help a wannabe storyteller

[t3h_m013]

having followed arathorns sidaw game i have nothing to follow, so i started thinking i my try my hand at story telling, then i realised i have no idea how to do it.
do you story teller types write down notes at nearly every turn?
i was thinking i would try something similar too
standard continents (pangea (sp))
infantry non-oscilating war on monarch?
aim for a conquest or domination victory?

any ideas suggestions hints tips etc.etc.
Also does anyone know of any interesting looking new starting game writeups?

 

[Robbert]

In my story I take screenshots of every major event, and when I played 2 hours orso, I go write it down. I just look at the screenshots and the story writes itself basicly. In the beginning of the game you need to make alot of screenshots of your expansion so people now how your empire looks like, etc. In late game I write only of war, since thats the only interesting thing happening then.

 

[t3h_m013]

hmmmmm, k... actually ill probs wait a while as im going on holdiay
but then i wills tart writting up my stories i guess

 

[MSTK]

Well, I take a screenshot at every major event, like Robbert, and then write down the story after I have passed a really huge event (like the elimination of a civ or entering a new age) or just when it seems right.

 

[t3h_m013]

i started, taken a lot of screenshots at the begining
not having photoshop etc. is making things tricky... oh well

 

[MSTK]

Get the Gimp. It's just as good (equipment-wise) as Photoshop, but PSP is easier to use.

The Gimp is free!

 

[t3h_m013]

whered you get it from?

 

[Robbert]

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Don't you know how to use google?

 

[GR8Madmax]

What I did was have Photoshop and Word running in the background while playing my game. I'd then tab back and forth when needed. I take screenshots and save it as a PSD file using Photoshop. My image folder from the Indian Summer story ended up being 900MB.

I also kept track of the events in Word right when it happened by switching between C3C and MS Word. I also wrote the story in Word and copy/pasted it later on to the board.

 

[MSTK]

I find it better to take only screenshots at first, and then write the whole chapter on Word after I finished the game.

 

[GR8Madmax]

I find it better to take only screenshots at first, and then write the whole chapter on Word after I finished the game.

I found that I sometimes missed taking a screenshot of an event but logged it in my events log. I also had pics of events that I missed logging. So, I did both while playing.

I only kept a log of events while playing the game and the story was written later. It was written after I finished a section of the game, which usually took a few gaming sessions.

 

[MSTK]

Well, I'm not going to doubt the great Indian Summer Writer

Yeah, I always do the same. I keep a mental log though, because I'm a lazy procrastinator.

 

[t3h_m013]

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Don't you know how to use google?

i assumed that searching "the gimp" wouldnt yield positive results, it did though...

does anyone get when switching between civ and another program or desktop that it has a much smaller screen area than without civ open. Is it the case that civ changes the screen size whenever its open?

 

[MSTK]

No, the actual game is in normal resolution. But the intro movie switches to a smaller resolution, but then switches back when it gets to the title screen.

If you're still having problems, there's a program that takes the prt sc images and saves them directly onto your harddrive so you can edit it later, instead of having to alt+tab, etc.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=83728

 

[t3h_m013]

cheers... hmmmm i still get my reolution mucking up even when its past the intro vid

 

[t3h_m013]

another question, sorry. with gimp. how do you get pics into gimp if youve copied it from another program? ctl-v doesnt work and i use so few graphicsy programs that i dont know where to start.

 

[aramael]

another question, sorry. with gimp. how do you get pics into gimp if youve copied it from another program? ctl-v doesnt work and i use so few graphicsy programs that i dont know where to start.

Yes, this is not intuitive. Create a new picture with File/New, select OK immediately because it doesn't matter, then you can choose Edit/Paste as New which will create another picture window containing your screen shot.

(The explanation I've just given sounds a lot more complicated than it really is)

There's proabably a more straightforward way to bring up this command of course. I've never noticed the problem because I'm almost always copying and pasting between Gimp windows, rather than from the screen shot.

If the screen shot seems small, that's because the Gimp is scaling it, but this is just a display thing. Also, there's an undo command, so try stuff to see what happens.

 

[MSTK]

If it seems small, press "1" or "CTRL+SHIFT+E". 1 makes it the proper size, and c-s-e scales it so that it fits to the screen.

 

[t3h_m013]

hmmmmmmm, tis a bit annoying, as i didn't have gimp when i started writting i pasted my pics into word and copying them in word and psting them into gimp doesnt seem to work... any ideaS?

 

[MSTK]

What doesn't work? Does it just not show up?