Basic scenario settings

Startup screen of the editor
(click to enlarge)

When you load up the editor, you’ll be greeted by a screen not unlike the one shown on the right: on the left is the map, on the right is the menu panel which contains a column of “tabs” with single letters on them to switch between different options panels.

One thing to note up front: to save the scenario or exit the editor, you use the button in the top right corner. Make it a habit to save often: there is no undo button in the editor, and it may crash on you when you least expect it.

For this part in the tutorial, we will only concern ourselves with the top half of the settings on the menu on the right of the screen: the starting conditions. The lower part, victory conditions, will be examined later.

Let’s have a look at the available options on this first tab. From top to bottom, you have the following settings:

Map size
You can change between a variety of map sizes here, and to actually change the map size, you have to click the “reset all” button. Though there are quite some map sizes available, the actual map size will depend on the apron you choose; see the page on map size and aprons.

Denarii
This is the amount of money the player has available at the start of the scenario. For all of the campaign scenarios, this is set to 10,000 denarii, though you can set any value you like.

Max Credit
To be honest, I have no idea what this does; it’s a good idea to leave it alone.

Starting year/week
The next options are the starting year and week, and whether it’s BC or AD. To change to BC, click on the “AD” button at the right. A year has 48 weeks in the game, so the starting week can be any number from 0 to 47. Week 0 is the first week of January, week 47 is the last week of December. It’s a good idea to set it to 6 (halfway February), because that will be in full daylight for those people who play with the day/night cycle on.

Favor and Rank
The first field is the favor rating you start with. Suggested values are between 35 and 50. If you leave it at 0, the player will immediately be invaded by Rome’s army to remove him from office. The rank can be a number between 0 and 10, which mean the following:
0: Apprentice
1: Clerk
2: Deputy
3: Decurion
4: Magnate
5: Quaestor
6: Aedile
7: Praetor
8: Censor
9: Consul
10: Caesar
The rank mainly determines how much salary the player can pay himself.

Region
You can choose from the five different regions here, with “C4_apron_med_01” meaning Southern Europe/Mediterranean. When you select a region, the list of available aprons (see below) will change, so do not decide on an apron before selecting the proper region for your scenario.

Apron
The apron is the bits of terrain that you can see beyond the edge of the map. Though there are a number of different aprons available, each apron will only fit a certain map size, so choose wisely. The next page lists an overview of all aprons.

The settings below the apron relate to the victory conditions for the map and will be explained later.

When you change the values, don’t forget to hit the “Set” button at the top to make them permanent, and save your scenario! You really can’t save often enough.

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