tfs99:

A place for those who like to create scenarios and maps to make suggestions. Perhaps also a place for those with ideas on specific scenarios.

Civ3 n ... Ted S.

zaz:

With above tool the map-designer can replace certain terrain-types globally with a click of a button, without having to search trough the entire map and manually replacing certain tiles one by one.

How about, instead of editing the text files, all customizations should be made through a scenario/map editor. For example, a module similar to ACEdit for editing factions, a tech-tree creator ( that would be hard), and a rules modifier. Instead of having to copy and replace and back up and other messy stuff to load custom files, there should be a system similar to the following:

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

"Yeah, kinda combine SMAC and CIV2 and you've got the perfect map editor."

No!

The one biggest thing that dragged SMAC and CivII down was their bad map editor and horrible scenario editor.

At least in CivII you had a separate map editor that allowed you to quickly whip up a map. SMAC had no such amenities. You had to use the cheat menu, and do it while in a game. The messiness of that cannot be overstated. Playing with altitude coherently was nigh-on-impossible. Fooling around with technologies took forever. Same with cities, especially making new cities- switch to Civ that gets new city. Give civ colony pod. Build city. Then cheat it some resources, have a turn go by (in which the computer does god knows what with the other factions taht you wanted to hold still), and repeat for other improvements. Are we having fun yet? Making a scenario, not a map, was basically impossible. And a map was not much fun either.

SMAC's "editor" was a giant step BACKWARDS from CivII's. With CivII I had enough time to create one scenario, IIRC, and that was derivative of the WWII scenario relieving me of the necessity to actually make the map work. SMAC I just gave up after a half an hour of wrangling with the altitude controls.

What I have to give to both SMAC and CivII was their tremendous customizability of rules in both. Keep the rules in .txt files, and add even more things we can edit. That is where I have to take my hat off to both SMAC and CivII. They may not be the best scenario makers, but they sure were able to really customize the standard game to any kind you wanted.

Now, for some constructive criticism. If you want to have a good place to start, go to the HOMM III map editor. It has flaws, but only because it has gone so far beyond what most map editors can do you start to see what CAN be done. For those of you that don't have it, you can place anything you want in the editor on a map right away. Fortifications, mountains, forests, cities- you should only have to drag one over from a sidebar and plop it down. Actually, in CivIII, you'd just paint the mountains and forests on, I suppose (like you can with other basic terrain types in HOMM III, like grass, snow, dirt...). You can drag and drop all the irrigations and roads and mines you want, as well, or click "auto-improve" and watch as the civ builds itself up some (every city improves x-2 squares around it, with x equaling the city's population). You should be able to drag events that trigger when a player walks across a patch of ground signaling a message, a gift of gold, a theft of gold, or a battle encounter with some enemies (in Civ's case, these "ground events" would need to be strips of territory, not just one space as in HOMM III). You should be able to click on the city and modify everything that's in it, all it's stats, and set limits on it. If you want a border fort town, that has city walls & barracks already built but has a max population of 3 and cannot build any structures other than the most basic, then you should be able to do that, and outlaw the other buildings and pre-build the buildings. Not to mention plopping down the citizens, armies, etc. You should then be able to go up to a pull down menu on the top and set characteristics for the entire Civ, like in CivII- technology it has, technology forbidden to that Civ, Social engineering, AI personality, etc. You should be able to set timed events for each civ from this scenario editor, with no need of an events.txt file like in CivII. Those timed events should be like the ground events- they tell scenario information and plot twists, they give money, they take money, they give troops to cities, etc. And needless to say, all you should have to do is select a player from a pull-down menu, take a unit, and drag it onto a patch of ground. Plus, you should be able to give the unit orders as well (if it's played by the AI)- hold your ground, patrol 5 squares from here and attack any that get nearby, goto CityX, etc.- and these orders would be followed by the AI, not changed. The possibilities grow exponentially when items like these are added.

For instance, the Peaceful kingdom of SnowFire is a well developed civ- but that didn't take long, since I merely placed the cities, quickly checked off a list of improvements built in them, and gave them population, after which I selected "auto-develop SnowFire." However, I put the barbarians of Activision nearby. Their cities are not nearly so built up, but they have been amassing of horde of troops to pour into SnowFire's realm. They all have orders to take certain cities in SF's border, after which the AI, which is set to aggressive and really hates SnowFire, will surely continue to use the units to attack. The barbarians also have several technologies forbidden to them, so they can't take my technologies in the attack. They are also set to anti-technological so they will not waste production building libraries. I, as SnowFire, get the news of this attack in events given to me. I try and quickly build up units to knock back the horde. After stopping them with only a few cities lost, I push them back to their own territory. As my army crosses the isthmus, I get a message saying that barbarians army remnants jump out in ambush and attack. Of course, that event could only be triggered by me, and it's canceled after one use. My remaining army staggers back home to rest and rejuvenate, when I get a message saying that the barbarians are not my true enemy, they were really funded by Evil Lord Death across the seas.... blah blah blah. You get the point.

Which reminds me- as in CivII, the scenarios should be able to make use of different rules.txt files than the normal game.

IMPROVED RANDOM MAP GENERATOR:

Ok, the fractal thing is nice, but I have yet to play on a random map of AC that looks anything like a planet. In fact, I pretty much stick to Huge AC for that very reason.

SO: Take an ocean. Draw various polygons on it, clustering them together in X groups. Then intersect the polygons, and run the fractal algorithm where inner area of polygons more or less = land.

When we are choosing the land mass size, rainfall, etc.. what about an option to choose Isolationist (on island alone), confrontational (on continent with others) r random?

Paininting the terrain was great, but I also like the replace method mentioned.

Special Resources instead of being dictated in only certain spacing (its annoying when building a map) should be placeable like AOE where you plop it down so you can have them however close or far you want them. (there's more to add to this but i figure it goes in the terrain section).

I'm still hoping for a cut and paste (and a stretch/enlarge) function. This way you just trace/highlight/capture Europe on a world map and thn paste then stretch on a blank one. Chances are you'll have to make corrections and adjustments but if your making a scenario you'll have to do that anyways.

I do hope there are levels and zoom functions (i.e. army groups down to units) but that belongs in another section too.