Introduction to Design

From AgeofWiki

This article will guide users completely new to the Age of Empires 3 editor through the basics of Scenario Design.

Introduction

In this article, I will assume that you have no prior experience with the Age of Empires 3 scenario editor. I will, however, assume that you have a basic competence with computers and with the English language in general. Finally, I will assume that you have a pulse, have inhaled in the last few seconds, and actually want to learn how to design. I don’t think these are totally unreasonable assumptions.

First: What is scenario design? It is (obviously?) the process of creating scenarios; but the word itself is confusing to many people who are not familiar with the Age series of games. Scenarios are essentially the same as what other games call “maps”, “levels”, or “modules”. Many Real Time Strategy games like Age of Empires 3 come with a “Scenario Editor”, which allows you to create scenarios. A scenario, then, is a file that other people can download and play, in the same way as you can play the Campaign that comes with Age of Empires 3. In fact, the in-game Campaign consists of a series of scenarios and cinematics, designed using the same tools that you are reading this article to learn. If you want to create your own scenarios, this article is for you.

I have, I think, made a very simple thing seem extraordinarily complicated. It is a well documented fact that explaining the simplest things is very hard to do. All you really need to know is that the Scenario Designer (you) uses the Scenario Editor to create Scenarios.

Finding the Scenario Editor

The Scenario Editor is included as a part of the game Age of Empires 3. If you do not own this game… stop reading now. For the rest of you, you’ll need to know how to get in to the editor. First, since you own the game, I assume this screen looks familiar to you:

This is the Main Menu of Age of Empires 3. You essentially see it every time the game loads. From this screen, click the button labeled “Help and Tools” to produce the screen below:

Once you have opened this new menu, click on the button reading “Scenario Editor” to load the editor. Soon, I hope, you will see this:

Finding Scenarios

I have decided to move to this topic next, primarily because I feel that the best way to learn design is by looking at other people’s scenarios. This section will teach you how to download and play scenarios that other people have made.

First, you will need to find a site offering scenario downloads. We have our own section for this, you can find it here (http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/lister.php?&category=single&start=0&s=r&o=d). This is where that basic computer knowledge requirement kicks in: I’m assuming you can figure out how to download a file, and how to extract files from a .zip archive using a program like WinZip. Download a scenario of your choice and follow these instructions.

If you downloaded the file from HG, it will be a zip to start with. You need to move the file from wherever you downloaded it to your Age of Empires 3 folder. In Windows, your Age of Empires 3 folder is located in My Documents. Open the My Documents folder, and then click on “My Games”, then on “Age of Empires 3”. Transfer the zip file you downloaded here, and extract it. Well designed scenarios will either automatically send files to the right folders, or at least contain a readme text file telling you where to put the files.

At the very least, you need to know to put files from the zip with .age3scn extensions into the “Scenario” folder in your Age of Empires 3 folder. Once you’ve done that, you should be able to start Age of Empires 3 and check out the scenario.

Load the editor (you still remember how, right?). In the editor, you should see this at the top of the screen:

If you have ever used a program such as Microsoft Word, this interface will seem familiar to you. The text reading “File”, “Edit”, etc can be clicked to show dropdown menus. The icons in the second row can be clicked for quick access to functions.

Now, go to the File menu and select “Load scenario” or click the icon that looks like this: .

Scroll through the dialog that appears and select the scenario file that you just downloaded, and then click Open. Congratulations! You have just downloaded and opened your first scenario. Take time to explore the editor for a few minutes – many of the functions are intuitive if you’ve spent any amount of time with computers.

For a complete overview of the editor, look here.