Katlover97
The liberal
Dose anyone have some tips on creating good scenarios?
ToT scenario creation tips?
- Thread starter Katlover97
- Start date
I don't know of anything particularly new. Pretty much the same things go for ToT as the other versions... Except mainly that it has more graphics/events possibilities.
You might want to check out the Apolyton Civ2 Test of Time and SLeague/Creation forums (http://apolyton.net/forums), because unlike here, there's actually some sort of an active ToT community (well, sort of), and several ToT scenarios in development to boot.
You might want to check out the Apolyton Civ2 Test of Time and SLeague/Creation forums (http://apolyton.net/forums), because unlike here, there's actually some sort of an active ToT community (well, sort of), and several ToT scenarios in development to boot.
Catfish
Emperor
Someone asked a similar question only a few days ago in this thread.
Actually, I thought there was more interest (if not scenario development) over here in the CFC forums.
Really?
ToT Scenario Creation Tip #1
Tanks can't cross rivers:
Create a 'Riverbed' terrain and set the impassable flag to 'yes.' Then place this terrain wherever there is River n the map (be sure to connect them all so that there is no place to pass).
Then set 'impassbale override' flag for non-Tank units --air units ignore impassable.
The result will be that Infantry will be able to cross Rivers while the Tanks stay behind.
(You can use a CHANGETERRAIN event to remove certain Riverbed tiles once certain nearby cities are taken --simulating the capture and holding of bridges.)
Catfish
Emperor
That's my general observation. Over here, there's probably less activity as a whole, but casual gamers frequently drop in and ask about or contribute to discussions on ToT. Over there, in the scenario design forum, it's mainly a hardcore MGE group. Whenever ToT is mentioned, it's like the three wise monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Most ToT contributions, regardless of merit, are greeted with a wall of silence - except from the same handful of guys. It's really incredible seeing a bunch of designers trying to push the envelope with the MGE engine when there's the untapped capability of ToT staring them in the face.
Excellent idea. In fact you could simply make rivers impassable to all units, except at fords or bridges (road intersections), instead of converting such terrain to ocean. I have a spare terrain slot in the scenario I'm currently working on. If I don't find another role for it, this may be it.Indeed. Maybe it's just because ToT doesn't have combat explosions!
Yes, this works and looks better than Ocean tiles. The reason why I gaie Infantry the 'override impassable' flag is so that they get the chance to take cities on the enemy side of the river --which, when taken, change certain nearby Riverbed tiles to some passable terrian ('Bridge' terrain type?). Only then can the armor move in. Gives more of a strategic role to foot units.
If you decide to use it, tell me how it worked out in terms of gameplay. IMO, this application of impassable terrain would be perfect for a WW2:Eastern Front scenario (i.e. rivers --and crossing them-- played a big role in the Russia).
[Aside: I thought of doing this in a Civ3 scenario but Rivers go along the sides of games squares (i.e. between squares) so you have to put the impassable terrain on either side --not to mention that Civ3 doesn't include a CHANGETERRAIN action...or any events whatsoever for that matter
mad: 
), so the bridge thing won't work.Why oh why didn't Firaxis opt for the stupid events? The bright side is that there's a lot more to say in the Civ2 forums!]
Tip #2 (very similar to Tip #1):
Coast (Beaches)
Surround all land with this terrain. Make it impassable to all but infantry units. That way, only infantry can land on beaches. Armor must be unloaded in port (i.e. cities).
Katlover97
The liberal
There could be a few gals in there. (Not me. I'm just sayin'...)
Other part of message:
Do you guys (or gals) know how to edit the apperance of terrain?
I have already edited the recource sprites. (Very tedious in itself.) I am asking because I am working on "Tremors"(A movie/mini series) Mod pack. I would also like to know, When you distribute the mod, is the actual game saved as a scen.? Or something else I havn't heard about?
T.T.Y.L.
Catfish
Emperor
Don't hold your breath. I've currently hit a snag with my map transport site settings. They don't quite work the way I thought I was expecting 16 different possibilities, but it seems like there's really only 6, the extras affecting graphics not game mechanics.
If it wasn't for this fact and various other gripes I've read in reviews (these may have been fixed in C3C), I'd consider buying it myself. Basically, I want an engine that is capable of being modified into my own turn-based game, without requiring industry level developer skills.
Nope, they're all blokes (although I have my doubts about Mercator
).Yep. Terrain1.bmp and Terrain2.bmp are the files required for a single map game. Create copies of the ones in the Original game directory and work on those. Specifically, what do you want to know?
Modpacks don't generally come with a saved game, they're just modified rules and graphics. If you're including a map with fixed starting positions, save it as a scenario file it removes the cheat flag. From all these questions of late, it sounds like you're making a scenario.
Catfish
Emperor
Originally posted by Mercator
What the...
Is this an annual event? As far as I'm aware, Boco, Curt Sibling, techumseh (AWOL), William Keenan (AWOL), fairline, you *cough* and I (checks) were all blokes.
Just about... She and Sava (not a girl) are probably the only 'poly regulars who drop by once in a while for a question or word of encouragement. Apart from them, there's a slew of "newbies" and the very small group of active ToT'ers...So... I guess that makes you Catfish then?
(didn't realise that until a few days ago)Personally, I try to stay away from using ToT's transport site feature. Hope it works out.
Many of Civ3's bugs have been fixed in C3C (or will be in the new patch they're developing for it right now). The slow turn rate has been addressed and play is significantly faster. The debugging feature (this may have been available in one of the PTW patches) allows you to test scenarios in-game --it's nowhere near as effective as Civ2's cheat menu though.
Setting diplomatic stance is still VERY primitive: you can set Locked Alliances but that's it.
Although I would kill to have an Editor as advanced as Civ3's for Civ2 the fact is that without plauer-scripted events, even th most sophisticated scenario will be lacking.
This is much of the reasoning behind the need to release the Civ2 source code. (Not to mention that many people can't even play Civ3 on their systems because of the high requirements.)
At least ToT is a little closer to what Civ2 should really be like --people should just forget MGE and switch to ToT (God knows it's easier to find than the latter!). It's also not as much of a shock for people used to Civ3's high-end graphics.
Katlover97
The liberal
I was just wondering...
If I were to download a mod Pack,
If it is just a modified version of the rules
and other crucial files, how do you actually play them?
If I were to download a mod Pack,
If it is just a modified version of the rules
and other crucial files, how do you actually play them?
Catfish
Emperor
Originally posted by Mercator
So... I guess that makes you Catfish then?
I thought my location, fishy name, homepage and inimitable style would be dead give aways, Mr Holmes.This one's a bit of a game breaker in my case. I'm using the transport site ability as a filter to restrict unit access to specific triggers (also units) in isolated areas on different maps. Here's an instance where the macro language is simply not powerful enough (even with the extra capability of ToT). I'd kill for triggers like these (taken from an ancient thread at Apolyton):
Someone started a thread over in the General Discussions forum about making an editor for Civ2. It seems to have been buried - along with the editor. Not that I'm surprised.
Batch files. These are used to replace standard files with modified ones. After installation, start a normal game. Such batch files usually (and hopefully) come with an uninstall option.
I don't think there's any strict definition of a mod, though - just take a look at Apolyton's download categories. The person responsible for that appears to have no idea. I wouldn't even bother trawling through that mess.
Originally posted by Wobbegong
I didn't check your homepage over here... But your location in particular helped.
Are you sure? Often, a little inventive or unorthodox of events, or using some special trigger units or so can help out... What are you trying to do?
You won't necessarily need that. Put all your changed files in a separate folder (like with a scenario), start a normal game, save it in the modpack folder, and then reload it.Exactly... At Apolyton they seem to insist scenarios are really modpacks and modpacks are really patches. Very confusing.
Catfish
Emperor
OK, so it's an overstatement. Things are rarely game-breaking it just won't be as good if I can't work out an alternative.
My situation is thus: I have a number of units with unique tasks to carry out. Only specific sets of units are allowed to complete specific tasks. If the macro language allowed it, the tasks could be achieved by simply moving said unit/s into the appropriate tile location/s like trigger example two, above. Since Civ2 can't differentiate between attacking unit types (I'm using UnitKilled triggers), I have to find a way of filtering out the wrong units in this case, denying them access to the trigger unit.
I'd inferred from both William Keenan's guide to map transport relationships and the layout of the Advanced Units fields that there were 16 (2 bytes) possible combinations out of 18 (3 transporter types x 6 map connections for 4 maps). My assumption was that each of the 16 transport flags was independent of the other. It appears that this is not the case. If a unit is given the ability to use one transporter site, by default it gains the ability to use the other two with the same map connectivity, eg, slot 0 (0,1) also allows use of slots 1 (0,1) and 2 (0,1). This effectively reduces me to 6 transport relationships: (0,1), (0,2), (0,3), (1,2), (1,3) and (2,3). I need more.
I've tried it out on my current scenario, the Midgard scenario and an old scenario of mine which was modified by techumseh (he did the same thing). I was hoping it would be just mine, but it occurs on all of them. So it would appear that I'm down to 6 plus whatever "inventive or unorthodox" methods I can come up with. Anyway, it pissed me off at the time, so I moved on to other things. I'll revisit the issue to ensure that it wasn't just me being ******** (not uncommon).
I'm maxed out on unit slots, although a few could be changed (with a bit of arm-twisting). I've got 3 trigger unit slots (effectively 15 4 enemy civs plus barbarians). Impassable terrain is out. Can use the attack air flag for one unit type. Diplomacy flag (bribing huge triggers) is out.
No, but the few modpacks that I've downloaded (a long time ago) came with batch files. If I were to use these mods, I'd do the same thing as you but then again I have a reasonable idea of what I'm doing. I'd also temporarily replace the rules.txt file in the Original directory, in case there were any modified rules entries that affected initial settings, eg, @Leaders, @Leaders2, @Civilize2, @Initial_Settings or map transport relationships in the Advanced Units section.Originally posted by Mercator
You've got to be s**tting me, man. A day or so later she rolls up in the Scenario League forum. Now, I really do have my doubts about you, Mercator.
Yeah. Well, the only way that's going to happen is if the source code gets released. (Same goes for the Editor thing IMO.)
Don't know if this will help or not: make an air unit and give it the 'sub' flag. The result will be that it can only attack trigger units on water. Place the trigger unit on whatever land tile it is meant to occupy, then change the terrain of theat square to Ocean. Land units will be unable to attack the trigger unit.
If you don't want the trigger unit to look like it's just folating over a puddle of water, you could always rename RR and give it the same look as terrain then place it on the Ocean square (by placing it on the land tile before you change it to Ocean) so that it looks like the surrounding land. (This is basically a mutation of the 'Torpedo Bomber' unit idea.)
Another possibility is to use the Trigger unit as defender: Trigger unit is owned by unique civ. If special unit is killed by trigger unit in combat (i.e. special unit is weaker than trigger unit) then the event triggers and the special unit reappears elsewhere. It's a longshot but there you have it.
W, what happens when units set for a transport site with the trigger unit enter it? They get transported before being able to attack?
Interesting sort of application although it seems to be more trouble than it's worth.
Catfish
Emperor
Not necessarily. Did you take a look at the link? Nobody, as far as I'm aware, has taken on Angelo Scotto's CSPL. I'm not a C++ programmer, so investigating its potential would require some extra effort on my part - and I'm a lazy bugger.
In my case, air units are out of the question. They automatically override the impassable terrain flag. The group of units in question can't be allowed to do that, unfortunately.
If I read you correctly, here, I run the risk of the trigger killing the wrong unit. Whilst I can't use these ideas on this occasion, your help is appreciated.
The trigger isn't placed on the transport site (it would block access otherwise), but instead, on a tile accessible via the destination site. The idea is not as complicated as it sounds. In fact it operates very smoothly in the game. The only problem I have is that I'm reduced to 6 possibilities from 16. I'll probably use some cascading triggers, in combination with the attack air flag - I'll figure something out. It just won't be as clean and effective as the original concept.
