Here is an idea...

Grundel · December 17, 2001, 17:42

For those who may or may not know, Empire Earth shipped with a comprehensive scenario builder. In this builder there is a cutscene editor as well.

Why is this being posted on a Civ3 forum?

I am glad you asked that. I am thinking of making a EE scenario and movie based on the events of my stories

Actually, i think that there is alot of potential to link these 2 great games together...Play Civ3, and then take events out of your game and make a scenario or campaign from that....and tell your stories through the cutscene editor.

Thoughts?

marcuspeddle · December 17, 2001, 20:23

Sounds like a great idea. Instead of having two units facing each other in a picture and describing the battle in words you could use the EE graphics to show the actual battle! I'm looking forward to that. I assume you can add speech balloons and post your pictures here? I don't have EE (I don't like RTS very much) so I wouldn't be able to download any files and view them.

Grundel · December 17, 2001, 22:41

Well,

you could take screen shots of the events as they happen, and use them that way. Ironically, EE has a word balloon type thing that you can use during the movie, so it may work just as well (If i could ever get a screen print to post

)

I would imagine, though that the file sizes will be pretty big.

Also, maybe there is a way to convert the cut scenes to a generic movie format that anyone can view? I willhave to read the manual on that (Which, by the way EE has an excellent one. Very thick.)

As far as not playing RTS's, I understand. I bought starcraft and maybe played it 2-3 times. I took a chance with EE, and I must say that it isn't that bad for a complete RTS rookie such as myself. However, It won't cut much into my CIV 3 time...still my favorite.

American Guy · December 17, 2001, 22:51

Civ3 has a thick manual and I mastered the basics and moved on to the advanced stuff a week before i read it. The manual size doesn't matter. If you can give me a sentence that helps me out a lot, why would firaxis need pages and pages and pages to explain the game?

Grundel · December 17, 2001, 23:15

Thanks for the response, american guy...

What i was saying is that the Manual for EE is good. The thick reference was just and added expression, perhaps to validate my statement. But it has been awhile since I have seen a manual that not only thouroughly explains the game, but the editors as well.

Secondly, I was in no way trying to say that the CIV manual is not up to par. In fact, the whole manual business was totally non related to the post in general. I now regret to even have brought it up.

What I was trying to do was to see what people's thoughts where to using the cutscene editor to enhance civ 3 stories.

I hope that clarifies everything

I imagine that not alot of people here would be interested in EE, and I am not trying to get people interested in it. It just happens to provide a tool that could really bring some of these stories to 'virtual life'.

I am still looking for thoughts on this as well

Thanks again, American Guy, for your response

ike0481 · December 17, 2001, 23:49

I own Empire Earth and think it is a really great game but I am like you Grundel, CivIII still gets most of my gaming time. About your idea..... It sure would help to illustrate my stories a lot using it. Instead of just a big map that really has no relevance to your story or your individual characters, you could use EE to better illustrate certian scenes.

My question is, if we do that and use EE for such illustration, where is the line between a CivIII story and an EE story? I have many ideas for stories about something that "could" happen in CivIII but if I take such ideas and make them real using EE, how real are they? Do they belong in Apolyton's Civ3-Stories forums?

On a totally different note I have 2 questions. How do you get a screen print from a game? How do you put smiley faces within posts?

Grundel · December 18, 2001, 01:37

That is a good point, Ike.

I look at my stories not so much as civ 3 stories, but just as stories. I think that bringing the battle to life would be kinda cool...not to replace the story, but to enhance it. Plus, you have to admit that the scenario editor in EE is pretty top notch. Many of my games have inspired me to start some comparable scenarios in EE.

As far as smiley faces go, there is a box to the left of the text field that you type in your posts with a bunch of smilies in it. click on one, and it will be inserted into your post where your cursor is.

Also, each smilie has a code...for example, if you type colon-b-colon, you will get a thumbs up (

) if you type a colon and close parentheses, you get a smilie (

) type colon and capital D you get

As far as screen prints go, i can't figure them out here. You are supposed to upload them to a ftp site, hit the image button up top there, and put the link to the site in the box. When i do this, nothing is displayed.

Hope this helps you out, Ike. Thanks for the response

Deadly Mass · December 18, 2001, 03:50

I believe all you have to do to link pictures is to just type the html code for the image, and it will be interpreted as html...

For example, if I type the following as one line:

<
img src="http://www.cps.cmich.edu/~langley/gatekeeper.gif" width="320" height="224" alt="All Your Base"
>

it displays as:

Hope this helps, and keep up the stories. They're really entertaining!

ike0481 · December 18, 2001, 10:30

My scientists have discovered the technology of putting smiley faces on my posts. Thank you Grundel for sharing this technology with me.

Grundel · December 18, 2001, 15:50

Now all you have to do is share world maps and give me 20 gold, and we will be even

ike0481 · December 18, 2001, 16:38

I am having trouble writing a story. I can't seem to get into it like some of the others. I know you experienced this same "writers block" Grundel. How did you deal with it?

Grundel · December 18, 2001, 19:19

I know the feeling. Here are some suggestions...

1. For civ 3 stories, let the computer tell it! What happened in your most recent game? Talk about it. It does not have to be genreal, but maybe a small part of it. What about the first ship that reached a new land? You could tell it with a columbus spin. Or maybe the time you conquered that city for its oil. Ever had a spearmen or warrior hold off 5 or 6 units? What about a time when all of your cities went into anarchy. Ever steal a technology?

2. sometimes you just have to take a step back. I started writing Darin and Gunther's exploits, thinking that i just HAD to submit something for the next contest. But I had to take a break for a few days.

3. Also can you e mail what you got? Maybe i could give some specific ideas. Or email me a creen print or saved game.

Hoe that helps