Civ II Scenario Design



Design

First...

The first thing you must decide is weather your scenario is going to be fantasy or historical. Historical ones are based on something that have happened in the past. Fantasy scenarios are made up:

Historical

You must keep a balance between fact and fiction - Part of the interest in playing historical scenarios comes from the fact that the player is reliving a moment in history. However, some parts of the history may be very difficult to recreate in a scenario and so to avoid lengthy fiddling, or getting in the way of playability, some bits will be made up.

Fantasy

These should allow growth in military, economic, scientific and diplomatic areas to maintain their interest. They are much the same as historical scenarios.

Length

Next, you should ask yourself how long the scenario is going to last. If the scenario starts in a war, are the civilizations going to have lots of units, or only a few? Will the present transport infrastructure and the economy support a 'blitzkrieg' like tactic where the war will be over quickly? If it is an empire building scenario, then the rules that are in use could be changed to give more technologies in the time frame, change the amount of food in different terrain squares or change the cost of building city improvements.

Common Sense

The final point is to use common sense. Don't make the scenario so unrealistic that it is unplayable. Don't make the scenario boring by making it too predictable, either.


Map making

A good map is necessary for a good scenario. There are two ways of making your own map - modifying an existing map or creating your own one.

Modifying an Existing Map

If possible, it is is far best to use an existing map and save hours of hard and tedious work. Depending on how you want your scenario to play, you may want to block of areas of your map or make them undiscovered. The worth of some land may want enhancing or reducing to fit the story line. Grassland or hills can be put in the most favored zone. However don't do something unrealistic like putting desert amongst glaciers.

Creating a New Map

This is how you should reproduce a map, e.g. for a historical scenario:
  • Have the map in front of you, and measure out the dimensions of the rectangular playing area, e.g. 7 cm wide, 5 cm height.
  • Multiply y (the height) by 2 to preserve the map shape - Civ II uses an isometric grid, and if you keep to your original dimensions, the map will look squashed. Now the dimensions are 7 * 10.
  • Multiply x and y by a number. When the new x and y are multiplied together, it can't be more than 10,000. Lets say my multiplier is 10. This would give me 70 * 100, a medium / large sized map.
  • Next, open the map editor, and enter the dimensions.
  • Select whether your map is round or flat - flat maps will stop units from going from one end of the world to the other, round maps will let them.
  • I recommend that you set the resource seed something other than 1, unless you want the world's resources to be randomly placed.

Once you have finally set up the map dimensions and everything, you can now get to work on the much harder task of drawing the map:
  • Use a broad brush to create the shape of the continents. A city radius is better than a 5*5 brush, as it leaves a smoother finish.
  • Next, use the 1*1 brush to create all the small islands, bays, peninsulas, etc.
  • Once the coastlines have been set out, toggles the coastline protect option to on.
  • Now add the lakes and rivers - later on you can use these as landmarks.
  • Next, to make the map look more natural, vary the terrain according to its longitude.
  • Don't just plonk down areas of one terrain in one area, and areas of another somewhere else - vary it.
  • Rivers in the middle of nowhere look silly - in real life they often start in mountains or hills and finish in lakes or oceans.
  • Finally, give the right terrain to the right civilizations - if you don't want to starve a civilization give them access to water for irrigation. If an area has coal in real life, build a hill over a resource. Understand that your map is probably the most important part of your scenario.



Rules

Slightly altering the rules can make the scenario more playable and fun, but be cautioned; alteration can also make the scenario run strangely. Starting at the beginning of the rules file - rules.txt, there are a few things that I recommend you can change, and some I don't.

Cosmic Principles
  • Road movement multiplier - If you are using a large map, but wish your scenario to play faster, increasing x will have benefits. The opposite is also true. This also alters the movement of rivers and alpine troops.
  • 1 in x chance Trireme lost - Altering this will change the amount of contact between civilizations on different continents if they are still using triemes. Putting it to 1 will allow more contact between civilizations.
  • Number of food each citizen eats per turn - I don't recommend changing this. If you want to change the rate of growth in the cities, alter the number of rows in the food box.
  • Number of rows in food box - This will alter the rate of growth of the civilizations in the scenario.
  • Number of rows in shield box - Same as with above.
  • Settlers eat - Increasing this value will decrease the amount that the civilizations can change terrain and found new cities. Decreasing it will have the opposite effect.
  • First unhappiness - Giving this a high number will free the players hand of dealing with civil disorders.
  • Maximum size without aqueduct / sewer system - This will make the improvements more or less useful.
  • Tech paradigm - Setting this at a very high value (e.g. 1000) will stop scientific ruining your scenario.
  • Support for units - This is one way of making different civilizations more or less powerful.

Civilization Advances

One way of improving the gameplay in your scenario is to add lots of custom technology around the period of play. However, editing the technologies is very risky, and your work should be frequently backed-up. A number of points should be taking into consideration when editing the rules.
  • Double-checking - Double check your work as you are doing it. It's far less tedious than having to debug your work once you've saved it and forgotten what you changed.
  • AI Values - If you don't want technologies to be 'discovered' by trading, then set the AI value to 0.
  • Tech Tree - Removing or editing the tech tree can sometimes result in strange results. For example, tech A may end up needing tech B, which actually needs tech A. Some techs may not be able to be discovered, confusing gameplay.

City Improvements

You can only change the name, cost, maintenance and prerequisite advance for different structures, not what they do. However, by changing the cost, maintenance and prerequisite advance for different structures, you can alter different points in your scenario.
  • Industrial Production - Offshore platforms, factories, manufacturing plants, power plants, etc.
  • Economy - Marketplaces, banks, stock exchange, superhighways.
  • Technology - Libraries, universities, research labs.
  • Growth - Harbors, granaries, aqueducts, sewer systems.
  • Civil Disorders - Temples, cathedrals, colosseums.
  • Defence - City walls, SAM batteries, SDI defence.
  • Corruption - Courthouse.

Wonders

As with city improvements, you cannot alter what scenarios do. However, by changing the cost and prerequisite advance for different structures, you can alter different points in your scenario.
  • Happiness - JS Bach's Cathedral, Michelangelo's Chapel, The Oracle, the Hanging Gardens, Cure for Cancer.
  • Growth - Pyramids.
  • Naval superiority - Lighthouse, Magellan's Expedition.
  • Technology - Great Library, SETI Program
  • Defence - Great Wall.
  • Diplomatic - Marco Polo's Embassy, United Nations.
  • Economy - Adam Smith's Trading Co..
  • Production - King Richard's Crusade, Hoover Dam.

Units

Civ II allows you to control every aspect of the units.
  • Domain - This can be ground, air or sea, and will alter how it is used.
  • Movement - Changing this will alter the length it takes to complete the scenario. Setting it to 0 will make the unit stationary for the whole game until destroyed. If it is fortified at the beginning of the scenario, it can act as a defence.
  • Range - This only applies to air units. x indicates the number of turns that an aircraft can stay in flight without returning home. A large number makes a good reconnaissance unit, and could attack far into enemy territory.
  • Attack - Don't be stupid and set it to unrealistically high values, unless the unit costs a lot to build.
  • Defence - Same with attack - don't set it to a too high value, as it would make game play slow.
  • Role - Very important. Giving it the wrong role will confuse the AI civilizations, and will even alter the abilities of the unit.

There are also a number of 'flags' which give the unit special abilities.
  • Two space visibility - This is often found on ships.
  • Ignore zones of control - Units with this ability can travel past other units that are not allied. They are useful for exploring enemy territory.
  • Can make amphibious assaults - Enemy units and cities can be attacked directly by units on a ship with this ability.
  • Submarine advantages/disadvantages - These units cannot attack units over land, and are hidden to some units.
  • Can attack air units - This includes fighters.
  • Ship must stay near land - An annoying capability, and is only given to triemes in the real game.
  • Negates city walls - If there are lots of units with this ability, it can make gameplay a lot faster.
  • Can carry air units - In the real game only carriers can do this.
  • Can make paradrops - Don't do weird things like give this ability to ships - it doesn't make sense.
  • Alpine (treats all squares as road) - Useful when playing in rocky or hilly terrain.
  • x2 on defense versus horse - In the real game only pikemen can do this.
  • Free support for fundamentalism - In the real game only fanatics have this.
  • Destroyed after attacking - Ususally given to missiles.
  • x2 on defense versus air - Combined with a high defence factor, this can make for a good unit.
  • Unit can spot submarines - Combined with two space visibility, this can make a good a good reconnaissance unit.

Terrain

This section of the rules file allows you to control many different aspects of the terrain.
  • Movement cost - This is the number of movement points expended when a unit moves across this terrain.
  • Defence - This number * 50 gives you the defence bonus that will alter the defence of the unit occupying that terrain.
  • Food - Amount of food without irrigation.
  • Shields - Amount of shields without mining.
  • Trade - Amount of trade without roads or railroads.
  • What terrain it is turned to when irrigated/mined - e.g. jungle to grassland, forest to plains.
  • Extra shields/food when irrigated/mined - The modifier that changes the amount of food or shields when irrigated or mined.
  • Turns to irrigate/mine - The number of turns a settler will take to irrigate or mine this terrain. Engineers work twice as fast.
  • Transform - The terrain that this terrain will become when an engineer transforms it.



Other Text Files

Other than rules.txt, which is the most important text file for making a customised scenario, there are perhaps 3 other text files worth looking at and changing if necessary.

City.txt

This file contains listings of the city names of different civilizations, in order of settlement. If you have made your own civilization and wish to add city names, then it must be in this format:

@ROMANS
Rome
Veii
Antium
Cumae
.....
.....
@STOP

The civilization name at the beginning of the listing must be in the noun form, otherwise the computer will not recognise it.

Labels.txt

The labels.txt file contains labels!!. Scrolling down, there are some that might be worth changing, and some that are not.
  • Barbarians/Barbarian - If your scenario is set on an alein planet? then this could be changed to native life form.
  • River - Maybe it could be magma flow.
  • Treasury - Energy store.
  • Spaceship parts - Maybe these could be changed to something more futuristic, e.g. fuel to antimatter reserves.
  • CITY STATUS - Colony status.

Of course, there are an endless number of possibilities.

Game.txt

This file contains many of the messages you will see during gameplay and diplomatic negotiations. By changing some of these messages, your scenario can become a lot more realistic.


Graphics

Graphics appropiate to your scenario can make gameplay a lot more interesting. If you are planning to make your own graphics, then I strongly recommend getting Paintshop Pro. A shareware version can be downloaded from various sources. In the Civ II directory, there are 6 files that are worth altering if necessary - units.gif, cities.gif, icons.gif, terrain1.gif, terrain2.gif and people.gif.

Units.gif

This file is the most frequently edited image file. If you open this file, you will find a series of images of units. There position in this file (left to right) is the same as there position in the rules file. The last three colours in the pallette are magenta, green and purple. These colours will not show up on the screen. The green is the surrounding box colour, the magenta represents the square that the unit occupies and the purple is the surrounding squares.
I reccomend that you make a copy of the units.gif file and edit it rather than starting from scratch - this will avoid you a lot of pallette complications.
The blue dots in the margin that are to the left and above the units indicate where the top-left hand corner of the units shield will be placed when plying the game. When copying and pasting, don't select the bottom or right green border lines - it will mess up where the shield is placed for the units to the left and below.

Cities.gif

This file is much the same as the units.gif file, apart from each city has two dots, one orange and one blue. The blue dots control where the base of the flag is going to be and the orange dots control the top-left corner of the number box that shows the city size. As with units, always back-up your work.

Icons.gif

The icons.gif file has icons for:
  • Structures, Wonders.
  • Advances - era, type.
  • Pollution, riots, explosions.
  • Shields, trade, food, waste, corruption, hunger.
  • Science, global warming status indicators.
  • Various backgrounds, etc.

Terrain1.gif, Terrain2.gif

Terrain1.gif controls the appearance of all the terrain except mountains, hills and forests. The left of the image is taken up by 4 coloumns, the first 2 used for variations on that terrain and the last terrain showing the possible resources. On the right of the image there are the icons that will alter the appearance of the terrain if it is irrigated, farmed, mined, polluted, has roads, railroads, villages or a resource shield.

Terrain2.gif controls the appearance of rivers, forests, mountains, hills, river mouths and coastlines when they are next to each other.

People.gif

People.gif controls the appearance of people in ancient times, after the discovery of both invention and philosophy, after the discovery of industrialization and after the discovery of electronics. Going from left to right, they represent happy men and women, content men and women, unhappy men and women, angry men and women, entertainers, tax collectors and scientists.


Sound Effects

The sound files are located in the sound/ directory. All sound files are in .wav format, 8 bit mono at 22 Mhz. Don't forget that sound files are large, so if you do decide to edit them, keep the number of changed files to a minimum.

Unit Sounds

Sound Name, type or event
Aircombt Fighter attacking air unit.
Biggun First part shore and naval battles for units other that Destroyers, Cuisers, AEGIS Cuisers and Battleships.
Boatsink A trieme-type boat lost at sea.
Catapult Catapult.
Cavalry Cavalry, Dragoons.
Custom1, 2 and 3 For custom units 1, 2 and 3.
Diesel Freight units.
Divcrash Fighter or Bomber lost in combat.
Divebomb Fighter or Bomber making ground attack.
Elephant Elephant.
Engnsput Fighter or bomber crashing through lack of fuel.
Fire--- First part of sound for Cannon, Artillery, Howitzers.
Helishot Helicopter.
Infantry Musketeers, Riflemen, Partisans, Alpine Troops, Paratroopers.
Jetbomb Stealth air unit making ground attack.
Jetcombt Stealth fighter attacking air unit.
Jetcrash Stealth air unit lost in combat.
Jetsputr Stealth air unit crashing through lack of fuel.
Largexpl Ship attacks, end of Armour, Cannon, Artillery, Howitzer.
Mchnguns Fanatics, Marines, Paratroopers, Mech Inf.
Medexpl Structure destroyed by diplomat or spy.
Medgun Second part of Cannon, Artillery, Howitzer. First part of Armour.
Missile Cruise missile.
Navbttle Shore and naval battles, first part for DeDestroyers, Cuisers, AEGIS Cuisers and Battleships.
Nukexplo Nuclear missile.
Spysound Most successful diplomat or spy actions.
Swordfgt Warriors, Phalanxes, Pikemen, Legion.
Swrdhors Horsemen, Chariots, Kights, Crusaders.
Torpedos Naval submarine attacks.


Structure and Event Sounds

Sound Structure built, event
Aqueduct Aqueduct.
Barracks Barracks.
Bldcity New city.
Bldspcsh Spaceship part.
Cathedrl Cathedral.
Cheers1, 2 and 3 Structures without pacific sound.
Civdisor Civil disorder.
Drum* Responses during negotiations.
Fanfare* Starting diplomatic negotiations.
Guillotn When you conquer the world.
Movpiece Unit move.
Neg1 Invalid choice.
Newbank Bank.
Newgovt New government.
Newonder Wonder.
Pos1 Buying productoin.
Sell Improvement sold.
Stkmarkt Stock exchange.



Putting it Together

You have made your map, edited the rules and other text files and made the graphics and sound effects. Now it is time to put it all together.

Starting the Game

When you start up Civ II, you must select the 'Start on Premade World' option, and select your map file from where you saved it.

Next, Civ II will ask you weather to randomize the players starting positions. Select 'No'.

Select 'Deity' on the difficulty level - it is no good creating the scenario on an easier setting and then when you come to play it at a harder setting all the cities go into disorder.

After that, select the number of civilizations that are playing, and then the level of barbarian activity.

You should use customized rules. On the 'Select Custom Features', having the 'flat world' option ticked will stop units going from one side of the map to the other. Tick the 'Select Computer Opponents'. Don't tick 'Accelerated Startup', buut do tick 'Don't Restart Eliminated Players'. It is up to you whether or not you allow spaceships.

In the 'Select your Tribe', select the first civilization (going from top to bottom, left to right) that will be playing in your scenario. This is because that the order the civilzations are in the box is the order that they have their turns in.

Finally, select the city style you wish to use.

Setting up the Civilizations

Once the game has started, go straight into cheat mode. Reveal the entire map and make sure the 'Always wait at end of turn' option is ticked. As you do the editing, save constantly.

Under the cheat menu, the first thing you must do is select 'Edit Scenario Parameters'. There are a number of options that can be changed.
  • Tech Paradigm - This alters the research rate, a higher number making research slower.
  • Turn Year Increment - Giving a positive number will affect the number of years passed per turn. Giving any negative number will make the turns go by in monthly increments. 0 is default.
  • Scenario Start Year - This is the year the scenario will start in. Multiply the number by 12 if you are using monthly turn increments.
  • Scenario Max Turns - This will set the number of turns that will pass before the scenario ends. A value of 0 will mean the scenario never ends.
  • Toggle Scenario Flag - This must be on.
  • Wipe / Restore all goody boxes - To avoid upsetting your scenario, I recommend wiping all goody boxes. However, if your scenario is one of exploration, then leave the goody boxes.
  • Reveal / Cover whole map - This is up to your scenario.
  • Edit Victory Conditions - This will alter the conditions under which a civilization has won, or by how much the civilization has won by the end of the scenario.
  • Edit Special Rules - Use these to edit special rules.

Now, going down from top to bottom, these are the cheat menu options useful for creating your scenario:
  • Create Unit - This is a very useful option. Under it, you can specify who owns the unit, if it is a veteran and where it is positioned (it will automatically be positioned under the cursor).
  • Set Human Player - Use this to fine-tune the different civilizations once you have set up the more basic parts of the scneario.
  • Set Game Year - Ignore this, as there is a scenario start year under the 'Edit Scenario Parameters' option.
  • Kill Civilization - Use to get rid of any unwanted civilizations.
  • Technology Advance - Ignore this, as the next option is far more advanced.
  • Edit Technologies - Under this option, and technology can be given or taken for any civilization.
  • Force Government - This option is used to set the type of government for any civilization. AIs have a tendency to change their government when the scenario starts, so to avoid this, select 'Forbid Government Switching', which is in the 'Edit Special Rules' under the scenario parameters.
  • Change Terrain at Cursor - This is a very useful option and will allow you to fine-tune your map by editing the terrain and improvements or pollution on that terrain. Note, however: Rivers cannot be added, they can only be removed by changing the terrain to ocean then back again. Civ II will only recognize whether a city is a port or not (can / can't build harbours / ports) when it is built - you cannot build a inland city and then place an ocean terrain next to it to make it a port city.
  • Destroy All Untis at Cursor - Very useful for getting rid of unwanted untis, as it doesn't change any casulty lists.
  • Change Money - This can set the amount of gold in any civilization's treasury.
  • Edit Unit - This will edit various aspects of the unit that the cursor is over.
  • Edit City - This will edit various aspects of the city that the cursor is over.
  • Edit King - This is very useful, and can alter aspects of kings such as their reputation, treaties and name.
  • Save as Scenario - This will save the game as a scenario.

Creating and Destroing Cities

To create a city you must select the location, switch the human player, create a settler or engineer and build a city. Next, select 'Edit City' under the cheat menu to change aspects of the city such as size.

Building improvements in cities quickly is easy by using the 'copy other city's improvements' under the 'edit city' option. However, be careful about giving cities improvements that are niether urgent or useful; under human players these will just be sold for cash.

To destroy a city, first reduce it's size to one. If their are any units in it, select 'Destroy all units at cursor' to avoid getting unreal casulty statistics. Then select the human player to barbarian, create a unit and attack the city. As it is size one, the city will be destroyed. Finally, destroy the barbarian unit.

Creating the Landscape

By editting the terrain, you can set what type of terrain it is, as well as if it has irrigation or farmland, mines, roads or railroads, fortress, airbase or pollution.

Railroads allow swift invasion; they give instant reinforcements and no movement points expenditure, and are useful for suppressing partisans. Fortresses and roads have the opposite effect.

Farmland and mines or the lack of them will change how prosperous and industrious a civilization is.

Creating Forces

When it comes to creating units, be careful not to give to many attacking or defensive units. It is important to playtest your scenario to see whether there are the right amount of different units. One important thing to note is not to give any player to great an advantage.

Technology

You can edit the technologies civilizations have with the 'Edit Technologies' option under the Cheat Menu. There are some precautions you can take to avoid technologies changing hands when you do not want them to.
  • Under Edit Special Rules, select 'Forbid Tech from Conquest'.
  • Adjust the reputations and attitudes of the civilizations.
  • Change the AI value of techs to zero.
  • Have different technology trees - some of the techs can be the same, the ones that you do not want discovering can be different.

Diplomacy

For short scenarios that consist of all-out war, set the appropiate relations to war and vendetta. However, for longer scenarios, it can be hard to keep the relations at war. To try and avoid this happening, adjust the attitudes and reputations. A reputation of zero is 'spotless' and seven is 'atrocious'.

Finalizing your Scenario
  • Make sure that the different civilizations have the right treaties, reputations and attitudes.
  • Set the different treasuries to the right amount.
  • Set the tax / science / luxury rates to the right proportion.
  • Make sure no cities are rioting.
  • Make sure that no city has been ignored as far as editting is concerned.
  • Check the order that the civilizations take there turns in.
  • Finally, save the game as a savefile, then as a scenario.

Play-Testing

Play-testing your scenario is very important. When doing this, look out for the following points:
  • No civilization has a large economical, scientific, industrial or military advantage over all the other civilizations unless this is intended.
  • If it is a historical scenario, the game conforms to the historical facts.
  • The game pace is not to fast or slow to make.
  • There isn't a simple, brutally effective tactic that easily wins the scenario.

Once you have play-tested your scenario, go back to the savefile if necessary to make the necessary changes.


Distributing your Work

The Readme

Along with the scenario itself, the rules and other files, the final package should come with a readme. The readme file should be text or word format, and contain the following information:
  • Installation instructions.
  • A brief description of the scenario.
  • A list of changed rules and other parameters.
  • Notes on any strange or unusual aspects of the scenario.
  • Credits.

The Briefing

The briefing is a text file with the same name as the scenario file. The quickest way to create a new briefing is to edit a pre-existing file.

Packaging

You will have lots of different files by this stage.
  • To make the files more managable and smaller, use a zipping program such as PKZip or Winzip.
  • Rename the scenario files to avoid overwriting existing files if the zip file is unzipped in the civ2 directory. Add instructions in the readme file indicating what the names should be changed to.
  • Zip up the file with the zipping program you are using, following help instructions on that program if you are not familiar with its use.
  • Test your scenario, following the instructions provided in the readme file.
  • If all this has been done succesfully, upload your zip file to a Civ II site such as this one.

Congratulations! You're a designer!



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