Tutorial: Advanced Scenario Design 101

[Vic]

Advanced Scenario Design 101

This tutorial continues where Simple Scenario Design 102 left. We will continue work on the Netherlands scenario and give it some more historical flair.

In SSD 102 we already disabled reading data from the masterfile, this is important to do if you want to edit subformationtypes or landscapes.

[Vic]

Here we see the so called "afsluitdijk" which is a narrow dyke closing of a huge lake from the North Sea. I do not think the current graphics look much like a dyke so i am going to add some graphics for those two hexes.

[Vic]

So i paint two special hexes: Afsluitdijk1.png for the western part and Afsluitdijk2.jpg for the eastern part of the two hex dyke. I add these as sprites for the Plains LandscapeType.
On this picture we see the western part.

[Vic]

And on this window the eastern part. But on this eastern hex of the dyke there used to be a Fortress "Kornwederzand". To get this here again we have to make a special graphic called Afsluitdijk2b.jpg

[Vic]

And add it to the fortress landscapetype. And then also add a locationtype that uses this LT + Sprite combo.

[Vic]

I have made the special Kornwederzand Location type by copying the Fortress LocationType and changing its name (a) and giving it another sprite (b).

[Vic]

But thats not enough, in case it is destroyed it should paint the correct afsluitdijk picture on the hex (a).

[Vic]

The next thing that annoyed me is that the Dutch have the French flag. So i am going to give them their own flag (a) and symbol (b) (for top left on counter)

[Vic]

And i dont like seeing english soldiers where i should see dutch soldiers.
So i replace the graphic here too. By going to the graphics tab and then selecting the graphic with extracode=2 (that is used by the Netherlands regime) and loading a new graphic for it.

[Vic]

And i put another historical landmark in. The grebbeberg. One of the few bigger hills in the Netherlands (low countries) and also a focal point of fighting during the may days. I just changed the big picture graphics of the low mountains sprite and put it in. You can also name hexes without locations by going to the hex subscreen (a).

[Vic]

Also i thought it was strange that equipment could still be produced on a 1 day a round scale so i go the loctype subscreen and configure the loctypes used so that they only produce Non-combat items (a).

[Vic]

Then another thing you should do is add some more historical flavour to a scenario by adding some events that are in this case purely descriptive. We can also show pictures with events by loading eventpics.

Go to the settings screen and the eventpics tab and click the add button (a) to add eventpics to be used by message events.

I am adding a picture for a start of war message.
And a picture of a german parade for the taken city events.
Then i will also do a dutch and nazi flag for the victory messages.

Also i changed some further small things. Like setting the germans to have the only turn on May the 10th since the Dutch were actually quite surprised by the attack,

I also improved the scenario description, which is always a good thing to do.

[Vic]

The thing i still had to do was test the game against the AI. Especially against the Dutch AI.

As i expected the Dutch did not want to keep their big towns garrisoned making those easy pray for the German paratroopers. So i told the AI to imagine some extra VPs on those towns with the ExecChangeAVIP command. Also i used rulevar 251, 252 and 254 to increase the AIs willingness to stay put and defend those vital towns. I am not realy pleased with the result, but it will have to do for now.

The German AI was way to timid so i switch off random AI personality rulevar(248) and add an event with the ExecAIConservative command for the german AI to be very aggressive and for the dutch to be very defensive.

Also i am adding a OKW and Dutch Supreme HQ to catch the production and help the AI not get confused. I will give the Germans some supply reserves too.

[Vic]

Next tutorial i will go into more detail about the rulevars that influence the AI and other things a scenario designer should know about the AI.
 
Kind regards,
Vic

[Vic]

I posted the scenario created in the simple scenario design 101, 102 and this tutorial on the scenariobank:

http://www.advancedtactics.org/scenario.php?nr=13

[Westheim]

ORIGINAL: Vic

The next thing that annoyed me is that the Dutch have the French flag. So i am going to give them their own flag (a) and symbol (b) (for top left on counter)

Is there an a liiiittle more detailed description for that step?

I played around with the editor this afternoon and when I tried to put in some custom flags, this happened ... The flags paint the whole counter white (but for the flag, sf type and strength), instead of the dark green they where intended to have.

I only painted the flag part in MS Paint, not the "surroundings". Might be that I'm bound to cheap old MS Paint ...?

[Barthheart]

If you're going to use MSPaint, you need to do two things.

1. Change the background colour of your "flag" to pink.

2. Save it as a .bmp.

Err... three things...

3. Edit the the regeime and attach the new .bmp.

It's because in the .png files the background is transparent but MSPaint makes it white or black...

[Westheim]

Yes, it works ...! Thank you!

One more thing (not really about modding, but anyway): is there a way to add those flags to the "pool" of flags that are used for random games?