Diary of a Scenario enthusiast (will be updated)

[Swampthing]

Day one of Scenario building.

The idea stage:

My day began with my habitual glass of early-morning scotch to ease the pain, then I subsequently waded through numerous tomes of history books, principally Byzantine, Islamic and Frankish meta-narratives.

The next evening my sleep was occupied by fevered nightmares of Marmelukes, Charlemagnes and some freaky guy in a toga who only refered to himself in the third person as "Connie the first".

Very strange.

Day two: My quest for maps is proceeding apace, as those who have read my earlier post probably know. The western world was quite good, but right now my choice has fallen upon the map from the original FW Atlantis scenario, but heavily modified.

This is the part I hate.

ATLASES. NOTHING BUT ATLASES!

Ok, the mountains and largest rivers have been redone for Iraq, Anatolia, egypt, and most of North Africa,
currently doing Morocco.

The knowledge that I shall have to do the rivers for russia is giving me a heart-attack.

I shall also have to manually re-create the eastern coast of america and Iceland. That shall be the hardest part.

Day Three: I privately resolve once the scenario is finished to sack Mecca and make the Kaaba a holy christian temple, no resentment towards Islam intended, just trying to work out which wonder would best represent it.

My basic plot has begun, including a rudimentary time-line. Numerous unit and city icon packs have been down-loaded. I am also scavenging numerous other scenarios, but credit will be given and I will openly admit my total inability to create new units.

The majority of civs have been worked out on paper, map editing continuing, past scenarios I have made but never completed being canabilized.

He he, flash-back to underdark "Ooga Chuga Ooga Chuga".

[Pavlov]

Te hee, this is funny. Please keep it up!

[Swampthing]

Well, time for my next update.

My moments of freedom upon which to continue my scenario have been fleeting, but I am proud to say that stage one is complete.

THE MAP IS FINISHED!

Enclosed is a copy for those who wish to download, review it, and get back to me on their thoughts.

One must remember that it is my first map and the main part of it was not mine, but borrowed from the original Atlantis scenario in Fantastic Worlds.

I have made the following changes:

Rivers and mountain ranges have been redone across Europe and Africa,
I have, by hand or perhaps more aptly by mouse, have added the entire east coast of America and part of Canada to the left hand side.

Those familiar with producing map are familiar with one aspect, allowances have to be made for the sake of playability.

In this regards Iceland has suddenly been teleported WAY to the south, and by viewing the map you will also have witnessed the entire physical annihilation of Cuba.

Oh, Castro wasn't due to be born for another 900 years.

So it comes to the time of reflection, what have I learned, what have I gained?

I find myself constantly checking the color indexes of the heights of mountain ranges in the Atlas, trying to work out which terrain icon best represents land at over a 1000 meters in height.

I find myself thinking "Ha, fools, they left out the river Dneiper!"

I find I have developed a pathological dislike for the state of Florida.

I find I have nose bleeds.

So now the painful part begins, the developing of Technology, Wonders, Structures and Civ placement.

Insanity is deciding which was a more populous town in 12th century Germany, Bremen or Cologne.

Oops, nose bleed again........

[Heresson]

Witing for this update.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Swampthing

Those familiar with producing map are familiar with one aspect, allowances have to be made for the sake of playability.

In this regards Iceland has suddenly been teleported WAY to the south,

You're certainly not the first to have done this. Firaxis having done the same to England in Civ3.
Maybe they just overcorrected for the continental drift.


Highly entertaining.
You may have started a trend.

[Swampthing]

Well, time for my third update.

My progress should be seen in the light of current circumstances, I have just started my second and final semester at univeristy for my BA in medieval history.

That means I have a 16000 word essay to finish in three months.

I have six other essays to finish in that time.

I need to study as well.

I do nothing by brain-storm for my scenario.

I am happy to say I have finished V2 of my map, which is larger, more balanced and more accurate. I shall be including it on this post.

Little concrete work has been done on the scenario itself, for the backstory I am working on requires a serious investment in terms of development, the locale of cities and kingdoms in my medieval europe depends on the altered history I am creating for it. One of the most successful elements of scenario elements, besides gameplay, should be the vivid recreation of the environment. I have a lot of work to do with at least 4 different cultures which means study, writing, and abstinence from food or sex.

To give you a rundown of the depth, or rather depths, I am going to, I have to work out things like:

"Hmm, if Bohemund crossed the river there and besieged Aleppo instead of Antioch, and burnt Mosul then Nur-Al-Din or Zengi would not have come to power, meaning Saladin would never have conquered Egypt, exposing it to Christian advance from Jerusalem and...."

"Ok, lets say Belisarius accepted the proposal of the Ostorgothic king and became the new Emperor of the west, then Justianian would have tried to invade but the plague and the persian attack would have given Belisarius a breathing space to cross to africa and....."

"Maybe if The rome of the west had lived as well, then the position of the pope in medieval history would have been subordinate to the Emperor, meaning the investiture conflict would have been about local lords fighting agains the right of the Emperor to select prelates, whilst the Hohenstaufens could have been more effective in italy, and Guiscard may have never had permission to attack Byzantium and......"

You get my drift.

[Heresson]

I guess that if the empire inb the west survived there would be no Hohenstaufs in Italy and no Normans there?

[Mercator]

This diary is a great idea! Keep it up.

And good luck with the BA too. I'm currently not doing anything to get my MS in AI, which I should finish this year (and I haven't done anything yet either, except pick a topic and find enough literature to bang myself to death with).

[Swampthing]

Another-Update Man is here!

4000 words for my thesis done, 400 pieces of paper thrown out full of old scenario ideas, 700 icon graphics gone through, 10 pictures of Mosques and a Church in sicily downloaded, 20 hours lost in sleep.

A Day in my life.

The placement of cities is continuing, with all the Byzantine and Eastern Islamic cities in place, with most of the Russian ones completed as well.

Some brainstorm ideas I have accepted. I decided its really no good have a civ to represent the civs you'll be conquering in the opening stages of chapter one, so the use of Barbarians has become integral. Given that Barbarians never responded the way I like in events and civs around to inflict general havoc, I have chosen the purple-skinned mongols to represent them. Building only one type of Unit, the horse archer, I can scatter these guys in colonies throughout the steppes, and they can also function as Turks and maybe as Mongols if my game will extend that far.

The key problem is the placement of european civs, mainly because my ideas for the altered history are not finalized. I have discovered on thing. BRAINSTORMING DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, GET ON THAT COMPUTER AND WRITE THE DAMN SCENARIO YOU LAZY POLE_CAT!!!!!!!. Essentially you really don't start developing ideas till you are actually in the midst of doing the scenario.

I am also concentrating of making sure I put the same effort in actual gameplay as I am in ideas. No matter how the long the game goes for or how many new units you get, the other civs will always have cheaper and vastly more powerful units than you. Why? Because I wish the scenario to be three things, so difficult you shall occasionally fall into the foetal position, so exiciting you will wet your pants, so emotionally destructive to lose after playing for hours, you will kill youself.

As you can tell the playtesters probably wont get back to me.

Still, I remember when I was play-testing my now defunct Byzantine Scenario the Norman cavary was carrying everything before me, and I was on the edge of my seat hoping not to lose my "Emperor' unit as the normans closed in on Thessalonica, the cavalry units swarming out. I have eliminated siege units and settler units to aid this, so expect enemy civs to be kicking your ass. There is method to my madness, I want to make careful planning and strategy central to the game, and there is a way you will be able to get Settlers, just not build them.

As part of my story I am placing new cities across Europe with new names and wonders. I am taking care to make sure cities in regional areas will have names that SOUND like they belong there.

I also have to make sure I find a good story as to how Gunpowder gets to the colonies of America, you'll see what I mean.

Oh, thats another thing I forgot to mention, in the scenario you will be represented by a character, if that character dies, your civ dies and you lose. SO BE CAREFUL!

[Pavlov]

Why? Because I wish the scenario to be three things, so difficult you shall occasionally fall into the foetal position, so exiciting you will wet your pants, so emotionally destructive to lose after playing for hours, you will kill youself.

THAT will go into my sig when I get bored with this one. Don't stop the music!

[Swampthing]

Okay, time for a new update.

*WAIL*

I lie. You have seen through my petty charade and have cast me down upon the cold floors of urban drudgery with machiavellian glee.

I am a fraud. I am a blackguard. I am a panda bear.

Truth be told I am entering the last two months of uni, so my Scenario is officially on hold whilst I complete my thesis.

Never fear my gigabyte thespians! Stay tuned for contributions on further posts so I can spread the light of my intellect, and do not worry, my scenario will be back on track again in two months time, after my thesis is finished, handed in, marked, and my trip to hospital to recover from my heart attack is over.

See you all soon

[Heresson]

Happy Birthsday, Michael!

Hope to see You back soon!