CivII Advanced Scenario Design v1 9

8/8/2019 CivII Advanced Scenario Design v1 9

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9. Sound effects9a. Units9b. Structures and events10. Writing the readme and briefing11. Packaging and distributing your work12. Listing of credits and citations

1) How to tell a bad scenario: The Seven Signsa) Bad scenarios are two-a-penny; they seem to breed wherever not rigorously controlled. The following tip-

offs seem like no-brainers, but how ubiquitous they are!

i) An unfunctional scenarioThe uploaded .zip file may be corrupt, or the Rules.txt file may have fatal errors. After zipping yourscenario for submission, unzip it, install it exactly as your instructions say, and make certain it works.

ii) A garbled readme or scenario briefingNobody has any excuse for not spell-checking his work, or for not making certain his audience knowswhat the scenario is. Those writing documents in a second language had better make QUITE certainthey are comprehensible.

iii)

A map mostly consisting of grasslandClear evidence of lazy cartography. Their efforts to plop down patches of woods, hills, plains, etc.merely amuse. Make very certain your geography makes the game either realistic (in historicalscenarios), faithful (fantasy scenarios based on anothers work), or amusing/fun/replayable (in yourown imaginary realms).

iv) By-guess-and-by-God terrain alterationsI have seen mighty cities with wilderness hinterlands, cities with no water supply or irrigation,irrigation on swamps, mining in grasslands, city radii completely railroaded surrounded by utterwilderness, ... And so on. The terrain alterations each civilization is granted in your scenario says a lotabout the economy of that culture. Properly used, you can recreate a living society for the amusementof your audience.

v) Misspelled city names.Some people use an atlas in their native tongue when naming cities. This is good, especially inscenarios with protagonists speaking that language (There is a Catalan scenario that benefits greatlyfrom this.). Others, whose own language may not be English, use English to attract a wider audience.This, too, is good, although extreme care is required. Some people cant seem to decide whichlanguage they are using. This is pathetic. Check out an atlas, and get a dictionary.

vi) No or inappropriate scenario limitationsI have suffered through scenarios that claimed to depict the Cuban Missile Crisis, only to get 10,000Cubans on Alpha Centauri, scenarios based on the Pacific War that ended up with Zulus controllingPolynesia (when Tokyo fell, the empire split), and scenarios covering the establishment of the RomanEmpire fought out with destroyers. Eliminate all ridiculous situations, except those you plan.

vii) Cities that riot, starve, sell off structures, etc. during the first turn.Make certain your players start out with working civilizations (unless you specifically warn them to

expect otherwise). Always design in Deity level (and change at the last moment if desired).

2) A few handy tips and tricksa) To make computer players actually make all the units you think you have allowed them:

Unit obsolescence is not entirely controlled by the technology that the rules files says makes the unitobsolete. This is a source of problems for virtually all scenario designers, but the following should makeyour task far easier. See section 7e for how to confirm success in this area.

i) There are two ways that a unit with a movement of one can become obsolete:(1) discovering the advance that appears in the rules.txt file that makes it obsolete.(2) allowing the unit in the Musketeers position to be built. No defensive air, sea, or land unit, with a

defense less than that of this unit, of any speed, can ever afterwards be built, by either a human ora computer player of that civilization.

ii) There are four ways that a unit with a movement of two or more can become obsolete:


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(1) discovering the advance that appears in the rules.txt file that makes it obsolete.(2) If a better unit, in that same unit usage category (attack, defense, settle, etc.), that also moves at a

speed of two or more is available. Applies only to ground units. Applies only to computer players.The computer player determines which units meeting all of these conditions to build, from amongthose you think it will, by looking only at attack and defense figures. Nothing else matters. A fewexamples (note that 5a/1d means an attack of five and a defense of one) should make this clear:

* 5a/1d and 4a/1d: Only the first is built. It does not matter how much you want the AI tobuild the second, or what extra capacities you grant either unit. You may only get thesecond to be built by setting either unit (or both) to air or sea, making the unitspurposes different, or giving either unit (or both) a movement of one.

* 2a/1d and 2a/2d: Only the second is built.* 5a/1d, 4a/2d, 3a/3d: works the same as 12a/1d, 3a/2d, and 1a/11d: all three are built,

as those units with lower attacks (it does not matter how much lower) have betterdefenses (it does not matter how much better).

* 6a/2d, 7a/2d, and 7a/1d: Only the middle unit is built, because it has the defense ofthe first without the poor attack, and the attack of the third without the poor defense.

(3) allowing the unit in the Knights position to be built. No offensive air, sea, or land unit, with anattack equal to or less than this unit, a defense less than that of this unit, and a movement of two ormore can ever afterwards be built, by either a human or a computer player of that civilization.

(4) allowing the unit in the Musketeers position to be built. See above.iii) As you see from the above, this problem really isnt difficult to understand or avoid. Just be careful

with the Musketeers and Knights positions and create similar land units with care.

b) To make it almost impossible for a computer player to gain a specific technology,and extremely difficult for a human takes 1 step in versions of the game later than 2.4.2: set bothprerequisites of that advance to no. The tech cannot be traded or stolen.

i) In version 2.4.2 and earlier, it takes 7 steps:(1) either set the tech paradigm so high it becomes unfeasible (for all civs), or set the governments

involved (for just a few) to fundamentalisms and change the loss of science to 100% and themaximum science rate to 0% (Section 5a).

(2) This still leaves open stealing, so make certain no other civilization has anything they can steal,forbid them to make diplomats/spies, or ask the human player to respect a house rule.

(3) But, if they take a city, and you have not forbidden tech through conquest (in scenario parametersunder the cheat menu), they will take any tech they like.

(4) But they can still trade advances, so make certain they have nothing anyone else has any interest in(either no techs, or techs with a AI-value of zero) If you have the version with events, you canforbid them to talk with other civilizations. Humans are trickier: sometimes self-policing is theonly answer.

(5) They can still beg or demand advances, but you can probably fob useless techs with high AI-values off on them for the duration of the game, as long as the important techs are madeundesirable (section 5b).

(6) But they will happily learn new advances from goody boxes, until they gain Invention. Eliminatethese.

(7) Another possibility remains open: gaining advances through establishing trade routes. Eitherforbid them to make caravans/freight, or clear their current research project (effectively setting itto none).

ii) The only way that remains open is a sudden advance through getting a unit in gift from a humanplayer. This cannot be blocked, although self-regulation and adjusting attitudes works.

c) How do I make certain the civilizations I want to appear in my scenario actually do?i) Go into the rules.txt file, pick the civilizations you want to appear in your scenario, and change their

names, leader names, attributes, titles, etc. to whatever you want.


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ii) Then, make certain each civilization you want has a different color (help on this appears just above theciv list). Assign colors as desired.

iii) When setting up the game that will become your scenario, select seven civilizations (why all seven?Otherwise the colors available are chosen randomly!) and the choose computer opponents optionunder custom rules and choose the civs you altered.

iv) In making your scenario, destroy any civs not desired. Understand that they may come back into thegame if an empire splits, so think about selecting the dont restart eliminated players option incustom rules.

d) You can create your own calendar, within certain limitationsi) The key to calendar reform is altering the Labels.txt file. Near the very top of the list of words and

phrases are entries for A.D. and B.C.. When displayed in a game, dates can read 10 B.C. orA.D. 10.

(1) Islamic dates are trivial: Simply change A.D. to A.H., for anno hegirae.You can create an evolutionary timescale by changing B.C. to million years BP.

(2) You can go back to the very beginning of life, should you desire.(3) Days of the month can be arranged, as long as the scenario ends before the month does (January

45 looks odd): Change A.D. to the month you desire.(4) With a little imagination, hours of the day also work. A scenario depicting Arnhem on the first day

of Operation Market Garden would begin at 10 oclock and end at 24 oclock (military time).

ii) I want to see a scenario about Revolutionary France with Years of the Republic and new-style months.That would be very cool.

iii) Limitation of all datesBecause the largest number one can have as a starting year is 32767, the furthest one can go in thefuture is 32767 AD (using yearly intervals) and Dec, 2730 AD (using monthly intervals). After thispoint, if you use years, the calender switches to BC. and, if you use months, the calendar (months notaffected) goes into reverse. See next section for a way to exploit this.

iv) How to get months in the BC calendarJulius Caesar died in 44 BC. You want your scenario to cover the ensuing chaos from March, 44 BC toMarch 43 BC, using one-month intervals. You cannot do this with normal methods, but a little numbermanipulation will get you what you want:

(1) Determine how many years BC (example: 44 years) your scenario began, and multiply thatnumber by twelve (12 times 44 is 528).

(2) Bring up the cheat menu and change the starting year (in scenario parameters) to 65534 minus thenumber you calculated in step 1 (in our example, we would calculate that 65534 minus 528 equals65006, and type in that number). Ignore any changes civ2 makes to the number you just entered.

(3) Set the monthly interval to -1 for one month per turn, -2 for two months per turn, etc., just as youwould normally.

(4) Set the game turn (in the main Cheat menu) to 0.(5) If you have it right, your calendar should be close to, but probably not display exactly the date you

want. In our example, we now have a calendar that reads Sept 44, but Julius Caesar got knifed inMarch. We have to subtract 6 months to go back to March, and therefore enter 65000 into thestarting year.

(6) As time passes, your calendar will add months normally up to Dec 44, then go to Jan 43. Welcometo the world of BC months!

e) You can make your pre-industrial cities look correcti) As you will discover by using the Cheat menu to switch the human-controlled civilization, only one

civilization in each game (the one initially chosen) is certain to have the correct pre-industrial city styleif played by a human. You have to live with all of your cities looking like Bronze Age Monoliths ifyou do not play the initially chosen civilization. This can be remedied by:

(1) Making a copy of your savegame or scenario,(2) opening up the file in Write (Do not use Word, etc.)


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interpretations. When coming up with your own world, you have complete freedom. Just make it fun toplay more than once!

c) Lengthi) The most important feature of any scenario is length in turns, because it determines the cardinal

question any player of civ2 has to answer: Am I playing a wargame, or an empire building game? Ascenario designer is in a position to decide this question for the player: There is no empire

development during a battle (see the scenario Gettysburg), and almost none in a campaign. During awar (see the scenario East Wind, Rain), a certain amount may take place, and the re-enactment of ahistorical period (see the scenario Imperial Pride) should allow a fair bit, but not enough to entirelyalter the world. Should you wish to depict the entire history of a civilization, development is central,and warfare merely among the tools of diplomacy.

ii) Among the ways you can adjust the civ2 game to meet the needs of an expanded time frame is to:* add more advances appropriate for that time period - this also adds color to your scenario.* make it more difficult to gain crucial advances.* increase the number of food (and possibly shield) rows (see section 5a).* increase the cost of structures and (possibly) units.* make it more difficult to modify terrain (see section 5e).* make it more difficult to perform diplomatic actions, especially those that involve advances.

iii) It also should be mentioned that, the longer your scenario, the greater the chance for your audience tobecome bored. I have noted a fair difference between Europeans and Americans here - no guesses as towho likes what!

d) ScaleFew scenario designers make their maps too small. Know that large worlds (Naturally, small worlds havethe opposite effect in each case):

* allow for more detail. This is why they are so popular.* make for longer games.* allow empires to change their size more, given sufficient time. Everything dependent on

empire size, including science, is effected.

* make it more difficult, but more lucrative, to trade* make exploration more time-consuming. and setting up embassies without using Wonders

more difficult.

* set a premium on units strategic speed (how fast an unopposed unit can cross terrain).* make fuel limits more constraining. Increase them to restore a realistic range.* make it more difficult to retain conquered regions far from support.* make changes in power between empires take longer to effect, including conquest. The larger

your world, the better attacking forces should do against defenders (otherwise you will havesome extremely bored players)

* make it more difficult for a human player to compete in size with computer players, becausethe more cities one has, the earlier citizens become unhappy in each one (see section 5a for afix).

* make it more difficult for computer players to compete militarily with humans, because theyhave no conception of how to project force at a distance.

* reduce the ability of any one unit to change the game, whether altering terrain, attacking, ordefending. You should make it easier to alter terrain, unless you give players a lot of time.

* effectively reduce the quality of ones transport and communications network, apart fromrailroads (those available at the beginning of the scenario) and airports (which become vastly

more important). Try increasing the road movement rate.* make corruption far more of a problem. This problem is only soluble by changing

governments, or allocating extra palaces.


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4) MapmakingEvery good scenario starts out with a solid map. One can either adopt/revise an already existing map (I collectthem for this purpose), or live dangerously and start from scratch. We will take each possibility in turn.

a) Modifying off-the-shelf mapsIf possible, go with a pre-existing map and save hours and hours of tedium. Dont hesitate, however, tomodify it. In the scenario Imperial Pride, an off-the-shelf map was tweaked quite a bit to meet variousrequirements. Among the revisions you should think about making are:

i) rendering areas of the map owned by nations/peoples not represented in the scenario as useless aspossible, to avoid unrealistic expansion. You may also (when it comes time to build your scenario)make these areas undiscovered, or even impassable (see section 5d).

ii) enhancing or reducing the development value of various areas, to differentiate rich and poor regions ofyour world. Resource squares should serve those areas you want to be powerful, and be scarce inplaces you want to keep poor. Imperial Pride found and used as many resources as possible to makeEurope and England strong. Adding swamps and forests to temperate regions, deserts to arid regions,jungle and swamp to tropical regions, and polar climates to arctic regions are quick, realistic ways toretard development. Likewise, spread grassland and plains (or hills, for industry) in the most favoredzones.

iii) altering the coastline to allow or deny nautical transportation, as appropriate.b) Making your own map

You may also make your own map; a task fraught with peril, as many a sloppy effort demonstrates.

i) Reproducing a map (historical/alternate history scenarios that need a new map)If you reproduce another map, use the following methods to start off right:

(1) with the map(s) you will draw upon in front of you, use your hands to create an imaginaryrectangle that just barely encloses the geographical area you are interested in. Many buddingcartographers enclose too large an area in their map, then make the map itself too large in adesperate attempt to retain detail. Dont make this mistake.

(2) Establish the four corners of your map and tilt the map in front of you until the rectangle you areinterested in is squarely in front of you (not tilted). This gives you a mental idea of what a goodjob will look like.

(3) measure the width and the height of that rectangle. Example: 4 inches wide, 7 inches tall.(4) to preserve the shape of your region in the map editor, multiply the height by two. Ours is not to

wonder why the map editor works oddly, just to deal with the problem... Example: a 4 unit wide,14 unit high map.

(5) convert to the size of map you want, larger or smaller depending on your design (see the sectionon scale, just above). Open the map editor and imput the numbers you decide on. Example: a 40by 140 map would be about middle-sized.

(6) as soon as you enter the map editor, insure that your world is flat or round. Do this later, and ascream of rage and frustration will likely escape your lips!

(7) Set the resource seed to something other then one (1), unless you want the resources to berandomly placed whenever you use that map (seldom a good idea).

ii) Drawing your map (all scenarios that need a new map)Instead of drawing the shapes of your continents in plains or (worse) grasslands, use the most uselessterrain type you can find (arctic works well in most cases). This helps you make complete maps, sinceit is difficult to ignore a blotch of arctic in the middle of a desert.

(1) First, get the basic coastline established, using a broad brush. Use a 1x1 brush to add islands,capes, bays, bulges, peninsulas, etc. Constantly check major coastline features against knownlandmarks (the first ones you will have to measure distance from are the corners of the map itself,and careful work will continually add others).

(2) Avoid simple coastlines, except when your map only covers a nation or less. It is amazing howinteresting a few island chains, a peninsula or two, and some bays can make a continent. See ifyou have what it takes to make a second Europe; that is a deed worthy of praise!


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(3) When your coastline is complete, toggle the coastline protect option. Fill the map in with arctic.Add lakes. Chart rivers. Crudely establish mountain ranges/hilly masses. Once you have done allthis, you have a solid skeleton to begin more detailed work.

iii) The details.At this point, so varied are home-made maps that detailed guidelines would be worse than useless. Afew regularities, however, do exist in the real world - and should occur in your renditions of it. Alwayskeep the scale of your map in mind, since it will radically change what looks realistic toknowledgeable players.

(1) Vary your terrain. Most mapmakers find it easy to plop down vast expanses of a single terraintype, make maps where endless plains meet great mountain ranges, and totally bore everyone whoplays their creation. Design a beautiful world: add crags, fjords, buttes, pillars, fens, moors,valleys, glaciers.

(2) Be wary of juxtaposing mountains and flatlands/ocean, and desert and arctic terrain/grasslands,except if your map covers at least a substantial portion of the world, and your terrain is veryvaried.

(3) Since rivers cannot be made within the scenario itself, and are only removeable there by changingthe terrain to ocean and back to land again, place them with especial caution.Unless you really want to deny water for irrigation, or do not plan for civilizations in that area to

develop much, never leave too wide an expanse of map without some source of water.

(4) This note will guide you in making terrain for nations you are fond of: The most productive terrainfor a civilization is fertile (with grasslands), with patches of forest (for early industry) and somehills (to ramp up shield production). It must have plenty of sea access (including canals ifpossible), lots of varied resource squares (some peat or gold in the right place can do wonders) andmight benefit from mountains (for protection). And some rivers (for canoe travel and increasedtrade), but not too many (its hard to put bridges over the things). In short, if you want to do wellby a civilization, give it a wide variety of terrain types.

(5) Understand also that, important as terrain is for development-oriented scenarios, it is critical forwargames. It is surprising what a little rough terrain can do for a otherwise weak defense, or forunits that would be too slow elsewhere. More on this in the terrain alterations section (7d).

5)

The Rules fileThe second most important file (apart from the scenario itself) to the designer is the Rules.txt file, whichcontrols many of the variations you can make to the standard Civ2 game. For this reason, we will cover it insome detail. It is as well to have the default rules file open while reading this.

Starting at the top, we see some game and file information. Every message line begins with a semicolon, whichmeans ignore everything after me and before a return.

a) The Cosmic PrinciplesThe cosmic principles follow. We will take them in turn.

* Raise the road movement multiplier to increase the value of roads (and thus decrease therelative value of rails) for transportation, as well as making the world easier to transit. Alsochanges the cost of movement for alpine troops, and for any units traveling along rivers.Useful for big maps.

* Lower the 1 in # chance (by raising #) for triremes to be lost to make them compete betterwith caravels.

* The amount of food it takes to feed one of your citizens is of cardinal importance. Changewith caution. Changing this figure to one is seldom a good idea, but raising it to three is apowerful way to avoid cities growing too rapidly.

* Raise the # of rows in the food box to avoid cities growing too rapidly in scenarios that stretchtime out (I learned how realistic that made some games by playing a scenario set in the 14 th

century). A similar rule applies for shields. The maximum useful figure for either number is20.

* Change the # of food settlers eat to very quickly make settlement and land alteration more orless difficult.


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* Raise or lower the city size for first unhappiness to make it more or less easy to keep yourcitizens out of mischief respectively. Changing the riot factor based on number of cities canquickly change the whole scenario. Raise it, and even a primitive government can found anddevelop new cities without fear. Lower it, and starting new settlements from scratch becomesboth difficult and expensive. Imperial Pride lowered it slightly, to stop a human player fromexpanding too rapidly in unsettled regions. NOTE: when extremely unhappy people (theblack-clothed chaps) start appearing, structures that cause people to become content become

far less useful, and entertainers/luxuries vital. This makes an established city in fertile terrainquite governable, but severely limits new towns with infertile hinterlands.

* Raising or lowering the city size limitations without aqueducts and sewer systems makesthese improvements less or more useful.

* You may alter the tech paradigm to allow a faster or slower rate of tech advances in the rulesfile, or in your scenario. The latter takes priority. This is one of the two most important waysof preventing unrealistic technologies from being discovered (the other involves editing thetechs themselves, see below).

* Raise the base time for engineers to alter terrain to make it less easy to cut mountains down toplains, or lower it to make it easier.

* You may make monarchies, communist states, and fundamentalist regimes more or lessmilitarily effective by altering the number of units they support for free.

* Should you want to make communist states suffer corruption, you may raise the distance froma palace that this government is equivalent to. This is one way to tame a large civilization.

* Fundamentalist states can be rendered more or less scientifically progressive by altering thepercent of science lost and the maximum effective science rate. See section 2b.

* You may increase or decrease the penalty for changing a citys production type by altering thenext number. Set it too low, however, and players will build Wonders by buyingManufacturing Plants first.

* The maximum distance a unit can paradrop from a friendly airfield or town may be altered.* Finally, the time it takes for a ship to make it to Alpha Centauri may be raised or lowered.

One could even design a scenario requiring the protagonist to force his enemies ships toreturn to Earth, in which case playtesting various figures would be crucial.

b) Civilization AdvancesMost scenarios benefit greatly from a customized tech tree. Not only can you control how technologicallyadvanced a nation is, you can differentiate cultural biases and predilections. The scenario Arabia Awakesadds a lot of background color this way.

i) Basic warningsThe next section of the rules file allows you to alter certain aspects of civilization advances, and makeyour own technology tree. Be warned: simple errors here can take a lot of time to debug and put right(the messages the game puts out when it finds an error in the rules files are terse at best - and quitefrequently nonexistent). After a while, most of my tech trees start to remind me vividly of rats nests.

On the other hand, the rewards for getting this section right are considerable. Type two/three-letteridentifiers with caution and double-check each one. Do not make a technology loop (tech A needs techB needs tech A).

ii) General good ideasTo avoid a advance being traded or stolen (in versions after 2.4.2 only), appearing in the on-line help,or on the science ministers report, set its prerequisites to nos. To help avoid its being trading ordemanded in earlier versions, give it an AI-value of zero.

iii) Removing technologies from the tech treeIf you want to cut off technology at a level you consider reasonable, while still allowing advances, youmust cut the links between techs you allow and every tech you dont want. This takes careful work. Itis recommended that you back up your work at this point, consult the paper chart of technologiesincluded with the full installation, star every tech you want removed (after the semicolon!), rename

both of their prerequisites to no, and use the in-game Cheat Menu option Advance Tech to guidea civilization, step by step, through your altered tech tree. Add the professional touch: connect yournew tree to the advance future technology.


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iv) Altering the tech treeIf you want to alter the tech tree, without necessarily truncating it, ever greater possibilities for disasterloom. It is strongly recommended that you draw your tree out on paper before hacking away at therules file. Again, playtest using the above method. I speak from bitter experience; it took me anembarrassing amount of time to make my first in-house tech tree work properly.

v) The AI-value of technologiesYou may alter how the computer player values advances in this section, which can be quite useful. Inthe scenario Imperial Pride the Traditionalists will ask for various useless techs, ignoringIndustrialization until (I hope) long after the scenario ends. In Arabia Awakes, computer players aremade to act historically by the same method.

vi) Special Technology FeaturesTake advantage of special technology features, based on the advances position in the technology list.Apart from those allowing governments, changing pollution, changing demographic figures, or alteringcitizen icons (see section 8e), they are:

* Automobile works with Electronics to change city pictures to the modern style.* Bridge Building allows settlers/engineers to construct roads in river squares.* Ceremonial Burial allows temples to make one person content*. (see note below)* Construction allows the building of Fortresses.* Communism reduces the effectiveness of Cathedrals and makes more partisans appear.* Democracy allows Courthouses to make one content citizen happy under a democracy.* Electronics improves the effectiveness of Coliseums and works with Automobile to change

city pictures to the modern style.

* Fusion makes Nuclear Plants entirely safe and adds 25% to spaceship thrust.* Guerrilla Warfare makes a civilization much more difficult to conquer, since all captured

cities henceforth produce many more partisans (note that other techs allow a few partisans toappear). Allocate with care; a civilization representing a state with no popular support should

likely not have this advance.* Gunpowder sells all barracks, and increases their maintenance cost by one.* The Industrialization advance changes city pictures to the industrial style.* Give a civilization Invention, and they will not gain advances from goody boxes.* Map Making allows you to exchange maps with computer players if they also have this

advance.

* Mobile Warfare sells all barracks, and increases their maintenance cost by one (this adds toGunpowders effect, not replaces it).

* Monotheism allows Cathedrals to make three people content*. (see note below)* Mysticism improves the effectiveness of temples.* The Nuclear Power tech allows ships to move one extra square.* Both Navigation and Seafaring reduce the chances of triremes floundering.* Philosophy grants a free advance to the first civ that discovers it.* Radio allows settlers/engineers to construct airbases.* Railroad allows settlers/engineers to build railroads. All city squares are upgraded to railroad.* The Refrigeration advance instantly improves all city squares to farmland, and makes it

possible to double-irrigate land.

* Theology improves the effectiveness of Cathedrals.* Trade makes it possible to discover what cities want what trade goods.

(2) NOTE - You may easily change Cathedrals and Temples so that they require different advances toconstruct, but I know of no way to change the technology that makes them work! Temples are


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useless until Ceremonial Burial and Cathedrals, until Monotheism (if Mysticism and Theology arenot developed first). Oddly enough, Coliseums seem to work with no advances at all.

vii)User Defined AdvancesIn addition to User Def Tech A, B, and C, plus those added in more recent versions of the game, onemay use the plumbing slot as an additional user defined advance.

c) StructuresThe only alterations to structures the rules.txt file allows you to make are those to the name, cost,maintenance, and prerequisite advance. Given the wide variety of effects structures have, this is quiteenough to customize your scenario significantly. By controlling who can build what structures, for whatprice, paying what maintenance fee, you can fine-tune how expensive it is to:

* relocate your homeland (Palace).* increase industrial production. Islands can be made great industrial powers with the help of

the Offshore Platforms structure, possibly renamed to Imported Raw Materials, or somesuch name.

* improve the economy (apart from the obvious structures, fundamentalist states can also buildTemples, Cathedrals, and Coliseums to boost revenue)

* increase the rate of technological advance* allow islands to support large cities (Harbors are extremely important in maritime scenarios,

and one may sometimes desire to make them more costly.)

* reduce pollution (if you havent simply eliminated it) and prevent global warming (SolarPlants).

* keep your citizens content* allow a city to grow larger than a certain size* defend cities (City walls may sometimes profitably be made more expensive, should you

think a clever player would otherwise create an unconquerable empire. Be careful with SAMbatteries; they make most air units obsolete.)

* increase food production (Supermarket), and increase the local rate of growth (granary)* churn out veteran units* airmail units from one side of the globe to another (airport). Be warned: clever players of your

modern scenarios can get vast quantities of gold and science by airlifting freight units todistant airports, then railroading them to large foreign cities.

* increase arrow production (Superhighways).* protect against nuclear attacks (SDI Defense).* control corruption/make cities less easy to bribe (Courthouse).

ii) Low-capacity RailroadsSince railroads allow any number of units to instantly travel to any square connected with them, I onceused two airports, each renamed Railroad Terminus, to simulate a low-capacity railroad (in thescenario Arabia Awakes). Note that units transported this way can be stopped by fighter planes, so(if you think it worth including the file), alter the game.txt messages to more appropriate statements.

iii) Harmful structuresIs a civilization getting too rich for your liking (especially troublesome with fundamentalist states)?Give it a structure, with no other function in your scenario, that costs a ridiculous amount to maintain.AI players cant tell the difference, and human players can be warned/asked to respect a house rule.Make certain the structure is impossible to build, or an AI player might just run its economy into theground.

iv) No known way to build unique structuresWhile units that can only be built by certain civilizations can be designed by setting the prerequisites

of the technology required for them to be built to no, this method does not work for structures,Wonders, etc., as these items require an advance on the tech tree to be built.


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d) WondersSome scenario designers have gone one step further and customized their wonders. While structures takecareful technology/prerequisite tweaking to yield benefits only to some civilizations, and offer the samebenefits to any city (no matter how valuable or worthless you think that city should be), wonders aregenerally specific to a single civilization, and often to a single city. This can allow a small but industriouscivilization to effectively compete. The following refresher will likely spark a brainstorm or two:

* make a civilization more contented (JS Bachs Cathedral, Michelangelos Chapel, The Oracle,the Hanging Gardens, Cure for Cancer).

* make a civilization naturally grow faster than its competitors (the Pyramids).* make a city a formidable trade producer, especially combined with high-tech structures

(Colossus)

* make a nearly unbeatable maritime power (the Lighthouse or, to a lesser extent, MagellansExpedition) For example, if one nations fleets knew how to ride out storms and anothersdidnt, the first would be given the Lighthouse and the fleets in question made subject to lossat sea.

* make certain a civilization never falls too far behind in technology; useful for small empiresyou want to keep advanced (Great Library).

* make a civilization a conquerors nightmare (Great Wall).* simulate a warrior people (Sun Tzus War Academy).* create the Workshop of the World (King Richards Crusade). Add this wonder to a Japanese

city, for example, and the tiny island group can have a industrial presence equal to what it isin the real world.

* allow perfect knowledge of trade deals and wars among other civilizations, and maintain afairly good picture of how well one is doing in the world (Marco Polos Embassy, UnitedNations)

* allow a nation to get away with murder (Great Wall, United Nations).* allow far easier establishment of new cities for a human player playing a civilization

(Michelangelos Chapel).* in every city that doesnt need the normal effect, effectively permit a Democracy to field one

army (two, with Womans Suffrage), and a Republic, three, without unhappy citizens (JSBachs Cathedral, because Wonder effects are applied after absent soldier effects) This allowsyou to set up a civilization with a militarily powerful, representative government.

* greatly increase knowledge production in a city/make that city more vital to the possessorcivilizations science advance rate (In my version, 2.4.2, Copernicuss Observatory doublesknowledge production and Isaac Newtons College merely adds 50%. Is it the same for you?).

* make a city immune to disorder/allow it to field armies without happiness penalties under arepresentative government (Shakespeares Theater) This is especially useful for planes andmissiles.

* simulate a civilization that always has the finest military hardware (Leonardos Workshop).Playtest vigorously if you change the units section of the rules file.* simulate a civilization with an extraordinary cash flow (Adam Smiths Trading Co.). Note that

this wonder is most useful for large civilizations, so use it carefully.

* recreate a sudden jump in science by a single civilization (Darwins Voyage).* allow a civilization entire governmental flexibility, if government switching is allowed

(Statue of Liberty).

* force a sudden improvement in world opinion of a nation, or simulate unusually gooddiplomats (Eiffel Tower).

* make a representative government a far better conqueror (Womans Suffrage).* simulate the Arsenal of Democracy (Hoover Dam).


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* turn your scenario into a nuclear lobbing, planet warming, all-polluting madhouse (theManhattan Project).

* make a democracy much more likely to keep fighting (without using the Total War option)(United Nations).

* cause the entire map to be revealed after the beginning of the game, and (unless carefullycontrolled) make the primary focus of the game the space race (Apollo Program).

* make a civilization, especially a large one, gain advances far more quickly (SETI Program).ii) This list has been memorized by 90% of civ2 players, so why did I write it down? Answer: Unless you

remove them from play, by either destroying them or setting their prerequisite advance to one nocivilization will gain (such as no), your players will have to deal with the effects of any and allWonders pre-allocated or built. I have played many a sloppy scenario that allowed all Wonders to bebuilt, and sometimes even provided bundles of cash for the purpose. Control Wonders carefully!

e) UnitsMost scenario designs require at least some alterations in the Units section of the rules.txt file, and manytotally revamp it. Most designers seem to have made this area of their scenarios work fairly well, althoughsome tips might help.

i) Effects of a units position in the listEach position in the unit list is (always) associated with a icon and (in some cases) associated with asound (see section 9a). A few also have special, unalterable features, including:

* Engineers - the only unit position capable of double-speed land improvement andtransformation.

* Musketeers - see section 2a. Use this position with caution.* Fanatics - the one unit that can only be built by a fundamentalist state. Use this position to

firmly fix a special unit to the fundamentalisms in your game.

* Knights - see section 2a. Use this position with caution.* Spies - the only unit capable of spy-enhanced diplomatic functions.* Nuclear Msl. - changes diplomatic messages, may change computer player behavior. OUR

WORDS ARE BACKED WITH SMURFETTES!

ii) Number and type of units availableWhen designing units from scratch, try to give human players a reason to build each unit; the bestattackers, best defenders, and fastest movers should either leave room for weaker units to compete incertain situations, or be very expensive. It is seldom necessary to give any civilization a choice of morethan about eight or ten units to build at any one time. Unless you are careful, more than might confuse;players will pick favorites and build them exclusively. Units do not always have to improve or getcheaper as one advances tech. Consult the fascinating scenario economy for tips here.If you want a civilization operated by the computer to build large numbers of a useful unit type,consider creating two or more units of that type with identical icons and capacities. Harlan Thompsondoes this to good effect in his scenario Viking Age.

iii) Unit SpeedSee to it that units move at speeds appropriate to the length of the scenario and the scale of the map.Too fast, and the human player will stage a blitz. Too slow, and he will get frustrated. I am remindedhere of a certain scenario covering the Saxon wars in 9 th Century Britain. The map was big, every cityhad city walls, the roads were as bad as they were historically, and units moved at a snails pace. Asuperb design, but dead boring. Ships (in particular) move quite rapidly in my scenarios to representthe extraordinary flexibility of sea power.

iv) Unit CostAny buildable unit that costs 190 shields or more can, in certain situations, be bought for negativegold. Try to avoid giving your players money for nothing this way.

v) Nuclear UnitsSet the attack of the unit to 99.Barbarian Nuclear units (plagues, famines, etc.) can also be included in your scenario, but (for someodd reason) do not function unless you set their usage catagory to 3.


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vi) Units that cannot moveUnits that cannot move can serve as impassable terrain (with some designs), or fixed defenses(difficult-to-conquer mountains, etc). Note that any unit that cannot move can complete no action; if itis unfortified at the beginning of the game, it will stay that way. If not in a city, an AI player willimmediately unfortify these units (it tries to move them), so do not give human players an advantageby fortifying them. If they start out in a city, these units can travel on ships between ports.

vii)SubmarinesAdding the submarine capacity to an air, ground, or sea unit has a number of effects - and opens upmany possibilities. Any submarine unit can be attacked by any unit that manages to find it, regardlessof other limitations, except in three situations:

* units with an attack or movement of zero cannot attack, even in this case* ground units cannot attack units over water* submarine units cannot attack units over land

(2) If you give an air unit the submarine capacity, it can attack sea and ground units over water, andno unit over land. If it has the fighter ability it can attack air units only over water. This makes itpossible to make Torpedo Bombers that do a number on Battleships, but cannot influence affairson land. Computer players do not use this unit at all well (they often end up stuck near cities). Ifthis unit is over land, it generates a ZOC, making it easy to find with ground units.

(3) Ground units with the submarine capacity cannot attack any ground, air, or sea unit, even when itclaims it has the fighter ability, when operated by a human player. When operated by a computerplayer, they can. Since they generate a ZOC, they are also easy to find.Naval submarines are more familiar. If you make all your ships submarines, you can prevent shorebombardment. Just make a lot of units able to see them and rename the Navbttle sound toTorpedos.

viii)HelicoptersCiv2 thinks all air units without fuel limits are helicopters. Regardless of unit position, these units maybe attacked by ground and sea forces, can capture cities, and lose strength each turn when not in a cityor airbase. If you want air units without fuel limits, but do not desire them to have all of these features,the best you can do is to set the number of turns they can fly without refueling to 250 or so.

ix) Units that cannot be built, including unique units (generals, etc.)Units that are only allocated at the beginning of the game and cannot be built can be implemented, bysetting their prerequisite advances to one no civilization will get. There are two good ways to do this.

* If you are prepared to sacrifice a technology to keep the unit in the on-line help:* create a tech with prerequisites both of no,* create another tech with prerequisites of nil and the first techs two/three letter identifier* All units requiring the second tech will appear in the on-line help. They cannot ever be built,

unless you allocate either tech to any civilization while setting up the scenario.

* If you are prepared to sacrifice convenient information on the unit to save a tech:* create a tech with prerequisites both of no. Do not give it to any civilization. Use it for all

units you never want to be built.

* Do not set the advance that makes these units obsolete to anything other than nil, unless youwant the computer player to disband them when they discover that tech.

x) Units that can only be built by - or forbidden to - certain civilizationsIn version 2.4.2 or earlier, because any advance can be traded or stolen, including those not on the techtree, you have to decide what is more important to you.

(1) If you want to make certain a civilization can build a special unit:Only give that civ the tech, and give that advance an AI-value of zero. Although that civilizationwill always be able to build the unit, other peoples will also, if they get the advance in trade ordiplomacy. See section 2b for more information.

(2)If you want to ensure that, come what may, a certain civilization cannnot ever build a special unit:Give it the tech that makes it obsolete, and give that advance an AI-value of zero. If, however,civilizations that can build this unit discover this advance, or get it through trade or diplomacy,


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they will suddenly be unable to make more of these units, and computer players will even startdisbanding them. See section 2b for more information.

xi) If your players use versions of the game later than 2.4.2, your task is far easier. Use either of the twoprocedures for making unique units, except that you would assign the advance needed to build the unitas you build your scenario.

xii) If you want a civilization to have to research the advance needed to build a special unit, and you do notset their research project to this advance when setting up your scenario, then you would:

(1) insert that technology into the tech tree as you would normally(2) give all other civilizations an advance that makes that unit obsolete.(3) After doing this, change both prerequisites of the second tech to nos.(4) Set the AI-value of the second tech to zero, so players with versions 2.4.2 or earlier are not too

bothered by it.

xiii)Impassable terrain (available only in some game designs)If your game has no units that can attack air units, you can include impassable terrain:

(1) create a unit similar to the following (name), nil, 1, 0.,0, 0a,40d, 10h,10f, 5,0, 1, (impossible tech),000000000000000. what this does is make an unbuildable air unit. Sadly, the computer is so

deranged that any unit that can attack air units will attack any air unit, no matter how tough,blocking its way to a city. I field tested this idea with stealth fighters, only to see the AI makeconstant suicide runs.

(2) change its icon to that of some terrain and make its shield as inconspicuous as possible (seesection 8a).

(3) place them where you want impassable terrain(4) you may want to alter the message in the game.txt file that appears when a unit is told it cannot

attack air units

xiv)Invisible unitsSee section 8a for more detail.

xv) x2 defense versus horseIs actually +50% defense against all units with a movement of two. Only seems to work using unitswith one strength point each (like pikemen); when I tried using units with more, I found that theattacker somehow manages to work around this ability as the battle continues.

xvi)Amphibious unitsAre good to include if your scenario includes single-square islands with cities on them. The computerplayer uses both these and paratroopers better than it does most unit types, so adding them is AI-friendly.

xvii) Discussion of BarbariansThe only scenarios that will have no barbarians are those that allow them only for villages, then deleteall the goody boxes. Otherwise, it is a good idea to know what barbarians appear when, to avoid StormDeities or Star Destroyers from wiping out your infant civilization. The following information is

adapted directly from the document Advanced Scenario Making Ideas, by kind permission of HarlanThompson:

(1) Piratical Barbarians* Early: Archers + Triremes* Middle: Crusaders/Knights + Caravel* Late: Dragoons +Frigate

(2) Frontier Barbarians* Early: Legion (villages only) + Horsemen (uprising only)* Middle: Knights (villages only) + Elephants (uprising only)* Late: Cannon + Musketeers* Modern: Artillery + Partisans, Fanatics


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(3) See section 7b for more information on barbarians.f) Altering Terrain

This section of the rules.txt file, coupled with graphics alteration if necessary, allows you to make any tenland terrain types you desire. There is only one kind of ocean; it is always impassable to land units andnavigable by ships. You may control the defensive bonus of the terrain, the movement cost, and how manywheat, shield, and arrow icons the terrain produces before improvement, the difficulty and effect of landimprovements, mining, transformation, and the most primitive government under which the computerplayer will perform any land alteration command. You may not (as far as I know) change how long it takesto build roads/railroads, whether roads adds arrows or not, and how interested the AI players are in makingroads/railroads. Although ocean terrain may be altered to land, irrigating and mining it never have an effect.

i) Several Possible Terrain Types - to demonstrate the possibilities* A tactical-level depiction of Flanders, 1917 might do very well to include shell craters. Since

there are no deserts in Flanders, we would change the desert terrain to:Shell Crater, 3,1, 0,0,0, no, 0, 0, 0, no, 0, 0, 0, no, ; DrtWe now have a terrain useless for development, that cannot be improved, difficult to movethrough (cost: 3), and dangerous for defenders (1 => defensive strength is halved).

* Head east to Russia, and Germans in April, 1942 would have to contend with mud. Since mudruins roads, use a terrain that takes a long time to put a road over (Mountains or Glaciers

would do nicely), and change it to the following (assuming we use Glaciers).Mud, 2,2, 2,0,0, yes, 1, 5, 1, no, 0, 0, 0, no, ; GlaThis terrain is similar to grasslands without shields, but is a bit more difficult to wadethrough.

(2) Allowing players of your scenarios to change coastlinesYou have an idea: What if I made a Dutch scenario that included reclaiming land from the sea?or What if I wanted to recreate the North Sea oil bonanza of the 1970s? You can do this(although AI players will not take advantage of these opportunities) by:

* making it possible to change oceans to another terrain by some command (mining, irrigation,or transformation)

* In the scenario itself, putting a settler/engineer on a transport, and issuing the appropriateorder every turn until the job is done. You can also make your engineers fly, or swim.This method can also be made an effective way to simulate the release of pent-up forces,without using events. Although computer players will not initiate any changes to oceanterrain, they will continue actions that you start, if you make it reasonable for them to do so.So, twenty turns into a hard-fought war, an island full of reinforcements could suddenlydevelop a bridge...

(3) This is followed by twenty land resources, two for each terrain type, and two ocean resources. Youmay tweak the defensive bonus of the terrain, the movement cost, and how many wheat, shield,and arrow icons the terrain produces before improvement individually. You may not (as far as Iknow) give Grasslands special resources.

(4) Exact control of resource placementAre you frustrated by the placement of resources on your map? One way to place resources as

close together or as far apart as you like is to:* remove all the resources of the terrain(s) you want to alter, by renaming it and reducing its

bonuses to that of the standard terrain, and changing graphics accordingly.

* Give each of the resources you deleted their own terrain type. Clearly, there are early limitson how many resources you can afford to treat this way...

(5) Creating unique resourcesHow would you simulate the towers of Barad-dur (Tolkiens work), the Al-Gawar field (amongthe biggest oil fields ever found on Earth), the Mountain of Silver (the fabulous Peruvian silversource that fed Spanish coffers for centuries), or the Cornucopia (the legendary, ever-abundantgoats horn)?

(6) Rename a resource, alter its attributes as desired, place only one in the world, change its icon tosomething suitable, and make certain no settler/engineer can irrigate, mine, or transform anyterrain into it. If appropriate, place a city taking advantage of the resource, or let explorers find it.


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Hows that for an exciting exploration scenario? Naturally all this terrain hacking will onlyconfuse players if you dont alert them by changing the terrain icons.

ii) Avoiding a Civ2 bugIf you want to forbid the transformation of terrain, do not set the terrain type that that terrain is alteredto to no. Have the terrain change into itself instead. See section 7b, Adding rivers after you startdesigning your scenario for why.

g) CivilizationsMany of the changes possible in this section of the rules.txt file can also be adjusted within the scenarioitself. Some, however, can not. The first section covers generic titles for the leaders of the sevengovernment types. This is followed by instructions, then the actual civilization list appears. We will takeeach alterable feature in turn:

i) Leader names can be altered within the scenario, or they can be pre-set for random games as well here.ii) Seven colors are assigned to civilizations; each game may only have one of each. Read section 2c to

use this feature to your advantage, and section 8b to alter the colors.

iii) The appearance of cities of a preindustrial civilization to other cultures follows. Read section 2e tocontrol the appearance of your own cities.

iv) The noun and adjectival forms of peoples names and their national characteristics are self-explanatory. Resist the temptation to fit in a nations name somewhere here.

v) Last in each row are replacement titles for leaders of that civilization under certain governments. Ieventually figured out that, unless the noun form of a peoples name is different in the scenario than itis in the Rules file, the generic titles will always be used.

h) Miscellaneous tweaksGood scenarios makers take care of the details. Altering the default trade goods to commodities moreappropriate to your world helps convince your audience that they are playing a game worth keeping. Thesame applies to changes in orders, difficulty levels, and attitudes. Limit your names to roughly the length ofthe longest default one of that type.

6)

Other useful text filesAlthough the most important, the rules.txt file is not the only useful text file for scenario makers. Others includeLabels.txt, Game.txt, and Events.txt. Some scenarios use other files; one could even change the menutext to be more consistent with ones design.

The versions of the game shipped with the Conflicts in Civilization and Fantasy Realms CDs make anumber of changes to how certain text files are treated. Always include a copy of pedia.txt in your .zip file,because newer versions of the game use it to update the online information about units, Wonders, etc.

a) City.txt/Cities.txtApart from rules.txt, the cities.txt file is the most frequently found text file included with uploadedscenarios. Although safe and easy to modify, this file has a few quirks which are as well to cover:

i) The listing of civilizations is the same in Cities as it is in Rules. You change the city names for acivilization by scrolling to that civs position, insuring that the noun form of the peoples name is thesame in this file as it is in the rules.txt (not the scenario itself), and renaming the cities (as mentioned atthe top of the file, count the number of characters you type carefully).

ii) Do not type certain characters, such as &. Do not delete civilizations completely.iii) After you have done that, and once your scenario is complete, you should then build a new city for

each civilization and confirm that it is given the correct name. Odd how complicated that can be...

b) Labels.txtLables.txt must be manually replaced in the Civ2 directory for those using the Conflicts in Civilization CD.Those using the Fantastic Worlds CD must remove them from the scenario directory before the scenariowill run. Make certain you warn your players about this.

Open up the Labels file and scan down it. Among the items I can see a use for changing are (from top tobottom):

* B.C and A.D. See section 2d for more detail.


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* Attila, the leader of the barbarians* River. One might conceivably change this to Lava Flow.* Various land improvements* Village, City, and Zoom to City. At least one scenario I know of (Aliens versus

Predators) has changed these to Colony and Zoom to Colony, etc.

* wise men - why not wise women?* names of commands* Tithes. The Fascism Patch has altered this to seizings.* Various diplomatic messages and states. Some may not be appropriate.* Names for ship parts. No one I know of has explored the possibility of building something

other than a spaceship out of various parts...

* Words describing relative power and honor* names of governments. I find it often helpful to alter these.* Top Five Cities might be renamed Top Five Colonies* Ign. City Walls and x2 versus horse are often not quite accurate* and plenty more possible changes...

c) Game.txtGame.txt must be manually replaced in the Civ2 directory for those using the Conflicts in Civilization CD.Those using the Fantastic Worlds CD must remove them from the scenario directory before the scenariowill run. Make certain you warn your players about this.

This file controls most of the messages you will see throughout the game, from starvation notices to offersof gold and knowledge for peace. If you make extensive changes to structures and advances, you mightconsider issuing the find and replace command to replace all occurrences of a changed item. You can adda lot of realism to your scenario with a bit of imagination.

d) Events.txtSounds neat, but since I lack the Conflicts in Civilization CD, I know nothing about it. It sounds as thoughitd be great for adding historical color and retaining game balance. I do, however, offer the followinginformation about bugs and methods directly adopted from Harlan Thompson and Aleksei Andrievskisdocument Advanced Scenario Making Ideas, or from further information by Harlan Thompson.

i) The length of the events.txt file is limitedAfter a given number of lines, the computer ignores all further instructions.

ii) Be careful when subtracting moneyThe computer thinks that $100 minus $150 equals roughly thirty thousand.

iii) The Command MoveUnitHarlan Thompson knows of no example of this working.

iv) JustOnce and random turns dont mixYou can make an event happen only once. You can make an event happen randomly. You cannot doboth with the same event.

v) TurnIntervalAppears to be buggy.

vi) Making Caravan UnitsNot possible through events.txt

vii)A way to really mess up unit placementIf you place a unit at a location with one even and one odd coordinate (such as 41, 40), the unit will bemisplaced. It cannot be seen, it can enter any city regardless of defenders, and the map will go throughconvulsions every time it moves. You have been warned.

viii)Ensuring that two civilizations remain forever at warFirst, set the two civs you want to be at war, at war. Then prevent them from ever talking with this:


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* @IFnegotiationtalker=bloodstalkertype=humanorcomputerlister=cripslistertype=humanorcomputer@THEN

@ENDIF

* And repeat with the two civs reversed (talker and listener)* Do not forget the blank line between @THEN and @ENDIF

ix) Adding barbarian unitsThe events editor in Fantasy Worlds is not capable of adding barbarian units, but you can still createthem manually.

7) Creating your scenarioa) Establishing basic rules and limitations

You have come up with a neat idea, made your map, and edited various text files. Now its time to actuallycreate the scenario itself. As you open the Civ2 program, and run through the various screens to customizeyour game, be aware that some of the decisions you make now cannot ever be undone, save by starting overwith a blank slate. In general, choose the Deity level to build your scenario in - doing so makes you farmore likely to make a functional civilization at any level of difficulty. As mentioned in section 2c, alwayschoose seven starting civilizations to retain absolute control over which ones are included in the scenario.Barbarian activity should be non-existent for a Gettysburg scenario, but commonplace in a post-nuclear warscenario. Always customize your rules; these cannot be changed later, so choose wisely! In virtually allscenarios you will want to select the other civilizations, and often you would not allow spaceships to bebuilt. If you wish to avoid civil wars (empires spitting up into factions), you would make certain thateliminated players cannot be resurrected. Scenarios using flat worlds are far more common than those withround ones. When the next screen pops up, in order to avoid the computer player building cities you do notwant them to, always choose a civilization at the top of one of the three listings of civilizations - Romans,

Russians, and Celts with the standard rules. This means you get to take your turn before any of thecomputer players can build cities in awkward locations.Lets reveal the entire map and get busy!

b) Setting up civilizations and barbariansi) Basic tips

Your scenario will require your players either to become generals, nation-builders, or both. Thisfundamental division decides whether you should focus on relative military or economic power. Thebest scenarios allow the player to choose several carefully thought-out civilizations, each requiringdifferent skills to win with. If one is found too easy, another will then challenge and amuse.As you make your scenario, you will often change the human player. Make certain the Always wait atend of turn option under the Game menu item Game Options is checked. Save constantly, alwaysunder a new name (I created 31 savefiles making Imperial Pride.). It is amazing how much time one

press of the Return key can waste...If your scenario is lengthy, use the Demographics and Tax Rate screens extensively to make eachcivilization as powerful, progressive, populous, and prosperous as your design calls for.

ii) Control real estateThe more opportunity your scenario allows for empire development, the more important it is to controluninhabited/undefended areas. If you give your players more than about a hundred game turns beforethe scenario ends, and permit them to make settlers/engineers, account for every square inch of realestate.

iii) Goody boxesBe careful with goody boxes. They can very quickly become the driving force in a scenario.

iv) ExplorationIf you do not reveal the world at the beginning of the scenario, you are faced with the lengthy task ofestablishing what areas each civilization has explored. If you must reveal large areas, create atemporary rules file with a unit similar to Helicopters, but with an enormous speed. To keep your


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civilizations casualty list accurate, prevent units from crashing during this process. Ensure that allcities, including barbarian ones, can see enough of their hinterland to feed themselves.

v) Setting up governmentsTwo schools of thought governing what governments should be assigned to civilizations compete foryour consideration. The first requires you to give them whatever governmental type they had in reality.The other requires that you assign the civ2 government that corresponds most closely to your readingof that nations economic, diplomatic, and military capacities. I recommend adopting the latter. If youdo so, however, alter the labels.txt file (see section 6b), and the rules.txt file (see section 5f) toensure accurate government names and leader titles.

vi) Making certain that new Wonders can be builtInsure that Wonders are not counted as objectives.

vii)A way to make sure that a specific city cannot produce Partisans when takenHave it change hands as you build the scenario, since a city does not produce partisans whenconquered a second time by a given civilization.

viii)Adding rivers after you start designing your scenarioIt has long been thought that rivers could only be created in the map editor. Now, thanks to LeMay andHarlan Thompson, this is revealed not to be the case. To create rivers:

* Open up the rules.txt file and change the base time for engineers to transform terrain in thecosmic principles section to zero (0). Also in the rules.txt file, temporarily change the terrainthat all the terrains you plan to alter are transformed into to no. After you have finishedmaking rivers, change them back.

* Create three (or more on other terrain types. For example, mountains take eight) engineers oneach of the squares you want rivers to appear. Lastly, create any unit of that civilization off toone side (see next step for why).

* Select the unit off to one side, and give it any order. This initializes the method, and tellsthe program that all future sets of engineers will be making funky terrain. Without using themouse, issue the o (transform) command to engineers on the squares you want rivers toappear on as they start blinking in turn. As the third engineer on a desert, plains, or grasslandsquare (or more on any other terrain) receives the transform command, the terrain will turn

into a odd river/coal/desert combination.* To restore the proper terrain type, simply use the cheat menu to alter terrain. All the funny-

looking graphics will disappear, but the river will remain.

* For a happy moment, I thought that this method could be exploited to create resource squaresin any location I wanted. Sadly, my hopes were dashed (by various limitations andmismatched or missing graphics).

ix) BarbariansBecause barbarian cities and units are a superb way to simulate minor powers and limit the undefendedterritory in your game, a few notes about them are in order. All this information is provided by HarlanThompson.

* If youre not careful, barbarians and their cities can be cheaply bribed. You have three waysto make them more resistant: Build Courthouses, Palaces (set these structures prerequisites tonil, then cheat-build them) to up the cost of bribing a city. Add money to the barbariantreasury (build and sell off structures) to make all cities and units more costly to bribe.Because barbarians throw their money around, use the events available with more recentversions of the game to top off their funds every so often.

* You can also raise the shield cost of barbarian-only units.* Barbarian cities can only make the unit that conquered them. If the barbarians own enough

cities in your scenario, they will stop producing units to raid their neighbors. If this is aproblem in your scenario, use the events.txt file (if your version has it) to make them appearevery so often.

* Barbarian units obey simple rules.* Barbarian settlers found no cities and eventually disappear.* Other land units wander around, searching for units to kill and cities to sack, whether

wounded or not.


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* If it finds a fortification, it will occupy it indefinately and if it is an attack unit, it will chargingat all units that end their turn next to it

* Sea units will never attack other ships unless they are carrying troops, or perform shorebombardment unless they have no other way to land their cargo.

* Air units, for reasons unknown, act like land units (dont cross water, stay in forts).* See section 5d for a table of what barbarians appear when.

c) Creating, furnishing, destroying, and transferring cities.Cities are the center of all scenarios other than those depicting a single battle. They are easy to create, andalmost as trivial to destroy or hand over to another civ.

i) Creating CitiesThose unsure how to create cities are referred to a beginners guide.

ii) Furnishing Cities* Cities (even barbarian or primitive ones) can be quickly furnished with structures by using the

copy other citys improvements under the edit city option and selecting a city you havepreviously set up. You may manually add improvements the civilization cannot constructnormally by either setting the tech to build of the improvement to nil, or temporarily giving

the civilization the tech.* You may give a civilization as many palaces at the beginning of the game as you like; this

permits you to fine-tune corruption and waste, especially in far-flung empires.

* In short scenarios, be very careful what improvements you give an empire that might becontrolled by a human player; anything not both urgent and vital will be sold for cash. It isparticularly inappropriate to give cities every possible structure.

* Be stingy with airports on large maps, miserly with pollutant-reducing structures in scenariosthat forbid pollution, tight with temples and the like to Fundamentalisms, and chintzy withPolice Stations in cities controlled by non-representative governments.

* Make certain you account for each and every Wonder. Either destroy it, allocate it (with orwithout making it obsolete), forbid its ever being made, or playtest games to see who reaps

advantages from in practice. Try setting the prerequisite advance of Wonders you want toexclude to no, rather than irreversibly destroying them.

iii) Destroying CitiesA city may be destroyed by

* reducing its size to one* putting a weak defender in it (you can even get very clever and use a barbarian, to avoid

cluttering up the casualty list),

* switching the human-controlled civilization,* creating a attack unit of the second civilization and,* attacking the city. This is really helpful if you want to change the terrain under a city.

iv) Transferring citiesTransferring a city to another civilization merely involves moving a unit of that civilization into theempty city. Make certain the city size is not zero or negative. Creating barbarian cities, however,requires you to take at least two game turns to design your scenario (which means shields accumulate,civilizations interact unpredictably, etc.). Create the city and leave it empty. Create a barbarian unit ofthe type you want the city to produce next to it. When you are certain you are ready to end the gameturn, do so and watch the city get conquered. Try not to have too many barbarians running around - itgets tedious.

v) Special notes on port citiesYou can create a coastal city unable to make ships or sea improvements. You can create inland citiesthat think they are ports. How? The only time the game can realize a city is a port or not is when thatcity is created.

vi) Special notes on cities of size zeroUnless you own it, or the entire map is revealed, cities of size zero are invisible. Units in such cities


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still generate a ZOC. Moving one of your units into such a town will generate an error message, butclicking ignore will allow the game to continue.

d) Creating the human landscapeThis is an area often skimped on, yet it is of cardinal importance in every scenario.

i) In scenarios depicting a battle, campaign, or war, railroad links between cities should be thought aboutcarefully. When you connect point A and B by rail, you essentially reduce the distance between them

to zero. Its the equivalent of setting up a transporter room in each burg (Beam me up, Scotty!). Useroads, put units in fortresses, make barriers: in short, do something to prevent a skilled human playerfrom romping all over his computer opponents. Same story with city hinterlands: Railroads make iteasy to suppress partisans.

ii) Apart from railroads, most scenarios would do well to add more alterations to terrain, simply in orderto let the player know how prosperous, industrious, and advanced a civilization he commands. Acluster of cities surrounded by intricately worked homesteads sends a powerful message: so does adesolate, wilderness landscape. If the cities of a single nation are widely separated, you may havemade your map too big.

iii) The cost of changing the landscape should be carefully considered; you may raise it by increasing thecost of settlers/engineers and the amount of food they consume, and upping the time required toirrigate, mine, and transform.

e) 7e. Mobilizing forcesi) Number of Units

How many units you gave each civilization at the beginning of the game, and where they are located,can make a great difference to the pleasure your audience derives from playing your work. Playtestingis crucial here, since you may sometimes want to recreate Pearl Harbor - or create an initial balance ofpower. Since you can control the order in which nations move (see Tidying your Scenario, below),there is no excuse for unplanned massacres on the first turn.Be wary of creating too many units, for two reasons: Firstly, a skilled human player, given a criticalmass of offensive units, can conquer any opposition. Secondly, excessive initial units leads to bloodystalemates between AI powers which, given that the computer is blissfully innocent of any offensivetactic other than kill everything between me and my target city, does not make for exciting scenarios.

ii) Fine-tuning Offensive CapacityYou may fine-tune the ability of an army to take the offensive in the first turn of the game by movingunits off roads/rails, placing them far away from the action so they appear as reinforcements, andhitting the space bar to end that units turn (cannot move or attack first turn). If going first wouldotherwise be too great an advantage (no genuine tactical/operational surprise is intended), this lastmethod makes for a far smoother, more realistic opening to a war. For example, if the Japanese go firstat Pearl Harbor, most/all of their units should move. If the Americans get to go first (they have tenminutes to brace for disaster), very few of their units should move (a destroyer or two to kill the midgetsubs, perhaps, but no planes).

iii) Pre-Set Go To LocationsYou might often find it helpful to give units pre-set locations towards which they are to travel. I am,however, not certain that this is an effective way to get the AI to attack a certain city.

iv) Confirming that computer players will build the units you want them toIn the Hints and Tips section, we covered how to make computer players actually make the units thatyou have given them the tech to. You find errors and confirm that you have solved this problem by:

* revealing the entire map (command found on the main cheat menu)* ensuring that the human player is currently operating another civilization than the one you

wish to inspect

* opening up a city window for that civilization, and confirming that the computer recognizesall the build options you think it should.

v) Unit CostAnd a last note: I know from bitter experience (correcting the first version of Imperial Pride, playing

bunches and bunches of other scenarios) that the most powerful/versatile units at sea, on land, and inthe air are seldom made sufficiently expensive. Dont make this easy mistake!


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f) Science, Economics, and Industryi) Technology

This is among the most time-consuming areas of scenario design to get right. It is as well to thinkclearly from the beginning.

* You can start off right. With proper editing of the rules.txt file, you have all the tools youneed to create civilizations with the exact mix of technologies you desire. When assigning

advances to civilizations, avoid giving cultures you wish to keep relatively primitivetechnologies that advanced nations dont have. A human player can quickly defeat thescenario design this way. If you want to give primitive civilizations units advanced onescannot build, set these units advance-to-build to one all parties have, and the advance thatmakes them obsolete to one only some civilizations have. You may also give civilizationsadvances not on the tech tree, force them to develop a delaying tech, or set their researchproject to one they ordinarily would not be able to do.

* Good luck staying that way... (only applies to those with version 2.4.2 or earlier)However, you do not have any cost-free ways to keep civilizations from getting advances youdo not want them to have. Any technology may be traded, stolen, or demanded, includingthose not on the tech tree. A list of suggestions to ameliorate the problems this gamelimitation may cause - and their costs - follows:

* forbid civilizations to speak with each other using events. The costs of this are obvious, andboth you and your players must have the Conflicts in Civilization CD, no sure bet.* adjust diplomatic attitudes and lower reputations.* Set the AI-value of advances to want to keep special to zero (see section 5b). Use this method

extensively.

* Grant a bunch of useless filler technologies to advanced civilizations. If you set their AI-values relatively high, computer players will trade or demand them first. Also, they make itless likely that a computer player will steal an important tech (but not impossible!).

* Adjust the tech tree and unit/structure prerequisites to reduce the damage done by any onetech changing hands, or lump all the differences in civilizations together in a few vital techsand concentrate on guarding them.

* make diplomatic units more expensive, or even forbid them. This makes your scenario lesswell-rounded (not a problem with all designs).

* You do not need to have only one technology tree. Try making a separate one for each basicstyle of civilization. Give each culture their own base tech, then set the prerequisites of thatadvance to nos, set its AI-value to zero, and make every further advance for that culturaltype require this base advance. This is a superb way to limit damage done by trading or(unless you get very unlucky) stealing. See the scenario Aliens and Predators for effectiveusage of a similar method.

* Ask players to respect house rules. Does not control computer players. Use sparingly;although they are very effective, players might not follow them - or even take the time to readthem. You could try altering the file game.txt to provide on-screen warnings, but some

think this a little too nannyish.* Money and Trade links* The majority of scenario designers shaft their hapless players with nearly unfunctional

economies (some that could not even pay the bills, no matter how high one set taxes), thenlurch over to the opposite extreme and give them a ridiculous sum of money to start out with.Given enough time, a human player in a modern scenario can totally transform his economyby massive investments in trade links. By taking fifteen or twenty minutes to set up a tradenetwork, you can:

* Improve historical veracity, or make a fantasy world more full-fledged* Give your players an economy that works, right out of the box, and* If you calculate science advances and the cost of items based on this improved economy,

make it less trivial for a human player to jump-start his empire.


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* Never neglect food caravans. For example, a scenario depicting the Atlantic in 1500 mighthave a city, representing the rich fishing off Newfoundland, supplying both Portugal andEngland with food. But there are downsides; not only do food caravans take food away fromdonor cities, they also use up valuable trade routes (I personally find this rather frustrating).The only positive feature of food and trade routes using the same slots is that you candeliberately crowd out new trade routes for provincial-minded peoples.Sometimes, though, you just want to add food to a citys larder without setting up a food route

(maybe you want it to grow rapidly). This can be done:* Set up a temporary city of any civilization and set the human player to that civ.* Make trade units next to cities to want to have full larders, set their home city to your

temporary city and their load to food, and move them into the burg.

* To remove all the trade routes you set up, destroy the temporary city.ii) Industry

When designing a scenario of any length, careful attention both to the initial shield production and thepotential for growth - of each civilization will yield a balanced scenario that effectively accomplishesyour original plan.

* There are many ways to improve the relative industrial production of a small, concentratedcivilization, including carefully placed resources, unique structures, certain Wonders, and amore highly developed hinterland.

* Many scenario designers prohibit pollution, especially in tactical-level scenarios. This is notappropriate for most lengthy games, because it tames even a skilled human player, putting thecomputer players back in competition.

* Note also that wealth is vital for both human and AI players industry. Humans perform rushjobs by buying units or structures, AI players add extra shields every turn if (among otherfactors) they have money to spend.

g) International relationsIf it is one area in which the computer players truly have minds of their own, it is in international relations.

i) For a short game depicting a battle or invasion, it is generally appropriate to set the parties treatyrelations to War and Vendetta (which makes a player think the other has mounted a sneak attack).

As time passes, though, only scripting events will keep them fighting. Hard as it is to get them to fightthe foe intended, it is quite impossible (again, without events) to keep the computer players at peacewith each other. I have frequently seen an alliance broken on the first turn, and a shooting war breakout by the second. Even attitudes can change very quickly. Do your best; I have no silver bullets tooffer (except possibly those available through events.txt).

ii) Adjust reputations like the important things they are. The lower a civilizations reputation, the moredifficult it is for a human player to accomplish any diplomatic goal. Throw realism out the windowhere, because this area is too important to gameplay to compromise. A reputation of zero is spotlessand one of seven is Atrocious.

iii) Human player access to diplomats - and especially spies - must be considered, since they can guideforces around enemy ZOCs, investigate cities, steal tech, ruin city walls, and (the most devastatingmove of all) capture cities and every unit in it intact. Pre-allocate, price, and place these units with

caution.

h) Polishing your scenarioWhen you are ready to playtest your scenario, take the following steps to polish your scenario, and avoiddefeating your design:

i) Make certain that all the players have the treaties and attitudes towards each other that they should. Ifyou have made them engage in combat of any kind, or even allowed them to meet, your originalsettings may have changed (use the diplomatic advisor).

ii) Set the funds on hand to a reasonable quantity. Amazing how easy it is to forget this.iii) Make certain that the rate of taxation covers the budget for all civilizations. Raise or lower as needed.iv) See to it that no cities are undergoing riots (use F4). Check cities only when human-controlled - the

computer player has very different rules governing unhappiness.

v) Set the accumulated lightbulbs to zero, or another appropriate number (if you have created any tradelinks).


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vi) Change city production to something reasonable (to lighten the load on your players), and make certainthat no city can be easily conquered on the first turn, unless the scenario design dictates otherwise. Seeto it that no city has been ignored (so many scenarios I have played have size 1 cities that should bemuch larger, that the designer apparently forgot). Insure that computer players can build what youthink they should.

vii)Set the map view to No special view. No matter what civilization a player plays, he will then becertain to get the appropriate view.

viii)Set the human player to the nation you want to go first when the scenario begins. In a WW2 scenarioin Europe, for example, the Germans should always attack the Poles, not the other way around.

ix) If your scenario has a fully revealed map, go into scenario parameters and select Reveal whole map.This avoids the unsightly lapses in intelligence common to beginners scenarios. If your scenario doesnot show the entire world at the beginning, update the display as appropriate by moving temporaryunits around.

x) Double-check your calendar and your scenario parameters, save the game as a savefile (always do this,and use it when you want to make changes), then save the game as a scenario (you should never needto alter the scenario file once made. Just junk it if you dont like it and make another).

i)

Playtestingi) How long and how thoroughly you test your scenario depends on how proud you are of your work.

The more effort you put into making the design a reality, and the more unusual/interesting featuresyour scenario includes, the more time you should spend debuggi

CivII Advanced Scenario Design v1 9

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