managing temptation: good vs evil tech trees (formally: no,no advances)

[Little Sicily]

Hello!

I'm planning out my first scenario and want to resolve an issue over no,no advances before I edit any files. Some of the guides I've read say they can be used to give wonders and improvements to a single civ, while other guides say you they can only be used for units. Which one is correct? Does the same hold true for advances derived from no,no advances? My tech tree isn't that complex, and each civ has just 7 advances unique to only them, but any advice on this will help plan it out better. Thanks!

Also, where can I get .wav files of the appropriate size and sampling rate to use? I'm looking for sounds with an Asian and high fantasy feel to them. Thanks again!



[This message has been edited by Little Sicily (edited April 25, 2001).]

 

[kobayashi]

Typically you give just one No-No advance to a civilization and make it the prerequisite to the others (six in your case). These second generation advances can be used for any purpose - wonders, units, other advances, event triggers...etc. They can also be researched, traded, stolen...etc

Take note: once you do a No-No advance, you can't use the scenario tools to edit your tree anymore or else anything leading from the No-No will become No-No itself. Any further changes must been done in the rules file but these tend to lead to mistakes. So my advice si to do the whole tree using the scenario tools and add the No-No advances as a last step.

Sounds must be PCM,22,050 Hz, 8 Bit, Mono. As a start, you can use Window's Sound Recorder to convert any wavs you come across to the right format.

 

[oryx]

Wonders and improvements cannot be built if their pre-req is a no-no advance. What you can do with improvements is enable them to be built while you are setting up the scenario. You give them to the tribes you want to have those improvements. When you are happy with that, you disable building the improvement. Of course these improvements can't be built during play.

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"There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp."

 

[oryx]

Sorry double post. The first one was slow in taking.

[This message has been edited by oryx (edited April 20, 2001).]

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by oryx:
Wonders and improvements cannot be built if their pre-req is a no-no advance. What you can do with improvements is enable them to be built while you are setting up the scenario. You give them to the tribes you want to have those improvements.

Sorry, to make it clear - I meant use the children advances of the original No-No advances to enable wonders and improvements.

 

[Exile]

Kobayashi,
Thanks. I tried using the no,no techs to create civ-differentiated tech trees, but after I made adjustments during the testing and tweaking process, other techs stemming from the no,no techs would become no,nos themselves. It sounds like you've run into the same problem. I read all the how-to guides at the Scenario League and other places and no one ever mentioned this phenomenon. By pointing it out like you have, it clarifies things nicely. I always used the MGE editors to change techs around and now I understand why the effect appeared.

Salutations,
Exile

 

[oryx]

Exile,
Most of the guides were written before Fantastic Worlds, which first included the in-game editors, was published. The guides assumed you are using a text editor.

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"There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp."

 

[Little Sicily]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I was afraid that would be the case but I think I can work around it. This brings me to a related question, however: This scenario has two (mostly) separate tech trees, accessible to every tribe, but one of them deals with evil and corruption. The "good" path leads to victory, but the "evil" path is shorter, offers stronger units and generates tougher barbarians.

My question is this: what methods can I use to not only show human players that evil has consequences but also keep all the computer players from jumping right into it and grabbing all the good units? So far I have an event that has everyone declare war against the tribe that discovers the last tech on the evil tree, but I want some other things for earlier in the path.

suggestions?