What's the deal with tot?

[shamrock]

All right, somebody please educate me on TOT? From reading various posts, I get the impression the scenario creation tools are pretty good (at least better than CIV II MGE). How good are the improvements? Is it worth buying? How does the compatibility work? I assume if I create a scenario in TOT, then it only works in TOT - is this right?

Enlighten me!

[Cam]

Shamrock,

Test of Time indeed does bring a lot of new things 'to the table' for scenario designers.

To address just a few;

Flags and masks - see sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_tot_flagsintro.shtml which deals with flags. You can combine 'flags' with 'masks' to set off other events. A mask looks to determine if a certain combination of flags is up or down in order to set off an event - in the link above, the French intervention conditions in the American Revolution illustration would be done by using a mask. That is, if conditions (a.), (b.), and (c.) have all been met, then the events file will do (d.).

Multiple Maps - you can have up to four maps of the same size operating in a single game. These may be linked or unlinked, and these linkages may be established or broken during the course of a game. See - sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_tot_worlds.shtml to get some idea (n.b., this tip is fairly advanced, so it might not make much sense without ToT at hand). Each map may have totally different terrain graphics and special resources from the others in the scenario.

Animated units - these can be turned on or off by the scenario author. Unfortunately the sprite code is still largely a mystery (Draco???) so if you are to use animated sprites/images, you must draw from the existing range that comes with the game.

Tech Trees - by combining new sections 'Leaders2' and 'Civilize2' in the rules, you can better handle divergent or isolated technology trees. (I'm expecting a Scenario League design tip on this to appear in the next few days).

More unit special features - e.g. "can't be bribed", "can't disband", "can pass over impassable terrain"....

Impassable terrain - You can designate terrain types (e.g. tundra) to be 'impassable'.

Easier identification of matching sounds to units.

In events, you can have new triggers such as 'remove technology' that may remove just the single advance or every technology that stems from that advance as well as the advance itself.

Other new triggers include;
AlphaCentauriArrival
BribeUnit
CityProduction (i.e when a certain city produces a certain improvement or unit)

..and new actions include;
BestowImprovement (i.e. give a tribe a city improvement or Wonder at no cost)
EnableTechnology (allowing for access to previously restricted technologies)
EndGame
ModifyReputation
PlayAVIFile (video action)
Transport (alters the inter-map status of units)

There are other tweaks and additions not mentioned above. The size of the events file has lifted to about 100kb.

There are tons of other quirks - for instance, city design changes include a Renaissance set of city designs as well as Modern and Industrial. Another - tribe colours are handled slightly differently, so you don't need to insert a specific colour of pixel into the tribe's city flag image.

Whether ToT is worth buying is a personal choice. If the money doesn't bother you and you're keen to get into advanced scenario design, I wouldn't discourage you. See apolyton.net/forums/Forum1/HTML/001140.html that is but one of many discussion threads on this vexing question! The popularity in 'the community' of ToT scenarios still is a matter that's yet to be resolved - will there be many, and what of their quality? Will it become the new standard or will it remain as Fantastic Worlds?

"Yes" - only ToT scenarios (at this stage) work in ToT.

I can e-mail you the ToT macro.txt if you want further information - please advise.

(I think this is my most verbose answer ever!)

[This message has been edited by Cam (edited March 18, 2000).]

[Gothmog]

Shamrock,
Everything Cam says is right. However, if you what mean by "tools" is editors like Fantastic Worlds has, TOT has no built in editors.

[Cam]

Thanks Gothmog, yes - I might have misread what was being asked - and as such 'No, there are no editors for Test of Time'.

[shamrock]

Thank you for the outstanding response, Cam! You answered all of my questions and then some. BTW, by "tools," I did not mean the editors - I find them rather annoying.

Overall, the scenario tools make TOT sound very appealing; however, I'd rather have fewer tools and reach a larger audience (i.e. I'll stick with MGE for now).

Thanks again!

[Cam]

No problemo.

Personally I do hope ToT scenarios become popular, as I think many of these additions have really brought a new dimension to scenario design. I'm led to believe (hush, hush) that a few of the more notorious scenario designers are at least 'tinkering' with ToT - so hopefully we'll see even more additions to the collection of independent contributions that have already kicked off through the efforts of Techumseh, Kestral, Michael Daumen and Giant Squid.