Tiny shorter short cuts to designing a scenario... Any takers on this????

[Civfan]

Anyone know of short cuts desinging a scenario?????

[Michael Daumen]

The more you can plan out on paper before even starting Civ2, the better.

[Cam]

I'm not sure if you're after time-saving hints or just after ways to knock out a scenario without putting in too much work, however generally it could be argued…

Quick scenarios can be made from:

(a) 'borrowed' graphics - particularly units and icons,
(b) an unoriginal map,
(c) few modifications to the technology tree,
(d) easy changes to artwork that seem to make a big impression - terrain colour changes using a colour-replacer tool, the same for the text-box backgrounds in icons.gif, the flags and tribe colours, a title image taken off the 'net, etc.,
(e) simple events file at most - a few text boxes and randomly created units,
(f) undeveloped starting position, and
(g) little consideration to plot development or playtesting.

You will probably be faster at developing a scenario if you've played many and have made at least a few yourself. With experience you'll be able to better define your scenario's objective, dismiss construction approaches that you know won't work, avoid 'novice pitfalls', and more quickly implement any innovative ideas. As Michael notes (above) - more paper and less messing around on the computer also helps.

At the end of the day however, the scenario that's made with a focus on shortcuts will probably make a shortcut to the player's recycle bin. Personally I urge people to spend time over 'dotting the i's and crossing the t's' when it comes to scenario development - otherwise you won't get much of a sense of achievement from the exercise, the people who will download the game won't persist with it, and you'll end up with a questionable reputation as a scenario designer. First scenario attempts are an exception, where the objective really is to get a basic grasp of the interaction of the various files and how these may be customised.

Did Jesús Balsinde get his reputation from taking shortcuts? Unfortunately all good things (usually) take time.

[ZhugeLiang]

This is the bottom line, if you don't want to put the nessicary work into your scenerios they won't be worth playing when you are done. Now, if you are looking for an easier way of doing them, that I can help with. Don't look at scenerio building as a chore. Just take it at your own pace, what does it matter if your scenerio takes a week or even several months to complete? Just set a goal of working on something like, say the unit graphics, download scenerios and mod packs others have made about simaler scenerio subjects and then use those, and even modifie them if you wish, then desing a tech tree, take your time and think it out, then maybe the next week or month start working on the events and so on. A 1000 crappy scenerios aren't worth a really fun one that utilizes all of civ 2's capacities and keeps you coming back.

[Civfan]

actually when I created this thread, I had the ideal of getting hints and tricks to help with the time consuming process of developing the scenario.

tip 1. Helps on the playtesting part. After you have created the first part of your scenario and have playtested it to death, save the game and continue from there.

tip 2. For the use of cities. IF you want 5 improvements in every city of your empire, instead of creating every improvement in every city, you can use the copy improvements in the city options. Then you can work out each city with different improvements to meat with the terrian,

tip 3. A well out plan on paper.

[Michael Daumen]

I'd like to expound on my post since civfan brought it up. Take some paper (or a new txt file for you lazy mouse potatos) and

i) List the nations you want to use. Add or combine nations if you have a number not equal to seven, and decide whether you should use barbarian cities to represent an eighth nation.

ii) For each nation, list the unique units that it will build. If one unit can be used by multiple civs, note that as well.

iii) Write down a start date and end date for your game (after research if necessary). The longer the time in between the two dates, the bigger part technology should play in the scenario. For quest-type games, make a "script" of what you want to happen and in which order.

iv) With the dates from iii) in mind, brainstorm every unit, building, wonder, and technology that you can think of or want to put in the scenario.

[Cam]

Civfan,

Thanks for clarifying the point. The above advice from Michael and ZhugeLiang is 'on the money'.

I would add to Michael's comments only to stress the importance of creating a balanced technology tree on paper before getting too carried away with it in rules.txt. Ensure that technology paths are delivered in a measured fashion and no particular route gives early access to very potent units. As previously mentioned in other threads, this was arguably one of the problems with The Age of Reptiles scenario - the tech' tree was easier than most to 'crack' in there were four key technologies of which three were on the same basic branch. By planning this on paper, you'll be better able to interweave the philosophical, academic, financial and applied sciences with the military tech's.

[ZhugeLiang]

Also, try and minimize your mistakes, this sounds like common sense but, making a mistake can often times ruin your scenerion or set your progress back depending on where it was made. One time when I was making a scenerio a few years ago (When I was a novice at scenerio design) I tried to rewrite the tech tree...I was trying to make unique tech trees (very hard) for about 3 races and i did'nt know the relations between tech slots and the benefits that they granted, I.E. railroads allows settlers to make rails etc. I had everything from non-functional temples to gurrilla fighters poping up where I did'nt want them. Since I sat down and spent 3 hours re-writting it, after I found it was so screwed up it would take another 2 or 3 hours to fix it, I became despondent and just gave up on the whole scenerio. All over something so simple as the positions of the techs. And as for sortcuts...well on allard and andrew's civ 2 site there was a section on scenerio design tips, one of the sections was about shortcut keys that weren't in any of the manuels, i.e., holding shift+cntrl F8 would make the same terrain improvments that you made on the previous terrain square you altered. You might wanna check it out.

[Fast_Eddie]

Disbanding cities!!!!!

This HAS to be one of the most helpful things in the world!!!! Shift-D on a city and *poof*, IT'S GONE!!!!!

[Civfan]

damn what a treasure chest we have uncovered here. Never knew you could disband the cities by using SHIFT D. Thanks FAST EDDIE. I also tried changing the terrian improvements. "SHEDS ALOT OF TIME OFF" especially creating roads for other civs. Thanks ZhugeLiang for posting that. Also about your comment dealing with the tech tree. The tech tree was a bit@# the first time I changed it. I changed several things at once and *poof*, thee thing crashed and crashed again and again for hours.... Another problem I wish to state was the connection between the techs and the city pictures.... That was a pain. Thee connections. "Industrialization tech" would changed to industrial age, Automobile and "can't remember at the moment" tech creates the modern age pictures. It stressed me out when several tribes had modern skyscrapers instead of marble cities.

One problem that keeps coming up is changing the places of units. SHIFT F1 creates the unit you desire but it uses the nearest city as its HOMEBASE which I surely didn't want. The next best thing was to use the events to create those units without homecities. A last resort was creating units far from any of your cities.

Thanks everyone for replying....
Civfan.....

[Cam]

Not that it's one simple keystroke, but you can make 'None' units by Cheat > Edit Unit > Set Home City > None button.

[Allard HS]

What about "Y" for reveal map,
ctrl-shft-f8 to use the same terrain improvements as what you used before, "Q" (not sure anymore) for giving free trone room addition, there are still tons more