Well, i have to try it once's

[SimetricalJean]

Hi all,

When CIV was released, i was kinda dissapointed how much more difficult it was ( impossible to me) to easily create a sandbox map and alter the map to your preferations. This led me to not having touched this game in well over a year.
This weekend i got kinda dissapointed after having read information about SCS. So i thought, ill give C IV a try again, cause i really like the game itself. Was also very fond of COTN. But that aside, i just took a bath so im completely stress free and relaxed, and will try to make my own scenario tonight.

My Question: I cant see some kind of manual on editing, just saw a post about an editor guide, but the website is not online anymore apperently;
http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10847

I did not see any sticky concerning this ( except the one about the scripts, but thats just way ahead of me right now). So i guess ill be looking trough all the posts in this section and try to figure it out along the way.

Unless any one has some great 10 ( or 100) easy steps to create your own scenario? Feel free...


Regards




Jean

[SimetricalJean]

Hi again,

i think i found what i was looking for

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10346

Thanks Kuplo and the rest of you lot for that.

So if i got this right, if i want to make a sandbox scenario with trade routes, request and invasions then i should do this:
Follow those 10 steps Kuplo gave and then do the scripting and then play it?


I only read half trough, but it looks to me you guys went trough hell figuring things out


Anyway, ill keep on reading

[Rnett]

Hi all,

When CIV was released, i was kinda dissapointed how much more difficult it was ( impossible to me) to easily create a sandbox map and alter the map to your preferations.

Don't worry, you're not alone on this...:D

[SimetricalJean]

Hi,
@ Rnett, yeah i noticed while going trough the different treads. I read some painfull moments. It looks like some of you went trough Hell and back.

I'v just been reading for 2 hours now, i think ill give it a try and see what happens.

Gonna start off simple, just making a small map and see if i can add a river and some resources.

[SimetricalJean]

hi

Pff, tried over an hour just replacing the river and adding a goldmine or 2. But when i got to scenario to see how it looks, i always get that brown river bed from the default scen back. how do i get rid of that. I tried making a little lake, which shows up fine on my map, but not on the minimap, and i get that brown river on the minimap and on my map. Seriously annoying. Iv been reading and reading trough this forum, and just cant figure it out. I saw one person mentionning that he got the brown river bed to, but the answer of someone of you was, that is was lying there to be filled up with water. like hell, i dont want that river showing up randomly when i just erased it.



Pff, any help would be really gratefull..




Just tried altering an already existing map, Amida, made the files, changed name to Amida2, loaded up amida , saved it under Amida2, closed, went checking and that brown river again showing up . This time i didnt even alter anything. Just made a copy of Amida.


Getting tired, maybe, ill give it another try tomorrow, maybe...

[Hieronymus]

As I understand it Pecunia is putting together an editor's guide for C4 Heaven, but I don't know how far away it is from publication.

As you may have gathered there is a lot of useful information scattered about this forum, just not in one convenient place :rolleyes: But apart from the stickies the following threads are worth a look (and there's probably others i forgot to mention too):

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10346

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12250

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12651

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12082

[SimetricalJean]

Hi Hieronymous,

Thanks a lot for your reply. It is really appreciated. Just woke up , and saw your post, so i decided to give it another try today. I got all day long.

There is indeed plenty of information, so indeed, a great idea of Pecunia to compile everything in a comprehensive manual. User manual created by users are usually much better then a company made user manual , because for them so many things are just obvious, which to us are not.

Just had a look at heaven games to, wow, i rememberred them as beeing a good site for an old game i used to play. ( Cossacks) but they have undergone a total restyling. Great, nice to see that.

Well, here is what im going to try today, rather then making a total new map ( scenario), im gonna start off with making a copy of the Amida sandbox, and i want a large desert area with a river ( harbour) along the northern border, im gonna add basic resources. If all that works fine , then im gonna have a look at invasions, trade cities, etc. Ill guess, ill start off with using the scripts that came for Amida ( there are invasions ( parthians) planned in the xml file that came along with the original Amida, so can i use those for my modified copy of Amida. And then lastly, i d love to make my own script for Amida.
And then try it all out.


So ill start off with those links you gave my Hieronymous. Ill try to write my steps down in case something does go wrong, i can reproduce here what i did...

Here we go...

[SimetricalJean]

Right, just went off reading this tread http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10346


One of the first sentences: Until we know better how we can start a new map with absolutely nothing on it

Q: Do we already know how we can start a new map with absolutely nothing on. In the othercase, ill have to stick to the plan of altering an existing map ( Amida)


Edit1:

Next thing:

1. How do I rotate the map in the editor?
You can rotate the map in the editor by holding down your tilde key (~) and use the mouse to rotate the screen, this works the same way as in the game.

Well , this ~ key does NOT work for me. I tried out all keys, and came up with this one: the 3/2 key under the Esc key. Then i can rotate the map.
Is this because i got an Azerty key board, and most of you guys have a Qwerty? Anyway, it works for me with that other key, so not so much a questions, just a note.

Edit 2: just read all these above link. I actually read them yesterday already, but yes, they seem to be the most usefull one's at this point. Ill give it a try again, but im afraid , ill end up with the results of yesterday...let's see

Edit 3: Since im gonna work with the Amida map, and i want a real large map ( 512). Is Amida already a 512 map or do i have to change size? It looks pretty big to me, so i assume its a 512, but not sure.

Edit 4: Just read this tread again: http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10979 More particular this Quote from Tony Leier, the designer: This works for me

1. Start game. Tools -> Create New Scenario
2. Save Scenario (give it your scenario name)
3. Save Textures (creates textures with your scenario name.)

Now do whatever editing you want.

Now, this confuses me a bit, Is this for creating a total new map or is it for making a new map based on a existing map? If it is for making a total new map, can i get away with doing this: follow the 3 steps to make a new scenario ( does it automatically make the color and blend file?) and then go to edit scenario to further modify the map?

Just tried this out. So what i did: Start CIV-Tools-Create Scenario ( it loads up the default one) Save it as AmidaBig3. Saved textures. Successfull. Then i hit sample on a piece of grass, and i repainted that river bed, since i want my river in the north. Saved it. And then something strange happens. If i press exit, then it prompts me to save it. So i overwrite it again as AmidaBig3. It saves, but instead of exiting i just stay in the editor??? OMG. Since i saved it twice now, i presume it has been saved, so i had to choose exit again, and when it prompted me to save, i just choose no, and then i could exit and i returned to menu. Then i completely shut down CIV. Restart. Loaded up AmidaBig3 trought the Edit Scenario. And hop, that funky riverbed is there again, and all the textures i placed above it are gone. Except the texture's around the river, but where the river bed is , the textures are gone. On the minimap , i don tsee even a single trace of the textures i placed.

Well clearly, all respect to Tony Leier, but this does not work for me.

Edit5: just had a look in my CIV folder, so after having done those 3 steps above, it seems that it automatically creates a AmidaBig3_Color.dds and Blend file. So you do not really have to do them manually? Or is it because i didnt do them manually that they still give me that funky river bed on reloading? Its simply not logical, automatical created onces do not work , but manually created one's do? :)


Next try, ill stick to Amida and just try to alter it.

Edit 6: So what i tried was using Amida as the bases, and just add 1 gold mine. I first created the blend and color file under AmidaBig4. Then tools, edit scenario, loaded the original Amida. Then Saved it as AmidaBig4. Exited the game. Restarted. Loaded Amida Big4. And wham, that funky river bed again all over my Amida map. Clearly something im overlooking here, but the more i read, the less threes i see throught the forest...


Edit 7: Progress !!! Though i dont see really what i did different. So i made AmidaBig5 color and blend. Then Edit scenrio, loaded the original Amida. Saved it as AmidaBig5. Exited, back to edit scenario, loaded up amidabig5, and holy smoke, the river bed is not there anymore but its my amida map. Cool.; Lets see if i can do that again.

Edit 8: aaaaahhhhhh!!! crap, so, made color and blend file for AmidaBig6. Open Edit scenario, loaded the original Amida, Save it as AmidaBig6, exit, back to edit scenario, load up amidabig6, and aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh, the default map with that wonkey riverbed is there again. Clearly i did something different last time.

Time for a break and a sandwich


Edit 9: Just tried 2 more times to recreate what i achieved with AmidaBig5. Not working.
Im just thinking it all over again. So what is in the editor guide thread by Kuplo, if i read correctly, is to edit an existing scenario, exactly what i want to do. So far with his method, i had no succes. I think i misunderstood a bit. When he means to edit an existing scenario, he means the whole thing, map and scripts?. I just want to edit a map at this point.??
In none of his steps i find back , where in my case, i would use the original Amida, where he loads this up, or in what stage he is using this as the bases. So he says, 1. Starting your new map
You start your new scenario map at this point in time by altering a map that has already been provided.
a map that has already bee nprovided, he is using the default map? or? If i want to use Amida how do i proceed then?


Also , there is a discrepancy. In one thread it is said that you first go to create new scenario, save it as test or whatever, save textures and then alt tab to make the blend and color file manually. In other post, you first make the blend and color file manually, and then proceed without alt tabbing later on...



Then the Pi Xerxes thread bout the sandblob describes his way of creating a map http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10979

He doesnt seem to save textures, which i did not either, and i got one succesfull try ( edit 7). But even if i saved textures, it doesnt work either. SO clearly something else im missing here.
If i read carefully this post, Pi Xerxes, does not load any original map either, but does this mean then his method is for making an entirely new map? cf. my Q in the beginning of this post : One of the first sentences: Until we know better how we can start a new map with absolutely nothing on it

Q: Do we already know how we can start a new map with absolutely nothing on. In the othercase, ill have to stick to the plan of altering an existing map ( Amida)


Hmm , ill give it another try.


Edit 10: so im pissed off on that default map, because it seems to keep on coming back and back. So what do i do. I cut those 2 default blend and color files and throw them in a map on my desktop.
Then Tools, edit scenario, load up Amida, save it as amida Secundo ( which i already had a blend and colorfile for from last try outs. I stay in editor and load up the amisecundo file to see if it saved. Wham that riverbed again from the default map. Now where does that come from? How can it load that from my desktop?

Try it differently : open edit scenario: load up original Amida, save it as AmidaSecundo. Save textures, Load textures, both succesfull. Save it again. Exit. Exit Rome entirely. Restart. Open edit scenario. Load up AmidaSecundo, and behold.....the wonky river is gone and its my amida map as i want it. Ready to be edited.

Now what i dont get: Whats different? You could say, you saved textures, but in edit 7, i got the same result but i did not save the textures? Because i cut the default blend and color file and place it out of the CIV directory? No, cause the above example did not work either , in in both cases here the default is not in the map anymore, so thats not it either? Then the rest i did exactly as in edit 7, i exit, and restart and reload, but in all other cases, i get the river bed, only in edit 7 and this edit i get my Amida map? Maybe in edit 7, i exited the game entirely, but only wrote down that i just exited the editor whithout shutting down the game.

Lets see if i can edit the map now as i want it to be, relay the river erase anything on it...


Pls still feel free to comment or answer the other questions i had about the size of amida, etc...


Edit 11: So, i guess my map is the biggest size 512, so i dont think i need to reset and hence loosing all elevations.
What i want to start off with, is replacing the river along the north, so before i have done anything else, i was thinking, thats if you relay the river, the appron surrounding the map, will not correspond anymore. So i had a look at the approns. Apparently the one with Amida is C4_Apron_Desert_02 which as the river entrance on it and exit, so it looks nice. So in the desert category there are only 3 different choices, i tried out 03, but apparantly this one does not have any rivers in it, so no good to me, then 04, this one seems to have a little bit of water in the right corner, but nothing like the river in appron 02. More something like the borders of a small lake. SO obvious Question, can you edit approns, and if yes, how and where?

Then had a look at the other approns, choices between Norhtern Europe, Asia, but thats not what i want, i want desert area, so i pick medittereanean, since its like the closes climate to desert. Wow, some funky approns here somee of them cover my entire region almost, others i barely find back.


Right just found my answer to this last Q : http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12713
Says enough, ill stick to C4_Appron_Desert_02 for this map. Really a pitty how limited this is. Ill just try to relay my river, but keep the same entrance and exit so it matches the appron.


Edit 12: Ok , so im trying to relay my river, ill keep the entrance above and the exit down right. So first thing i do, is level the mid part of the river with the rest of the map ( sample and paint) but while i do that, i run along 3 little thingies inthe middle of my river. They look like city borders, but something different, my guess is this are way points or migration points. SO if im right these have a function regarding the scenario of the game ( invasions, etc...) Perhaps the one above is the entry point of the river, so i leave that one, i only start leveling below that, but then i run in to the same thing in the middle of my river, twice, now, im not sure, whether i can safely overpaint these ( level) as regarding to the script, as it has no number or reference on it, If i m supposed to replace them in my new river, how will i know what i should replace. Perhaps i should read the scripting treads first, but i find it really hard to do it all inone time, just for replacing a simple thing, a river, that i would already have to figure out what these waypoints landmarks or whatever they are are there for in the first place, so any help on that. Can i savely remove those inthe river, without replacing or do i have to leave them there, and i cant alter my river, or can i alter my river and add them later on to my new river when i set up the script?

Pff


edit 13: :rolleyes: Ok , i figured out what those things in my river are. i went under the units tab, and if you click on those things, then at the bottom it says RiverSounds. So, if these things are just to give some sound to my river, then ill assume i can savely remove these, and place where ever i want in my new river...


Lets continue...

Edit 14: i just read the pdf file on elevation, i understand all the tools, but what i want to know, is this: does a river need a specific depth to allow trade ships to enter the river or are they just floating on the river and it does not really matter how deep your river is? Also, how witdth does it have to be to allow ships. I noticed the original river has different depths, in lenght, but aswell from one side to another, where as the middle is deeper then the sides. Is there an easy way to create this, or do you have to do this all manually to make it look nice?

Edit 15: SO i got my river. But now i want that the river bed looks like the original; So i sample the texture inthe bottom of the river, but when i paint it,i get a flat color ( blue/green). In the original riverbed, it looks like the bases is something like cracked ground/mud and then a blue/green color is pasted on top of this? Now how do i get that underlying texture?


Edit 16: Hihi, i just had a look at this thread : http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12459
Wow, its gonna take me hours to make something like this, What was i thinking? :D


Edit 17: so i understand how to use the colors, but the underlying textures i cant seem to recreate. Like in the desert it looks flat, on the river and river banks the earth underlying looks cracked. Anyone? Ill guess im off to reading these forums, again, to find if i missed a note or something on that.


edit 18: so far iv discovered like 3 different underlying "groundtypes". First looks entirely flat ( desert area), then second are like small rimples or cracks or whatever it is, and can be found under the grass and some parts along the embankment of the original river and then the third one are like the big rimples, lines, cracks in the ground below the river and along the embankments. If i paint them, they just remain the same, just a different color going over it; So i really would like ot know how to reproduce these underlying textures? or add them....

Edit 19: Reading again...Are these things im talking about in edit 17-18, blends? and the rest are colors? If so it are blends, i dont quit get how to change them, can you in the editor, or do you need a programm outside the editor to edit them?

Edit 20: Just read this thread :http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11185. Now i really dont follow anymore. I dont think i got knowdledge enough to use these programms. Pff. And do i really have to use these ?

edit 21: Ok, i read this thread now: http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12250 So if i read correctly the underlying terrain"type" are indeed those blend thingies, but you dont need to do this externally : Brian Ferrullo : I find it incredibly difficult to think in the Blend color space, so it's easiest for me to use the C4 editor to edit these textures.

Ok fine, i can do this in the editor, but how? when i try changing the sliders and then try to paint it on the map, i dont get any result whatso ever, no matter how i put the sliders? I just dont get it? I really could use some help on this one.

Edit 22: Just read this thread: http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10395 Very usefull. Especially this quote : It seems that no matter what I set the sliders to on the terrain section it does NOT paint down any terrain and the only way to get it to function is to "sample" whats already there. This seems like a bug to me but unless TM has a free minute to pop in here and let us know how it is supposed to work, I think I will consider it bugged that I can't use the sliders to choose what type of terrain Im going to paint down.

Well, this is where im right now. I cant get pure rock or pure mud or grass on my map. Colors work.

And then PI Xerxes : I got the Textures to work!

You have to fool the editor into creating a NEW texture file.

I loaded up the default map scenario when you first start the editor. It is the one with the darkness time and a river going across.

When I hit sample then clicked on somenthing else before I hit Paint Tile button, it prompted me if I want to create a new texture set. I said yes. I was able to make sand 100% , mud 100% just like it should.

But when I reloaded the map, it was all one color texture!

I am trying to reproduce what I did, but the editor crashed. This is new so that is the trick. It envolves creating a new texture set/pallet that you create yourself to get your own textures/color from.

To get to prompt for the New textures, I did something with Sample WITHOUT clicking on Paint Tile button...I did it for real (before it crashed)


And then Pi Xerxes further : I figured it out! In order to use the Texture option, you must rename Default_Blend.dss to the map you want to modify such as Capua_Blend.dss.

By replacing the editor default texture file into the Map you are working on, it enables the Texures to work just fine! I never could figure out how to save a texture set though (not yet able to reproduce accident) but this works just fine.

Here is a picture off Capua and notice the pure Rock, Mud and Sand texture I placed onto green field. I can set the Texture ratio to whatever I want. Your Editor has a funny layout. Patch 1.1 US version

Allright then, lets see if i can do this. He starts off by saying, you must rename default blend .dss to the map you want to modify. But havent i dont that already earlier on? AmidaSecundo_Blend.dss. I read again. I notice something. I made a copy of default blend and renamed that one AmidaSecundo. What xerxes says here is renaming the original default file? And then loading up the map via Edit Scenario? Save again first? Save textures? What if things go wrong, should i make a copy of my original Blend file? Yeah better save then sorry. But how do you proceed from here? Ill give it a try . As his picture shows below the post, this is clearly what i was wondering about in edit 17 and 18.

Let's hope...

Edit 22 bis ( lol, i started 9:00 this morning, its 17:00 now, omg): so back before i even tried something out. I opened my C: folder, and was about to copy the default file as a save in case something goes wrong. Then i realised, If i save it in another location, and rename the original in the folder to AmidaSecundo_Blend, then actually i got 2 files.AmidaSecundo_Blend. The original one that i made up earlier in my process of creating a new map and the original one im about to change into AmidaSecundo_Blend. How do i proceed from here? Do i overwrite, or make a second version, do they conflict then? Ill take it ill have to choose overwrite on saving up the name after having altered it.

Lets see...

Edit 22 tertio: So i save a copy of my blend file and color default , in case i screw things up. Then i renamed the default_Blend into AmidaSecundo_Blend. And this is where i get confused again. Now i got a AmidaSecundo_Blend and an AmidaSecundo_Blend (2), and believe it or not but an AmidaSecundo_Blend(3). Wondering how i managed to do this one. 3 for the price of 2 :p . And not as i thought in 22bis, i didnt not get the option to overwrite the file i already had there, instead i get a 2nd and 3rd file.

Now, im just gonna give a quick try to load up the scenario and see if i can paint the textures now, but i already now, with 3 same files , something is bound to go wrong. But you never know...

Edit 22 quater: As i thought, i still cant paint textures, but i read the first post again of Pi Xerxes ( first Quote in edit 22, where he accidently runs in to getting it to work). He says this : When I hit sample then clicked on somenthing else before I hit Paint Tile button, it prompted me if I want to create a new texture set. I said yes. I was able to make sand 100% , mud 100% just like it should.

Ok, i forgot to hit sample, but what he says about the Paint tile button intrigues me. Im looking at my screen on my other pc right next to me, and i dont have any Paint Tile button, the closest thing to it is Paint Ground . But no Paint Tile. Off to look at some screens of your guys editor i ran into earlier,to see if i got a different or old version of the editor, which might just explain a lot. Let's see...

Edit 23: So indeed , i got an different screen, as you can see in the posted thumbnail from Kuplo and Pi Xerxes, http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10395
So, looking for an update/patch for the editor now. Though i read this before about the patch, i was somehow convinced i already had it. Dont know why.

http://www.caesariv.com/us/downloads.html Found the patch, Since i live in Belgium, i presume i have to take the UK version update to 1.2 While it downloads, im wondering what version i have. It appears to be 1.01.
So i restart up, indeed difference is noticeable, now i got paint ground, set arable, remove arable, remove spirtes on top, but i still dont see any Paint Tile button, which Pi Xerxes was talking about?

Ill give it a try...

Edit 23 bis: i still cant paint those textures,no matter what i try, it only changes the color, not the underlying type of ground. Ok , but i still got those 3 AmidaSecundo_Blend files in my map, probably thats why... But what do i do now? Delete AmidaSecundo_Blend or Amida_Secundo_Blend (2), ill delete that third one any case. Now what if i want to make another scenario, im gonna have to use the copy in my desktop folder as the original, but when i do this, its exactly the same thing, as i did initially, making a copy of the original default blend and changing the name , whether is for AmidaSecundo or another scenario; I dont see really how it can make a difference if you rename the original default file instead of making a copy of it and renaming that one.

Edit 23 tertio: so , i deleted that third Amida_Secundo_Blend file that strangly appeared. Then just by going at byte size and date, i figured out, but i actually knew that Amida_Secundo(2) was the renamed original default file. Got rid of the first Amida_Secundo, which i made earlier on. Renamed the (2) so the (2) is gone and it has only one Amida_Secundo file now. I restart the editor, hit sample , choose an area with big "cracks" (thats what i call them, what do you name them? terrain type?), paint ground,and hopla, it works....wow....nice.

Now im gonna get back to read that editor guide post that Kuplo wrote, because since i followed his instructions very much ,on making first a copy of the original default_blend, which looking after all, wasnt necessary, i just could have renamed the default one. And what about the color_Blend, can you just use the original aswell? Let me read that carefully again,to see, if i did not misinterpretated something.
OK, so making copies of the default one is only necessary if you get that sandblob coming up, i figured out, but i dont get the sandblow, so fine.
Reading it again, what Kuplo's editor guide is about is making a new map, base on a already provided map( in his case the default one?). But this is not what im doing now, im making a new scenario trough editing an existing one. But isnt this the same? He does it in the Create Scenario, i do it in the Edit Scenario....hmmm...different...same??? Even though i got i working now, it still not very clear to me. Perhaps a separate manual or step by step for making a new scenario trough the Edit scenario function would be very handy aswell.

But now i got the updated editor, so ill make another one, just for getting the hang of it, and this time i will use Kuplo's method, trough the Create Scenario tool. Lets see where that gets me. But instead of using the default scenario that loads up automatically on starting, i will load up the original Amida and alter that one, since thats a much better bases for what im about to create, than the default one.

Lets see...



Edit 24 quater: This must be a joke. So i start CIV, tools, create scenario, and then it loads up, and the whole map looks like all sand, flat. Ok so, im gonna load up Amida now. Now i got the original Amida in front of me. Following Kuplo's steps, next thing besides setting the week to 5, which is already there, i have to save it and give it a name. This will be AmidaTertio. Then his next step is to save the textures. Now i get an error. -( i have read about this somewhere, so off to look trough the forum again-) Indeed, it was in the same trhread : when I try to save the textures, I get an error!!!so I can`t save textures. by Eperdos. The answer to it seems to be suggested by Pi Xerxes, 2 posts further :
Each scenario is actually FIVE parts, Kuplo you may want to update the 'Our Editor Guide' since without the proper mapname_color.dss file -you will have the defaut_color.dss file load up instead, since it cannot find the mapname_color.dss file; and thus it 'may' gives the funky wonk colors.

mapname.scn
mapname_blend.dss
mapname_color.dss
mapname.xml
mapname.cs

Or was this not an answer to eperdos' questions. So where back at those blend and color files again.

Ok , so at this point, with Kuplo's method, im stuck, since i cannot save the textures as he describes. The only thing that is different is that i use the original Amida, where as he uses the default or i think he does, cause he doesnt really specify it in his first post. He says this " again" :
1. Starting your new map
You start your new scenario map at this point in time by altering a map that has already been provided. Until we know better how we can start a new map with absolutely nothing on it, we need to take an existing map and alter it for our use. To begin, start the game and choose the Tools button. On the next screen you will want to choose the Create Scenario button.

The editor will think for a while and load up the default scenario map. Once the default map is loaded you will notice that it's very dark and almost impossible to work with. To change this, enter the number 5 in place of the number 0 in the space provided for the Week number. This is found on the first tab in the editor which is also the first screen that you will see in the editor. Now that you can see, you will want to click on the button in the very top right corner of the editor screen. This will bring up the save menu. Now choose save and give your scenario a new name, it doesn't matter what it is, just choose one that you want.

Once the scenario has been saved, you should now save the default textures for your map. So before doing anything else, go to the Terrain tab, and click on the button marked save textures. This will now save your texture map for your scenario with the same name as what you saved your scenario as earlier. Now click on the Load textures just to make sure that you are working with the correct texture set.

You have now created your first scenario map.

Allright, so first this: " we need to take an existing map..." Which map are you taking Kuplo? Default? Can i use your method for another "existing" map? So far no luck.

Then: "...will think a while, and then load up the default.... "Well, im getting the sandbox now, the whole map is covered with sand.

Then: save textures, i get an error, and i havent found an answer unless the answer is like i suggested above, to make the blend and color file before you even save the scenario. But isnt that what i was doing initially? Pff... Getting slightly tired now...

Just read it again, you know what is confusing me, i dont see the point of doing what kuplo describes, maybe because i dont understand fully what he actually wants to achieve or what he is doing. His title 1 with the steps above quoted, where i get stuck after saving textures, is so different from his title 5 where he describes in 10 steps how you start up a scenario. Which is it? Do i only use those 10 steps in case the map turns in to a sandblob, and in other cases i use the way he describes it under point 1. Or do i in any case should use the 10 steps, and step 1, is only half the message. Update needed in this case, cause its incredible confusing.

At this point, ill continue where i left off on at edit 23 tertio, the method that seemed to work to create a new scenario and use and alter the textures.
Off to a while of painting...snack, smoke,...


edit 25; started off painting a bit on my Secundo map and getting used to the different textures, so after having getting used to it. i exit without saving to restart where i just started off again. I reload and looks who's back, my favourite brown river bed, only this time its not brown, but its kinda sandy looking. OMG

Well, iv had it for today i guess, i need to chill out.... Really any help is much appreciated, or just point me out where i go wrong....anything...



edit 2§ i deleted all try outs, except the AmidaSecundo_Blend file which was the original i renamed in edit 23 tertio. just to clear up my map with any stuff i don tneed anymore. Im off going to take a bath , have a glass of Cremant d' Alsace, domaine Hell - Cadé, (for those interested), which i brought along last year on my winetrip to France. 3 euro's a bottle , a picture with the farmer and as good as many "real" champagnes. Meanwhile i hope someone has the courage to read trough my thread and help me a bit...


Edit 27: right, a hot bath and an hour later. I guess i messed to much around by now with my files. Im gonna de install my CiV and reinstall it and patch it. Meanwhile i clean my pc a bit to, get rid of any temporary files etc.. shut down, reboot, install CIV.
Ok while it is installing...time to look at this from a different angle ( point of view). I saw user created scenario's on heavengames. So therefore, what im trying to do , is achievable. So from this point of view, its encouraging to continue .What im wondering now, is even if i figure it all out, like im sure some of u did, how long does it take to create an average map, scenario, to edit it, etc...and make it ready to be playable? 4 hours, 8 hours? depending on how much painting you do ofcourse, but an average scenario?...

I know i will not finish a scenario this evening, especially since at 22: 00 its Hustle on television, so ill be looking at that. Its 21:00 now, and i doubt ill will have time tomorrow, since i gotta do stuff...so we see, if someone helps me a bit out on things...
Maybe ill try tomorrow evening to reproduce what i achieved with AmidaSecundo and go from there again. We'll see...


Thanks in any case to those who took the time to read my experience today with the Editor.






&

Thanks in advance for any reply


Final edit of this post for today: Im gonna try to find foreign forums for this matter. I understand French and German aswell, so hopefully i might ran in to something since i got an hour left before me programm begins on tele... and thats it for today---------------------------------------------------------

[Hieronymus]

RE: your question on timing of development of scenarios. I'm currently working on a scenario called The Dark Pool, based in Lindum. I started on this around the end of September, and aramann has been testing for me from the start. We are currently on the third version, and will go to at least a fourth (and possibly a fifth) before releasing it - in maybe 10 days time? Mind you, there are so many things going on in this scenario (and the script is the most complex I've ever done) that the timing may be atypical.

Good luck!

[SimetricalJean]

RE: your question on timing of development of scenarios. I'm currently working on a scenario called The Dark Pool, based in Lindum. I started on this around the end of September, and aramann has been testing for me from the start. We are currently on the third version, and will go to at least a fourth (and possibly a fifth) before releasing it - in maybe 10 days time? Mind you, there are so many things going on in this scenario (and the script is the most complex I've ever done) that the timing may be atypical.

Good luck!

Wow, i thought worst case scenario a day or 2, but weeks....:rolleyes: Well, i dont know what to say. Respect for you guys. I wonder how long it took those nice people at TM to create one?

Ofcourse it depends indeed on what i would do and how complex i would make the game, but thanks for that reply, now i know this is a longterm project and that just requires an other attitude, one of incredible patience....and after all, how difficult can it be...?:rolleyes: :D

Now i know its possible, ill give it a try, but the only thing im worried about is the scripting part. I havent read much about that at this point, but i will.


I also searched a bit around on foreign forums, but i did not really see anything new concerning editing a map. So kuddo's to you guys for having a great forum..

Regards

[Hieronymus]

I think it's fair to say that the Lindum scenario is an extreme example because of the complicated scripting that's going on. Most of the time is spent just testing, and the more complicated the storyline the more testing that is needed.

If you need any advice on scripting, just ask. :)

[SimetricalJean]

hi,

i'v just been reading my thread again, trying to reproduce what i achieved with AmidaSecundo yesterday, but so far no luck. I simply dont get it. There is no logic, no apparent structure behind it as far as im concerned at this point.


Thanks for your offer on help with scripting, but at this rate i'm progressing, ill contact you for that somewhere this time next year...:D

[SimetricalJean]

So im trying to reproduce what i achieved yesterday. Strange, strange , incredibly strange things happen this time. So i tried edit 10 again. Only this time instead of the riverbed, its the riverbed and the sandblob ! OMG
Then i got on like i did differently, but when i hit save textures now, i get Create new textures set? Just like PiXerxes described in his accident. So i did the same thing and i get a different result? Ok so im hitting yes, and the answer i get back its failed to create new textures. Hihihi. I dont know why, but it just black humour to me.
I hit save textures again to see if i get the create textures back. No, this time its: error saving textures. Hihihihi...

Oh boy, lunchtime i guess

[SimetricalJean]

and it gets weirder and weirder now. So im having my sandwich, and decide to try it differently again. I start off now at Create new scenario. Load amida original.(actually, it says start amida instead of load, whatever...) Why i do this, i dont know, just messing a bit around. So i save it as AmidaBrugensis3. Try saving textures, error. i quit without saving any further. I stay in game and open Edit scenario. I load up AmidaBrugensis3. Wham the sandblobmap. Whatever, i stay and Load Amida original. Save it as AmidaBrugensis3 ( overwrite actually). Save textures, i get error again. Instead of quitting,i stay and decide to try if i can paint anything. I hit sample choose a piece of cracked earth, and hit paint ground, and wham: "Create new texture set "

Now, was this the same thing i did, or not? Did i recreate accident? Any of you had similar experience? So i hit yes again..."Failed to create new textures"

Q: even if i could create a new set of textures? Whats is good for , if you can take sample's.
I also notice instead of AmidaBrugensis3Blend its deault blend in the editor that shows up, but that seems to make sense, since i havent been able to save the texture. But where does that default come from again. I thrown it out of my map as i did yesterday?

Oh well, next shot , i guess....

Edit A: after the above experience i quit , go back to desktop, scenario map, and figure out that i havent made a color and blend file for AmidaBrugensis3. Is this why i had the create new textures set question popping up? But atleast it answers the question why i couldnt save textures.

Edit B: Ok, so here is what i did next: i cut the original default_Blend from my desktop and placed it back in my scenario. I rename it AmidaBrugensis3_Blend. ( is this not what i did earlier on when i tried to recreate what i did the other day), but anyway, lets continue. Then i copy the original Amida_Color file and rename that copy AmidaBrugensis3_Color. Why i use the original amida instead of the default, i dont know, and not sure if it makes any difference either. Then start, tools,editscenario, Load up the original amida again. Save ( overwrite ) as AmidaBrugensis3. then i hit sample and notice that the amida blend and color file are instantly renamed as AmidaBrugensis3_Color and blend but with unsaved after it. hit paint ground and it works, i can change the textures. Wow, nice...

So, i paint a bit, save textures, save game, exit, exit entirely, tools, edit scenario, load up AmidaBrugensis, and yes !!!!! i can paint again. Now why this last step didnt go like today the other day ( see edit 25 in previous post). Well, im not gonna worry about that, surely it was me beeing so stupid to have forgotten a step somewhere or forgot to write it down here, who knows, it works , so...lets see what we can do with this nice map....

Edit C: ok things work fine. Time to plan my map in function of the scenario then i guess? 2 things: getting to know more bout Amida and the possibilities/limits of scenario scripting. ill start off with the first. Cant remember having ever heard bout Amida in any history lessons. Quick look in my Latin Dictionnary. No mention. Historical Atlas then. Right what time reference im looking in now? Roman Times, yeah , sure...:) Oh yes, the register. Took me 2 minutes to remind how easy that always is...Ok no Amida in my historical Atlas. Google then hey. No wait, you guys got an historical section here maybe aswell? No, cant really find anything. So google then after all. Oh well, printers, jewels, spa's, meditation, wikipedia, lets see there what they got to say...hmmm, yeah right.... Google: Amida + Rome
Thats better: Ammianus Marcelinus ( roman history writer (330-392 AD) in his "Res Gestae" books XVIII and XIX talks about Amida and the assault on the city. Its a pitty its written in my language the summary of the book, so not much use to any of you, but i already see the scenario so in front of me....hmmm....lets see if i cant find more on the layout of the city and stuff...

[SimetricalJean]

Here's a short version of the content of the two books where Amida plays a role in. The historian Ammanius Marcellinus was eyewitness to these events as his lived in the same time frame. The 31 books of the Res Gestae ( from which the first 13 have been lost) cover the period in Roman history where Tacitus stopped.

In his book XVII and XIX ( time frame : 300 - 370 AD) Amida is at the center of the story:

Book XVII:

1. ...
2...
3...
4 The king of the Persians, Sapor, makes preparations for a major assault on the Romans.
5. The Supreme commander in the Orient, Ursicinus, is been relieved of duty, but when he arrives in Thrace, he is been send back to Mesopotamia. He lets Marcellinus scout the movements of Sapor's army
6. Sapor invades, withethe kings of the Chionites and he Albans, Mesopotamia. The Romans put their fields on fire, drive the inhabitants from the countryside in to the city and reinforce the embankmnts of the Euphrates on their side with fortresses.
7. 700 Illyrian cavalry are being surprised by the Persians and are being chased away. Ursincinus and Marcellinus bring them self in safety in different directions.
8. A description of Amida. The legions and eskadrons stationned there.
9. Two Roman fortresses surrender to Sapor.

and then the story continues in book XIX:

1. Sapor calls upon the inhabitants of Amida, to surrender, but is being attacked by the defenders on the walls with arrows and spears. When King Grumbates tries another attempt,his son is leathelly injured.
2. Amida is besieged and in 2 days, the Persians attempt 2 attacks on the city.
3. Ursinicus proposes, to surprise the besieging army at night. In vain: magister militm Sabianus is against the proposal.
4. In Amida, a plague of pest breakes out, that is been stopped after then days by a light rain. About the causes and sorts of diseases.
5. Amida is beeing attacked around the walls, aswell, withe cooperation of a collaborator, trough underground tunnels.
6. An attempt to break out from the Gaullish legions cause a lot of casualties amongst the Persians
7. Towers and other besieging equipment is brought in positions , but the romans set these on fire.
8. Amida is being attacked again, this time from high, and close by the walls earth walls that have been erected. The city is being overrun. After the fall of the city, Marcellinus finds his way out by night and escapes to Antioch.
9. In Amida, some of the Roman Officers are being executed, others are imprisonned. Craugasius of NIsibis defects to the Persians, for the sake of his wife, that is in Perisan hands.
10. Civil Revolt in Amida. Fear of food shortage.
11. The Sarmatian Limigants deceive the Emperor with a request for peace, but attack him. They are beeing driven back and many get arrested and executed


.....A footnote in Roman history ofcourse, but still, nice story, ...

Edit A1: and then some more stuff i found on amida : "..........It was built by Mar Matte; a monk who fled with several other monks 362 AD from the Monastery of Zuknin near the City of Amid (Diyar Bakir) in the southern part of Asia Minor (Turkey nowadays) and the north of Iraq during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363 AD). It has a precious library containing Assyrian scriptures."

and more:


"...Part II describes the Anastasian war of 502-506. Here as well he sets off with a useful introduction to the sources and their problems. Then follows the immediate background to the assault of the Persian king. Kabades entered Roman territory in summer 502. He quickly seized the Armenian cities of Theodosiopolis and Martyropolis, neither of whom even tried to resist. This clearly shows how unprepared the Roman side was for the Persian onslaught. However, the fortress-city of Amida did not yield without siege, which immobilized the Persians during the next months. In the meantime, Theodosiopolis could be recaptured. In early 503, Amida finally fell. This year saw much warfare though without quantifiable results. The Romans attempted an ultimately fruitless siege of Amida while Kabades beleaguered Edessa equally in vain. During the next year, the Romans gained the upper hand. The renewed investment of Amida led to the hand-over of the city. However, this surrender was far from unconditional and the Persians were far from beaten. But no more fighting occurred during the next two years, and, in late 506, a truce whose terms are not too well known was finally agreed upon. Probably it included the restoration of Martyropolis since this city is known to be Roman once more during the post-war period. Unfortunately, we have no definite source statement on the hand-over, and it is pity that G. does not face this problem. In his narrative, too, Kabades captures Martyropolis in 502 (p. 81), but when we next hear about Martyropolis (p. 154), we learn that in 529 a Roman dux was based there.3

The peace of 506 held for nearly twenty years although originally only a seven year's truce had been agreed upon. Anastasius took advantage of this respite by fortifying Daras as counterpart to Nisibis; the works had already started during the war in 505. After Justin's accession in 518, few things changed. Kabades even asked the Roman emperor to adopt his son, the future Chosroes I. However, Justin refused. So their relations had already deteriorated when it came to conflict once more. This time, the Transcaucasus provided the occasion. Kabades intended to persecute the Christian Iberians. Even if they were Persian subjects, the Roman side could not abstain from interfering. In this context, G. successfully identifies an historical doublet (p. 142ff.): Procopius relates a Roman campaign in Lazica without offering a chronological clue; people wanted to date it before 527 because Procopius mentions the accession of Justinian only in the next chapter of his work. On the other side, a number of chroniclers know of a Lazica campaign as well, but they put this event in 528. This chronogical problem induced other scholars to distinguish two Roman enterprises in Lazica. Against this approach, G. rightly stresses Procopius' procedure of arranging his narrative by theatre of war, not by chronology. Therefore, the order in which Procopius narrates the campaign and the accession need not (and in the event, does not) imply a chronological sequence. Since both Procopius and the chroniclers each know of only one Lazica campaign, the identification is quite compelling. Furthermore, Procopius and all the chroniclers (with one insignificant exception, the late Theophanes) agree about the name of one commander, Eirenaios. It follows that there was just one campaign, and this took place in 528.4

By then, the war had already started. Since 526, there had been indecisive fighting in the Transcausus region and in Upper Mesopotamia. Events worth mentioning are perhaps the abandoned Roman siege of Nisibis (527) and Alamundarus' raid in direction of Antiochia (529). The promotion of Belisarius to his first great command as magister militum per Orientem proved to be more important for the future than those activities (529). Though initially successful (battle of Daras, 530), Belisarius was defeated near Callinicum in 531, which led to his dismissal. However, Kabades died shortly afterwards, and in 532 the so-called Eternal Peace (which lasted for less than ten years) could be agreed with his successor, Chosroes I, whose interests lay at that time in stabilizing his internal position.

We are very well informed about this second war because Procopius describes it in great detail. Thus there is not much difficult reconstruction work to do nor much room for dissent over facts.5 Nevertheless, it is a great help to have G.'s book at hand while reading Procopius, the more so since there is no commentary for that author. G. gives references for every single piece of his narrative, listing the research bibliography exhaustively and always with page specification. His judgements are reasonable and judicious, and he constantly avoids the temptation to hold views differing from the communis opinio just for the sake of differing."
This comes from: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1998/1998-11-23.html

Edit A2: trying to find some pictures of the original city:

found this, an aquaduct that was there when the persian attack happened, but has not been restored. : http://images.google.be/imgres?imgurl=http://www.livius.org/a/1/anatolia/diyarbakir.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.livius.org/le-lh/legio/v_parthica.html&h=257&w=372&sz=27&hl=nl&start=2&um=1&tbnid=H0qgwmuWcOWn-M:&tbnh=84&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAmida%2BRome%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26 hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

then this: http://images.google.be/imgres?imgurl=http://www.saradistribution.com/foto2/DereRome.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.saradistribution.com/galeri.htm&h=285&w=190&sz=15&hl=nl&start=16&um=1&tbnid=b1a7-KDUxOaznM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=77&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAmida%2BRome%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26 hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN


scroll down and look for this the picture with this subtitle : Pira Dehderi 'The 10-Doors Bridge' on the Tigris river which is built by Romans, outside of Amida (Diyar Bekr)
and if you scroll further down you will discover much more pictures about Amida, some give the long city walls, other an overview on the city, others interesting pieces out of that time.
Look for these subtitles: Derê Romê (The port of Rome) in the western side of the Kurdish city wall of Amîda (Diyar Bekr). This port closed at sunset and opened in sunrise in the ancient time , and, The Kurdish Amîda (Diyar Bekr), an ancient misterious, and, Amîda with its city wall-the second one in the world after the Chinese: 5 km long, 17 m high and 4 m wide, and, On the ancient wall of Diyar Bekr, 5000 m lång, 4 m wide

What a beautifull region, Kurdistan, is. And still in the hart of wars....then, during the ages, and even today,...very little hope for autonomy and freedom.

Kurdistan, for those that dont know, is situated in the Northern part of Iraq, stretches over Southern/East turkey and parts of Iran. Not a save area these days, nor was it at the time of the Persians/Romans...



Some more nice pictures from Diyar Bakir ( current day Amida) i found here : http://www.galenfrysinger.com/diyarbakir_turkey.htm

Nice roman bridge, and some pictures give a good view on the landscape. Kinda hilly.


Google Earth then perhaps? (diyarbakir) Well its give a good overview of the region but its one of those spots that isnt really detailed yet.

[SimetricalJean]

Well, im doing fine so far at this point actually
I decided to keep things simple to start off with. The guys at TM made a pretty realistic map of the original city, but i just wanted to have more space on my map to build. So i succesfully relayed my river, so the right embankment is much smaller now, and now i got more space on the left embankment of the Euphrates. Painted it nice blue and green and whatever else so it looks nice on the minimap too. Removed all areables lands and placed them on the right embankment. Surrounded by threes along the embankment and kinda grassy underground. The hills on the left embankment are mainly gone now and i got them only on the outskirts left where i changed them a bit and place gold and coal mines and marble nicely hidden behind threes and all. The whole left embankment has only a stripe of green area along the river and the rest is one big flat desert....Plenty of space to build :D
Took me a while to paint it all so it looks a bit nicer,im no artist, but hey some improvement at least....finally :D I feel so stupid.

I left all entrypoints that were already there from amida, the ones that stand along the border, cause i guess they are like invasions points , really need to read about that scripting bit, but right now, im gonna try using the original amida scenario and copy it and use it in my new amida. Since i didnt really change much else, ill see what it gives.


Edit: Nice, really nice, so i copied the original amida .sc and .sco and .scn and .xml file and renamed them to AmidaBrugensis3. Then had a quick look in them, changed Amida to AmidaBrugensis everywhere i ran in to them and changed the welcome tekst a bit , you know just to see. And yeah, nice, it loads up, gives me the start screen with my silly welcome text and it runs !!!! Cool! Now without all the stuff that you guys wrote in this forum, i would never gotten so far, so thanks for that.

Im curious about what you can do the the scenario scripting to spice the game a bit up, but right now, im pretty happy with what i achieved today, and just gonna have a quick play to see how it goes.

Thanks again.

[SimetricalJean]

Right, things went very well yesterday, looks like the amida story ofcourse, ..., stuff, you know...

Now for today, im gonna read everything that has been written on scenario writing and with that knowlegde im gonna create my self an even improved version of the one i made yesterday.

I see were i get today....

[SimetricalJean]

Hi again,

i tried reading everything i hadnt covered yesterday , about the scripting and setting up the scenario....pfff... heavy to digest...but thanks for writing all that ...

So iv been fooling a bit more around yesterday. Actually i had fun. Had to wipe out the tears out of my eyes when i tested the game and the first thing i spotted was that my birds on the map were not advancing, like the wind was to heavy or strong for them. They are like moving their wings but keep on hanging in the air and sometimes even fly a little back. Hihi, no, i did not have pause on...


But something else i figured out, and quit frankly i just checked the forum and havent read it anywhere else. But if you look at post 6, edit 22; you see that i had problems applying textures. In first instance, that could have been because i had the old editor, but when applying and sampling texures yesterday, i suddenly realise in the middle of what im doing, that i cant paint texures again. Colors worked fine. So i was kinda, wtf is going on now? And here is what i figured out:

If you are on the terrain tab, and you see the list with tiny-small-normal-large-huge-embiggened, then it is impossible to paint textures( or sample). So i just hit on set arable, then the list is gone with tiny-small-normal-large-huge-embiggened and then i hit paint ground , then i hit sample and hop, it works fine again.
As for why this list is there and sometimes not, i havent got a clue, maybe an error in the GUI.
Also noticed how they spell "rondom" in the description of allow random rotation in the U tab.

Another silly thing which i had to find out, and havent read anywhere else here, is that if you build buildings in the editor, you can delete them by using the delete sprite function, but press reset first in the U tab, otherwise they overlap eachother kinda.

Pitty, i didnt write things down yesterday straight away, but i had fun then, but now i forgot half of what i was about to say or ask.

Oh yes, i tried altering the amount of spice that was imported( since Rome's appetite for silk is never fully satisfied). I read everything you guys wrote about changing ( or better said setting up new trade cities). So i simply change the amount from 20 to 50, then i hit replace,then it asked me something, i hit yes. But when i look again, it says 20 again, Tried it twice, no working. Then i tried differently by adding, replacing, saving, but none of it seems to work. If someone can help me out on this simple thing. ALso what does carry over do?

SO basically, what PI Xerxes said about renaming the original Blend file to the one you are using to enable textures, might be needed to, but your not there always then. Very silly thing, but when you dont know, you can get stuck for a while.


Edit 1: ok so i found out how to change the resource amount in an already existing trading city. Simply delete the resource first and then change the amount to whatever you want, then add, then replace and save, and it works .Great... You can do so much more with this editor than with the old C III editor. I remember you could only pick the existing trade cities then to surround your city, but you could not change the amount or anything else. Just great this editor is, though hard to learn...

edit 2: whats the spawn raider box in the Empire sceen for and more particularly how do you use it so it works properly? and on what do you use it?

edit 3: i also read somewhere, ( i think in kuplo or couchpotato's elevation pdf file) that the huge and embiggened are not different, but if you look closely ,they do change in size, but what does not work with me is the brush size, i click on it but nothing changes?

[Hieronymus]

Edit 1: ok so i found out how to change the resource amount in an already existing trading city. Simply delete the resource first and then change the amount to whatever you want, then add, then replace and save, and it works .Great... You can do so much more with this editor than with the old C III editor. I remember you could only pick the existing trade cities then to surround your city, but you could not change the amount or anything else. Just great this editor is, though hard to learn...

Actually, you don't need to delete the resource. Just change the amount and click the 'Add' button. Then click 'Replace' to save the update for the city. But I agree, there's lots of things that aren't obvious with this editor :rolleyes: Many's the time I thought I'd changed something on the Empire Map, only to discover I hadn't because I forgot the 'Replace' button...


edit 2: whats the spawn raider box in the Empire sceen for and more particularly how do you use it so it works properly? and on what do you use it?

As far as I know this has no significance. I think it's just a feature "inherited" from the COTN editor, but not actually implemented in C4.

[SimetricalJean]

Thanks for your reply Hieronymous

Indeed, you dont really need to delete the resource when changing, simply changing then add and replace does the job fine indeed. I know i saw hit replace all the time somewhere, but you need to add aswell.

About the raiders, i kinda figured it out when i didnt see any enemy sites, cities to add. So where would they spawn from. Sothanks for your reply, now i know its useless. Pitty though, would have been fun to set up a city or 2 around mine, that spawned once in a while some raiders, would have been so easy. Oh well,...


Right now, im repainting my Amida map, starting off in the corner, adding resources, arable land ,see how many fields fit, calculate how much food i can get with it, add resources, see what i can do,what i cant, reshaping my empire along, replacing my river again to maximize building space even more but in that that all resources and arable land are on the right embankment of the river Tigris, ( and not Euphrates, as I missed somwhere in above posts) , since in the real Amida, the fields were situated outside the city aswell.
And when all that is done , and im satisfied, then im gonna have a look at changing the way points forinvasions, having a look at changing the invasions.

When i get comfortable doing that, im gonna try to get as much of the battle i described above ( Ammanius Res Gestae) in it.

I particularly like the parts where the Persians come to attack and the Romans set their fields on fire. You think i can do that, when the invasions comes, my farms go in fire? Since the city was besieged for a long time, you would have to have sufficient reserves in your storehouses to survive the attack, because your farms have gone up in fire, and as long the Persians are "testing your walls" there will be no harvesting.
And then the part where the plague strikes the city during the besiegment i like to? Possible? And then when it stops by a rain. hihi, can you influence weather? and combine it with the plague?

but thats for later


Oh and what i really miss in CIV is the barbarians that you had in CIII, in the editor, you could add some barbarian buildings inside your city and even some of their farms and some capital. And if you had a mission there, they would do trade with you. God i miss them, after they had to much of there barbarian wine, they always went on a rampage trough your city to kill anyting that was to close to their territory....:D


Edit:

so im reading on heavengames about production rates, just to calculate how much goods i could make and how much resources i should place. And then i read this about consumption rates : Food and goods are consumed in "consumption cycles" of three weeks, and there are 16 consumption cycles a year.

Sure, but if 1 consumption cycle equals 3 weeks, and there are 16 cycles a year, then 3 x 16 on my calculator says 48. Now,on my planet there are 52 weeks, so do i have to move to heavengames planet to have 16 consumption cycles a year in my game? Or can i go by 17, 33333333? (52/16)
http://caesar4.heavengames.com/gameinfo/articles/consumption

and then the next example of food : Each pleb or equite living in insulae or domus eats 0.8 units of food per consumption cycle, or 12.8 units per year
So clearly 12.8/o.8 =16 Correct but is it 16 or 17,3333?(see above?) Ahum...


Edit 2: well im just thinking why this thing above might be wrong or not. .. let see, if you think there are 4 weeks in a month and there are 12 months in a year , then indeed you would get 48 weeks in a year and hence the 16 if you divide by 3 weeks a cycle. But there are 52 weeks in a year !!!!
So has the 12.8 units been used to calculate backwards to get to 16 or was the bases the 3 weeks a cycle for this calculation of food consumptions? In the first case the calculations would be correct, but not the latter....
I did not see any subject on heavengames forum concerning this, but i know some of you do read that forum aswell, Care to comment on this last one?

Or are there only 48 weeks in a CIV year? and not a representation of the real world with 52 weeks?

[Pecunia]

Or are there only 48 weeks in a CIV year? and not a representation of the real world with 52 weeks?
Indeed, there are only 48 weeks per year in C4 :) I've added a clarification on our consumption page.

[SimetricalJean]

Sweet..... Thanks for that, now i know i can safely use the numbers, sorry for being so annoying, but it just didnt make sense to me at first.

Very usefull site aswell for CIV. Great job !!!

So its TM that lives on another planet with 48 weeks then :D . I can only guess why there would be 48 weeks...is it because the Romans used a different calender at that time ( didnt Caesar himself gave order for a new calender?). Seen it in history lessons most likely, but kinda forgot what that was all about...anyways....to many questions and only one life....;)

Edit:Oh , and I just see that your location is the Netherlands, how nice....dank je wel voor je antwoord in elk geval...groetjes

Edit 2: Consumption calculator?: Iv just been using those numbers of consumption rate to calculate how much food, basics goods,etc i would need if i would wanna build for example 10 small villa, 10 large, 10 grand mansions, etc... Since you have this handy tool to calculate prosperity , would it be possible to make one for consumption aswell? One where you add how many houses of each type you want and then it would give you the result in loads of goods annually. Also with anoption for forts and how many. And then if possible when you have that list of goods, how many resources you would have to need on the map to be able to achieve that annually? I know thats a lot asked, but if you could do that, it would save a lot of time calculating when i plan a map...

[Pecunia]

I can only guess why there would be 48 weeks...is it because the Romans used a different calender at that time ( didnt Caesar himself gave order for a new calender?). Seen it in history lessons most likely, but kinda forgot what that was all about...anyways....to many questions and only one life....;)
The most likely reason for the 48-week year is: simplicity. And I'm not sure whether it was Caesar or Augustus who renamed the seventh month of their year (the year started in March at that time) to "July" after "Julius Caesar".

Edit 2: Consumption calculator?: Iv just been using those numbers of consumption rate to calculate how much food, basics goods,etc i would need if i would wanna build for example 10 small villa, 10 large, 10 grand mansions, etc... Since you have this handy tool to calculate prosperity , would it be possible to make one for consumption aswell?
Good idea. I can't say when I'd have such a calculator ready but I'll work on it. For now, you'll have to be content with the new workers calculator (http://caesar4.heavengames.com/gameinfo/tools/workers) :D

[Romaq]

I believe it is 48 weeks because it is MUCH easier to say 12 months * 4 weeks a month is precisely one year than anything else. We are covering a timeframe from roughly 500 BC to 300 AD. While it is certainly trivial to create a perpetual calendar and have it calculate what the real life dates were... it would not help the gameplay. Keeping the gameplay to 48 week years makes life MUCH more simple for everyone concerned.

[SimetricalJean]

Simply brilliant those calculators ( Pecunia-dont know if thats all your work on CheavenG, but thanks a lot), wish we had those in the days of CIII...Had a couple more ideas on that yesterday late night when i couldnt catch sleep, but i was too lazy to get out of bed and write them down...so when i remember them, ll write them down. They are simple so handy to play with, but even more to set up a game, and plan what a player can or can not do on a certain map or scenario.

On the matter of the 48 weeks..ofcourse it must be easier to use. I have no idea why i just went from the idea that a year in the game would be 52 weeks like our system ( which is not 100% waterproof either: 1 day more in February every 4 years and every 100 years no extra day and then some more....So indeed, there's been a couple of systems: early roman Kings used the Etruscan calender( based on the Greek Lunar calender) which had 10 months and had 304 days and 61 days of winter that didnt fall in the calender. The 10 months were: Martius(31), Aprilis (30), Maius ( 31), Junius ( 30), Quintilis( 31), Sextilis ( 30), September (30) October (31) November(30)and December (30).
The first reform of the calender was attributed to Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven traditional Kings of Rome. He is said to have reducded the 30 day monthe to 29 days and to havve added January(29) and February(28) to the end of the calender around 713 BC. (explains why the year started in March) and thus brought the lenght of the calender up to 355 days. Quintilis and Sextilis were later renamde July and AUgust in honor of Julius Caesar and Augustus. In order to keep the calendar year roughly aligned with the solar year, a leap month of 27 days, the Mensis Intercalaris, sometimes also known as Mercedonius or Mercedinus, was added from time to time at the end of February, which was shortened to 23 or 24 days. The resulting year was either 377 or 378 days long. The decision to insert the intercalary month, and its placement, was the responsibility of the pontifex maximus. On average, this happened roughly in alternate years.

The system of aligning the year through intercalary months broke down at least twice. The first time was during and after the Second Punic War. It led to the reform of the Lex Acilia in 191 BC. The details of this reform are unclear, but it appears to have successfully regulated intercalation for over a century. The second breakdown was in the middle of the first century BC. This breakdown may have been related to the increasingly chaotic and adversarial nature of Roman politics at the time. The position of pontifex maximus was not a full-time job; it was held by a member of the Roman elite, who would almost invariably be involved in the machinations of Roman politics. Because a Roman calendar year defined the term of office of elected Roman magistrates, a pontifex maximus would have reason to lengthen a year in which he or his allies were in power, or not to lengthen a year in which his political opponents held office. :D ( they are definetely more creative then our politicians these days , that usually just change the law so they can stay longer in Office) It was while Julius Caesar was pontifex maximus that the calendar was overhauled, with the result being the Julian calendar. The calendar reforms were completed during the reign of his successor, Augustus Caesar.

And then some more: The Roman Republic, like the Etruscans, used a "market week" of eight days, marked as A to H in the calendar. A market was held on the eighth day. For the Romans, who counted inclusively, this was every ninth day, hence the market became called "nundinae", and the market cycle is known as the "nundinal cycle". Since the length of the year was not a multiple of 8 days, the letter for the market day (known as a "nundinal letter") changed every year. For example, if the letter for market days in some year was A and the year was 355 days long, then the letter for the next year would be F.

The nundinal cycle formed a basic rhythm of day-to-day Roman life; the market day was the day that country people would come to the city, and the day that city people would buy their groceries for the next 8 days. For this reason, a law was passed in 287 BC (the Lex Hortensia) that forbade the holding of meetings of the comitia (for example to hold elections) on market days, but permitted the holding of legal actions. In the late republic, a superstition arose that it was unlucky to start the year with a market day (i.e. for the market day to fall on 1 January, with a letter A), and the pontiffs, who regulated the calendar, took steps to avoid it.

Because the nundinal cycle was absolutely fixed at 8 days under the Republic, information about the dates of market days is one of the most important tools we have for working out the Julian equivalent of a Roman date in the pre-Julian calendar. In the early Empire, the Roman market day was occasionally changed. The details of this are not clear, but one likely explanation is that it would be moved by one day if it fell on the same day as the festival of Regifugium, an event that could occur every other Julian leap year. When this happened the market day would be moved to the next day, which was the bissextile (leap) day.

The nundinal cycle was eventually replaced by the modern seven-day week, which first came into use in Italy during the early imperial period, after the Julian calendar had come into effect. The system of nundinal letters was also adapted for the week, see dominical letter. For a while, the week and the nundinal cycle coexisted, but by the time the week was officially adopted by Constantine in AD 321 the nundinal cycle had fallen out of use. For further information on the week, see week and days of the week.

So conclusion: as Romaq remarked, the game covers a period from rougly 500 to 300 AD, so a representation of the reality, including all the different calenders the romans had is just out of the question...


And then another question about editing the game with our brilliant editor. I tried setting up trade, just to see how far you can go and what's possible. ( Had 27 trading cities added to my empire each sending one resource and buying one for 9999 units :-) . It simply worked when i tried it out, never tought it would...had 27 trade depots with a very cool thick streaming line of horses(or mules)and carts coming to trade, just like a real big trading caravan of those days with more then 100 carts. Wonder why my game didnt crash, anyway...so as i said to see whats possible and how far you can get. Was trying to see if i could get rid of raw material collection and production and farming to make a real big city on a 512 map. ( just to see how close to 1 000 000 i can get on Amida :D , since i save a lot of space up by deleting production and all and can use the space for large insulae. Consider it a city that does only trade. What about unemployment, lots of prefects to fight the crime and lots of entertainment and all....but anyway, my Question: when i set up trade cities they always show as active and when i go to play in my city they are already opened. SO how can i deactivate them , so when you start the game you have to pay to open them. I noticed that the active one's are coloured and the deactive (or inactive? which is which) are blue-ish....
SO i tried hitting the deactive, inactive, carry over button, replace it, new, delete, whatever i tried, they always show up as active. I also have them in my xml , so they work fine, its just that they are active when i dont want them to be, cause like this its just to easy and not really fun to play unless you quickly want to build the city.

So is this one of this : "il faut traiter l'editeur comme une femme " or is it me that does something wrong again. ( " treat the editor as a lady " = treat it very carefully and gentle since its usually rather fragile)

[SimetricalJean]

Now that iv been experimenting around with the editor, its time for making a scenario of my own.
Im totally illiterate when it comes to matters like C ++, xml editing, so im really gonna need some help on this bit.
Iv been reading the scripting for all and other threads and figured, before doing anything, i need to write a scenario first.
So here's what i did. I posted it below, and just want to know at this point if this is possible to do, or if its to much, or what can not be done, or what can easily be done.
If it cant be done, then i know i shouldnt bother. If it can, then im willing to read more about c++ and all the stuff and read all your posts again, and again, till i figure it out.

I know this is very basic, but before going into detail, i just want to know if the rough lines of the scenario can be translated in to whatever code it needs to show up in the game kinda like i describe it below.
So here we go:




Amida --- Anastacian Wars
Game starts in year 490

Player starts game

Screen with ratings, goals, info, hints (…)

Player hits start

Player enters game

Situation of the city on entering: city has large insulae, equites, few patricians, markets,…buildings and economy, but is losing money due to overbuilding of the “previous governer”, not enough labor, Persian army is in city destroying buildings , some buildings are rumbled, some on fire, plebs are leaving city due to war, 1 army is fighting the invaders but outnumbered. This army has fortress in city. There is one trade route ( Persia) running with the city

Message pops up:“ Caesar had enough of the corrupt governor that ruined this beautiful, but more important, crucial trading city, with his construction megalomania. The unprepared city has fallen in the hands of the Persians. It is time that you settle this once and for all. He has placed 6 legions under your command to fight the Persians. When matters have been settled, then he wants you to look at the bare financial state the city has gotten into.”

6 legions from Rome are at the migration point entering the city.

Invaders legions ( 5) destroy building they were busy destroying and stop, then turn, and come to face the 6 legions.
1 legion of invaders dares to attack. The other 4 remain a bit behind.

Jupiter lightning strike hits the legion that attacks, other invaders get scared and run away.

Message shows up: “ The Persians have been beaten!! I’m not sure if this was a divine intervention, but some our soldiers see this as a good omen. You can now take time to manage the city. Caesars wants you to look at the financial state of the city as priority number one. He will give you x years to make the city profitable. If you don’t succeed, then the Roman Legions who helped you recapturing the city will gladly recapture it from you. After all there is but one Caesar, and right now, it’s not you. ”

City in players hands.

Player has y money. Player can set up 2 trade routes with this amount. 1 for food ( Antioch), other for luxury good , being the ‘middle man’ between Rome and Far East
Player has X years to break even.
Roman legions stay guarding X years.
If player does not break even ( year 490+X), legions attack the city.

(Request:) If player breaks even message pops up:” Well, you did a good job making the city profitable again. The Legions will return to Antioch now. They will require x food for the journey. Will you give them that much food for their journey?” Yes/No .
If no: legions mutiny and attack the city. If yes legions leave the map.

(Player has X years to build up the city into fortress.)


When players goes to empire maps and has opened Theodopolis ( cost to open: x ):
Theodopolis ( trade city on empire map close to Amida,) acts as fortress, needs weapons and food.

Message pops up week after trade route has been opened: “ Since Theodopolis is one of our closest neighbours, they have asked us if you could send them weapons and armour in order to arm their city. In return they will bring us more x goods.”If player fulfills request, then Theodopolis exports more goods ( basic-luxury-exotic?)
If player does not fulfill request 3 months later a message pops up: “ The trade routes to Theodopolis have been blocked. Maybe you should have send those weapons after all, governor.” Trade route to Theodopolis is no longer active.

Martyrpolis close to Amida, acts as trading partner fortress, needs weapons and food. If opened on empire level , then message pops up : “ Martyrpolis will send us more goods if we supply them with X goods”
If fulfilled, the city sends more goods ( basic-luxury-exotic?)
If not fulfilled, the city falls and Persian soldiers come 3 months later to Amida. Small invasion.
Message pops up: “ Maybe we should have send those weapons to Martyrpolis, then the enemy would have been fighting there instead of over here.”

Player has time to build up

( 10 years after start)
Year 500 AD: Message: “There are rumours about the Persian King , Sapor, that he is making preparations for a major assault on the Romans. Maybe we should invest our money in fortifications and soldiers.”

Year 500 AD , one month later, Message: “Persian trade route is halted. This confirmes that war is uphand with the Persians. Make the necessary preparations governor”
Trade routes no longer available to Persia. ( forces player to open new one)
Week later (new trade route opens on empire map) Message: “ The city of Edessa wants to do trading with you. Visit the empire level for more information.” (x cost to open)

Year 502 AD, March,
Message: “The Supreme commander in the Orient, Ursicinus, is been relieved of duty. “

Few days later, Message: “After your succesfull recapture of the important city of Amida, the Emperor has decided to make you the Supreme commander in the Orient. He will send you weapons and armour to help you in the war effort. He also will send you a few of the gaulish legions that are stationed near city x. Caesar himself also made a special request that you would take care of the historian Ammanius Marcellinus that will come along with the gaulish legions. Marcellinus is a historian that is writing our great history down. He might be usefull planning in the war aswell, …”

Week later, Message from the senate: “Urisinicus, was on his way back, but when he arrived he has been send back to Mesopotamia. He will now defend the city of Martyrpolis.”

March last week; Message: “The gaulish legions have arrived. As many of your citizens consider them still barbarian , we will need to station them outside our city. You will need to supply them with food and weapons for training.”
Player can accept. New city appears on map near amida, named Gaulish camp, gaulish move out off city towards their new camp. Week later request appears for x food and x weapons for their camp; message: " Request: Gaulish legions expect their food."

March, last week, 502, Message& request : “Marcellinus proposes to spy on the enemy army movements. Will you give him X food so he can proceed with his journey and X gold so he can bribe people to get information?” Accept ? Yes /no
April, 2 weeks later, If above request has been fulfilled, message come’s:” Marcellinus has found Illyrian cavalry that are willing to help to fight the Persians for their own reasons. Are you willing to give them x gold to help us?
If request fulfilled , messages comes a week later, : “ The Illyrian cavalry is on their way to Theodisipolis to scout for the Persian army”.
If request fulfilled, trade routes stay open with Theodisipolis.
If not trade routes close’s to Theodisipolis with message: “The trading rout to Theodopolis has been blocked by Persian army.”

June, 502, Message: “ Sapor has invaded Roman territory. His army , together with the Kings of the Chionites and the Albans have invade Roman territory.”
Week later, Message: “The fortress at Martyrpolis has fallen.” Trade is now closed.
July, 502, Message: “The fortress at Theodopolis has fallen.” Trade routes are now closed.
Week later, Message: “From Marcellinus: he and Ursinicus have escaped, but he has no idea where Ursinicus is. Marcellinus is on his way to Antioch. Would you like to send a message to Marcellinus to ask for assistance from Antioch?
Request X gold, weapons, whatever to ask for assistance.

Player needs to build walls and reinforce city.


Augustus:” Marcellinus has arrived in the city again and has someone with him : Magister militum Sabianus. He told that after Caesar heard the news about Martyrpolis and Theodopolis he was very angry so he decided to send you a military strategist to help you in the war efforts.”

Augustus week later: Message to player: “A new trade route is available. The city of Damascus wishes to export their products to your city, and will perhaps buy some of your goods. Accept? Open?
If player accepts(opens), a week later he gets message: “A trader has heard news about Ursinicus, he saw him in Damascus and will come to Amida next week.”
Week later: message: “ursinicus has arrived in your city and has disturbing news. Rumours about the whole Persian army heading for amida.”


September:
Enemy army show up at borders. Big army

Message: “Sapor has called upon the inhabitants of Amida, to surrender”, a few plebs and equites leave city.

Army moves towards walls but is being attacked by the defenders on the walls with arrows and spears.

Army retreats to border
Message: “Edessa is being besieged! Trade is now suspended.”

One legion tries another attempt they get killed aswell by the towers on the walls. Message to player : “King Grumbates son himself has been killed, this surely will lift our soldiers courage”.

1 day later
Persians attempt 1 more time but fail and retreat before getting killed to the border and besiege the city with catapults
Message: “Edessa holds but will need reinforcements. Can you send weapons and armour to city X near Edessa to arm them so they can stab the Persians in the back?”

1 day later
Persians attempt 1 more time but fail and retreat before getting killed to the border and besiege the city with catapults

1 day later: Message to player: “The politicians have asked you to come to the forum tonight”
Player would have to need a forum ( build one and have it working).
If player has forum message shows up: “Ursinicus proposes , to surprise the besieging army at night. He is heavily backed up by the politicians. But all in vain: magister militum Sabianus is against the proposal. And who would want to criticize Caesars strategist. He is also brings to our attention that we are not the only one besieged. If Edessa can hold, then we surely can hold the walls. You also feel confident that the city walls will not fall. Let those politicians think what they want, what do they know about military?”

1 day later : In Amida, a plague of pest breakes out, that is been stopped after then days by a light rain.

Amida is being attacked again along the walls. Message pops up: “a collaborator has helped them with underground tunnels The walls are broken!!!”. Part of wall goes down, persian legion or 2 comes in city and goes for building x

A day later. Message : “Magister Sabianus proposes to call for the gaulish legions”: accept? Yes/no
If yes: Gaulish legion appears in city from the side of their camp and go off fighting the enemies that entered the city This cause heavy casualties amongts the Persians but does not kill them all. Gauls stop attack and retreat to their camp.

Day later: Towers and other besieging equipment is brought in positions
Message: “Magister Sabianus proposes to set the besieging equipment on fire.” Accept? If yes, then besieging equipment goes up in fire. If no, they attack the walls.

Few days later, or week, Amida is being attacked again. This time walls break down, and the city is overrun. Army attacks certain buildings, but no housing.

Message: “Marcellinus proposes that he will go to Antioch to tell of the Persian onslaught. Meanwhile you must flee with the rest of the army and guard the entrance to the gaulish camp.” Gaulish army shows up at corner of map to mark their “ entrance to their camp”
Player can’t build ( can you freeze control for an amount of time?)
Persians are all over the city but not near gaulish camp entrance.

Day later: Message: “Some of your officers have been executed, they even emprisonned some of the patricians in your town. Even Graugasius of Sibisi would have defected to the Persians, for the sake of his wife, who is in Persian hands.”
Few days later:

Message: “ Theodisipolis has been recaptured. Finally some good news.”

Later:
Message: “Roman Legions have been spotted just outside the city .Your messenger tells you that they come from Antioch and Jerusalem. Even the Egyptian Legions and the North Africans are here. Rumours are that Caesar himself is with them fight the Persians back.”

Roman legions enter map near “Gaulish camp entrance”.

Message: “ Well, it appears Caesar himself isn’t with the legions, but he sends you the message to attack the Persians and drive them back out of the city.”
Legions attack Persians, kill them, last legions run away scared to border.

Message comes up: “ Magister Sabianus has been negotiating with the Persians after there defeat. The Persians proposes you a truce: they will not attack you in the next 7 years and nor can you and in return Sabianus has managed to get the city of Martyrpolis reinstated after the Persians ran sacked it and player needs to pay x gold” Accept?
If player accepts Persians disappear and don’t come back in the next 20 years. Martyrpolis is back active as trading city.
If refuses, the rest of the army attacks( will get killed),and then every 2 years a considerable army attacks your city
Player back in control.
If accepted, then after 20 years military appears again, light in the beginning, harder as more time elapses

New trade route available: message “…”
Price changes?




So this was rougly the first 30 years of the scenario.

Is this do-able?





Additional info:
Resources on map:
Trade resources & amount:
Building limits:
Other events:

[Romaq]

Wow that looks rather ambitious. Beats the heck out of MY ideas! :-)

[Hieronymus]

"Is this do-able" is a BIG question too, not easily answered... But here's some initial thoughts.

1. To start up with the conditions you describe above would very probably require you to distribute as a saved game (.c4s) rather than .scn file.

2. Requests for goods or whatever are set up in the editor and are not scripted. So unfortunately that means that you can't trigger requests. The best that can be done is to try to time them at an appropriate point in the game.

3. Firing triggers if a request is fulfilled can be done by scripting. One way of doing this is by tracking favor changes - but you have to be certain that the favor increase is large enough for it not to be confused with anything else (like a gift to Rome). You can disable medium & large gifts in the editor to help with this, and if you distribute as a saved game you can ensure that all gifts have been sent, which makes the task easier. The other way is if the request is for a large quantity of something (as goonsquad has done in the Final Deception), when you can script to look out for a large drop in the amount of a resource. In scripting this, you have to allow for other changes in the amount of a resource, e.g. being picked up or delivered by a cartpusher, or produced by the factory, farm or camp.

4. Whilst it's possible to change the orders of enemy cohorts, I haven't tested anything other than causing them to leave the map. I believe that enemies will leave the map whatever else happens after one year. Caesar's legions would thus need to be described as being camped outside the city guarding it, rather than being visible on the map for the period you describe.

If I have any further thoughts I'll post them, but the above might suggest how you could revise your storyline.

[SimetricalJean]

Hi

thanks a lot for your reply !!!

Well, i had a good smoke yesterday when i wrote the above lot, and then you tend to think that anything is possible :D . Slightly too ambitious indeed, , after having read it again :p

As I guessed, this will be just too much to do. Thanks for giving me some directions on what can be done and what cant, Hieronymous.

As for the first remark: well, i could get rid of that part where the governer would enter into a city that is already running. So you would start on a virgin map with just some basic road layouts and perhaps an aquaduct or so.
I reckon the reason why you say i would have to distribute a sc4 instead of a scn, is that when the player would start, the buildings would be there, but there would be no activity( eg. no plebs in housing, markets not running, etc...)
What about those walkers ( actor, tax collector, prefect,...) that you can add in the editor? Whats their purpose? What if you add, them, do they show up as eyecandy and dissapear again, or when you would have a tax office and place a tax collector, and then you start would that mean that it runs the office? (Gotta try this one out-pff so much things i still want to try out...;) )

Alternatively, for the initial state of the city on entering the game: "deception" would be the word: there are buildings as i described in my scenario, but they are no longer occupied ( state in message that the city has been abandonned, due to the previous governor mismanagement and the troops currently attacking the city.)
About the troops present on starting the city, i saw this was possible over here? : http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?p=140101#post140101)
He apparently has invaders at the start up of the game. !! cool!! so that would be doable.
But then for the rest of the initial starting message, i could change the bit where the governor would have to make the city from loosing money to profitable in ,"you have x years or x time to make profit"? ( can triggers recognize a certain amount of money or increase in profit?)


Then your second remark about the triggers must been done in the editor:
I havent had the time to check everything out and test it, but i kinda tought that that would have to been done in the editor. Will read more about this. About triggering requests: I can simply use the timeline of the story for this, cant I?
for eg. March, last week, 502, Message& request : “Marcellinus proposes to spy on the enemy army movements. Will you give him X food so he can proceed with his journey ? Ship it? Yes /no
What i mean is, can i make this message ( request) show up in any case at the last week of march 502. If yes, that will just do fine for me. Cause for me, whether Marcellinus goes spying on them or goes drinking wine in Antioch instead,:D i dont really care, its just the message that should show up. And if possible a request with the above message.

And then you go on in your 3rd remark, "Firing triggers can be done if a request if fulfilled". So suppose the above request from Marcellinus for a bit of food is fulfilled, can i trigger the next message then?

eg."April, 2 weeks later, If above request has been fulfilled, message come’s:” Marcellinus has found Illyrian cavalry that are willing to help to fight the Persians for their own reasons. Are you willing to give them x gold to help us?


Ok, this is a head breaker for me right now. So, let's not look at the content of the request first, but the request itself. SO if player has shipped x food to fulfill the first request from Marcellinus, then i could fire a new trigger. You seem to propose 2 methods of doings this, the one by tracking favor, the other by goonsquad to track a drop in amount of goods.
So it means its possible to create a new trigger that is linked to a previous request when it has been fulfilled. Great news !!!
Now about the new trigger itself. Can this trigger be a new request with message ( message about the Illyrian cavalry and x gold to help us)? I guess yes.
I reckon at this point since im working with a request that demands goods, the tracking a drop in amount of a certain good would be the best way to approach this. Though are there any other ways of doing this? gotta think this over again


4. The military: " Whilst its possible to change the order of the enemy cohorst, ...." what exactly do you mean with ' the order '. The order they appear on the map, the order they attack in, the order they don't follow ... ?:D

Can i simply make a legion enter at point A ( north) and go straight trought the city without delay ( or with small stop in the public baths, wine bars, and ofcourse vomitorium,..) to point B ( south)?
So they appear to be passing trough the city onwards to their ' Gaulish encampment' outside the city. They would then dissapear and not be visible.
And then you would get the message (along the time line) that a new city is available on the Empire map, and you could even do some trade with them. In return for food they could turn iron into weapons to make them a bit usefull and helpful in the war efforts. So the troops are not really there ofcourse, but the player thinks they are, or so it looks...



Ok, so, enemies will leave the map after one year, whatever happens. You got me thinking now.

Are Caesars legions always enemies to the city? or can they aid you in the war against the enemy as i described in my scenario? Was this what you meant with the ' orders' of the legions?


" Caesars legions would have to be describe as being camped outside the city,..."
Cool, didnt think about that? How that works then?

"Guarding it..." Ok so Caesars legions can be allies? Or is this perception again,...they "seem" to guard the city...


Right well, now i know what you meant with a couple of weeks for creating a scenario, ;-)


In the meanwhile, im making a slightly simpler map. Belgica, heavy trading city, symmetrical setup along a circus in the middle, 512 map, sea, all resources and farming land along the borders, and the middle plenty of space for building a real nice city. See how far we get....in this "grassbox"


Edit: one of them crazy ideas i sometimes got: was just listening to Pavarotti's great voice. Would it be possible if you click on the Odeum or Theater that you hear Pavarotti singing one of his lines? :)

[Hieronymus]

As for the first remark: well, i could get rid of that part where the governer would enter into a city that is already running. So you would start on a virgin map with just some basic road layouts and perhaps an aquaduct or so.
I reckon the reason why you say i would have to distribute a sc4 instead of a scn, is that when the player would start, the buildings would be there, but there would be no activity( eg. no plebs in housing, markets not running, etc...)
What about those walkers ( actor, tax collector, prefect,...) that you can add in the editor? Whats their purpose? What if you add, them, do they show up as eyecandy and dissapear again, or when you would have a tax office and place a tax collector, and then you start would that mean that it runs the office? (Gotta try this one out-pff so much things i still want to try out...;) )

To be honest I've never tried to see what happens to the walkers if you place them in the editor...




Alternatively, for the initial state of the city on entering the game: "deception" would be the word: there are buildings as i described in my scenario, but they are no longer occupied ( state in message that the city has been abandonned, due to the previous governor mismanagement and the troops currently attacking the city.)
About the troops present on starting the city, i saw this was possible over here? : http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?p=140101#post140101)
He apparently has invaders at the start up of the game. !! cool!! so that would be doable.
But then for the rest of the initial starting message, i could change the bit where the governor would have to make the city from loosing money to profitable in ,"you have x years or x time to make profit"? ( can triggers recognize a certain amount of money or increase in profit?)

Yes. The Corduba Revisited "proof of concept" also uses this technique.


Then your second remark about the triggers must been done in the editor:
I havent had the time to check everything out and test it, but i kinda tought that that would have to been done in the editor. Will read more about this. About triggering requests: I can simply use the timeline of the story for this, cant I?
for eg. March, last week, 502, Message& request : “Marcellinus proposes to spy on the enemy army movements. Will you give him X food so he can proceed with his journey ? Ship it? Yes /no
What i mean is, can i make this message ( request) show up in any case at the last week of march 502. If yes, that will just do fine for me. Cause for me, whether Marcellinus goes spying on them or goes drinking wine in Antioch instead,:D i dont really care, its just the message that should show up. And if possible a request with the above message.

Yes, so long as you know exactly when you want the request to appear, you can set this up in the editor.



And then you go on in your 3rd remark, "Firing triggers can be done if a request if fulfilled". So suppose the above request from Marcellinus for a bit of food is fulfilled, can i trigger the next message then?

eg."April, 2 weeks later, If above request has been fulfilled, message come’s:” Marcellinus has found Illyrian cavalry that are willing to help to fight the Persians for their own reasons. Are you willing to give them x gold to help us?

You can trigger a message. But you can't trigger requests.


Ok, this is a head breaker for me right now. So, let's not look at the content of the request first, but the request itself. SO if player has shipped x food to fulfill the first request from Marcellinus, then i could fire a new trigger. You seem to propose 2 methods of doings this, the one by tracking favor, the other by goonsquad to track a drop in amount of goods.
So it means its possible to create a new trigger that is linked to a previous request when it has been fulfilled. Great news !!!
Now about the new trigger itself. Can this trigger be a new request with message ( message about the Illyrian cavalry and x gold to help us)? I guess yes.

Nope - see above.


4. The military: " Whilst its possible to change the order of the enemy cohorst, ...." what exactly do you mean with ' the order '. The order they appear on the map, the order they attack in, the order they don't follow ... ?:D

Sorry, this was a typo. I meant "orders" as in ordering the enemies to attack, flee or whatever.



Can i simply make a legion enter at point A ( north) and go straight trought the city without delay ( or with small stop in the public baths, wine bars, and ofcourse vomitorium,..) to point B ( south)?
So they appear to be passing trough the city onwards to their ' Gaulish encampment' outside the city. They would then dissapear and not be visible.
And then you would get the message (along the time line) that a new city is available on the Empire map, and you could even do some trade with them. In return for food they could turn iron into weapons to make them a bit usefull and helpful in the war efforts. So the troops are not really there ofcourse, but the player thinks they are, or so it looks...


See the Corduba Revisited proof of concept (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showpost.php?p=172003&postcount=6). This shows how it is possible to script things so that an enemy appears at one point and then leaves at another point on the map (without attacking anything).



Are Caesars legions always enemies to the city? or can they aid you in the war against the enemy as i described in my scenario? Was this what you meant with the ' orders' of the legions?

" Caesars legions would have to be describe as being camped outside the city,..."
Cool, didnt think about that? How that works then?

"Guarding it..." Ok so Caesars legions can be allies? Or is this perception again,...they "seem" to guard the city...

Nope, as far as the game is concerned, they're enemies. So you have to fool the player into believing they are allies. The reference to them being camped outside the city was just a suggestion that you display a message telling the player this is what they are now doing.



Edit: one of them crazy ideas i sometimes got: was just listening to Pavarotti's great voice. Would it be possible if you click on the Odeum or Theater that you hear Pavarotti singing one of his lines? :)

Have a look in the \Data\Audio\Sounds\Events folder. You'll see some sound files like event_odeum_01.wav. Try changing some of these (take backups of the originals of course :) )

[SimetricalJean]

Hi, thanks for replying Hieronymous.

To be honest I've never tried to see what happens to the walkers if you place them in the editor...

Well, i tried it out today. Its been an interesting experience, but very confusing one. Here is what I did and what happened:

I used my old AmidaBrugensis3 map to fool around with. So i started building a bit of everything: a small, a medium and large insulae, a small domus, med and large, a tax office, prefect, engi. Then i placed walkers in the editor on the roads: a prefect, 2 engineers, and a tax collector. Then i added a burglar and a mugger.
Then i saw that you can add military aswell, like enemy heavy infantry for example. So i placed a few of those aswell. Save. exit editor. Start scenario. Message your city has reached for the first time 500 peeps. and CRASH. back to desktop.
Ok so i started off a bit to big perhaps.
I retry. I place 1 small insulae and 1 domus for equites. Save. Exit editor. Start scenario. It starts fine this time. I select my small insulae. It has 70/70 people in it, AND it has 428 food. I select my equites house. Its full aswell with 40/40 and it has 378 food and 431 basic goods. To be more specific: households are living large with 3 types of food. Brilliant. :)
So i decide to see how long it will take before they leave. They have no water or any other coverag. Fast speed. Wow, wait, what do i see here: some equites leaving my city. I see like 10 of them. I select my equites house. Still 40/40. Ok where did those migrants come from then? OMG :confused: . Instant later, same thing with plebs, they are leaving the city. I select my large insulae, but still 70/70. Ok pretty weird to me. But this one has potential. Like i described in my scenario, player would enter game and plebs would 'seem' to leave the city due to the war and bad circumstances.
Ok, so i keep in game, and see how long it would take them to leave the city for real, i mean there houses, and not those "fake migrants" i just discovered. I hit fast speed. In march their food has dropped to 372. April 316. May 260. May 204.June 148.July 92. July 36. August they are out of food, so expect them to leave anytime now., but no, october, november, december, still there. January, february, march , april, still there.Ow my equites houses take's fire. They are gone, just insulae left with no food since a year now. end of August, When are they gonna leave????? September, Fire, well that was it.


Then next try, and this is where things really get weird.
So i go back to the editor and decide to leave the small insulae and equites house and to add a prefect office and engineer's office. And i place an engineer walker. Save. Exit. Start. Crash. I suspect the walker.
Editor again, delete the walker. Save. Exit. Start scenario again. Works fine. no crash this time. I select my engineers office. It's fully staffed with 22/22 and the prefect office is aswell with 24/24.
Ok fine, so that works to start up a city. But now: i select my small insulae and what do i see? It has 210/70 people. My domus: 120/40. I look at total population: 330. Lol, wait a sec? how is this possible? I got1 small insulae and 1 domus and i got 330 people? Hihi...I look at their food: insulae: 544 food and domus 430 food and 558 basics.?????????????? I let the game run on fast, but they stay, and since they have firecoverage, the houses stay there and so do the people.

Ok, weird, so i exit and go back to editor.
I place a burglar on the road and some enemy light infantry army ( 4 ) of the near my aqueduct (see pic). Save. Exit. Start scenario. Wham, message my city has for its first time 500 peeps. I hit yes, the enemy army dissapears in thin air, the burglar seconds later. Strange. I select my small insulae, and now it gets weirder: the insulae now has 280/70 peeps living in it and my domus 160/40.

Exit. Restart game. It now has 350/70 people in my small insulae.

Well there clearly is a pattern, it adds 70 people everytime, exactly the amount of one insulae, but why does it do this? Howcome? Way around this? Any potential in this?

So i have a look at my advisors screen. It shows up as 46 employed plebs( correct 22+24 engineer and prefect). 304 unemployed plebs. Correct ( 350-46). Then i go to finance tabs: wow? nothings there. I put game on fast speed. Go back to finance tab. Nope , still not paid.
SO: i got 1 small insulae, 1 small domus, 1 prefect, 1 engineer office and i got 350 people and none of them needs to get paid.
:confused: ?????????????????

...and just now that I tought i'd seen it all with this editor....


Ok, so but back to the walkers then that you can place in the editor. At first it crashed, but that would probably be since i had a prefect office and then added an extra prefect while there would already be one from the prefect office.
Ok but when i place the burglar and enemy units, it did not crash. However they just dissapear. So what is their purpose then?. Cause they are not there for nothing. You can even place catapults and all. It would be so cool if you could place some enemy army there and they would rampage the city on the start.

Ill try some more things out later on.

Edit2: here is what i did next: I went back to editor and deleted the small insulae. Save. Exit. Start scenario. The small insulae now shows up with 70/70. The domus now has 240/40. Menus. Restart game. Small insulae still 70/70.

So this happens when you got inbetween editor and game. Has potential this one. Suppose, i build a small city , overcrowded with that little trick i just found out, with very bad circumstances, so that plebs, or at least equites would leave in masses. Would look like people leaving as I described in scenario. But then one step further: can you used this significant drop in population? Eg, like you described 2 methods of firing triggers by means of tracking a drop in amount of good or a change in favor. Could you track a large drop in population as well, and more specific, at the very beginning of the game, or the early stages?

...


You can trigger a message. But you can't trigger requests.

Ok, pitty that is, ill have to rewrite my scenario a bit then.






Edit3: i had taken a few screenshots of this, but when i just tried uploading them ,it told me they were to large ( 1440x900). So i resized them to to fit the maximum. But this time i got the message on uploading that the file is to big ( 1, 55 MB) and the max allowed is 683,6 KB. How can i make this snapshots smaller in size?




Edit 4: Have a look in the \Data\Audio\Sounds\Events folder. You'll see some sound files like event_odeum_01.wav. Try changing some of these (take backups of the originals of course )

Just tried it out.Backed original event_odeum_01 up. Copied a song. Changed name to event_odeum_01 , placed in the the folder. Started playing. When placing odeum, as soon as it got ready for a show, it crashed.
So i figured, the sounds are in .wav , my file was mp3.
Q: how can i change this easily. Any suggestions on a pogramm that does this, cause if you change the extension in windows it saves as event_odeum_01.wav.mp3



Edit 5: Just had a look at events under P tab: what is C4_XXX in the list good for? And what about those between xHighSalesTax and Nofood. There seem to be 8 empty spaces, but with this editor, im never sure whether there should be something there and i just cant read it or there is really nothing there.


And as always,
Thanks in advance for any reply...

[Hieronymus]

Fascinating stuff SimetricalJean!


So this happens when you got inbetween editor and game. Has potential this one. Suppose, i build a small city , overcrowded with that little trick i just found out, with very bad circumstances, so that plebs, or at least equites would leave in masses. Would look like people leaving as I described in scenario. But then one step further: can you used this significant drop in population? Eg, like you described 2 methods of firing triggers by means of tracking a drop in amount of good or a change in favor. Could you track a large drop in population as well, and more specific, at the very beginning of the game, or the early stages?

Yes, it's quite easy to track the population via the scripting.



Edit 4:

Just tried it out.Backed original event_odeum_01 up. Copied a song. Changed name to event_odeum_01 , placed in the the folder. Started playing. When placing odeum, as soon as it got ready for a show, it crashed.
So i figured, the sounds are in .wav , my file was mp3.
Q: how can i change this easily. Any suggestions on a pogramm that does this, cause if you change the extension in windows it saves as event_odeum_01.wav.mp3


I use Audacity myself which can export easily to .wav format from mp3
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows
There's also a link mp3 encoder from that page for exporting to mp3.

[SimetricalJean]

Hi Hieronymous, thanks for your swift reply.

I use Audacity myself which can export easily to .wav format from mp3
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows
There's also a link mp3 encoder from that page for exporting to mp3.

Wow, very easy to use indeed. Exported it. Stored it under sounds /events. made 2 of them.

Went in game. Placed 2 odeums. didnt crash anymore, great, had to wait a while before odeum got active, and all of the sudden i got his masters great voice going trough odeum.And in the Odeum it said: " Listen to the lovely music" :p ... A bit later I had Celine Dion singing in the odeum next to the one Pavarotti was singing. And the brilliant thing about it, is if you move away from the odeum, the sounds gets less loud, and if you move closer you can hear them singing. Simply brilliant Tilted Mill. Thanks for a great game. Now up to make them sing a duet....:D


Edit: well, was trying some more music things out went i found this out. I was using the same map ( Amida Brugensis3) with that small insulae and equites house on for my music experiment. So i had 3 odeums placed, and was waiting for the music when i get the message: Plebs happiness is rock bottom, id for equites. Now this is what is different again from what i tried above earlier, when i was waiting over a year before my plebs would leave but they didnt. ( see post above:)

I hit fast speed. In march their food has dropped to 372. April 316. May 260. May 204.June 148.July 92. July 36. August they are out of food, so expect them to leave anytime now., but no, october, november, december, still there. January, february, march , april, still there.Ow my equites houses take's fire. They are gone, just insulae left with no food since a year now. end of August, When are they gonna leave????? September, Fire, well that was it.

Now this in quote above did not had prefect office. But i tried that again, and then it had prefect office, but they still stayed.

So this time, with the odeum place i get the message that their happiness is rock bottom. Instances later i see plebs and equites leaving my city, and this time the numbers in the small insulae and equites do drop down, where as in the case of the ' fake immigrants', it did not, and with no other buildings except prefect and engineer, they didnt seem to care about happiness and they stayed in their houses.

So, i found how i can have a city that works at the beginning of my scenario. I can make that there are to many people in the city. I can make that they are very unhappy though they have plenty of food. And i can make them leave the city very early in the game because they are unhappy ( to much people in the houses, or the odeum that magically does its work). ( Maybe other buildings cause the same effect?) Have to check it out.

Now if i do that trick with "overcrowding" the houses , and player would start that game, there would inevitably be a significant drop in the early stages of the game in population. Brilliant!!!! Or did i miss here somewhere along my reasoning?



edit: ok, i read this thread: i dont know what to do first: rewrite my scenario with what iv discovered so far, and with the notes you gave Hieronymous, or, read more about the scripting stuff you guys wrote in the forum ( on how to edit the cs file) and then rewrite my scenario, or ...., or maybe im just gonna play a bit on my Belgica map...

Edit 2: an hour later, took a hot bath, and figured this thread is getting a bit messy. So instead of rewriting my scenario first, im gonna read my thread again, and pick the unanswered questions out of them and post them below. Then im gonna work in stages to keep things a bit structurized. Stage one will concern the set up of the map, the initial state of the city, goals, ... Then stage 2 will be when the game start, and stage 3 everything that happens when the game is running.

Edit 3: Here are the questions that remain unanswered so far:

1. One of my very early questions in post nr 8: Q: Do we already know how we can start a new map with absolutely nothing on.

So far i'v been using copies and alterations of existing maps to try stuff out.
Gotta read again, and try this out.

2. Post 8, edit 3: Is Amida already a 512 map or do i have to change size?
Ill answer that my self: yes Amida is a 512 map.


3. Post 8, edit 23: ...but i still dont see any Paint Tile button, which Pi Xerxes was talking about?

Did he simply mean paint ground? or...?


4. Post 9: I'm currently working on a scenario called The Dark Pool, based in Lindum.
How is your scenario going? Whats your biggest frustration been so far? Can you share some more information on what the scenario is like, or what kind of game its like?
Im sorry that im talking up so much of your time with all my questions for my scenario, so if there is anything i can do back for you...

5. Post 10: Q: even if i could create a new set of textures? Whats is good for , if you can take sample's.
Ok so i found how to create new textures, but then im still stuck with:
..."Failed to create new textures"

Still havent figured out how this works. So far iv been using sample and the sliders to adjust for fine tuning.

6. Post 18: ...when i tested the game and the first thing i spotted was that my birds on the map were not advancing, like the wind was to heavy or strong for them. They are like moving their wings but keep on hanging in the air and sometimes even fly a little back. Hihi, no, i did not have pause on...

Yeah, what was that about? i wonder what happens if they gotstuck in a sandstorm or something what would happen? sand in their eyes ofcourse:D

7. Post 25: ... when i set up trade cities they always show as active and when i go to play in my city they are already opened. SO how can i deactivate them , so when you start the game you have to pay to open them. I noticed that the active one's are coloured and the deactive (or inactive? which is which) are blue-ish....
SO i tried hitting the deactive, inactive, carry over button, replace it, new, delete, whatever i tried, they always show up as active. I also have them in my xml , so they work fine, its just that they are active when i dont want them to be, cause like this its just to easy and not really fun to play unless you quickly want to build the city.

8. Post 31: Just had a look at events under P tab: what is C4_XXX in the list good for? And what about those between xHighSalesTax and Nofood. There seem to be 8 empty spaces, but with this editor, im never sure whether there should be something there and i just cant read it or there is really nothing there.

And then some new questions: :o

9.I noticed that some of the music has a specific character, like North Europe, or North Africa, so i presume that Norht Europe one is been run on maps with the northern european looks or settings. How is this linked? Is it the appron or the overlooking region that determines which music is to be played.

Now you probably wanna now why i want to know something insignificant as this, but i was thinking of having something like ' By the rivers of Babylon' playing in the desert area that Amida is.


10.Whats up with the "enemy site/city" that you can set in the editor. How does that work or can it be exploited in some way? Gotta try this out

11.Can i make trade cities dissapear after time or appear? If yes : Can it be done in the editor? or do you need to do this with some scripting stuff

12.Iv seen pdf files on elevation and so explaining the editor on how to use it, but i havent seen anything on the request tab. Is there any more info available on that, or havent I been looking good enough?

13. Im still intrigued by those walkers that you can place in the editor. Surely they must have a function. But so far all that happens was, they either made the game crash on start up or if they dont make it crash, they dissapear instances after the game has started. You see them and then you dont...
Can anyone shed light on this? Maybe TM, can they tell if this is an obsolete function or can it be used for something, but i doubt they will read this.

Well, thats it for today i guess.



Thanks for reading...

[Hieronymus]

Edit 3: Here are the questions that remain unanswered so far:

1. One of my very early questions in post nr 8:

So far i'v been using copies and alterations of existing maps to try stuff out.
Gotta read again, and try this out.

Actually, I've never created a map from scratch - I've always started from existing ones.


4. Post 9:
How is your scenario going? Whats your biggest frustration been so far? Can you share some more information on what the scenario is like, or what kind of game its like?

Hahaha! I'd better be careful how I answer this one as aramann might be watching :D Actually, it's going brilliantly, so naturally I'm going to credit my tester for that :) My previous one (Pulchritudo Vincit) was done solo, is half as complicated, and took twice as long to do. There were times during the PV scenario when I could have cheerfully thrown the PC out of the window - the main cause of frustration being sorting out the elevations. No such troubles in The Dark Pool I'm glad to say!

We are currently onto version 5, testing over the weekend, and hoping to post early next week. We have two firm ideas for the next two - one targeted for mid-December and the other in early January. And we're discussing the one after that. The Dark Pool is based in Lindum, is mainly a military campaign, but with several subplots going on as well - a mystery and internal saboteurs to deal with too.


9.I noticed that some of the music has a specific character, like North Europe, or North Africa, so i presume that Norht Europe one is been run on maps with the northern european looks or settings. How is this linked? Is it the appron or the overlooking region that determines which music is to be played.


I imagine so - that it is the aprons (or rather the region that predetermined what aprons are available)


10.Whats up with the "enemy site/city" that you can set in the editor. How does that work or can it be exploited in some way? Gotta try this out

11.Can i make trade cities dissapear after time or appear? If yes : Can it be done in the editor? or do you need to do this with some scripting stuff

Unfortunately TM missed that one. Cities either stay visible or invisible throughout the scenario. A lot of my scenarios have used the "hidden trade route" trick to try to get around that.

[SimetricalJean]

Hello,


My previous one (Pulchritudo Vincit) was done solo, is half as complicated, and took twice as long to do.

Definetely gotta download some of your scenario' s and play them.

...testing over the weekend, and hoping to post early next week.

...looking forward to see what you'v been up to...


...the main cause of frustration being sorting out the elevations
..haven't been there yet, since iv been using flattened maps so far, and only did some elevation stuff when placing rivers...

... a mystery and internal saboteurs to deal with too.

...brilliant...very creative...



Quote:
Originally Posted by SimetricalJean
9.I noticed that some of the music has a specific character, like North Europe, or North Africa, so i presume that Norht Europe one is been run on maps with the northern european looks or settings. How is this linked? Is it the appron or the overlooking region that determines which music is to be played.



I imagine so - that it is the aprons (or rather the region that predetermined what aprons are available)

Well , i try that out later on to see if i change a music file,that it is played in the region that i want it to play.


Quote:
Originally Posted by SimetricalJean
10.Whats up with the "enemy site/city" that you can set in the editor. How does that work or can it be exploited in some way? Gotta try this out

11.Can i make trade cities dissapear after time or appear? If yes : Can it be done in the editor? or do you need to do this with some scripting stuff


Unfortunately TM missed that one. Cities either stay visible or invisible throughout the scenario. A lot of my scenarios have used the "hidden trade route" trick to try to get around that.

So you can't set up enemy sites then? But havent i seen original scenario's that had enemy sites( Alexandria, or was it Caesarea, Mediolanum?)(gotta check again). So when you say Tm missed that one you probably mean there can not be anything else done then setting them up. You cant spawn raiders from that enemy city since that is inherited from COTN.
So what can you do then with the enemy site if you set it up. Use it in request tab which has the category enemy site and make a request for that enemy city. ( Got more Q on the request tab, see below).

And then cities stay either visible or invisible troughout the scenario. Thats a pitty...but your answer lead me to read more about the' hidden trade route' and that led to me another post (thanks Pecunia or whoever it was)(oh well , let me see where i saw it...yeah, post 91 in this thread : http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11682&page=5


I'm interested in the methods to disable world level sites and have done some testing with (Un)lockEmpireLevelSite(): the only thing they seem to do is make the icon greyscale or full-colour; the player can still open trade with the city and sell & buy goods

and then Hieronymous: To date I've only been able to disable all land or all sea (or both ) trade by locking the trade depot/port build buttons. It is possible to selectively disable one trade route if you designate that as the only land route or the only sea route, and define that as world site index 0 (or 1 if the home city is 0). For example, I've been able to do that in the Djedu sandbox scenario by changing Latium to be the only sea trade route.

and then Pecunia further : What I did:
1) add two cities to the empire map (besides the home city): "Trigger" and "Fired". Both have their "Active" checkbox unchecked...


and that last bit answered one of my above questions that remained unanswered :
7. Post 25: ...
Quote:
when i set up trade cities they always show as active and when i go to play in my city they are already opened. SO how can i deactivate them , so when you start the game you have to pay to open them. I noticed that the active one's are coloured and the deactive (or inactive? which is which) are blue-ish....
SO i tried hitting the deactive, inactive, carry over button, replace it, new, delete, whatever i tried, they always show up as active. I also have them in my xml , so they work fine, its just that they are active when i dont want them to be, cause like this its just to easy and not really fun to play unless you quickly want to build the city.

So thanks for that....Silly me, i was hitting on the active and deactive buttons on the right side, but its the one in the middle of the screen that you have to (un)tick. Lols. And then ofcourse replace as usual. And then when going to play, you have to pay to open them. Good.

So you guys got a way around that to suspend trade with a certain city or active it, gotta read more about that and try it out.
What about having a "distant battle"? Could i set up an invisible city that request army to 'fight' there? I guess yes, gotta read more...

And then more about that screen, whats the tick box "'open message" for or was it " no open message"? i guess another obsolete function?



So i was checking out the Request tab when i noticed that the information that comes up if you hang your mouse over category did not correspond with the categories itself. It says 1 is resources, but its really 0 that is resources. So what about number 4 then? Its there, but nothing in the list? Is this one of these editor glitches that it doesnt show up or is there really nothing there?

So i set up a request for 10 grapes. Could not type any text in the body , only in heading, so i suppose i got to write that text in the xml or cs something.
So i went off in scenario to see if my request came up, when the latest mystery with the " migrants" happened right in front of my eyes. Im still using the same map to fool around with, and as you could read my above experience with the fake immigrants, and overcrowded houses, i had that insulae and domus deleted and then had set up the request . So im in the game waiting for my request, there are no buildings anymore this time, and here it comes: i suddenly see equites flocking toghether on the space where the small insulae and domus was build, but that i deleted in the editor. And not just one, but plenty of them, like at least 40 carts with equites, and instance later plebs aswell, like at least 30 of them. Clicking on them states they are leaving the city. But where on earth did they come from?????Like my walkers that i place in the editor go up in thin air, these lot come down straight from heaven on earth and appear out of nowhere and start leaving my city...oh and while i was thinking how this happened, i got my request, it came fine, just a text missing, but since i didnt type any body, there couldnt have been anything.

Well after that latest mystery with the fake migrants, i decided to have a look at them walkers again in the editor. They fascinate me...especially because you can place military units. You get the german , gaulish, parthian and carthagian once with catapult and all. Would be so cool to have some at the early start of the game. I also noticed that there are also there are enemy units. What faction are they then? ( something like local raiders or rebels maybe?...)
And then something else. If you select the walkers by family , there seem to be 3 families; 36: which contains most of the units. Then there is the family with number 2: those are all 3 guild workers. And then there is the 16 family. The 16 family is invisible. If you click on the first one, the editor crashes everytime giving a game exception stating: contact the supplier. Hihi. But the rest you can place. The first one seems to be cavalry unit but without the horse( he is just sitting in the air :D )Then you get some more units like roman soldiers i thinkg and then a cartpusher and light infantry and then you get a cart without pusher. Would be cool to place an abandonded cart somewhere along an abondonded depot or something. Just looks good :p

Oh yes, and what about the fountain water and water that you can set up in the trade cities. Has anyone been able to get this to work? I had tried one setup with a trade city where it would sell fountain water. Because i thought ,if that city sells me fountain water, then i dont need fountains, or something along those lines. But i remember it did not work. And another try with trade cities made it crash somehow.
I also noticed that in request you can ask for fountain water???Gotta try this out...

Oh, and Building restrictions in the editor: cool thanks TM,that you gave me the ability to disable desert sounds? Who builds desert sounds? Ok, lets say the user of the editor is stupid enough to place desert sounds in Northern European map? You think he is gonna disable the desert sounds in building restrictions if he placed them in the first place? If i dont want desert sounds in my map i would not place the desert sound thingy? RIght? Or does this mean, that it doesnt not really matter whether you place the desert sound thingy and by disabling the desert sounds, you actually disable all music that is linked to desert region?
But what about disabling a rubbled governors Estate? Who builds rublled governer estates in game? Or does this mean if you disable rubble governor Estate, your governor estate will not rubble ( collapse)? Same for disabling rubbled market in editor building restrictions. makes no sense unless.... or...they just copied the list of units in to the B.R. Or its the same list the editor is using as the units/buildings list...whatever....

C4_XXX in the editor events???? anyone????

I also noticed that you cannot build traders and tradeports in the editor.
I had this idea of setting up a trade depot at the beginning of the scenario, so thats out of the question.


And then i went on reading more in those stickies about scripting. Boy...i have no idea how long its gonna take me to master that..pff...i did read some cool things that can be done like trigger fire or damage. Would be cool to use in my scenario where i want the farms to go up in fire when the enemy arrives. ( As if the Romans set their own fields on fire). I also saw you can turn a plague on ( like the plague that strikes Amida in my scenario).... cool, gotta read more, but its kinda hard to understand it all, it takes me 3 times to read a sentence before i even slightly start to understand what is said there and what it actually means and what it implicates...not that its bad written...its just me...


Oh well...we'll get to the bottom of this one day...

[Hieronymus]

On the subject of enemy sites, the only significance of them is that the player can't trade with them. Apart from that they are just there to help with the storyline.

The "open message" box on the Empire map is again another throwback to the COTN editor.

I see you found out about the fountain water! :D Actually this is the first order in Pulchritudo Vincit from Caligula (it just seemd to fit). I haven't got anywhere with setting this up as a trade good. Whenever I tested it, opening the trade route (or placing the trade depot/port - I can't remember) caused C4 to crash. I did find that you could circumvent this by getting the script to open the trade route, and then placing the trade depot. However, in this case the traders never turned up to trade. Nor, I'm sorry to say, did I ever see a cartpusher being sent out from the depot to the nearest fountain to collect water for export. :)

[SimetricalJean]

Well, if i havent been frustrated yet, then i just was seriously this time. The impossible thing happened and still havent figured out how. So i had this other map Belgica, where im trying to set up a symetrical city.Started playing it a few times to see where it need adjust ments in the layout. So iv definetely spend like at least 10 hours or so just setting up the layout of the roads to make them perfect symmetrical and fit in the 512( which is never 512x512 because of those approns make it so hard to spot the middle). Anyway.I had great plans with my harbour. Im using the roads as walls and floor in my harbour. So cool to have roads acting as harbour walls. It looks like a canal, but anyway, so iv been spending like hours this morning tuning my harbour with roads and plaza and then lowering it so it comes under water level and make the edge with where the trade ports come look awesome cool.And saved a lot. So almost finished with my harbour when i want to save. So i hit save and my screen looks funny. Where you get the buttons with Save, delete and return, they appear in like a square that looks kinda sandy-brownish. And i couldnt save. And then the game just frooze.
So had to quit. On reloading my scenario then, i constantly get crashed to desktop.
So figured, ill make a copy and see what file is responsible. I make a copy off all of them. I figured out its the .cs file. I check with pecunia's scenario checker, and it states: unable to load scenario. Are you sure this is a C4 scenario?

So i figure, make a copy of the amida sc and use the color and blend files to reconstruct my map. Boy what was i thinking....all i get is the colors....all my elevation work gone, all roads gone, no sprites left, nothing just grass and water color. Well, nice....

At least i still got my screen shots to look at how nice it looked from playing the game...:mad:


Also havent figured out how to upload my snapshots, they are just to big. I already downsized them to 1024x1280 , but on uploading it says they are to big in MB.

It really looked nice, i had this blue-ish roads in my harbour which simply looked cool in the water aswel.
So anyway...i just restarted a bit on that map, when i realized that instead of having my blue roads under road type 1, this time its a different one. No nice blue roads this time in the editor.
So, i got back to one of my saved scenario's that i started playing of the now lost belgica map, which had the early stages of the map but without the nice harbour. ANd in that map i had blue roads. So i exit again, go back to editor to start up my new ( flat ) Belgica map, select roads, and hop, i got blue roads this time under road 1, whereas a minute earlier( or 2) i had brown roads?
You cant really change them directly but somehow influence it apparently, though i dont see anylogic again here???

[SimetricalJean]

Well, i got my nice harbour back...took me a bit, but it went quicker now that i got the elevation tool really figured out. It's brilliant what you can do with it. The roads really look cool as walls in the harbour. Next thing : trying to make staircase's with plaza's and elevation....:D

After that i fooled a bit around again with the editor, on my old map. Again trying to figure out what you can and cant do with the U tab.

So this time i set up a small insulae, a prefect office, an engineer, a market, a granary, a grain farm and 2 fields in the editor. Just to see what happens.
I also spot a "empty patrician home" in the list, so i think, let's see what that looks like, but if you select it, you dont really see a building, just the green ghost underneath it to show where it appears. You cannot build anything above it, you just dont see anything. So , i figure lets see what that looks like. I save it. Exit. Go to new scenario. Start playing.

And here is todays weirdness iv discovered. So my insulae has 70 peeps in it. The prefect office is running with 15 staff, the engineers with 14, the grainfarm with 19/30.The granary with 11/18. The market 11/18. The advisors all show up correct, labour, finances,... So everything as it should. Except for 2 things : 1. Where as in the editor i had placed a granary that looked empty, in game the granary is full,and not just full ,but has 32 meat, 32 veggies and 32 grain stored in it.!!! Though all you see is meat been stored. Then off of to the market and this one has 10 grain, 5 veggies and 10 meat. Ok cool to know. So i run the game a bit and they start getting stuff out of the granary. I believed they got some veggies out first, anyway, so the goods are really there. I wonder about what happens if you place a warehouse? ( gotta try this one out). I also noticed that the farm did not have any stocks.
And 2: Populations states 80. While my insulae only has 70 people in it. So they dont show up in any of the advisors. So i guess its the " empty patrician home" I added in the editor along with the rest. I still cant build on the spot where i placed the "empty patrician home". like it acts as a tile blocker. Wonder if it stops soldiers aswell?
But what do i notice. There is a walker near the place, standing along the road. Select her, says : Curia: Returning home. So is it empty? Why cant you see it? And why is my population off by 10? Ghosts of the ancestors...????:D

And then something else i noticed in the editor. There is an actor, trained animal, and a few more that are displayed under "Other" instead of under " Walkers", wonder why that is, especially since there are already 2 actors showing up under ' Walkers'.

And i succesfully placed my first walker that did not vanish in thin air on starting up the map. Nothing special, it was just a few traders, but funny enough, it was actually just 5 mules that i placed on the map. They have no person with them. So on playing the map, they show up, stay there. And like a month or so later, suddenly traders appear and take the mules, and head off for the waypoint they are supposed to go. Like they did trade and head off for home.

Edit 1: so here is what i did next. I went back in to editor, and noticed instead of having an empty granary, this time it looked full as it just showed up in game, which i by the way did not save, and where as above you could only see meat, this time i could see veggies in the warehouse, which made me kinda suspect, it saves the last stock and then uses it in the editor somehow to show up. so does the market show goods now in the editor. So, i figured, i will not change anything this time, exit again and go back to scenario and start again. This time the small insulae shows up with 70/70 people in it. So i figured, if you build in the editor, then go to scenario, then go back to editor, but do not change anything, then one playing the game again, itwill show up correct, but if you make changes after wards and save and then play again, the population in the houses shows up wrong as described above. So I go back to editor and save it again without actually changing anything. Back to scenario, and yes, indeed, if you have read the above experiences in earlier posts about the "overcrowded houses", this time (because of the going in between editor) i had 140/70 people in my small insulae. So all buildings fully staffed and labour is paid for. Again the population shows up different. This tiome it shows 160. So 2 times 10 "ghost ancestors" this time. I go check the granary, now it has 24 meat, 31 grain, and 38 veggies, as i suspected, it kinda saved what i last did in the previous game, although i did not save it, but i saved in the editor.The granary shows up different this time, with veggies and meat on display. It also has different stocks: 24 meat 38 vegggies and 31 grain. Its more then when i left the game earlier on after having it let run for a while, but different then the first attempt. So if you let the game run for a while,you can control the amount the player would have on the start up in his granary. Oh yes and all buildings fully staffed and paid for.
So i forgot to build the warehouse, what actually was why i went back to try things out. So i build a warehouse or 2, just to see. Scenario, start playing, but nothing in the warehouse's. Just empty. But hold on, what if i build a basic market?
So back to editor and i build a basic market, save it and back to scenario; start playing and my warehouses are still empty, but my basic market is not, it has 6 pottery, 3 glass, 4 olive oil. My population is 280/70 now and total pop of 320. So i let the game run, and because of the basic goods, the small insulae evolves, and i was so curious at this point what would happen to population? Would new plebs move into the house, or .....??


Well, what happened is this: once the building evolved, the population returned normal as it should for a medium insulae: 110/110. Total population still showed 150 ( because of that "empty patrician home" which now hold s 40 'ghost ancestors". Ofcourse the obvious result is that suddenly the city is inevitably short of labour by march the same year where as at the beginning it showed up with unemployment. Lols....

gotta try more out...

[SimetricalJean]

Nor, I'm sorry to say, did I ever see a cartpusher being sent out from the depot to the nearest fountain to collect water for export.


Thats ok,... at least we are able to change the price of fountain water in the editor :D

[SimetricalJean]

Hi,

If you read the story above about the " fake immigrants", "overcrowded houses", "ghost patrician ancestors",...well, i found another one :D . .."The non- existant temple" . The what? Yes, a non - existing temple. So im fooling around in the editor again. ( Yesterday actually). This time, i deleted everything on that was on that map including the "empty patrician home". So i build a small insulae again, market and granary and prefect and engi, just basics. So im looking around in the list what else you can build, when my eyes spots the temples. Now there are the 5 temples for the gods, like in the game, but there is also simply " Temple" with no specification. If you try to build it, you get the green ghost square again( just as with the empty patrician home). If you build it, you can tbuild anything above it. So i build it. Save. Off to play the scenario. I start, things seem fine at first glance( or as i expected). When i look for the "mysterious non - existent temple", again , i can not build anything above it. If you look in advisors, religious, nothing shows up. But here is the interesting thing about this one: just like with the "empty patrician home" and its ghost ancestors, this one has a priest standing near the building. If you select him you, you can click on "go to this person home" and then the temple shows up, although you dont see it, it has the yellow/green square around it AND it states 0/33. Off to labour advisor. It shows up as need equites 33, but since i didnt build a equites home it could not work. Back to editor. Add a domus, save, back to scenario, holy smoke..., the priests ( 2 of them) are walking around blessing households, though you dont see the temple, but it needs labour ( 33/33 and shows up in labour advisors) and is getting paid for. Lols....

Then i tried some more things out. This time I was looking to build walls, but i cant seem to find any walls, though you can place towers. Again, on start up, they are immediately staffed and working with balista showing up. Need.
I also added a cavalry auxilia fort ( well 2 of them,the large and small) and a mess hall and recruitment post. As expected they did not show up at beginning of game with army in it ( but who knows...) Though they are empty they show up as confident :D
Then i also builded a luxury market in the editor, which shows up at beginning of game with 3 luxury goods in it. 2 furniture, 5 utensils and 6 wine.

Back to editor, i added this time a bit of housing: on top of the small insulae and the small domus, i added a large insulae, a grand domus and a grand mansion( pat_09_mansion - in editor)
On starting up, everything showed fine, well, that is, the small insulae and domus by now had more people then it should, the newly housing showed up fine. The grand mansion had 402 food, 604 basics and 541 luxury goods in them but no exotic. I let the game run, the grandmansion starts devolving straight away due to no fountain water, the small insulae evolves to medium and corrects itself to 110/110. The large insulae devolves due to no fountain water and corrects itself aswell to medium 110/110. Same for the Large domus which goes to small domus. The small domus stays overcrowded due to no evolving by lack of fountain water. OK
Back to editor, and i add a tax collector ,save, exit , back to scenario. This time all housing is overcrowded, on letting the game run, almost the same thing happens, except this time, i was interested in an overcrowded grand mansion and its tax effect. Only this time, while the rest is evolving/Devolving and corrects itself, the patrician home on devolving does not like the small insulae or domus, but the overcrowded people stay ( so i had like 60/30 people or was it 90/30 in my already devolved grand mansion to large villa. SO different agian than with the insulae. So by march i get 126 tax in, but by september the houses is that devolved that it is vacated and but yielded 495 property tax. It also is vacated entirely, where as overcrowded insulaes without anything would stay untill there home burned down, if the insulae had not evolved or didnt had the chance. Anyway, strange stuff all.

By now, i figured, if i want a normal city appearing on the beginning of the scenario, building the city is the last thing that should be done in the editor, only saved once and ready to go, but who wants to build a 'normal city' to appear at the beginning of a scenario ....:rolleyes:

And then some more, what about :
-the "invisible coast effect" that looks like an arrow if you place it...whats the purpose of an effect if its invisible in this case? ( this one is under buildings U-tab)
- "Rubbled Service building": what building is this, i dont recognize it from the game?
-"Why are "rubbled villa's" specified with 1-3 and 4 and not 1-2-3? Where is 2?
- If you select by family , why do some units like the "cattle rancher" appear under the military family ( 36) . Is that because he has a knife to butcher the cows and has potential fighting skills,.... or is he just classified as dangerous cause he's a 'butcher',....?:D

I also downloaded a few of the user created maps on heaven games ( Ex decorum Veritas, really nice map, and the Final Deception, and on checking that last one, i noticed in the empire level that the icons were different.(pottery instead of the typical looking cities) Even the message stated something like Foreign Kingdom. So i went back to editor, and silly , silly me, iv spend way to much time around the editor the last time and still failed to see that when you change the icon graphic of the empire city the list seems short and then empty but youcan actually scroll down to the bottom. The one's inbetween dont show up in my editor, but you can select them, one of them is the pottery icon, and then others are something like Red fist ( looks a bit ugly on the map actually, Red Flag, which looks kinda cool with the Roman Eagle on it , but bit small, and then there is also the Golden eagle like in 'our city' but smaller and a red sword and Spears Large and Small spears( which look good for barbarian sites). I also found how to change the message in the xml to show up like anything you want it to show up on the empire map.

Then today i started adding invasions, wages changes, snow in the weather, military request and i must say that went much easier then expected( thanks to the more then usefull threads you guys wrote about scripting). Basically copied and pasted a lot and then changed to fit my scenario, did the xml txts, ...checked with scenario checker, forgot a few things, but corrected quickly. Started playing and it works...brilliant...

However this was a very basic scenario, i kinda figured by now how it works, but when i see words like bool or enum or inStopFutureRecurrence and more of those, i really dont know what im really seeing, so illiterate when it comes to things like this. ANyway, ill figure it out..

And now im still intrigued by the events tab where you can enable or disable certain events from within the editor.
I posted somewhere a question above about what's C4_XXX for in that list. Well, i still havent figured it out, but i noticed that in this list, there are some things that dont show up again, so i wanted to know what they are. You can disable them and then the list doesnt have the empty space anymore inbetween "High Sales and No Food". So i though, the editor must get it information somewhere, so i looked in data/db.events.dat, i only have wordpad that seems to open it , so i could not read it all, but the text seems to correspond somehow with the list in the editor. It has all the stuff in there that you can see in the editor / events list, and presumably those that you cant see in the editor aswell. So i narrowed them down and here is what i got left that doesnt show up in the editor, but seems to be there.: there is something about "Test Message"," Cato the Elder", "Event Test Petronius", "Event TEST Brutus", "overthrown event government", "raider event"....So anyone any idea what this is, obsolute or non functional? This cannot be something from COTN? just the names dont sound very Egyptian to me...



Thanks in any case for any reply


Edit: ...i should have know, but yes, there seems to be also a " mystery shrine", i suspect its gonna be like the temple but havent checked it..

Edit2: just tried the shrine out, well this one went different then expected, on selecting it in the editor, you actually see the building, it looks like something between a tall temple of Mercury but with a Jupiter shrine as entrance. It also covers partly the street with its front, the building is like 4x7 tiles but the ghostsquare is more like 4x4. In game it works with 15/15 staff, and you can actually see this one where as the temple you dont see. So the shrine is not that mysterious after all, but at least it looks good in game...

[SimetricalJean]

Nice work Pecunia : just found the link on heaven games to what seems to be the beginning of a great editor guide : http://caesar4.heavengames.com/gameinfo/editor
Thanks a lot for that, really appreciated, ....like i had no idea that the approns would determine whether you can do trade on sea or not, i guess iv just been lucky to have taken an appron that supports sea trade, without realising it...
Keep up the good work....


And if anyone of you finds some time to look at some of the above questions, i know you are all very busy...

[Pecunia]

like i had no idea that the approns would determine whether you can do trade on sea or not, i guess iv just been lucky to have taken an appron that supports sea trade, without realising it...
As stated on the page, you CAN have sea trade with any apron:
For aprons without water entry, trade by water is still possible by running a river to any map edge, but it will look odd.

Why are "rubbled villa's" specified with 1-3 and 4 and not 1-2-3? Where is 2?
The numbers refer to the level of the villa, with 1 being small villa. Because they are only used in the Carthago scenario: the designers probably decided they only wanted to have rubbled small villas, large villas and small estates, and so they didn't bother to create other rubbled versions of other patrician housing.

[SimetricalJean]

Aha,...an update on editor pages on heaven games; thanks a lot Pecunia, i got my answer on something that intrigued me :the Walkers: This option was only used by Tilted Mill to get people into their early screenshots from the game. Best not to use them in your scenario.
Tell me about it, it either crashes the game or they just vanish. Though the mules staid for a while till some peeps came to pick em up...anyway...


Buildings: Do note that houses and other buildings that store resources will behave in an unpredictable way: the goods in stock will vary and houses will add “phantom people” to your population count. Use with care

Not all buildings that store resources; only the granary, markets and housing. Depots for example don't do it, nor do any other buildings like farms, goldmines that can hold resources. And only if you have started playing the scenario and then go back in the editor and save and go back to scenario, it will behave odd housing wise ( 'ghosts' /doubles population everytime you go back in forth in between editor( & save) and play scenario ) If you build the city last thing and dont change anything else afterwards having played it once, it will not behave odd with the number of population. Anyway,not to important...
And you cant build walls in the editor.

The actual look of “Road 1” in the game is defined by the region you chose: desert roads look different from Northern European ones.

Another one of my silly questions answered :D


Oh and, i didnt see any mention of the " remove sprites" on the T tab. As obvious as it might seem, since your doing the Units tab, maybe you can mention that with "remove sprites" you can remove any "objects" such as buildings, walkers, other's, except roads and arable.

Looking forward on your section about the events...

[Pecunia]

Aha,...an update on editor pages on heaven games; thanks a lot Pecunia
LOL, I didn't intend to release those pages yet, but I guess they slipped in when I fixed the "next" link on the aprons page ;) They're not quite done yet: I'm still working on them, especially the last one.

Thanks for the additional info on the walkers & buildings. In fact, this thread has been a little goldmine of info regarding them: thanks for doing so many experiments :)

[SimetricalJean]

I didn't intend to release those pages yet...

yeah sorry for already giving comment on an unfinished page ( which seems is by now finished), so ignore my comment about 'Remove sprites', i should have noticed that you were only halfway when i read it, it stopped somewhere around: and this is where it gets interesting...anyways

On your "placing objects" page:
A note regarding elevation:....
Yes, except roads, you can build roads under water,(made a nice canal-looking harbour with it) but then again, you correctly state 'Objects'...


keep up the good work...

[Pecunia]

yeah sorry for already giving comment on an unfinished page ( which seems is by now finished)
No problem at all, it just motivated me to finish it :) Besides, it's my own fault for making it accessible through links on the other pages. *goes off to write some more pages*