Post by Julius CMXCIX on May 24, 2008 9:59:55 GMT
This is just temporary, I'll move the main one here some time, it's so people from outside the team can read it. If they are foolish enough to want to do so.
It's me again, your most humble designing demi-God. Your may remember me posting an amazing guide on how to get a certain 5.0 not long ago. Sadly you have all failed miserably, so I naturally assumed you were all thick enough to need a FAQ. Luckily for you, here one is.
Q. How can I make some non-player units remain idle?
A. The only way to do this is to use my patented, copyrighted Immobile Units AI, which I invented myself. With no help from Zanzard Lowther - in fact, I've never heard of him. Please give me credit if you use it. A single trigger of my name on a 20 second looping timer will do. I'm not arrogant or anything.
Q. How can I place gold mines, forage bushes, yurts, stone mines, etc?
A. Sadly, there is no way to do this in the normal editor. I suggest a workaround using renamed champions and mountains.
Q. Is there any way at all to rename units before they are created?
A. Yes. Invented by me. But it's a secret.
Q. What is map copy and how can I do it?
A. This is a pretty much useless tool, but it can do one useful thing. You can use it to map-copy trees to create smart uniform forests (not even designers such as oliver know this trick). You do this trick by pressing the 'mapcopy' button. You can find this button by turning on the computer.
Q. How can I make my scenario's starting position over the character, not over the transport in the corner?
A. Why the hell do you want to do that? I consider it edgy and stylish to have it start over a transport in a corner. Stand out from the crowd!
Q. How can I let the player's units rest at inns in my scenario?
A. Use the 'Rest Object at Inn' effect. God, people are stupid.
Q. How can I freeze kings (stop them garrisoning inside a building on their own)?
A. Closing AoK does the trick for most people.
Q. How do I make invisible farms?
A. This is what gets me about moronic designers. They always want to do completely pointless things in the editor. Honestly, when was the last time you saw an invisible farm in real life?? Good designers never stray from realism.
Q. How do I make the player eat food and die when they run out?
A. Loop task away the food about every 2 seconds (do you know how many calories you consume killing an Iron Boar?). This trick can make for some very challenging scenarios when you don't give the player any way to get more food.
Q. How can I make waterfalls in my scenario?
A. Use the water terrain, place bamboo at the bottom to make it seem shallow and put marlin fish at the top to make it seem deep. Depth perception is all about subtle tricks like this.
Q. How do you make a death message appear for a single unit that hasn't been created yet?
A. Another stupid question. If it hasn't been created yet why would it need a death message? I despair of humanity sometimes.
Q. How can I improve my map design?
A. The secret to improving map design is more flowers. Remember the Golden Rule, you can never have enough flowers. When you get sick of flowers, use other exciting units such as pyramids, heads and lots and lots of skeletons (skeletons build tension and atmosphere).
Q. How strong should I make my hero?
A. Always make it very strong (all the time there are scenarios where I send my hero into a group of bombard towers and he dies. Feeble.), but don't overdo it. I suggest 12647 hp and 379 attack as a maximum. We don't want to go over the top here. Perhaps a bit more if it's a melee unit. Don't forget to include a backup army of a few hundred units (the way the player has to spend five minutes moving them all really adds to the tactics and the suspense).
Q. How can I use modpa-
A. Silence! Mods are evil black magic that corrupt your very soul. Use them and you are destined to Hell for all eternity. Don't say I didn't warn you. Now never mention them again! If you hear anyone else mention them, burn them at the stake immediately for they have strayed from the one true path of designing.
Q. How can I make a realistic desert?
A. Right, the risk with a desert is to make it too boring. As a rough rule of thumb I have at least twenty palm trees/broken carts/cacti/ruins/cracks/craters/skeletons on the screen at any one time. Sand can get boring so spice it up with occasional patch of jungle or snow to keep the player guessing.
Q. Can you give me an example of a scenario that shows things to avoid?
A. Yes. I recently reviewed an obscure scenario called Ouliu or something and gave it a 1.6 (I'd have given it a 1.0 but I didn't want to hurt the author's feelings. I'm nice like that). It started off with an entire scenario just of talking and with fish on land! (God I hate it when things are unrealistic), but I just about managed to get past that. Then in the next scenario it was just snow and there was even more talking and then there was an impossible battle so I quit. For some reason my review hasn't shown up yet.
There was another called Legends of Chile but I quit when I realised how historically inaccurate it was.
Q. Can you point me towards a guide on how to get a 5.0 scenario?
A. Yes! Try this little amazing guide that I wrote. In case you missed that, I'll put it again: The Guide! Please tell me what you think about my amazing guide (which is amazing).
It's me again, your most humble designing demi-God. Your may remember me posting an amazing guide on how to get a certain 5.0 not long ago. Sadly you have all failed miserably, so I naturally assumed you were all thick enough to need a FAQ. Luckily for you, here one is.
Q. How can I make some non-player units remain idle?
A. The only way to do this is to use my patented, copyrighted Immobile Units AI, which I invented myself. With no help from Zanzard Lowther - in fact, I've never heard of him. Please give me credit if you use it. A single trigger of my name on a 20 second looping timer will do. I'm not arrogant or anything.
Q. How can I place gold mines, forage bushes, yurts, stone mines, etc?
A. Sadly, there is no way to do this in the normal editor. I suggest a workaround using renamed champions and mountains.
Q. Is there any way at all to rename units before they are created?
A. Yes. Invented by me. But it's a secret.
Q. What is map copy and how can I do it?
A. This is a pretty much useless tool, but it can do one useful thing. You can use it to map-copy trees to create smart uniform forests (not even designers such as oliver know this trick). You do this trick by pressing the 'mapcopy' button. You can find this button by turning on the computer.
Q. How can I make my scenario's starting position over the character, not over the transport in the corner?
A. Why the hell do you want to do that? I consider it edgy and stylish to have it start over a transport in a corner. Stand out from the crowd!
Q. How can I let the player's units rest at inns in my scenario?
A. Use the 'Rest Object at Inn' effect. God, people are stupid.
Q. How can I freeze kings (stop them garrisoning inside a building on their own)?
A. Closing AoK does the trick for most people.
Q. How do I make invisible farms?
A. This is what gets me about moronic designers. They always want to do completely pointless things in the editor. Honestly, when was the last time you saw an invisible farm in real life?? Good designers never stray from realism.
Q. How do I make the player eat food and die when they run out?
A. Loop task away the food about every 2 seconds (do you know how many calories you consume killing an Iron Boar?). This trick can make for some very challenging scenarios when you don't give the player any way to get more food.
Q. How can I make waterfalls in my scenario?
A. Use the water terrain, place bamboo at the bottom to make it seem shallow and put marlin fish at the top to make it seem deep. Depth perception is all about subtle tricks like this.
Q. How do you make a death message appear for a single unit that hasn't been created yet?
A. Another stupid question. If it hasn't been created yet why would it need a death message? I despair of humanity sometimes.
Q. How can I improve my map design?
A. The secret to improving map design is more flowers. Remember the Golden Rule, you can never have enough flowers. When you get sick of flowers, use other exciting units such as pyramids, heads and lots and lots of skeletons (skeletons build tension and atmosphere).
Q. How strong should I make my hero?
A. Always make it very strong (all the time there are scenarios where I send my hero into a group of bombard towers and he dies. Feeble.), but don't overdo it. I suggest 12647 hp and 379 attack as a maximum. We don't want to go over the top here. Perhaps a bit more if it's a melee unit. Don't forget to include a backup army of a few hundred units (the way the player has to spend five minutes moving them all really adds to the tactics and the suspense).
Q. How can I use modpa-
A. Silence! Mods are evil black magic that corrupt your very soul. Use them and you are destined to Hell for all eternity. Don't say I didn't warn you. Now never mention them again! If you hear anyone else mention them, burn them at the stake immediately for they have strayed from the one true path of designing.
Q. How can I make a realistic desert?
A. Right, the risk with a desert is to make it too boring. As a rough rule of thumb I have at least twenty palm trees/broken carts/cacti/ruins/cracks/craters/skeletons on the screen at any one time. Sand can get boring so spice it up with occasional patch of jungle or snow to keep the player guessing.
Q. Can you give me an example of a scenario that shows things to avoid?
A. Yes. I recently reviewed an obscure scenario called Ouliu or something and gave it a 1.6 (I'd have given it a 1.0 but I didn't want to hurt the author's feelings. I'm nice like that). It started off with an entire scenario just of talking and with fish on land! (God I hate it when things are unrealistic), but I just about managed to get past that. Then in the next scenario it was just snow and there was even more talking and then there was an impossible battle so I quit. For some reason my review hasn't shown up yet.
There was another called Legends of Chile but I quit when I realised how historically inaccurate it was.
Q. Can you point me towards a guide on how to get a 5.0 scenario?
A. Yes! Try this little amazing guide that I wrote. In case you missed that, I'll put it again: The Guide! Please tell me what you think about my amazing guide (which is amazing).