Although Civ IV mapscripting is a great improvement compared with III it is just not enough for PBEM (and maybe other multiplayer) demands where you don't want to be playing for weeks only to find out that one player has a sort of big advantage over the other in terms of start, terrain, resources or something else.
Some of this can be controlled in the Editor but in IV the editor isn't as functional as in III and or is required for a good PBEM map.
Having made many PBEM maps at CDZ I decided to see if it is possible to create maps and have full control over the process in IV. The answer is Yes!
I wrote this article at CDZ but since it makes use of a lot of utilities and information from CFC is seems reasonable to share the information.
Any updates to the guide will be done primarely at CDZ so check Full control over map creation for recent updates.
The utilities used are Atlas by by Junuxx and MapView by Gr3yhound. There might be better tools I'm unaware of.
Atlas:
Atlas can be used to create the initial map, many parameters are available to do this in the script like fashion of IV.
It is best to set "Starting Locations" to 0 because these will be assigned manually.
I'm not going in details here about how it works unless it is something key for creating a good PBEM map. For now hit Generate All and play with the parameters until you like the result. Save it, the finetuning is done in MapView.
MapView:
This is what the map created in Atlas looks like in MapView:
The buttons at the top are for toggling what's visible and for view / edit mode. Buttons at the left for selecting edit actions. Current edit action is to erase a starting location.
Using the edit actions the left continent is split in two islands. (Just a sample, not an example of a good PBEM map!
)
What we have now is a map with everything but Civs and starting locations and nothing else. Let's assume its name is Ourmap.Civ4WorldBuilderSave
Balancing the map:
The key part in creating enjoyable PBEM maps is that they have a form of balance in them to allow players equal chances to grow and florish their empire while allowing a good AI as well. Aspects having an effect on balance:
- Land area and shape
- Availability and accesability of resources
- Rivers
- Neighbours and their respective traits
Scarcity is an obvious issue but abundance is as well because it takes one of the aspects making gameplay challenging away.
The most balanced map is one where 2 equal landmasses are available to both players but often players dislike this. Experience learns players are most happy with equal or very similar starting areas (10 - 12 square) and comparable terrain outside the starting areas.
Selecting Human and AI Civs:
Since we want to have full control over the starting locations we need to have them in the WBS prior to creating the game. The easiest way to do this is to create a SP game through Civ IV with the required Civs in them. Otherwise we would have to manually enter them into the WBS in order to assign the starting locations. So:
- Start Civ IV
- Single Player > Custom Game
- Select a mapsize large enough for the required number of civs.
- Select the Leaders (which selects the Civs) that should be in the game. Leave the other settings as is these can either be changed later or are maprelated which is going to come from another source.
- Launch the game.
- Once started go to the WBS and save as WBS.
Lets assume this one is called Ourcivs.Civ4WorldBuilderSave
We now have two wbs files. One with the map and one with the right civs. Some minor editing left and we are ready to rock!
Assigning starting locations and final edits:
First we have to merge the two files which is a matter of copy paste.
- Open both Ourcivs.Civ4WorldBuilderSave and Ourmap.Civ4WorldBuilderSave in Notepath our comparable tool.
- In Ourcivs copy the section from the start (Version 11 in my case) up until but not including "BeginMap"
- In Ourmap replace the same section with the section copied from Ourcivs.
- Save Ourmap as Ourmap1
Now we can assign starting locations.
- Make sure Ourmap1 is open both in Notepath and Mapview.
- Select the tile in MapView where the first Civ should be and read the coordinates in the left upper corner.
- Go to Notepath and locate the first occurence of "BeginPlayer".
- Find the line StartingX=nn, StartingY=nn and replace nn with the coordinates from Mapview.
- Repeat for all Civs (all sections starting with "BeginPlayer" where "LeaderType" NE NONE.
- Save as Ourmap2.Civ4WorldBuilderSave (just in case) in directory ..\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\PublicMaps and we are done with editing!![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
This is what the Player section in the WBS looks like, starting location can be edited at the arrow.
It may look a bit overwhelming but only a few thingies need to be changed for each new map. It isn't as cute as the III editor though. Thanks to Dale who made an excellent desription of the WBS structure.
Creating the save:
This is pretty straightforward.
- Start Civ IV
- Multiplayer > Play by e-mail > New scenario
- Select your scenario from the list (Ourmap2 in this example)
- In Select Civilization just press OK
- From here on see akots guide step 5 and onwards at this link akots' PBEM guide
Happy mapmaking!
Some of this can be controlled in the Editor but in IV the editor isn't as functional as in III and or is required for a good PBEM map.
Having made many PBEM maps at CDZ I decided to see if it is possible to create maps and have full control over the process in IV. The answer is Yes!
I wrote this article at CDZ but since it makes use of a lot of utilities and information from CFC is seems reasonable to share the information.Any updates to the guide will be done primarely at CDZ so check Full control over map creation for recent updates.
The utilities used are Atlas by by Junuxx and MapView by Gr3yhound. There might be better tools I'm unaware of.
Atlas:
Atlas can be used to create the initial map, many parameters are available to do this in the script like fashion of IV.
It is best to set "Starting Locations" to 0 because these will be assigned manually.
I'm not going in details here about how it works unless it is something key for creating a good PBEM map. For now hit Generate All and play with the parameters until you like the result. Save it, the finetuning is done in MapView.
MapView:
This is what the map created in Atlas looks like in MapView:
The buttons at the top are for toggling what's visible and for view / edit mode. Buttons at the left for selecting edit actions. Current edit action is to erase a starting location.
Using the edit actions the left continent is split in two islands. (Just a sample, not an example of a good PBEM map!
)What we have now is a map with everything but Civs and starting locations and nothing else. Let's assume its name is Ourmap.Civ4WorldBuilderSave
Balancing the map:
The key part in creating enjoyable PBEM maps is that they have a form of balance in them to allow players equal chances to grow and florish their empire while allowing a good AI as well. Aspects having an effect on balance:
- Land area and shape
- Availability and accesability of resources
- Rivers
- Neighbours and their respective traits
Scarcity is an obvious issue but abundance is as well because it takes one of the aspects making gameplay challenging away.
The most balanced map is one where 2 equal landmasses are available to both players but often players dislike this. Experience learns players are most happy with equal or very similar starting areas (10 - 12 square) and comparable terrain outside the starting areas.
Selecting Human and AI Civs:
Since we want to have full control over the starting locations we need to have them in the WBS prior to creating the game. The easiest way to do this is to create a SP game through Civ IV with the required Civs in them. Otherwise we would have to manually enter them into the WBS in order to assign the starting locations. So:
- Start Civ IV
- Single Player > Custom Game
- Select a mapsize large enough for the required number of civs.
- Select the Leaders (which selects the Civs) that should be in the game. Leave the other settings as is these can either be changed later or are maprelated which is going to come from another source.
- Launch the game.
- Once started go to the WBS and save as WBS.
Lets assume this one is called Ourcivs.Civ4WorldBuilderSave
We now have two wbs files. One with the map and one with the right civs. Some minor editing left and we are ready to rock!
Assigning starting locations and final edits:
First we have to merge the two files which is a matter of copy paste.
- Open both Ourcivs.Civ4WorldBuilderSave and Ourmap.Civ4WorldBuilderSave in Notepath our comparable tool.
- In Ourcivs copy the section from the start (Version 11 in my case) up until but not including "BeginMap"
- In Ourmap replace the same section with the section copied from Ourcivs.
- Save Ourmap as Ourmap1
Now we can assign starting locations.
- Make sure Ourmap1 is open both in Notepath and Mapview.
- Select the tile in MapView where the first Civ should be and read the coordinates in the left upper corner.
- Go to Notepath and locate the first occurence of "BeginPlayer".
- Find the line StartingX=nn, StartingY=nn and replace nn with the coordinates from Mapview.
- Repeat for all Civs (all sections starting with "BeginPlayer" where "LeaderType" NE NONE.
- Save as Ourmap2.Civ4WorldBuilderSave (just in case) in directory ..\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\PublicMaps and we are done with editing!
This is what the Player section in the WBS looks like, starting location can be edited at the arrow.
It may look a bit overwhelming but only a few thingies need to be changed for each new map. It isn't as cute as the III editor though. Thanks to Dale who made an excellent desription of the WBS structure.
Creating the save:
This is pretty straightforward.
- Start Civ IV
- Multiplayer > Play by e-mail > New scenario
- Select your scenario from the list (Ourmap2 in this example)
- In Select Civilization just press OK
- From here on see akots guide step 5 and onwards at this link akots' PBEM guide
Happy mapmaking!
