or one of the adventures/journeys. -But somehow I suspect it wouldn't live up to my expectations, after playing games like Warlords etc. It could be done, but it would need some really twisted tweaks and character, if it should be fun, and worthwhile playing. It should have something extraordinary in it. Not just the same dull fantasy strategy scenario.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Well Morten, I had made a scenario for this 3 years ago in the very primative way that I knew how ---made a map and then cheat my way into making the civilizations. The only problems was my limited knowledge on scenario creation at that time and the results were now what I wanted. I had made the "War of the Lance" but the dragon army didnt make enough war and the damn kender kept fighting everyone else.

I have gotten as far as changing all the unit graphics and some capabilities in the rules, but I don't know how to write the events or how to change the course of things, I am very much new at this.

If you'd like, I could send you my scenario, pitiful as it is in your email or something.

Question: Did you atleast recognize the map? Took me a solid month to make it and place all the units and cities in the correct places. The hard part was giving some cities enough food and blacking out the map. Remember, its after the Cataclysm and everyone is isolated.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

The map looks good!

-The problems you describe shouldn't be so hard to solve. You can set the "attitudes" within the cheat menu, AND alter the "personalities" of the tribes in the rules.txt. So you could make the kender tribe civilized, perfectionist and rational, and the dragon tribe aggressive, expansionist etc. With the events, you have even more options to keep the war going (makeagression, createunit etc.) -But the main aspect in my opinion, will always be the geography of war. Which cities is worth getting, and how do you get them. So if you give competing tribes cities in each others territory or close to, they're bound to end up in a long war at some point. Also the size and strength of the tribes have a say in this. It can get a little complex, but generally, the more reasons for tribe to attack, the better. (if you want to simulate a war, that is) -the reverse naturally goes for maintaining peace!

I'd like to take a look at your scen

, but I may not have much time to actually WORK with it, as I am already up over my head in 2 other scenario projects. But I'll be happy to comment and come up with suggestions and ideas.

-What I meant when said "twisted tweaks" is something of the more spectacular. Have you any ideas about this? -Some of the imaginative moments of the novels is quite the journeys and quests of the characters. -So you could put in important quests for your "hero" units, where they must conquer some city to get a powerful ally, or the mage must go thru some trials in a distant place (the mage high tower -as I recall it), in order to choose the black robe, and become immensely more powerful. -But this can only be done with events, of course. You can study some of the more unusual scenarios around to see how it works. I'm not the expert in events around here, either. -But I'm learning!

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I received your scenario, Wyrmshadow, but somehow it failed to load for me. -the notorious "...caused an error in Civ2.exe"... I'll try to see if I can fix it, and try it on an earlier Civ2 version of mine.

But I am very impressed with the graphics, especially the woodelves city style -that one is captured marvously! -I bet if you rework it and fill out all unit slots, and put in the characters (where is Raistlin and Tanis Half-elven?), events etc, it could be a blast of a scenario. I'd be happy to help out supplying some graphics or sounds, as well as ideas. -But, as said, I haven't played it yet, but from what I saw, I was impressed.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Well you must remember I hardly knew what I was doing when I was making it. Last night I was completely reworking the game and the city graphics to correspond better with each nation and I even exchanged poeples as well. I combined the kender with the Refugees and the kingdon of Thorbardin with the Gnomes of Mt. Nevermind as well as giving everyone new disctinctive city-styles and flags. I redid the airport to that of a Castle Keep for the dragons to roost on. What I want to do it to fill up those units as much as possible, and just make it a war scenario with either take over the world or stop the dragon army by taking their two main cities. I'm afraid I dont know anything about making hero units. Sometime soon I'll go back and redo all the unit files.

Additional: How do you make it so that science is static across the board. I dont want anyone researching anything, just keep the same units and techs that they start off with. I know the 1st step is to eliminate the other tech levels.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Well, I've got it working now --somewhat. The error was -I think- that there was a size zero city which was taken in the beginning, and that always causes Civ2 to crash. There are a few other flaws as well -especially economic ones -if I play the dragons, a whole LOT of my Dragons get disbanded immediately due to lack of support. Easy to solve : Just change home city to "NONE" when editing the units on the map (Ctrl+U or from the Cheat menu).

I spotted a minor graphical flaw as well, the silvanesti units' grey background is not invisible. Simply fill up the background with
the purpleish color instead. That one is always invisible; the grey seems often to be mistaken for "the other grey" color in the units palette.

The second one is also quite simple : just change the research rate to a ridiculously high rate, so that it will take a zillion years to invent anything. You can do that in the Rules.txt (in Global Variables) or from the cheat menu (special rules/settings).

You might want to rename the appropriate techs and improvements too, to a fantasy theme. You can just block out all techs you don't want to use by assigning "no,no" as their prerequisites. The same goes for wonders and improvements etc.

HERO UNITS : simply high att/def/hp/fp units that appear only once, or from the outset, and never can be produced in the game. (because they have "no" as their preq)

You can have these units be very powerful in certain ways, and play around with them in the events, but you don't need to do all that. Thats just the cream of the cake. You'd probably be better off just setting up the basics so that it's fun playing. I must admit, I didn't really get anywhere when I played it, but I think this has some great potential.

A small idea : If you want all your "villages" to be burnt by the dragons, you can make a terrain graphic that looks like a burnt village, and place it in all those places where the dragons are likely to strike. -You can also similate the villages with the mining field or airbase (but I see you got that one covered

).

 

[Wyrmshadow]

My eyes are totally fried. After literally spending all day going through grafix files from over 200 mods I have taken the best of them for the Dragonlance mod. It's just after 1 am here and I have just finished with the units.gif, now on to the more painstaking job of placing all the units and writing the events code.

I have 2 questions: Morten, in responce to your "burning village" idea, how would I go about doing that? How can I make a graphic stay in the place of a city that was just destroyed?

And when making a scenario, I have yet to figure out how to make a title grafic or story description fit into the scenario, I just don't know how to put one in.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

1) Simply sacrifice a terrain square for that purpose, and place it in all village/city-spots -you'll probably need to think about it. But it could be worth it for the effect.

2) If you mean the introduction scenario text, it should be a .txt-file with the same name as the scenario (.scn) file. -It has to be formatted a little special. Use an existing scenario.txt and rename/alter it.

[This message has been edited by Morten Blaabjerg (edited August 04, 2001).]

 

[Simon Darkshade]

This is a truly great idea for a scenario!!!
You could make it either a historical quest scen like the "Shannara" and "Spartacus" types, or a Dragons of Glory situation that focuses on the armies, or a mixture of the two, like the well done Forgotten Realms scen, "Banewars".
The whole war would be a very big task; maybe the War of the Lance could be portrayed in a number of scen's, that focus on the different campaigns, such as the Silvanesti invasion, the War in Abanansia, the War in Solamnia, and the advance of the Golden General.

My mouth waters at the thought of Solamnic Knight units, the arrival of the Good Dragons as an event, and dragonfire as a mini-nuke.
Pray continue.

------------------
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.
- N.S.Khrushchev

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Seems like you were in a bit late in browsing my thread. I tried making it work some time ago but there was something hideously wrong with my text file and wont allow Civ2 to run. For a little more info just find my newest link... the "help with my text file"...
On another note, I won't be able to do anymore work on the scenario for a VERY LONG TIME. Im only a few days away from going back to college, and when in a military school you dont get a lot of free time, expecially when you have to study Russian as well.

The only person that I have given anything more to, besides the .txt and unit files is Morten. He got the scenario I put together a few years ago, so he has the graphics, the map and most of the good stuff.


Additional: I was aiming to make it a global war, remember, Civ2 is a Strategic game, not Operational.

(For those of you who don't know, the levels of warefare go : tactical, operational, and strategic