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Tutorial: Simple scenario creation 101

 
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Tutorial: Simple scenario creation 101 - 11/5/2007 12:06:52 AM   
Vic


Posts: 8262
Joined: 5/17/2004
Status: offline 		Tutorial: Simple scenario creation 101

In this tutorial i will take you by the hand and show you how to make a simple scenario. With a simple scenario i mean a scenario that uses the generic.masterfile instead of a scenario in which you want to use different rules then in the default ww2 masterfile.

Lets say i want to make a scenario about the german invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940. How should i do this?

First i browse through google to find a suitable map picture of the Netherlands.




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< Message edited by Vic -- 11/5/2007 12:22:09 AM >
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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:07:26 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Then i start in the main menu by pressing the create scenario button. I decide to make the map 22 by 20 hexes. The editor screen is opened.

I now first go and select an overlay. I do this by going to the settings subscreen (a) and clicking on the overlay button (b).





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:07:47 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		I select the picture of the Netherlands that i found. and click on the map button to go back to the map.
I now see the map of the netherlands overlayed over the hex map. (you might want to turn on the raster grid in prefs)

All the hexes are so far set to plains, i will now start with painting the sea. I do this by selecting Landscapes (a) in the listbox and then selecting sea in the second listbox (b) and then selecting the actual sea sprite in the last listbox (c).





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:08:13 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		I will now paint the sea hexes.




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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:08:39 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		As you can see there is still a big blob (a) of land hexes there that should be sea. Instead of painting them one by one i will fill the are by selecting the paint tool (b). After selecting paint i click on one of the hexes in the blob to fill it.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:09:00 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		After succesfully filling that blob i now deselect the paint tool by clicking on the arrow (a). After clicking on that i dont have to be afraid to paint anything on the map by accident anymore. (click (b) to go back to painting one hex at a time)

I will now fill in the forests, which works the same as painting sea, except that i have to select light/heavy forest in the second listbox.




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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:09:24 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Now i will start painting the rivers. And it is a good idea to pick a map on which the rivers are clearly indicated, i really have to know where they are on this overlayed map to see them. Anyway after selecting rivers (a) and selecting a specific river type (b) you can draw the rivers by first right clicking a hex and then left clicking a neighbouring hex. That will paint a river in between those hexes. So right click a hex, left click a neighbour. After painting the first stretch of river you can keep left clicking on neighbouring hexes, but if you want to move to a different spot on the map you have to right click again on a hex first.

If i want to remove a river, i'll try to paint over an existing river, that will remove it.

Now i will add the towns and cities for this scenario. I do this just as i would paint sea or forest hexes.






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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:10:04 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		I select locType in the first listbox (a) and then select the type of location i want to put on the map in the second listbox (b). Then i just click on a hex to put the town there.

If you click on a hex a pop up will ask for a people#, just put in 0. (for universals). we'll get back to this later on in this tutorial.

Oh... and dont forget to save your creation now and then through the prefs button (with a small pc and monitor depicted on it)

Lets now make the regimes.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:10:34 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		First we click on the Reg button in the menu (a) and then we select the only regime that is in existence at the moment (b). This will become the Netherlands. I think the orange colour is fitting (its the colour of the royal house), but i will change the name of the regime (c) and the naming of its units to Division and HQs to Army.

Then we will click add regime button to setup Germany (f). We will set the same for Germany, except we will also change its colour to steal grey. this is done by clicking on the button next to the empty counter (g).

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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:10:59 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		We will now click on the map button again to go back to viewing the map. We will now paint the Netherlands on the map. We do this the same way as painting sea, forests or towns. Only we now selected regimes in the first listbox (a) and then select the Netherlands (b) in the second listbox. If we now click on a map hex the ownership will change.

I will now paint the Netherlands and Germany on to the map. After i have done this i go the settings menu and click on the Overlay button again. But instead of selecting a graphic file i will now press cancel. This will unload the overlay. After i have done this i return to the map.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:11:36 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		I will now draw the roads by selecting roads from the first list box (a) and the type of road from the second (b). The process of drawing roads is identical to drawing rivers.




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< Message edited by Vic -- 11/5/2007 12:12:04 AM >

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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:12:27 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		We see a lot of red crosses after drawing the roads. That are the lack of bridges. We will draw those bridges in the same way we draw the roads, but you have to select bridge as a pencil.

Oops and almost forgot to put in the only real fortress the dutch possesed at the entrance of the "Afsluitdijk".





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:13:07 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		A fortress is a locationtype, so click on loctype (a) and then selected fortress (b). We put it on the hex at the start of the dyke (c).

Anyway you can add as many details as you want, but we have to continue this tutorial. The next thing we have to do is make some peoples. I need to do this because i dont want the germans to be able to produce anything in dutch (inhabitants of the netherlands) towns and the other way around.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:13:28 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		First we have to go the settings menu (a) and then click group names (b) and then scroll down and select people group 0 (c) and set its name to "Dutch" by clicking the button next to the listbox (d).
We set people group 1 to the name "German".




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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:13:57 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Then we go to the peoples subscreen by clicking on People button (a). We then select the existing Universals people and change that peoples name to "Dutch" (c).

Then we add a people by pressing the add button (d). And set the name of that people to "German".
Most importantly we have to set the german peoplegroup to "German" too. dont forget to do that.






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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:14:21 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Then select the dutch people again. And click on owned by German people group (b) to set the prodmod for that occurance (c) to 0. Setting the prodmod to 0 will mean production is multiplied with 0. Or in other words no production will come out of dutch towns occupied by a regime that is german.
(also do this for german people ownded by dutch peoplegroup)

Which brings me back to the regime subscreen.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:14:48 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Click on the Reg button (a), select Germany (b) , click on the statistics tab (c) and then click on the people button (d) to select the German people for Germany.

All towns we placed earlier where all set to people #0, the Dutch people. So we have to manually change the only german town Duisburg to German.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:15:19 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		We do this by clicking on a location in the map. Then selecting the hex button in the menu (a), clicking on the people button of that location (b). In this case we change the people of Duisburg to German (c).

We also change the Victory Points of Duisburg to 15. And we will set the Dutch cities Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague to 5 VP too. The other Dutch cities will be set to 2 VP. Bringing the total VP to 49.

Lets go to the settings menu again to set the victory condition for this scenario.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:15:43 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Click the settings button (a) and then click the VP Win button (b) to set the victory condition to owning 39 Victory Points.

And now we are there set the scenario name (c), the designer (d) and the scenario description (e).

Also we will have to set an alternate round system (e). The start date will be 5-5-1940 and the turn increase will be 1 day.

There are also some loose ends left for the regimes...





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:16:04 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Click on the Reg button (a) and then click on the Netherlands (b), click on the research tab (c), select any field(d) and then press the set research to level button (e). Set research to level 1. This will automaticly set all level 1 researchfields for this regime to true. Do the same for Germany.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:16:24 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Now click on the diplomatics tab and set the relation of the Netherlands with Germany to 0. (means war).

Now we have setup almost everything except the actual units.
I will start with making the HQ units: The Dutch Supreme Command and the German 18th Army.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:16:46 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		We need to go to the map and select the hex The Hague for the Netherlands and then click on the units button (a). We will press the add unit button (b) and then the add subformation button (c) for the newly created unit. If we select that subformation we can set its type to staff by pressing the SFtype button (d).
You might want to set the xp too. Also dont forget to set these units to be HQs by setting the HQ to true (e).

I will give the Dutch and German HQ enough staff to cover for all troops and add some trucks for transfer capability.

Then i will add some normal non-hq units as front units.

Dont forget to set the people of the german units to German instead of Dutch!





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:17:12 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		On this picture you can see i created the two HQs. Now i'll change all towns HQs to their respective HQs. We do this by clicking on the hex of a location (a) and then on the set HQ button (b).





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:17:33 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		if i have to add a lot of more or less the same units. i usually note down the number of the unit i want to copy (a), then add a unit (b) and select the make copy of other unit # (c) button. That last button will ask you for a unit number, give the number of the unit you want to copy.

Dont forget to set the HQs of the units by the way!





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:18:02 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		The OOBs are ready. Yes the graphics are not customized much. You should set a different left corner graphics for the dutch and select nicer HQ graphics.. but i want to stick to the essentials here.
What you really still have to do is set initial production for all towns (make sure there is enough initial supply set). you do this like you would do in game.

But i noticed that the production is way to high compared to the time scale and unit sizes. So we will set production 75% lower.




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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:18:46 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		We do this by going to the peoples subscreen again (a), then selecting a people(b) and setting its production if owned by its own peoplegroup to 0.25 instead of 1.

One other thing thats odd for this scenario is that the range of aircraft is only 10 hex. which in real life scale is really small. So we will make a quick event that will set the range of aircraft a bit further.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:19:14 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		click on the events button and then click to add an event (A), add a code line to that event (b), then click to set that code line to exec (c) and set the Exec to ExecMoveType for movementtype 6 , and set its movement cost modifier to 50% of normal cost. This will double the range of aircraft for this scenario.

Now the last thing we have to do before calling this scenario basicly playable is to set everything ready. This is very important to do.





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:19:54 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Go to the settings subscreen (a) and press the Set Ready button (b). This will give all units full supply, readiness and the ammount of entrenchment they should have. Make sure to always press this before calling your scenario finished.

Save the scenario. And go and try give it a spin. If you play it a few times you'll see what you'll have forgotten to setup properly. Play testing your scenarios is very important. dont forget it. It always stays a bit of trial and error.

I hope this quickly written tutorial will be a bit of a help on making simple scenarios with the default units and rules.

Kind regards,
Vic





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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation - 11/5/2007 12:21:40 AM   
Vic


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Status: offline 		Here is the scenario we just build.

This concludes the Simple Scenario Design 101.

I hope to do a Simple Scenario Design 102 on this scenario to show how to put the dots on the i.

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< Message edited by Vic -- 11/5/2007 12:24:56 AM >

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RE: Tutorial: Simple scenario creation 101 - 11/5/2007 1:07:15 AM   
rickier65

 

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Status: offline 		Excellent Vic - Thanks for taking the time to go through this!

Rick

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