13.3 - Scenario Structure

By: CafeDave

Directories

If you use the 'eventget.exe' program on an existing scenario, you will see the basic directory structure required for Tropico scenarios. The only mandatory files are the description files listed below.

To get started with a map that you have saved, you must first save it as a game file from Tropico. This will appear in the 'games' directory under your main Tropico directory. Copy this file to the 'maps' directory and rename it with an 'mp2' extension and whatever name you want to give it. Then drag and drop the file onto the 'eventget.exe' program to extract events or open the file in the Event Creator and choose to extract events. Now you can set up the directories and events. Simple events may be placed in the root directory for the scenario, but in most cases you will want to create separate directories to keep things organized and make best use of the group variables. Each directory is considered a group by the game and any of the four group variables can be accessed and modified by any event within that group. The four event variables are only used by a specific event and cannot be used by another event, although they will be saved and can be used by a repeating event such as for a counter.

Description Files

There are two files that every scenario must have to describe the scenario in the scenario listing of the game. These are the only files that must use these specific names and must be in the root directory of the scenario.

The first is the file named 'name.oth' and is simply the name that you wish to appear in the scenario list. This can and usually will be different from the file name of the scenario so can be anything you want. The second is the file named 'desc.oth' and is a text description of your scenario that will be shown when the scenario name is highlighted in the list. Keep it fairly brief so it doesn't overflow the description window size.

Here are the events from the 'Wooden Limbs' scenario: