puzzled by trade & the editor

[DoctorG]

Hi folks,

I've been trying to make a scenario. I've been following this excellent tutorial and it has helped me enormously.

I'm an archaeologist. I also enjoy games, and I've used a scenario I built in Civ IV in my teaching. Now I want to use Caesar IV as a simulation to explore Roman economics. The idea is, I'll get the students to play this scenario, and in playing it, it will highlight/contrast game mechanics with the current understanding of how the Roman economy work (if you think regular economics are dry, you ain't seen nuthin' till you've read ancient historian's take on the matter... gaming economics ought to be way more fun for my students!).

So the place I want to model in the game is called 'Forum Novum'. I worked there on excavation once, and I've always been fascinated by the place. It is located up in the Sabine Hills, north of Rome. It has all the accouterments of a town, except for one important thing: no people. It seems they all lived on farms in the hills surrounding the forum. More about Forum Novum here, and a google map centred on the ancient site here

I duly worked my way through the guide to the editor, setting up and saving constantly my landscape, resources, orders, requests, trade, etc.

I've used the Civ4 Scenario checker too on my scenario which brings us to problem one. It tells me that no security goal is set. I've got one in the xml, and in the editor itself, I've got a goal set for security. So I don't know what's happening there.

Problem 2 is more serious. I'm puzzled. I believe that I have trade correctly set up in the editor, and the one city with which I want a trade route etc correctly done in the xml file. But the whole thing crashes whilst playing the scenario and I try to open a trade route. I have the latest patch, and trade routes do not crash any other scenarios or the regular game: just my scenario.

What am I doing wrong? I've attached all the files to this post, and look forward to any help/suggestions you folks could offer.

Many thanks!

[postscript: I've removed the *draft* version; version fixed as per suggestions below is available here

[Hieronymus]

Hello DoctorG

I had a look at your scenario and I believe I've found what your problems are.

But first - have you come across this excellent scenario checker by the amazing Pecunia? I actually ran this first before loading your scenario into C4, and Pecunia's utility gave me a pretty good idea of what you needed to do.

1. The Security Goal. This is a very easy mistake to make (I know, been there, done that ). What you have done is picked out "Security Level" as your goal (the one immediately before "Culture Rating Level"). What you need to do is scroll down and pick "Security Rating Level" instead (the one immediately below "Culture Rating Level"). Why TM put in "Security Level" is anyone's guess... Sometimes (ask aramann!) it seems as though there is an evil entity inside it whose sole purpose in life is to make the designer's life a misery...

2. Trade crash. I strongly suspect that this is because you set up Rome to import more than 3 types of goods and to export more than 3 types of goods. That's the limit you're supposed to stick to. It looks like you need to add another one or two trade routes to trade in those additional goods.

Actually if you really wanted to have Rome appear to be trading in all of these goods, there is a way of doing this using invisible trade routes and a little bit of scripting. Let me know if you wanted to go that way.

[DoctorG]

Ah! Brilliant! Thank you very much. I would've dashed my head against the keyboard forever, before finding those answers!

Honestly. What were they thinking with this editor? sheesh.

So there's a limit per city for trading. Ok. I can work with that. The broad-strokes picture of the Roman economy, at least in the hinterland of Rome, is that everything luxurious or manufactured goes from Rome to the surrounding villages etc to pay for the basics like grain and vegetables. But this limitation in the game will force the player to develop an economy within that hinterland, rather than a simple back-and-forth with Rome itself. That's actually probably a better reflection of what the archaeology tells us, anyway. In any event, it makes for a teachable moment.

Now I can move forward!

[DoctorG]

Ok - I've got it set up the way I want now, I think - I'll put the scenario up in the 'scenarios' part of the forums. Thanks again Hieronymous!