Overview
This guide is written by a former alpha and beta tester of the game Aggressors and creator of the Holland scenario for Aggressors.Hello and welcome to the beginners guide to create your own scenario in Aggressors.This guide is a simple step by step tutorial that shows you the most basic parts to setup a working scenario, following the suggestions given in the official editor manual (section 18 of the game manual) or the modding video from the developer.It’s highly adviced to read the editor manual and watch the video when you want to start modding Aggressors. It’s really easy to do but there are a few simple rules that helps you having a smooth experience and the players who gonna download your scenario as well.
Part 1. Preparation
The first part of creating an interesting scenario is to make a plan.
The more detailed the plan is, the more easier it is to create a scenario or mod(ification).
The plan helps you to make choices in the beginning and prevent you from having to change parts of the scenario afterwards.
Let’s call it our Design Document.
My plan for the this tutorial is to learn the player the basics of the ingame editor tools and the first steps of creating their own mods.
I decided already to make a small map of 16 x 16 tiles. This is still pretty huge since it generates 256 tiles to work on (16 x 16).
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Did you know that the max size in the editor is about 80 x 80 tiles at the moment of writing?
That means 6.400 tiles to edit. So be careful when selecting your map size.
I decide I want to have four players/tribes/nations so I can demonstrate different features of the tools.
I want those players all have an historical background that fits the setting of the main game and had a teacher role in history.
We choose 4 characters that represents our tribes:
Quintilian
Livius Andronicus
Lucius Orbilius Pupillus
Cato the Elder
You are free yourself to find all kind of information in Wikipedia files, library books, internet articles and ancient maps to give character to your tribes.
My advice is to have a plan at least for the following parts of your mod:
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Do not use coats of arms, flags and artwork from mods from other games, but try to be original. The creators of previous mods also took there information from various resources and it’s much more fun to be creative yourself. If you cannot find a flag for an ancient tribe, make your own flag by reading about the tribe. Are their archaeological findings for example? Are they famous because they are very good horse riders? Just be creative. Historical accurate doesn’t hinder designers freedom. I’ts even totally fine to create your own non-existing tribe!
1. Their roots (Roman, Athene etc). This helps you by selecting the right armies per tribe.
2. Their location on the map.
3. Their looks (find coat of arms, archaeological findings, flags etc). In this stadium just pictures, sketches and photo’s are enough. You don’t need to edit anything yet (since we do not know the exact sizes for the artwork yet).
4. Diplomatic standings towards each other (very important for the visibility per tribe at scenario start).
5. Eventually you can try to find original citynames, armynames and territory names per tribe. (This is not a must, you can use the original ingame names at all times).
6. The scale of the scenario. Is one tile 1 km. Or 10 km? Is the population for a generic city 1000 people or 1 million? Is a turn 1 year or 10 years?
7. Geographical information for your territory/map. (find pictures eventually to use as inspiration).
All those steps helps you to create your scenario from the very start. Write them in a simple text editor (Open office Writer or even notepad) and categorize the information per tribe.
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Take your time to create the design document, even if it takes a whole day. It can save you days of work afterwards!
If you are happy with the design document feel free to skip to part 3 if you already know which external tools you want to use for custom artwork and modding.
If you want to get some suggestions for external tools read part 2.
Part 2. External tools
There are two free paint programs available that I can highly suggest if you want a somewhat more advanced paint program then windows paint.
The first I use often myself is Paint.net. I’m happy to use it since you can find many plugins that are very easy to install and makes it a very powerful application.
The other one is GIMP.
If you ever want to compare two versions of your mod or to find issues I recommend to use Unreal Commander. It’s a simple tool that makes finding differences in various documents very easy.
Notepad++ is an advanced version of notepad and capable of handling XML (and .AG files, the format Aggressors use based on XML). You can download the XML plugin for this app as well.
For scripting you can use Microsoft Visual Studio. Also this is a friendly way to use the Aggressors SDK and manually edit .AG mod and/or .AG scenario files. A must have if you want to get into scripting as well.
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Install the 64 bit versions of the tools when using a 64 bit system environment if prompted.
Part 3. Setting up the map
Now make sure, for this tutorial, that you have the original Ancient Rome mod loaded.
Select the “Create Your Scenario” button.
A new screen pops up where you enter the name of the scenario:
Let’s call it “Discipuli”
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Did you know you can copy (Ctrl+c) and paste (Ctrl+v) text from any text editor to the Aggressors app and vice versa? This really helps you when writing city names and army names manually ingame in a later stage.
Let’s set the default terrain to Savannah for this tutorial. (You can select any terrain here, it just fills the full map with this terrain, you can edit it later on).
Set start turn to -50. This means 50 B.C. In unmodded Aggressors while everything passed 0 is called A.D.
Leave the turn length to default (1) and set the slider for the map to 16 x 16
Go to the “Game Options” button and make sure everything is selected, except the objectives thick mark. (It’s grayed out).
Chart properties is where the first modding actually takes place.
You will find the values you choose here at many occasions ingame later on.
The square size is the actual scale of the map in km2. You can set it in the range 1 tile is 1 km2 Till 1 tile is 10k km2. Let’s set it to 1.
City size and army size is simply the ratio between the citizen representing the citizen resource in the game and the actual numbers used in detailed reports. Let’s set everything to 1.
Also set the max units per tile to 1.
Click OK and read the important information window that pops up.
Saving your scenario is like saving a game. You do this when you want to continue editing your scenario at a later moment.
Creating a scenario you ONLY do in a finished state! (Feel free to export it earlier if you want to experiment, you can always enter edit mode manually, but that’s already advanced stuff).
Zoom out the created map now with the mouse-wheel or +/- buttons lower left so you can see the whole map at once. Notice 16 x16 tiles? Well click the 5th button below the minimap and you activate a helpful grid. Do that now.
You are in editor mode now. Notice the tooltip on the different tiles shows you x and y coordinates. Look at the tile in the upper left corner and mouse-over it. You see it’s tile x-0 y-0. This is the actual reference for this tile for the game. While not that important for a simple tutorial it’s good to know that those tiles have coordinates and I will use them in the tutorial to tell where to place items. Notice the year in the upper right corner. WHAT? I set it to -50 and it shows 49 B.C.!
Well that’s correct. We are in turn 0 now. So the first turn for the player will be -50. One year later.
Now before we continue, click the A(ggressors) logo next to the hour glass and save the map.
Call it Discipuli_v0.01 (or however you want, for reading the tutorial I advice to use the same names I use).
Again read the pop up carefully before you close it. It contains important information.
The map is saved now. We can stop the tutorial and continue to work on it later.
(when saving a map in editor mode, the app regonizes this and will continue to stay in editor mode when you load the file, all settings included).
Click the A logo again and quit the game. Take a break.
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Before to continue open your design document you made earlier. Write behind the name Quintilian = Roman Empire, Livius Andronicus=Epirus, Lucius Orbilius Pupillus=Carthage and Cato the Elder=Sparta. (This is important later since we use those factions as an example. Might easy for you to remember, but with 20 + factions present you wish you wrote this down earlier).
Start the game again (again make sure you have the default Ancient Rome mod loaded) and click LOAD and click our Discipuli_v0.01 file.
Now look at the upper left part of your screen and you see Roman Empire selected in a drop down list you can expand. Expand it now to see the different factions, but leave Roman Empire selected.
Click now on the first icon in the upper middle row of icons. (or press Alt+O), the cursor changes and now look for the tile names x-2 y-2 and left click on it.
This tile now is owned by the Roman Empire.
Do the same for tile 3-2 and 4-2, for 2-3, 3-3 and 4-3 and for 2-4, 3-4 and 4-4.
You should have a 3 x 3 square with a Roman Empire red border now.
Made a mistake? Simply click the same tile again will delete the ownership.
Click the drop down list with roman Empire selected and click on Epirus, the next faction. You also need to click the assign ownership button again. Make a same square of ownership as for the Roman Empire but in the upper right corner of the map. Position 11-2 till 13-4.
Do the same in the lower right corner, but with carthage selected (tile 11-11 till 13-13) and do the same for the lower left corner of the map with Sparta selected. (tile 2-11 till 4-13).
Your map should look like this now:
Save the game and call it Discipuli_v0.02
Select Roman Empire again and click the player color overlay (first icon below the minimap).
You see 4 colored squares of 3 x 3 tiles now representing the four tribes we build our scenario with.
Make sure that IF you use any of the minimap icons you have the faction selected you originally started your scenario with. In our case it’s the Roman Empire. Otherwise the overlays won’t work.
We don’t want to make it to easy for the Roman Empire (Quintilian) so let’s build a mountain range around Epirus (Livius Andronicus) to protect them somewhat.
Click the 2nd icon from the upper middle row (or press Alt-D) and in the terrain menu choose the first icon from the second row. The mountain. Now click on x-8 y-0 all the way down to 8-7 and to the right to tile 15-7, the Eastern end of the map. I think Livius is protected well now.
Let’s change those names already since we already assigned our first territory and know already which faction we use for our characters.
Click on the name of the Roman Empire, our selected faction, above the minimap and change the name to Quintilian. Change the name for Epirus (remember to select them first in the drop down list) to Livius, Carthage to Lucius and Sparta to Cato.
Select Roman Empire (Quintilian now) in the drop down list.
Save the game as Discipuli_v0.03
It isn’t really fair that Livius now is surrounded by mountains while all other tribes are in open savannah. Let’s do somehting about it.
Let’s make a river around Lucius. (Since we are creating terrain now, and not assigning ownership it doesn’t really matter which tribe you currently have selected. I prefer for editing to always have Roman Empire (now Quintilian) selected since I can use all other map and scenario options freely in the editor.
Let’s select the third button in the upper middle row, the rivers and select the first item in the first row. The simple straight river. Click on tile x-9 y-9 all the way down till 9-15 (yes this looks weird!) and from 9-9 all the way right to 15-9 (that looks better).
Use the numpad keys 8,4,6,2 and 5 to experiment with the direction you want your river to go and to allign it to neighbouring rivers. It’s much easier that way then to manually selected every river tile and rotate them with the buttons.
Give Cato a nice range of hills (fourth icon first row in terrain mode) from tile 7-8 down to 7-15 and from 7-8 all the way to the left to the most western part of the map tile 0-8.
Give the Quintilian a forest to surround them. (second icon first row in terrains) and paint it from tile 7-7 up to 7-0 and left to 0-7. Your map should look like this now:
If you ever make a mistake, just select the right terrain tile and overwrite it.
If you ever want to change the presentation of the terrain
Save your map and name it Discipuli_v0.04
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Save often. It’s better to save after every important change then to have to remake giant parts of the map if a crash occurs or you make a mistake that’s difficult to correct. You can also easily switch to a previous version to test parts and experiment.
Part 4. Adding units to the map
Did you notice that the save scenario button is still grayed out? This is because we already assigned ownership to tiles, but we did not placed any UNIT yet. Units in Aggressors can be any object. A resource is a unit, an army is a unit and a city is a unit.
We will start by placing cities. Select Lucius in the drop down list (if you saved the map and load it again, the names are updated. If you still continue working on the tutorial the original faction names are still shown in the drop down list. Don’t wory about it. It will be updated after you restart or load the game again.
Now with Lucius selected press Alt-B or click the third button from the first row of icons upper left. Add building and select city.
Select Livius and build a city at tile 12-3, select Quintilian and build a city at tile 3-3 and select Cato to build a city at tile 3-12
Give the cities names by clicking on them and use the “unit change” button in the lower right corner of the screen, clicking Alt-C or clicking the city twice.
Name Quintilian’s city “Rome”, Cato’s city “Tusculum”, Lucius’ city “Institute of Oratory” and the city of Livius you name to “Latium”.
Save the map as Discipuli_v0.05
As you see, the button to create the scenario isn’t grayed out anymore, so take a first look how it works. Our scenario isn’t finished. Normally you won’t export the map as a scenario yet. This is just for training purpose.
Click the last icon on the upper middle bar to save our scenario and name it Discipuli_scenario_v0.05
You get a message that the scenario is saved. Click the A(ggressors) logo and exit to the main menu.
Ignore the save warning (we already saved our scenario as a save file and also as a scenario).
Let’s start a new game now. You will see our newly created scenario is in the list Discipuli_scenario_v0.05 and click on it.
As you can see, you can now choose any of the four factions to play with and start the game.
Notice the citienames we entered, the tribe names we entered, the terrain geometry for hills and mountains is calculated now and there is a lot of info already available.
Check for example one of the cities. Just 2 population? How is that possible? Well it might have to do with the scale ratio we set up earlier (later more).
Ayway, we don’t have much to do yet since we only have cities. We do not have any resources to build armies or new settlers. We won’t survive this way.
Let’s go back the main menu (Aggressors logo next to hourglass).
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Go to the scenario folder:
C:UsersYournameDocumentsMy GamesAggressors Ancient RomeScenarios
And delete the scenario named Discipuli_scenario_v0.05 for now.
It was just a sneak peak, it’s way to early to export the scenario and it only takes unnecessary disk space.
From the main menu now choose load game and load the previously saved Discipuli_v0.05 map (not the scenario we just deleted!).
We are in edit mode once again. You can see our tribe Quintilian is selected by default.
We should assign some units so we can actually play the scenario.
This is the reason why it was important before to make a design document. It’s good to know which kind of units your faction can and will use ingame. No Hoplites for Roman Empire and no miltia for Barbarians!
Let’s give the Roman faction some Roman faction units and the other two factions some Greek units. Let’s take a look in the manual at page 104 -106 for a complete list of faction army units.
Make sure Quintilian is selected and click the second icon in the upper left icon row. Called add Unit or click Alt-U.
Find the unit named Milites and place one next to Rome at 4-3
Now select Cato from the drop down list and do the same as for Quintilian, but place a Milites unit near Tusculum at tile 4-12
For Livius and Lucius select the Peltasts unit and place ine resp. in tile 11-3 (for Livius) and in tile 11-12 (for Lucius). Don’t forget to select the right faction before you select the army to place!
Save the map now via the Aggressors logo main menu, save game, new custom name and name it:
Discipuli_v0.06
Let’s select Quintilian faction from the drop down list and click the city of Rome two times.
You enter the screen where we already named our city. We now take a look at the other stats in this screen.
We take the two most important ones for now. The specialization (drop down list next to the name of the town). Set this to Settler and the unit size (last scroll bar). Set this to 2.
Click OK
Now click the image of the town (lower right corner of the screen) to get the detailed screen for the town. Notice it can produce settler unit now and the size is changed from 1 to 2. That makes our population reach 4 instead of 2.
Exit the screen.
Click Alt-A. You exit editor mode and see the normal game UI. Notice the citizen resource (top UI) is set to 4 as well? That is because our population of 4 in the town is equal to the amount of citizen (since we set ratio to 1 in the beginning). We come back to this later.
Now DON’T FORGET to press Alt-A again to be back in editor mode.
To work very safely I learned myself to select the tribe where I make changes to I select it in the drop down list before. I’m sure that way that I don’t mess up the map by placing wrong tribe units withing enemy territory etc.
So select Livius, select the town Latium and set the specialization to settler and the city size to 3
Select Lucius and the Institute of Oratory and set it to specialize in Peltasts and unit size to 3.
Last select Cato, let it specialize in Milites and set unit size to 4.
Select Quintilian faction as default again.
Part 5. Saving your scenario
Your map should look like this now:
Select Quintilian and save as Discipuli_v0.07
Export scenario now and save as Discipuli_scenario_v0.07