Playtesters wanted for new scenarios

[Che Guevera]

I just got round to playing Distant Dreams, it has a great storyline, and depth to the game. There is a bug though when the question comes up if you want your son to come to the island, apart from that it's fine. It has a lot of really good events

[Che Guevera]

I played ancient a while ago, it is a pretty good scenario, a lot to read though, but I think it should be insanely hard, I never even got to any bit about the Archaelogical sites because the US invaded my island in 1958, so im gonna try again.

I have posted four of your scenarios on my site @ http://www.freewebz.com/tropico/index.htm if you wish for me to take them off, just post back.

[loverevolutionary]

Nah that's great, man!  Glad they are posted someplace.  I have a new version of Vayase, Touristas with a few modifications.  I've edited the map, mostly name changes and things I end up changing every time I start the game (like farm types) but I also moved the dock a little closer.   This one change makes a HUGE difference.  I ended up HATING that dock where it was, because no matter what I did, the dockworkers would end up getting lost and wandering away from the dock for years.  Even opening new docks doesn't help, the teamsters seem to love the first one even though the dockworkers themselves can never find it.  I also changed the difficulty to 'Hard.'

Lastly, I changed the tourism worker limit to 20, making the tourism goal a little harder.  I also added a third, secret ending.  I'll give away the secret, a little: it will make the dictatorial types happy, allowing you to crush the intellectual's rebellion and rule unchecked for 70 years.  I haven't tested it thoroughly yet, but I will put it up as is.  I'm no good at running a dictatorship, so the first time I tried to play it out, I got ousted by my own military, and the next time, the US took me out before I could get a Russian base.

There may be a bug in this and all previous versions.  I went over the tourism worker limit, starting the revolution.  Then I enacted the Food for the people edict, which should have ended it.  It seemed to end, but it didn't actually, people kept getting annoyed.  I think I've fixed this bug, but I'm not sure.  

I also lowered the chance that individuals get angry during a rebellion.  I started the revolution during an election, and dang, a LOT of people get ticked off FAST!  Hard to win an election where half your supporters suddenly turn against you.

As far as Ancient Ways goes, this is a seriously unfinished scenario!  There are quite a number of events early on as story background is layed out through 'Presidente's Diary' and the explanations of his advisor.  But aside from the cute 'alternate religion' code that keeps most of the populace from ever visiting a church, it never goes anywhere.  Yes, keeping the US off your back is HARD early on, so make good use of diplomacy.  The hardest thing about Ancient Ways, though, is the lack of immigrants!  The plan for this scenario was to allow the choice of repressing the native religion or supporting it.  One of these choices would lead to a humorous way of getting new workers on to the island.  But none of that is written yet, so as it is, it's a cute story that simply leaves you hanging.

I got bored with it and moved on to other scenarios, but if people really find the story behind it interesting I'll finish it.

[PeeWee]

Hi Seth!

So I just have tried to play your Ancient Way scenario. The first years were really exciting and the story behind is promising. Nice work so far! Never had sooo many mysterious pyramids in a scenario - and I was very curious what would happen there. And with this strange goat farm far away in the mountains...

As I am no scripter, I don't know what's possible. But the idea and the story of your scenario are really worth to be continued!

PeeWee

[loverevolutionary]

Yeah, the problem with Ancient Ways: it has too much potential.   Nothing complex in the scripting, it just has a long, long story.

Basically, the story revolves around the conflict between Christianity and native spiritual practices.  The player will be able to choose sides, or attempt to mediate between the two.

I have an outline for the story in my head, but it would require nearly 100 events, each with a page or three of text.

I got bored with it part way through and moved on to shorter projects that relied more on programming gimmicks than writing.  

I now have 5 unfinished scenarios: Ancient Ways, Distant Dreams, Independance, Evil Genius, and Uncle Duke.  I have one scenario that I consider completely finished , Vayase, Touristas.  Unless someone finds a bug, I'm not working on that one any more.

Independance is well-nigh complete, it just needs a little polishing.  Distant Dreams could be given some goals and called complete now, but I actually had about 5 more sets of events planned, involving wacky ideas to do with tourist buildings like "do you want to import parrots or pumas to the wildlife preserve?"  Evil Genius and Uncle Duke are little more than outlines, complete starting maps and character choices.  Ancient Ways is about 1/10 done: it would require more work than all the others combined to finish the way I want it.  Heck, in my mind it's more of a novella or short story than a sim game.

To cap it all off, I'm helping stage-manage a play that's going up in a week, so I have been too busy to work on any of them.

The play has a short run, so I'll probably start working on Tropico scenarios again in a couple weeks.

I'm planning on finishing Independance and Distant Dreams first, as these will require less work to finish.  After that, I don't know whether I will work on Evil Genius, Uncle Duke, or Ancient Ways.  I'm leaning towards one of the first two, as I have been in a funk recently and would rather work on something funny and lighthearted.  Ancient Ways is dark and spooky, and like Independance, is a scenario where Bad Things are gauranteed to happen.  It involves strange disappearences, a murder-mystery sub-plot, and Ancient Powers.  Not the kind of thing I like to write when I'm depressed.

[rakovsky]

Is the version of Ancient ways that is on Cafe Tropico website the final version?

I have found it rather hard, especially considering it says the difficulty is "Very Easy".

Advice?

Are the only ways to choose an ending baed on the event choices you select? Or should, say, neglecting your tourist industry give you a new event?

[belbincolne]

Can't answer your question because I've never finished it and suspect it is only a partially finished scenario.  This whole post must be incredibly old because we've not heard anything about the scenarios mentioned for years and I suspect lover lost interest in Tropico years ago. Pity because all of them have interesting ideas and twists.

I've finished Vayase - which is the only one he said was completed - but never managed to do Distant Dreams or Independence so perhaps they were not really finished either. (my version of D D has the higher targets - I could make the suggested lower ones, but not the higher). I'll have to give them both another go. I dont think Evil Genius and Uncle Duke have ever been published.

[Coconut Kid]

... Advice? ...

Pay carefull attention to the content of very old threads when mining the old stuff.

>>I now have 5 unfinished scenarios: Ancient Ways, Distant Dreams, Independance, Evil Genius, and Uncle Duke.  I have one scenario that I consider completely finished , Vayase, Touristas.  Unless someone finds a bug, I'm not working on that one any more. -- I have an outline for the story [for Ancient Ways] in my head, but it would require nearly 100 events, each with a page or three of text.<<

It may be fairly inferred that the version of 'Ancient Ways' available here is unfinished even though playable.

loverevolutionary's last post was dated September 16, 2003. After his post above, he got into a debate on the 'Nightclub' and took a break between September 26, 2002, and September 10, 2003. Between September 10 and 16 of 2003, no mention was made of his 'unfinished' games.

Are the only ways to choose an ending baed on the event choices you select? Or should, say, neglecting your tourist industry give you a new event?

Those are questions which need not be discovered from repeated playing.

The definitive answer comes from simply opening the script and reading the events. Of course that takes a bit preparation in learning some basic scripting, but it does not require one to become a proficient script writer.

[rakovsky]

Coconut,

I had read the old message saying that he was probably not going to work on it more. Too bad he didn't develop it more in the intervening time.

I agree the biggest drawback was not being able to get to the pyramids. Had the economic difficulty level been easier, I might have gotten there.

The idea seemed so interesting because i had never seen a terrace scenario with so many pyramids.

The "immigrants out" setting also made it hard, and often my farms were only 3/4 staffed.

Sorry, I don't understand how to read the script. The code looks like gobbledygook on notepad.

I chose to let the English Archeologist interview the natives, which might have negatively impacted my ending.

The Almanac's score page says the goal is to have the happiest people in the Caribbean. But I could not find in the Almanac what the level was to beat. At the end of the game, I had more happy than unhappy people.

Yet in 2000 the ending message said I hadn't developed Tourism and my Swiss Bank account enough. I got the boat ending, even after I used the cheat to set happiness to 98.

I suspect this is from not finishing the scenario, but it could have been from inviting the archeologist. Did any of you get a good ending?


For some reason the American navy was particularly active. I kept having to "praise America" to keep them from attacking. hen they would get rid of the gunboat. The series of gunboat sent-praise America-gunboat recalled - gunboat sent was so common that I actually had two gunboats in my harbor at once!

Did you ever have this happen?

Scroll right on the screenshot below:

[Coconut Kid]

Coconut,
... Sorry, I don't understand how to read the script. The code looks like gobbledygook on notepad. ...

I suggested that one has to do some preparation.

At

http://www.strategyplanet.com/tropico/downloads.shtml

You will find under "Map Editor" a download "Tropico Scenario Editor Manual" The map editor documentation from PopTop compiled into one Word document. Now updated for editor version 1.03 and version 1.5 Paradise Island, with annotations by Cafe Tropico. Conditions and effects reorganized for easy location.

If you have learned how to look in your tropico\directory to find the files with .EVT extension associated with each map/game - and then have opened them in "Notepad" - I am mystified as to why you don't see lots of plain English words. True they are run together in many cases and heavily abbreviated in others, but still not gobbledygook by any means.

Why don't you post a sample of what you are seeing?
Just to let you know - the picture in the attachment you posted turns me off about this map. It shows a road built on the steep slope in front of the Palace & Church. That offends my sense of esthetics. Roads are supposed to be level for goodness sake.