Story Enhancing Elements

Story telling is in no way restricted only to the introduction page that appears at the beginning of the scenario. Map makers have been able to tell stories using ‘signs’ and ‘text bubbles’ or ‘pop-ups’.

A sign

Signs are used to identify places…or to create some kind of hint about the environment.

There’s a castle ruin and there’s another mountain range. Put a sign. The Castle of Mourning. Another sign? The Greyhue Mountains. (Are you picturing the effect?) They are very easy to use. Right clicking on them and choosing Edit should bring up a window – but you can have up to 100 characters only.

Also signs might give players some direction or hint of where interesting places may be. E.g. Sign: This way to Wizard’s Tower.

A text bubble or ‘pop-up’

Text bubbles give the map more story. This especially true if your maps are based on epic stories where you want to tell the player directly or indirectly what has happened in a certain location or mark a certain event.(Text pop-ups are used in the Game tutorial, but not in the campaign or scenarios that come in the game.)

For an example, put a text bubble in a tower and set it to pop up instantly. The player steps in and the text jumps up and says, “From here you can see all around…the elven cities in the North and the smothering remains of Orc huts in the south.”

But remember to set the text bubble to trigger by ticking the boxes of those races you wish to read the message. Trigger mode may either be “Instant” – which means that the text jumps up immediately when unit of the player chosen to read the message stands on the hex that the text bubble is on. The other “New Turn” will only appear at the beginning of the players next turn.

Tip: If you want Players to absolutely read a text bubble, create a point that they must move through (a choke point). You have to be careful with this – do not block AI player paths unintentionally when doing this. E.g. placing towers on one hex width undergound paths. Or place them on locations such as mines and farms where they will surely try to take. (I like to put some in the middle of nowhere for surprise hints.)

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