quote:

Originally posted by Don Homer on 03-24-2001 08:47 PM
A bunch of questions:

1) How do you create events in a scenario?

quote:


Advanced User Features:

The following are not supported by Activision
How to make a Call To Power scenario
Requirements
Civilization: Call to Power v1.2.
A knowledge of how to create folders.
The ability to create and edit text files.
Step 1: Directories
Every scenario is part of a scenario pack. Every scenario pack has its own folder in the Scenarios subdirectory of CTP. For example, if CTP is installed to C:\Program Files\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\, and you have applied patch 1.2, there should be a folder named C:\Program Files\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\Scenarios. Inside this folder, you will see a directory named Official. This is where the scenarios Activision created reside. In order to make your own scenarios, you need to first create your own scenario pack directory. For this example, we'll call the directory MyScenarioPack. Make it now. The full path, if you've installed to C:\Program Files\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\ should be C:\Program Files\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\.
From here on out, C:\Program Files\Activision\Civilization-Call To Power will be represented by ... You should replace ... with the directory where you installed Civilization: Call To Power.
Now that you have a folder for your scenario pack, each scenario needs to have a folder. These have to be named scenxxxx, where xxxx is replaced with a number, starting from 0000 and moving up incrementally. Make a folder for your first scenario now, name it scen0000. The full path from the main scenarios directory should be ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000.
Step 2: Description files
Every scenario pack needs a description of the pack. The name of this file is always packlist.txt, and resides in the main pack folder, so it will be ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\packlist.txt in this example. packlist.txt is a plain text file that always contains 3 lines: The name of the scenario pack, a description of the scenario pack, and the number of scenarios in the pack. For our example, create the file ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\packlist.txt now and enter these three lines:
packlist.txt:
My Scenario PackThis is a description of my scenario pack. My scenario pack rocks.1
Every individual scenario needs a description file too. The name of this file is scenario.txt and goes in the scenxxxx folder for the scenario. Scenario.txt consists of only two lines, the name of the scenario, and a description of the scenario. Remember the name you use here, it will be important later. Create this file for your first scenario now, it should be named ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\scenario.txt. Put these lines in the file:
scenario.txt:
My First ScenarioThis is a description of my first scenario. I like scenarios.
This says that your scenario's name is "My First Scenario". You will need to type it exactly the same later when we get to saved games.
Step 3: Check it out
That's the bare minimum needed to create a scenario. This scenario won't do anything interesting yet, it will be exactly like playing a normal game. But go into the game anyway and see if it shows up. If you run the game and go to Single Player->New Game->Select Scenario, you should see a new scenario pack named "My Scenario Pack". Double clicking on it, or clicking and selectiong OK, should open the pack, and you should a scenario named "My First Scenario" inside. Double clicking this should take you back to the single player screen, which should now say "Scenario: My First Scenario" underneath the "Standard Game" button (which was the "Select Scenario" button before) If you don't see your scenario pack or your scenario, go back and check the steps above to make sure everything is in the right place. To summarize, here are the files and folders you should have created at this point:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\packlist.txt
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\scenario.txt
Step 4: Make a map
Launch the map editor. Create a map you want to use for your scenario. For this example, press the "Start Locs." button on the editor window, and select "Start Loc. by Civ". Place starting locations for the first four civs, Greeks, Americans, Scots, and Irish. Now click "Save Scenario As". In the first dialog that appears, enter My First Scenario, which must match exactly what you entered as the first line of ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\scenario.txt. Click ok. On the next screen, which looks like a normal save game dialog, enter a folder name in which to save the game in the first text field ("Game:"). For this example, use the folder name "NewScen". This folder will be placed in ...\ctp_program\save\games\NewScen. In the second text field ("Save:") enter "savegame.csg". This is the filename that will be used to save the file inside the NewScen folder. You can use another name, but when you move the file to the actual scenario folder, it must be named savegame.csg, so it makes sense to name it that now.
At this point, you should have this file:
...\ctp_program\save\games\NewScen\savegame.csg
You should also have a scenario directory from step 1 at:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\
In order to make your newly saved map the map that is used for "My First Scenario", you just need to move ...\ctp_program\save\games\NewScen\savegame.csg to ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\savegame.csg. Do that now. The complete list of files you've added under ...\scenarios should now look like this:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\packlist.txt
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\scenario.txt
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\savegame.csg
Step 5: Check it out
Start up the game again. Go to Single Player->New Game->Select Scenario. Open "My Scenario Pack". Open "My First Scenario". This time, instead of going back to the normal new game screen, you should be presented with a series of dialogs. The first is for number of players. 3 or 4 should be the only legal choices (since you placed 4 starting locations in step 4). Choose 4. Next you should be asked to choose a civilization. The only legal choices should be the civilizations for which you placed starting locations. Finally, you should get the difficulty dialog. Choose the difficulty you want. Once the game has loaded, open the cheat tool and click Show Map. Verify that the game is using the map you saved and that there are 4 settlers in the places where you put starting locations. If you have that, you've now created a real scenario with a fixed map and fixed starting locations that uses the standard rules, congratulations!
Step 6: Change the rules
Every scenario pack can override the standard text files. Every scenario can also override it's pack's text files. For this example, we'll override the standard files for just scen0000 ("My First Scenario").
Create these new folders
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\gamedata\
Any file you place in ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\gamedata\ will now be read instead of the standard file in ...\ctp_data\default\gamedata\. So, let's copy the units.txt from ...\ctp_data\default\gamedata\units.txt to ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\gamedata\units.txt Now let's make settlers look like cows:
Open up ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\gamedata\units.txt.
Find the unit that starts with "UNIT_SETTLER". Look through UNIT_SETTLER's description until you come to
DEFAULT_SPRITE SPRITE_SETTLER
Change that line to say
DEFAULT_SPRITE SPRITE_CATTLE
Now go back and repeat Step 5. This time when you start the game, you should see cows instead of settlers. They will still behave as settlers, all you did was change the sprite. But this gives you an idea of how to start modifying units on your own.
Ok, so you know how to change the standard rules. What about creating your own rules? SLIC (documented elsewhere) allows you to modify the game's behavior with triggers on various game events. To add SLIC code to a scenario, you need only create the file ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\gamedata\scenario.slc and place any SLIC code you want in it. To test things out, create the file now, and place this code in it:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\default\gamedata\scenario.slc:
trigger 'NewWarrior' when (city.built && IsHumanPlayer(g.player)) { CreateUnit(g.player, UnitType("UNIT_WARRIOR"), city.location, 0); Message(g.player, 'NewWarriorMessage');}messagebox 'NewWarriorMessage' { Text(ID_NEW_WARRIOR_MESSAGE);}
This code contains a reference to a string that's not in the standard string files. So you also need to create a scenario strings file. You should place this in ...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\english\gamedata\scen_str.txt. You will need to create the "english" and "english\gamedata" directories. Note that if your copy of CTP is in another language, you need to use that language as the first directory name instead of "english". And if you want to include translations for other languages with your scenario, you can create all of the directories for which you have translations and put a scen_str.txt in each of them. Anyway, assuming you're doing this with an english version, put this in your new strings file:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\english\gamedata\scen_str.txt:
NEW_WARRIOR_MESSAGE "You have received a free warrior in [city.1.name]"
Now if you go back and repeat step 5, every time you build a city with one of your settlers (err, cows), you should receive a free warrior in that city and a message telling you about the free warrior.
Step 7: Custom Icons
This is optional, but allows you to jazz up your Scenario Pack and Scenarios with nice little graphics for the Scenario Picker interface.
If you like, you can override the default Scenario Pack and Scenario icons that are displayed in the picker screen inside the game. This is easy to do. All you have to do is make 16 bit TARGA images, name them the right name, and put them in the right place(s).
Scenario Pack Icon
This is a 16 bit TARGA image of size 150x90 pixels. It's called:
packicon.tga
Using the above example scenario, put this TGA file here:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\packicon.tga
Scenario Icon
This is also a 16 bit TARGA image of size 150x90 pixels. It's called:
scenicon.tga
Using the above example scenario, put this TGA file here:
...\scenarios\MyScenarioPack\scen0000\scenicon.tga
That's all you need to do. The images have to be in the exact format specified (16 bit TARGA images, not 24 or 32 bit ones,) named correctly, and placed in the right directory to show up in the game.
Step 8: Have fun!
Now you know everything you need to know to make a scenario. To add more scenarios to your scenario pack, all you have to do is name the folders scen0001, scen0002, etc., and update the number in packlist.txt to reflect the number of scenarios you've created.
That's it.
AI taking over PBEM/Hotseat player
You can use the /attach command from the chat window (hit the ' key) to assign an AI to play the turn of a Hotseat player that has left the game. To allow a human player to assume an AI players turn, use the /detach command. For PBEM games, you must set all players as human (and include an email address) for the first turn of play. On any further turns you can then attach/detach AI's as before.
Registry location for .csg files
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.csg and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\csgfile
Adding Governments in Scenarios
If a scenario maker wants to modify the default CTP governments (described in the govern.txt file) then there are two ways to do this. The first is to modify one of the 12 original governments in the govern.txt file. You can modified any aspect of these governments, including their names. However, you must continue to refer to them by the original name if you modify their rank ordering in the set_govern.fli file.
For example, if you redefine the 12th government in the govern.txt file (GOVERNMENT_VIRTUAL_DEMOCRACY), then you can make this the first choice of the AI when it is available by setting the gov_virtual_d_1 output variable in the set_govern.fli file. Any governments that you create over and above the original twelve do not have ranking variables associated with them in the fli system and will use a utility computation to decide when the new government becomes available if it is better than the one selected by the rank system in set_govern. To force only particular AI's to use one of your additional governments you can not use the ranking system and so must instead tie the government to an advance that only certain AI personalities research, or use some similar method.