Star Wars scenario... no, seriously!

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia Edit: another way round my lack of a ToT map editor is to edit rivers directly. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly how to do that. I think I have the relevant software: CivEngineer. Does anybody recall how to place rivers in-game?

Have x terrain transform to 'no' in the rules (technically, disabled), and have an engineer terraform it in-game (using the 'o' key, as under the menu it should be disabled). IIRC, you need to get to move the engineer by issuing an order to another unit with the keyboard as well, so crate enother unit right next to it and put it to sleep.

I'd recommend changing transform time as well

[Alinestra Covelia]

I did this once and if I recall correctly, I had to do the above, but there was another step in the process. I think I had to open a program and convert all the terrain of that type to something else, and then convert it back to turn them all into rivers.

Any tips?

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Does Civ2Map work with Civ2 ToT? I tried loading a map by clicking on a ToT .sav and the mapedit didn't like it.

I suppose you're using my ToT map editor. It's really a conversion of the MGE map editor so it can't open ToT savegames. But ToT allows you to export the map in a savegame through its Map menu. You can use the map editor on that exported map.

Then I tried making a very simple map in the mapedit and loading it from ToT, and that similarly didn't work.

What did you do exactly?

Edit: another way round my lack of a ToT map editor is to edit rivers directly. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly how to do that. I think I have the relevant software: CivEngineer. Does anybody recall how to place rivers in-game?

CivEngineer won't help here. Here's the LeMay/Harlan approach, quoted from Leon Marrick's Advanced Scenario Design guide:

It has long been thought that rivers could only be created in the map editor. Now, thanks to LeMay and Harlan Thompson, this is revealed not to be the case. To create rivers:[list=1][*]Open up the rules.txt file and change the base time for engineers to transform terrain in the cosmic principles section to zero (0). Also in the rules.txt file, temporarily change the terrain that all the terrains you plan to alter are transformed into to "no". After you have finished making rivers, change them back.[*]Create three (or more on other terrain types. For example, mountains take eight) engineers on each of the squares you want rivers to appear. Lastly, create any unit of that civilization off to one side (see next step for why).[*]Select the unit off to one side, and give it any order. This "initializes" the method, and tells the program that all future sets of engineers will be making funky terrain. Without using the mouse, issue the "o" (transform) command to engineers on the squares you want rivers to appear on as they start blinking in turn. As the third engineer on a desert, plains, or grassland square (or more on any other terrain) receives the transform command, the terrain will turn into a odd river/coal/desert combination.[*]To restore the proper terrain type, simply use the cheat menu to alter terrain. All the funny-looking graphics will disappear, but the river will remain.[/list=1]

But you really should be able to get the map editor to work...

[N35t0r]

You can also turn all movecosts to 1 (try 0 as well) so as to need 3 engineers to do stuff.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by beingofone

If you could include some kind of missions for these key characters, I think this would add an interesting dimension to the game, such as Luke being trained by the little muppet.

I agree. I think the events text could be a great asset, for example, the Death Star might not become available until the Empire seizes control of Coruscant. Then Thrawn would appear only after the Emperor has been killed.

Admiral Daala could be kept imprisoned in a landlocked base, with all the land squares consisting of Stars and Black Holes (to simulate the inaccessible Maw Installation) until Thrawn dies, and so on and so forth.

For the Rebellion, I am thinking of including multiple scenarios alternatives, so their Rebel Headquarters is a different planet each time. Mon Mothma and their Palace will be the same variable planet, and it's up to the Empire to find and destroy that planet.

Maybe the Rebels will be unable to carry out any tech research except Future Tech, until such time as they take an Imperial world, whereupon they will be gifted a tech to let them into the correct tech tree.

We can have several Luke units. The first would be pre-Yoda, and the Rebels would have to discover Dagobah and put Luke on it (capture). That creates Jedi Luke, who may be the only one to be able to kill Vader (perhaps have it that anybody else who kills Vader causes him to respawn at Coruscant...?).

Other combinations are possible. Star Wars Supremacy did a passable job of programming similar plot events into the game, but there should be a good variety of other things to add in.

Mercator: I'll try the export map feature. I used the transform glitch to force a few rivers on and that seemed to work okay.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Behold!

Below, a demonstration of moderate tile-set cleverness.

To the southwest, there's a galaxy. I'm having trouble because it's rivers, and needs to have stuff on all sides to hem it in otherwise it gets stroppy with the rivermouths. Currently I'm having it hemmed in with "Star" Terrain (hills), which seems reasonable. Stars do tend to congregate around galaxies.

In the midst of the Star Destroyer Fleet, lies a hapless Homeworld. (It's the forest tile.)

Nearby are a Gas Giant (two-tile) and a Coruscant (four-tile) which are all made using forest tiles, just in a deceptive arrangement to fool the computer.

To the northeast, there is a black hole. This was created by bunching nine Stars (hills) together. Evidently having too many stars together isn't safe either.

[N35t0r]

I'd play around with the river mouths to simulate astroids, or maybe magellanic cloud-like objects...

[Arthedain]

Nice to see that you're moving forward with the scen. I like your new terrain graphics (even if it need some deveopment). I hope you got my response via e-mail btw.

[Exile]

"Stroppy?"

[Alinestra Covelia]

Mercator:

I opened Civ2MapEdit, and made a map. I saved this map in the relevant folder.

When I ran Civ2ToT, I selected start on preexisting map. The program crashed, even before I could select any map or before the load window came up.

This is making me only slightly mad, although I may be only one wave short of a complete shipwreck.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Exile
"Stroppy?"

The state of being sulky, taciturn, or cantankerous. Usually applied to adolescent females when you have just refused to take them to the mall.

The male version of the word is "shirty". As in "Don't get shirty with me young man".

Both are predominantly UK used.

Also: how do you designate impassable terrain squares?

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
When I ran Civ2ToT, I selected start on preexisting map. The program crashed, even before I could select any map or before the load window came up.

I doubt there can be anything wrong with the map. There are only two things I can think of:
(1) I've never been able to run the map editor and ToT simultaneously. When one is running the other simple won't start up. Do you by any chance have them running at the same time? Perhaps they can run simultaneously on your computer but it causes errors? If you've got the map editor still open, close it.
(2) Perhaps some of your files are corrupt? Most likely ToT text files, like the Labels.txt. See if replacing that fixes anything.

It's rather puzzling in any case... I guess the inevitable suggestion is to try reinstalling ToT (if the above 2 points don't help).

This is making me only slightly mad, although I may be only one wave short of a complete shipwreck.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Well, I've tried the above two points and a reinstall is out of the question at this point - my computer is dealing with something of a hard disk space problem and also I cannot be arsed. So I'm just going to soldier on through it, working through the game itself to edit the terrain.

So now the next step is to designate the unit slots, using William Keenan's FAQ. I will post the unit listing and the units bmp when I'm finished. This may take a day or a few days.

[Alinestra Covelia]

One last question: does anybody have an unaltered version of the RULES.txt file for the Original version of the game (civ2ToT)? I can't find it in my directory and it may be contributing to the crashes...

[Broken_Erika]

some units that you may find useful,