Wargame Constructor  -Scenario Building

Table of Contents



When building scenarios, here a few tips to help:

#1.  Try playing your scenario first with just a few units for each side.  This will give you a hint as to whether or not your visibility, movement and battle ranges are appropriate for operational level  you’ve selected.  Once your satisfied,  build all the rest  of your other units and victory locations.

#2.  Unit size settings are built more around modern standards and do not necessarily reflect the true size of a historical unit.  In the Battle of Saratoga scenario,  many of the units are described as Regiments,  but in reality only contained 100-200 men in tight formation.   The area they occupied was is better described in the game as ‘platoon’ sized.

#3.  Unit strength settings (firepower) should reflect a combination of the unit’s size, experience, weapons and morale.  Pick some base settings for an average unit,  then adjust other unit’s values to be relative to this base.

#4.  Set your Base Terrain to be the setting that mostly defines the area of your scenario.  Use the terrain zones to create ‘exceptions’ to the base terrain.

#5.  If the map area around your scenario has water… be sure to create water terrain zones over that area  of the map.  Terrain zones are the only way your scenario will be able to differentiate land from water.  This will make your scenarios more realistic and keep your land units from traveling over water.  Only create terrain zones that are relevant to your scenario… it is not necessary or desired to represent every lake, road and river.  Just the significant ones.

#6.  You can use overlapping terrain zones,  but draw the base ones first.  That is, draw water zones, then the bridge or roads that go over top of them… not the other way around.

a.       Most zones should be drawn as open-ended polygons ( the system will close the polygon for you).

b.       Rivers, roads and bridges should be drawn as lines.

#7. To remove a terrain zone.  Touch it so that it’s vertices become visible,  then perform a ‘long touch’ which will then ask if you want to delete the zone.  You can’t move or replace individual vertices,  so if you mess up when adding vertices… add, then delete the zone,  and start over.

#8.  If not using auto-supply, make sure each side has at least one supply unit ( if desired).  Otherwise, like the Winter War scenario,  supply will become scarce.

#9. The AI defines  the ‘work space’ as the area encompassing all the units and victory locations.  Try not to separate one or two units far away from the rest…  this makes the AI less effective as it divides the work space into a set number of managed zones.   Having all or most of your units in one or two zones disables some of the logic within the AI.

#10. You can play either side… so design your scenarios so that either side has a chance at winning.

#11.  Upgrading to the Premium version allows you to Save your scenarios for later use and/or further editing .  It is a one time charge allowing you to save/recall your current and all your future scenarios for playing and/or further editing.  Without the premium upgrade, you can still create scenarios,  but you must immediately play them…. And cannot recall them later.

#12. There are only two sides in a scenario,  but you can create command units representing different nationalities.  Just alter the unit symbol, to show the flag of your preference for that unit.

#13. To delete a scenario,  perform a ‘long touch’ anywhere on the map ( except a terrain zone)  which will then ask if you want to delete the scenario.

#14. Victory Conditions are set in the Scenario Info Editor.  Destroying all the enemy fighting units always results in victory, otherwise capturing the set percentage of Victory Points ( each Victory Location is worth a set number of Victory Points).  If the maximum number of turns has been executed and  no side has yet achieved victory, there is a ‘default’ winner setting.  This allows a winner by just keeping the other side from acquiring victory points.

#15. To use customized Flags or Unit Symbols,  - add your image files in your device’s  \WCS\.UnitImages or \WCS\FlagImages folder.  Flags should in the range of 80x50 pixels and Unit Symbols are 60x40.   Unit Symbols should be black and white only, as the display logic tries to ‘colorize’ them according to the selected force color.

#16. To use a customized Map,  - add your image files in your device’s  \WCS\MapImages folder.  Afterwards selected the Map Display option in the Scenario Editor, choose Map Type: Custom.  From here, you’ll be prompted to select an image ( from those in your ..\WCS\MapImages folder).  After selecting an image, you’ll be prompted for the for the width distance your map image represents ( in kilometers).  After closing out of the scenario editor,  you’ll see the location tool location.png  is available. Select this, then touch the area of the google map to place your map image.  The image should appear as a backdrop you can play your scenario over.  It is not necessary to place your map image in the geographically correct spot in google maps – anyplace will do.

 

 

 

Unit and Terrain Features