Scenario Design Guide

[McMonkey]

Whilst working on my latest project I got to thinking about all the tricks, shortcuts, tools and ideas I have aquired after years of scenario designing. I am still picking up new things and I'm sure there is a lot I have forgotten or have not found yet. I bet other designers have a load of great time saving techniques that aren't common knowledge.

What I was thinking about starting was a thread a bit like the SL Information Thread, but much more focused on the design process. We could all post ideas and techniques and I could update the thread with links to the existing pages where this information is located. The bonus would be that all the information would be available in one place and it would be organized in a logical order to make it easier to track down.

I think this would be a real help for new or casual designers, a great aid to memory for veterans and the discussion process is bound to throw up new ideas for us all.

I don't want to create too much work for myself, so where there are existing pages I would just hyperlink along with a brief description of what the link is about. #

One section could be for Utility Tools such as CivCity, Tech Tree checker etc... Another section could handle Guides like the Barbarian Paper and ToT Events Macro. There could also be a list of Considerations for making a new scenario, such as ther scope, objectives, map size and so on.

I would start it off in skelenton form and then we can flesh it out as and when we get the change. Just an idea.

 

[Dadais]

I have a question, thinking of a concept for a mongols' like tribes game.

Can a civ play without cities.
I guess it should have a settler/engineer not to vanish.
Or would it simply need a first or second slot to live it's own way ?

The idea is thrown anyway, as I have little to do to finish my mod of the moment.

(And,) Is it able for a settler to create city with 0 mouvment point ?
What for IA ?

 

[AGRICOLA]

i have a question, thinking of a concept for a mongols' like tribes game.

Can a civ play without cities. [ Yes. Take a look a Cyrion's "Lost Legions". ]

i guess it should have a settler/engineer not to vanish. [ Not needed - see "Lost Legions". ]

Or would it simply need a first or second slot to live it's own way ? [ Any of the 7 playable slots will do. ]

The idea is thrown anyway, as i have little to do to finish my mod of the moment.

(and,) is it able for a settler to create city with 0 mouvment point ? [ No. ]

What for ia ? [ Not 100% sure, but almost certainly not. ]

.....

 

[McMonkey]

I was wondering if members would mind me using text from their websites for link descriptions. In particular this would mean lifting text from Catfish and Mercator's sites. It seems silly to try and re-phrase things when they have been described so succinctly already. A lot of the links will direct traffic back through to these existing sites anyway, but I didn't want to take things without asking first.

 

[Willhelm II]

This is more of a design question: are gigamaps now the standard for scenario design? I've always rather liked the contained size of the World Map that came Civ2, and felt that some of the bigger maps just take forever to navigate around and can seem, to some, quite daunting.

Is there a higher detailed standard world map floating around? I seem to remember one, but can't seem to find it... Alex the Magnificent/Captain Nemo used it on 2194 Days of War.

 

[tootall_2012]

When I designed my 'Total War 1941-45' scenario (which I've yet to release), I created a new 90x120 world map based on the one from Captain Nemo's 2194 Days scenario (which is 75x120).

I increased the size of Europe, North Africa and the Pacific Ocean. I'm attaching it to this post. Any designer who would like to use or modify it for scenarios of their own design are obviously free to do so.

 

[AGRICOLA]

. . . .and felt that some of the bigger maps just take forever to navigate around and can seem, to some, quite daunting.

I agree. But the major problem with scens with large maps is not the size of the map but that unit movement is unrealistically slow, especially for ships.

The worst that I've seen was that a 1700 AD warship needed 6 turns (months) to sail the ~360 nautical milesfrom Leningrad to Stockholm. That's equivalent to 60 nm/month = 2 nm/day = 150 metres/hr --- ridiculous! Year-old babies crawl faster than that.

Adequate alpha playtesting by the designer should spot this kind of nonsense.

 

[techumseh]

The smaller the map, the more effective the AI.