A faster scenario-editor could save the day

[Ralf]

I never liked the scenario-editor in Civ-2 and SMAC. Its not that it aint powerfull. Its just that its so damn roundabout to use. Everything has to be done in a sequential order - shifting from one civ to the other, and then from one turn to the next. It takes "forever".
As long as one dont want to change/rearrange complicated stuff like grapics, techs and scripts, it should be a LOT easier.

I just want to start with a clean settler-free map - then point-and-click cities and terrain-improvements for each civ all over the map, from a palette.
Then i want to click these cities and add some city-improvments/wonders/units from another palette; city by city, regardless what civ it is.

I want to do this without ever to hit the next-turn Enter-button. The advances in the tech-tree should update it self for each civ, automatically. Finally i want to tie the whole thing up, by point-and-click the status for each civ, in terms of diplomacy, economy, happiness and government.
The scenario-editor then automatically calculates the estimated number of turns it normally should have take in order to achieve above.

I welcome powerfull scripting-languages, unit-editors and the ability to completely redesign the tech-tree and so on. But, then it comes basic scenarios that dont actually change the original rules; the editing work should be much more accessible and pick-up-and-create´ish, than it is now.

Labour-saving shortcuts should be added, like:

[Add/delete] any [city-improvement/unit] to all the cities [within that civ/or globally].

[Add/delete] any city-area terrain-improvement related to [choose terrain-type] to all the cities [within that civ/or globally].

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 16, 2000).]

[DarkCloud]

If i had to choose a scenario editor I would choose Civ 2's

Why: even though it had less options it was easier to use.

The map editor in alpha centauri was worse than the one in Civ 2.

[UltraSonix]

quote: its so damn roundabout to us

You're damn right!

Releated past threads:
Scenario Design in Civ3
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001428.html

Scenario editor - What does it need?
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001606.html

scenarios, scenarios, scenarios!!!!!!!!
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001620.html

Stuff that's been said before on this issue:

quote: Originally posted by UltraSonix on 05-23-2000 04:18 AM I was put off by the scenario editor being integrated with the actual game in Civ2 and SMAC - it's like putting IE with Windows, and we all saw what happened to that! Instead, a sophisticated and dedicated scenario editor should be available, with abilities such as copy-paste (eg drag a box and copy and paste a bunch of units that you've spent ages pefecting the hit points etc, so you don't have to redo the samething over and over again if you're designing an army. Same thing goes for copy paste of cities.)

quote: Originally posted by UltraSonix on 08-14-2000 01:28 AM I agree with Gord McLeod - who cares if they don't even ship a single senario. Shippind a powerful/easy-to-use scenario EDITOR, now THAT's far more important. Looking on the web, you'll find lots of scenarios available for Civ2, and the method for creating them was stupid (integrated into the game).

quote: Originally posted by Mad Lord Snapcase on 08-14-2000 04:55 PM Oooh, I've made three summaries already on my thoughts on this subject, so maybe I shouldn't reiterate everything I've already said. If you want to look at what I wrote, take a look at Column #99, The "Comprehensive Scenario Editor" suggestion for the Essential Civilisation 3 list, and about 75% of the stuff in the Customization/Scenario Editor section of the Firaxis Forums appendix of the List v. 2. Suffice to say I agree with Ultrasonix that the StarCraft one is the best editor created to date. Yet where that had ease of use and a good trigger system, it wasn't really as powerful for the common user as the civ2-FW editor was. There was no changing unit graphics and attributes, terrain, names, techs... You know, the reason Civ2's editor was so fun to use. Here are the points I'd most like to see in an editor, in order of importance (this is of course assuming that what's currently available for edit in civ2 remains intact, otherwise #1 would be keeping all of those things editable and easily acessable. I used to think this was obvious, yet SMAC was definately a step back.): 1. Ease of Use. It doesn't matter how powerful an editor is if most users never get to see any of it. What I'd like to see is an editor with a good click-n-drag interface, proper documentation, a tutorial and so on so that anyone can get right in there and start working. 2. A scripting language. Ever thought about why Mods for Quake (1/2/3 as well as Half-Life) and Unreal (and Tournament) seem to be the most popular? It's because these games have proper, proprietary scripting languages, similar to C (They are called QuakeC and UnrealScript respectively), that allows the user to manipulate ingame objects in whatever way she choses. Neither of them are horribly difficult, yet both are immensely powerful. If we could get such a powerful language in a Civ game, together with a really instructional help file or text file, it would do so much. 3. A better Macro Language/Trigger System. Counters, Other events, manipulation of all game objects from within the game with maintained ease of use. 4. Edit the stuff we cannot edit today, chiefly wonders, city improvements and special properties of techs. This could be done very easily if each wonder (or whatever) was described using strings of code from the macro language.

quote: ====== A trigger system like the StarCraft editor has would be nice. ====== In fact, the WHOLE Civ3 editor should be based on the Starcraft one. Not only was the Starcraft trigger system good, it was also EASY to use. And it goes without saying that I think the scenario editor whould be separated from the game itself (ie no cheat menu ). It was really cumbersome because while trying to design a scenario, I'll accidently continue the turn, spoiling all my hard work...

edit: repeated info / bad html

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...
[This message has been edited by UltraSonix (edited October 17, 2000).]

[Shadowstrike]

I would, in short like to see:

- the basic editors (rules, graphics) in an improved form
- a better events editor allowing for more precise and accurate events.
- editors for whatever new features are in Civ3
- a conditions editor, letting you edit what the current situation is.
- editors that could do the work that is now done by utilities.
- a tech tree "flow chart" that looks like the poster, which lets you rearrange the techs any way you wnat
- everything i an easily accessable format, as in Civ.

That's only in short though. I've basically summed up what comes to mind...

[This message has been edited by Shadowstrike (edited October 17, 2000).]

[Ralf]

I posted the Click-and-paste scenario-editor idea at Apolyton CTP-2 General aswell (altrough i usually never crosspost), and quess, if not a guy with some insights answered:

Quote from "St Swithin", Activision CTP-2 game-designer:

"Well, CTP1's scenario editor worked the way you described: just click and plant, for units, cities, terrain improvements, etc. However, my opinion on CTP2's scenario editor is that it is vastly easier to use, has many, many more features than CTP1's, and combined with the easier AI tweaking capabilities, should make scenario creation much easier and much faster. For example, there is a cut-and-paste feature in the map editing mode. If you create a continent that you want to put in the upper left corner instead of the middle of the screen, just use the drag select, cut, then paste. There are WAY too many features to describe, but we tried to make sure that all useful features suggested by Apolyton, gamers, and team members were implemented".

I have sent above interesting quote to Chris Pine as well. Just want to make sure they dont think everything is OK, with the old roundabout sequential turn-by-turn scenario-editing in Civ-2.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Evil Capitalist]

OK IMHO the scenario editor needs (amogst other things)-
more terrain types to play with: esp. to make minefields/trenches. Also more things than roads and rails.
More changable 'cosmic principles'- e.g. maximum government ratios.
More tweakable leader personalities
Ability to draw borders in, rather than the SMAC method
Greater ability to play with the governments- their abilities should be manipulable.
Ability to change the city improvements- including duplicates uder different names, different efficiencies, multi role improvements, etc. Ditto for wonders

[Ralf]

Two small Map-editor updates:

When i "paint" terrain-tiles on a blank ocean-map i would like to see a constantly changing %-number, that gives me the relative size of all landsquares compared with ocean.

Together with above, i would also like to see a second %-number that gives me the relative size of that indevidual island/continent compared to the whole map.

Above makes it easier to create earth-like maps!

Each map has a 70/30 ocean/land ratio (roughly).
Each map consists of...

- 1 huge Euro-Asia type continent (altrough quite differently shaped/positioned).
- 3 medium-sized continents, like Afrika, north- and south-America (likewise above).
- 2 small continents, like Australia, Greenland (likewise).
- A couple of big islands; Britain, Madagaskar, New Zeeland, Japan, Filipina-region.

As i say; each continent/island would be radically differently shaped and positioned compared to each other, not to mention compared to mother earth.


Any new input on how to make the scenario-constructing less grueling work? The Civ-2/SMAC scenario-tool is sadisticly tiresome and timeconsuming.

[UltraSonix]

That ocean/land percentage idea is good - and should be easy enough to implement!

And I agree with:

quote: The Civ-2/SMAC scenario-tool is sadisticly tiresome and timeconsuming.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary... (And no, koalas don't usually speak!)