Objectives (function)

From AgeofWiki

Basic Objectives

Objectives and the Objectives menu are very important to scenario design. Firstly, they motivate the player to do different things and try different approaches. Secondly, they generate interest in unexplored areas of the map or force a delay in completing the main goal. Thirdly, the Objectives dialog tab may be the main or ONLY way for you to communicate with the player of your scenario or campaign, during a game; so it's important to communicate clearly and concisely without giving away surprises or overwhelming beginners.

Getting Started: Click Scenario>Objectives to set up Objectives for your scenario or campaign.

Scenario Title: This may be the title of your map, the filename of the scenario belonging to your campaign, or any other brief description of the map to which it belongs. It does not display in the game, but is there to help you stay organized when you are making multiple scenarios belonging to a longer campaign.

Overall Scenario Goal: This is displayed at the top of the in-game Objectives tab, below which your Objectives are listed in order. It is a short description of the overall goal for players. What are they trying to accomplish at the end? What is the victory condition? Often, the only way players will know what to do in a scenario is by reading this tab, so make it informative. Keep it brief, since players will usually consult Objectives during gameplay. Their attention may be on their army, or something else entirely. If your triggers are set up to "reveal" an Objective in the middle of a bloody battle, and your Objective text is a great wall of text, don't blame the player if he misreads or ignores this crucial information...

Objectives: Lists objectives in the order you create them. You may need to move an objective up or down in the list to determine which one displays first during an actual game. You want them to display in logical order from first to last. The comment in brackets tells whether they are Primary Objectives or Optional Objectives.

Objective Short Name: The name of the current working objective as shown in the Objectives table at left. When you edit an objective, you can see which one is being edited. You may change this short name to help you keep track of what order they should display during a game.

Objective Text: The goal of the current working objective. Not the same as the overall goal or victory condition of the scenario or campaign. It should be a brief statement of a short-term goal.

Objective Hint: Hints are there to help guide players on how to reach a goal, or to warn them about something which might help or harm their efforts toward that goal. They are not needed but are helpful and can add flavour to a minor objective. They can also plant suggestions in the player's mind that steer the player away from ignoring the goal, or taking advantage of a map glitch to complete it some other way. During a game, players may elect to hide the Hints.

Insert: Inserts a new, blank Objective after the last one. Delete deletes the current working objective.

Move Up: Moves the current working objective up in the list, so it is displayed earlier in a game. Move Down moves the current working objective down.

Initially Visible: If ticked, the current working objective appears on the list at the beginning of the game.

Initially Discovered: If ticked, the current working objective's text and descriptive details are visible to the player at the beginning of the game. If Initially Visible is ticked and this is left unticked, the objective appears on the list, as "Undiscovered Objective".

Is Primary Objective: If ticked, it tells the player that the current working objective must be completed before a victory is declared. Note: Setting an objective as Primary does not prevent a player from winning the game. You must write a trigger to set these objectives Completed, and set up any Victory Conditions to check that all primary objectives are completed.

Objective Experience Award: Some objectives can be automatically set up to grant an XP bonus to the player(s) upon completion. Enter a value here.

Objective Occurrence Count: Some objectives require meeting multiple instances of a game state. For instance, you create an objective that rewards a player every time an enemy castle is destroyed. There are 5 castles on the map. For Objective Occurrence Count, enter 5. The game will mark the objective complete after all 5 castles are destroyed.

Per Occurrence Experience Award: In the example above, the objective "tracks" how many castles are destroyed. You can set up your Objective to grant 500 XP to the player(s) each time a castle is destroyed, up to 5 times. For the amount of XP granted for each castle, enter 500 in Objective Experience Award.



This is how the Primary Objective 1 from the first figure would look to a player in an actual game.


Advanced use of Objectives, completing Objectives, victory conditions, and rewards or contingencies based on Objectives require use of Triggers.