20-01-2005 07:32									#1
	new ANT scenario Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

helllo! i am a new/novice scenario builder. I am working on a scenario called 'ant'. This post is an official request for help with graphics, either help tracking down previous art or help with original art. This scenario will require new units, city improvements, people, and cities. I think terrain should be fine with art archived on this site.

I have already had a couple of people show some interest!

I am not an artist, but am pretty proud of my first ant:




Here is a unit roster based on current tech tree (subject to further brainstorming/input , absolutely)
ant (warrior)
workers 1 (settler)
workes 2 (engineer)
queen (paradropping settler)
large queen (paradropping engineer)
soldiers 1
soldiers 2
exotic sodiers
foragers
trade unit
leaf-raft
poison ants
co-ordinated ants
nest police
tiny ants
brood guards
drones
flying ants
slaver-ants
underwater ants
killer ants
jurassic ants
mass attack (nuclear)
spider
ant -lion (nearly invisible, move 0, no shield?)
grasshopper.

2 units finished, thanks valmont for the first one!

Any and all help, and ideas much appreciated. new scenarios and tools on this site have re-inspired my civ II play.

Yours truly,
birubiru

PS. I don't speak Japanese, I just live here

	20-01-2005 08:34									#2
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

The ant looks great!!

But there are a couple things you need to be careful of with unit graphics.

First, the purple of the original units.gif background has become dithered. In the background you must use ONLY the EXACT magenta and purple colors designated as transparent [FF00FF and 875387]. Second, the graphic should not extend into either of the triangular purple areas at the bottom of the square; nothing in this area will be seen on the screen.

	20-01-2005 08:39									#3
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Move the ant farther up and it should be fine

	20-01-2005 10:04									#4
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thanks guys. will test unit w/ new details.

	23-01-2005 05:44									#5
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Personally I love the idea of paradropping settler.

Some questions, and a thought.

Q1: how are you planning to treat terrain?

Q2: how many tribes will there be?

Q3: do you really need all those different types of ant units?

Thought: if you cut down the number of ant units, you could split the ants into 2 tribes, red and black. Then you could give their units different strengths/weaknesses. Whatever those might be - I know nothing about ants. Anyway it might add some interest. (I think someone had this idea long long ago, but never developed it?)

	23-01-2005 20:19									#6
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Cool, Valmont, glad your still in. thanks for the input!

so far, map is done, using graphics archived on this site. Defense and movement modifications are unchanged, but the "zoom" of the map has changed;
barren (desert), wet (swamp), wooded (forest), rough (hills), very rough (mountains), weedy (jungle), teeming (w/ life) (grassland, reserved for engineer transformation). map is maximum, with a large "river" running through it. So far, most units are move 2, alpine, essentially negating terrain movement ('cause they're ants). Alpine is set to 1/2.

I'm still ahead of you on tribes; finished is 6 tribes and one barbarian civ to serve as home for spiders, etc. Weaver ants, Leaf-cutter ants, Fire ants, Bulldog ants, Army ants, etc. I really like the idea of different tribes having different strengths, but for game play imy instinct is to go with more tribes than two. further discussion? (theoretically, all 6 tribes could get some unique benefits, beyond starting techs, etc?)

Nope, don't need all the units. but tech tree is complete and replaces all of the original techs, so this scenario should replace at least the major units. Anyway, ants are cool about diversity, so the more the merrier. If you are concerned about the number of units b/c you are an artist interested in the challenge of ant art... me too. honestly, change the color and its a new unit. my priority is to finish the scenario with "decent" pics.

Thanks for the props on paradropping settlers. Im real fond of it too. the basis, of course, is that queens get a single flight, and where they land is where they build a new nest. excerpt from scenario intro (written, but not input) "as a gentlepersons rule, workers should not be used to build new cities, as this was not their intent, but the 'paradrop' function of queens makes them much better colonizers anyway..."

Most of my information, and pictures for art, has come from quick surfing on the net for info about ants, or entimology. Not a science project though, still a civ project. Also, if the people are still around that tried this before, please through me a bone. I am committed to completing this project!

cheers!
br

	23-01-2005 20:24									#7
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uh, throw me a bone. p.s. i'm an English teacher.

	23-01-2005 21:13									#8
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new "people". This version lost some of it's colors during a saving format challenge. anyway, looks better on my computer. (not a lot better... )

Question: how do i load these graphics into the game? probably answered elsewhere, but it's late...

	23-01-2005 21:16									#9
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PS that's a heart (entertainer), a honey-drop (tax collector) and a DNA strand (scientist).

	24-01-2005 20:31									#10
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people are in the game, no need to waste a question.

	24-01-2005 20:49									#11
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Looks excellent so far! Got more information on the civs/basic game concepts for us?

	25-01-2005 06:51									#12
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uh, Valmont raised the idea of different tribes having different abilities. As of now, 6 civs, named after famous ant species around the world, play the same tree for the same units (it would be cool to have a couple of special units reserved for each civ, but im not sure how to do that yet)

You start the game with two queens, found your first nest, and play a full tech-tree game w/ slightly accelerated research. Map is very large, units movement 2, alpine. win by eliminating other species or completing 'mass migration' project to another continent (is there a way to disable the spaceship graphics/ view spaceships function? i haven't tried yet though...)

Civ advances represent genetic evolution of your species, much like in the fantastic worlds dinasaur scenario.

Large barbarian horde in the middle of the map, home for spiders and other tough, barbarian-only insects.

possibly one or two simple events. I was thinking catch a very fast, non-aggressive barbarian grasshopper to spur an event. only an idea right now.

That's were I'm at concept-wise. Still open to ideas, feedback, insights, brainstorming.

So far, a map with terrain from this site, techs, some altered RULES and GAME parameters, people finished, and a couple units. I haven't rushed home at the end of the day like this since... the first time I installed civ II.

	25-01-2005 06:54									#13
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Question (please help)

i have some nice little wav files for the units, but they are set to station:2 and 16-bit. I need to change them to mono, 8-bit, i think. How can i do this?

	25-01-2005 07:04									#14
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" Blaze Audio RipEditBurn " - Free 30 day trial.

	25-01-2005 18:37									#15
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That did it! thanks for the tip Mr. Tuttle.

	25-01-2005 19:51									#16
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It has come up that this is not a totally original idea... other civ players may have had similar ideas in the past, have done previous work on it, or are interested in shaping the scenario. If so...

All ideas and materials are welcome, and will be used, unless... any single person involved in helping has an objection or thinks it shouldn't be used. Any person gets veto power, including my ideas of course, until issues are resolved by discussion. Maybe unecessary, but anarchistic power sharing is great for artistic projects! Please feel free to jump in on this project!

	31-01-2005 19:34									#17
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Can someone help me with Events?

If possible, I would like the following events, or similar, to happen:

1) turn 20 a barbarian horde is spawned
2) capture a capital city and the civilization is destroyed
3) capture/destroy a special unit (moving)

Anyway, rest of the scenario is comming along nicely... but this part is beyond me!

	31-01-2005 20:19									#18
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Biru Biru, this is not too difficult for me to help you! Except for the 3rd one, which is impossible (if I understood what you wanted! could you explain it a bit more??)

If you tell me the locations, name of civs and units considered, I'll write it for you!

Or if you prefer, I'll write you genric events where you only have to replace the desired names (sounds better, I'll try to do that tonight!)

	31-01-2005 20:29									#19
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EDIT: Oops, sorry Cyrion! How'd I do?


1) I know how to make a single unit appear, but not a horde. I wonder if you just have to write an event for each unit you want to appear? Maybe one of the Vets can help us.

Anyway, for a single unit you'd write:

@IF
TURN
turn=20
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=NameofUnit
owner=Barbarians
veteran=no
homecity=none
locations
27,5
28,6
26,6
26,4
endlocations
@ENDIF

where "NameofUnit" is the name of the unit you want to appear. You can enter up to 10 locations, the game will start at the top of the list and put the unit in the first legal location it comes to. If no locations are legal your unit doesn't appear. Maybe you could isolate the spot you want with impassable terrain, then accompany this event with another one that clears the terrain? (That way you would be sure the locations were valid)

Note that there is an issue with the location coordinates. If a Vet is reading this please correct me if I've got it wrong, but the numbers must be either both even or both odd, else the unit won't appear.


2) Should look something like this:

@IF
CITYTAKEN
city=CapitalCity
attacker=ANYBODY
defender=NameofTribe
@THEN
DESTROYACIVILIZATION
whom=NameofTribe
@ENDIF

where "CapitalCity" is the name of the city and "NameofTribe" is the name of the tribe you want destroyed.

3) Do I understand you correctly? You want to destroy the civilization if the unit is killed?

@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=NameofUnit
attacker=ANYBODY
defender=NameofTribe
@THEN
DESTROYACIVILIZATION
whom=NameofTribe
@ENDIF

where "NameofUnit" is the name of the unit and "NameofTribe" is the name of the tribe you want destroyed.

You'll probably want to add a text message Action to the DestroyACivilization events; just insert something like this after the @THEN line:

TEXT
Message about the destroyed Civ!
ENDTEXT

Note no quotes around the text!

Give these a try and let me know how they work.

	31-01-2005 21:00									#20
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Excellent Valmont, that seems to be exactly what I intended to write tonight (so thanks to you I'll have time to work on my own scen instead! )

And to answer your question, yes, you have to write 1 event per unit you want to create (in ToT I believe you can specify the number of units appearing, but not in MPGE), which might prove "costly" in event space!

	04-02-2005 07:00									#21
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Sweet! Thanks guys! Just figuring out the events editor, but this is going to make it work!

	04-02-2005 23:56									#22
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Very original idea!
Good luck!

	05-02-2005 14:30									#23
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Very good idea, I really like it.

Unfortunately some problems are bound to come up... especially graphics. Your ant is rather nice, but unless we get some real good graphic maker to help us in this we may be in a pickle concerning more difficult ones (big beetles for example).

I would really like to help you with this, but sadly I'm good only at editing existing units, not making ones from scratch.

Therefore I prepared a compilation of units and graphics from the Moria scenario which may come in handy (especially the spiders). The last two graphics need some remaking. The snake can easily be turned into a worm, and the guardian to an ant lion.

I also found a good name for the scen if you are willing to acept it: "For Queen and colony". (It was a name of some documentary on ants I saw once)

Anyways, I hope the graphics will help a bit and I'm looking forward to the scenario.

	05-02-2005 14:39									#24
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Sorry guys, something is wrong with my upload service, so here are the files:

Attachment: queen&colony.bmp
This has been downloaded 6 time(s).

	05-02-2005 20:21									#25
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Scenario doesn't have a name yet, "For Queen and Colony" sounds good to me!

I also combed the Moria graphics for terrain graphics and the spiders. found some other pre-existing temite mounds and such as well. Kashanka; downloaded your picks and will update the map asap.

I'm going to post units and terrain graphics completed so far. all are rough-draft and still in process.

Also, events are working well!

	05-02-2005 20:46									#26
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test post; some rough-draft units

	05-02-2005 21:00									#27
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cities are most fantastical component so far; everything else is "realistic". default city names (completed and working in the game) are based wholly or in part on scientific names and classifications for differnt ants. For example, the carpenter ants capital is "Carpentriesi".



let me know what you think!

	05-02-2005 21:06									#28
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And a completed map! If someone can help me post it, I would love some feedback!

	05-02-2005 21:14									#29
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some terrain used so far. seems to be missing a couple, including "rough" terrain, which replaces mountains.

terrain types are (as of now, working in the game)
barren
wet
weedy
wooded
typical
cultivated (terraformer produced, grassland)
etc...

the zoom of the map makes having mountains, hills and forests undesireable, i think.

	05-02-2005 21:17									#30
	Got spare money?

turn them into different terrain then