ToT scenario design

[techumseh]

Marko beat me to it. Carl Fritz has made some really wonderful programs which allow you to edit the sav and scn files in Civ2, including ToT. There are two main ones: CivTweak and CivCity. Together with Mercators' MapEdit program they are essential weapons in the arsenal of any serious scenario designer.

The one you need is CivTweak, here: http://users.sgi.net/~harden/civtweak.html
It's simple to use and very useful to set city styles and a number of other city values. BTW, can you tell us anything about your scenario?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I have two scenarios currently under development, although I don't know when the more ambitious one (the Star Wars scenario) will be finished.

The less ambitious one is basically just to get me acquainted with the scenbuilding tools for ToT - William Keenan will probably remember its alpha stage, in fact. It's a Gigamercator portrayal of the Earth in modern era (2000AD) with major nations America/EU/Russia/China/India and two Neutral nations, with a redesigned tech tree (one which can actually be played with from the ground upwards, unlike most of my FW scenarios). It is primarily intended for human vs. human matches. Although there's nothing particularly innovative, I still hope it'll be fun for multiplayer, something that ToT supports better than Civ2FW.

In any case, it's keeping me occupied and away from NYC's impressionable youth, so that's a good thing.

The more ambitious scenario (Star Wars) was inspired by the Master of Orion Jr Scenario for Civ2, as well as the brilliant but flawed game Rebellion by LucasArts (Supremacy in Europe). This scenario will have to be strictly multiplayer, since the computer AI has severe problems with sea projection and transport. In this scenario, the galaxy is represented by Space squares (which function as ocean) and planets and systems function as different terrain types. Therefore players will have to board Stormtroopers onto Star Destroyers, then hyperspace the Destroyer to the required target planet, bombard the planet, and finally hold it with a Stormtrooper garrison. I am hoping to be able to set up another map with low-move-cost terrain leading from point to point, and call this a Hyperspace Travel map, but I haven't gotten round to that yet.

By the way, does anybody know if the "Scenarioname1.scn Scenarioname2.scn" FW enhancement works for ToT? By this I mean that when you save a scenario, but save many copies of it with a number after the name, then the computer randomly picks one of the scenario files for play. (This was used by the Jules Verne FW scenario and I was very impressed.)

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia

The more ambitious scenario (Star Wars) was inspired by the Master of Orion Jr Scenario for Civ2, as well as the brilliant but flawed game Rebellion by LucasArts (Supremacy in Europe). This scenario will have to be strictly multiplayer, since the computer AI has severe problems with sea projection and transport. In this scenario, the galaxy is represented by Space squares (which function as ocean) and planets and systems function as different terrain types. Therefore players will have to board Stormtroopers onto Star Destroyers, then hyperspace the Destroyer to the required target planet, bombard the planet, and finally hold it with a Stormtrooper garrison. I am hoping to be able to set up another map with low-move-cost terrain leading from point to point, and call this a Hyperspace Travel map, but I haven't gotten round to that yet.

It sounds good. Check out Eyn's site (link on the ToT forum) for a made-for-ToT Star Wars unit collection. Also on the Scenario League site, Kobyashi's Star Trek scenarios are excellent and may offer some useful ideas for yours. And Cradle of Civilization is dedicated to ToT and has some specific tips which are excellent and not found anywhere else.

The hyperspace idea occured to me as well. Unfortunately, you cannot vary the movement cost of sea terrain - it remains 1 no matter what you set it at. You can set land move cost at 0 if you want to, but air and sea units always move 1 mp per square. It's too bad because it's a great idea.

By the way, does anybody know if the "Scenarioname1.scn Scenarioname2.scn" FW enhancement works for ToT? By this I mean that when you save a scenario, but save many copies of it with a number after the name, then the computer randomly picks one of the scenario files for play. (This was used by the Jules Verne FW scenario and I was very impressed.)

Yes. It works for events files also.