I've mentioned this in another thread in here somewhere...
To make sure that colonies don't show up on the world map until you want them to, set them for 'inactive' and 'invisible'. Then when you actually want them to appear (such as at the beginning of a colony episode, where the player has to choose between colonies), set the ones you want to appear as 'visible', but keep them as 'inactive'. (An 'active' city, colony, or vassal is one that shows up on the map as a normal city... you click on it, and it shows you what they buy and sell, their history, etc.) Write an event (or events) so that when the player selects one of them, the other(s) go back to being 'invisible'.
A city (of any kind) that is 'inactive' and 'visible' is one that shows up on the world map, but when you click on it nothing appears in that right-hand section of the window... no trade items listed, the action buttons greyed out. There are a couple of episodes in the original adventures where this happens, which is meant to represent the parent city being too far away from the colony to support it (you can still write in events where the parent city sends gifts to the colony; you just can't trade with the parent city).
When a city is "discovered" during an episode, it goes from being 'inactive' and 'invisible' to 'inactive' and 'visible'; when it starts trading ("Colchis blossoms!"), then it becomes 'active' and 'visible'.
Okay, step-by-step:
1) in the very beginning, have all of your colonies set as both 'inactive' and 'invisible' on the world map; if you want a colony to appear as a regular city - as if the parent city established that colony before the player arrived and is now trading normally with it - have the colony set as 'active' and 'visible'.
2) if you want the player to choose between two (or more) different colonies when they begin a Colony episode, then the first event that gets written is one that sets those particular colonies to 'visible' (but not 'active').
3) once the player has chosen a colony site, the other ones go back to being 'invisible' -- if you have the choices A, B, and C as colonies, and you want the player to choose one, have all three go to 'visible'... the player, for instance, chooses B, so A and C get set back to 'invisible'.
Obviously, you don't want a colony to disappear once a player has finished with it, so when you return to the parent city, the colony will become 'active' (I think it does it automatically).
Check out AlanG's explanation of the whole city setup... if you wanted to do an adventure with 7 episodes, with two of them colony episodes, and where the player must choose between three different colonies (one of them, obviously, will never end up being played... this time around), then basically, it will look like this when fully set up:= = = = = =
Parent episode #
1 Colony -- this episode actually takes place in the parent city; this is where you set the goals "set aside for colony"
2 Colony -- back in the parent city, preparing for the next colony
3 Victory -- in the parent city, preparing for the victory next episode
Colony episodes (not numbered)
Colony A -- this is where you set the goals "set aside such-and-such for parent city"
Colony B -- ditto
Colony C -- ditto
= = = = = =
That's how you'd set it up... in reality, it plays out like this:
Parent episode #
(0) unlisted episode; this always takes place in the parent city
1 Colony -- this episode actually takes place in the parent city; this is where you set the goals "set aside for colony"
(1a) -- this episode takes place in the colony, and uses the goals and settings from the Colony list
2 Colony -- back in the parent city
(2a) -- this episode takes place in the colony, and uses the goals and settings from the Colony list
3 Victory -- back in the parent city
(3a) -- in the parent city; this is the episode where the victory actually occurs
Colony episodes (not numbered)
(1a or 2a) Colony A -- this is where you set the goals "set aside such-and-such for parent city"
(1a or 2a) Colony B -- ditto
(1a or 2a) Colony C -- ditto
So it would play out like this:
at the very beginning, all three colonies are set as 'inactive' and 'invisible'
1 -- first parent city episode, the one not shown on the list
2 -- second parent city episode, where you prepare things for the colony ("set aside 24 Wheat for colony")
3 -- first colony episode... set all three colonies (if you want them to choose among all three) as 'inactive' and 'visible'; if they choose Colony B, then A and C get set back to 'inactive' and 'invisible', the goals and settings listed under Colony B are used
4 -- return to the parent city, set aside for colony
5 -- second colony... since they chose B last time, then that one is already set to 'active' and 'visible'; this time A and C (as before) get set to 'inactive' and 'visible'... the one they don't choose goes back to 'inactive' and 'invisible'
6 -- return to the parent city
7 -- the victory episode, where the victory actually occurs
Whew!Okay... as far as I can figure out, that's how it will all go together - I haven't actually set anything up in the editor yet; the most I've done is played around with building a city map and fiddling with the world settings.
However, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who will correct me if it turns out that I've made some horrible goof.
Wolfie.
[This message has been edited by Nightwolf (edited 02-22-2001).]