Scenario Creator Tutorial

Introduction
Hello! below you'll find information and a walkthrough on the new Scenario Creator, along with the updated Map Editor.

Scenario tool, what is it?? Well, this tool provides a visual interface to the user that will allow someone to quickly set up and customize scenarios without the need to edit files within a text editor. You can easily set the scenario name, WMDATA, unit properties, news items, etc.

See also scenario creator

Scenario Creator Version 2 - Tutorial
Please note that this tutorial has been updated to reflect changes made to the scenario creator in update 9.1.250. The biggest change is the ability to customize and add specific military units to a country in a scenario. This is called the ORBATS file and instructions on how to use this new tool are demonstrated below.

The walkthrough… (How the map Arena 4A was created)

To Start, we’ll need to launch the Scenario Creator. This is part of the Supreme Ruler - Content Editor in your Steam library in tools. On start up you’ll be brought to the Help screen which indicates the files relevant to this tool. It also has some useful links. To continue, click the Next button.

The First step is to enter a scenario name. Then click all the check boxes as seen below, as you do this you’ll see the Cache name, MAPX, OOF, and CVP sections filled in automatically (these can be changed manually if desired). The Second step is to choose the WMDATA file in the Editable Data Files section. The WMDATA file contains World Market/Economy information of the era you would like to play in, in this case we will click the dropdown arrow and choose the GC2020.WMDATA file for a modern era (see Screenshot 1 below). OPTIONAL At this point nothing else needs to be changed, but if you wanted to you could edit the DEFAULT files in the Data Files section using the Asset Manager tool by clicking the # symbol beside each file.

Screenshot 1- Scenario Once the Next button has been pressed, you’ll be brought to the Settings (see Screenshot 2 below). This screen allows you to edit the default game settings for the scenario you are creating. Change your settings to match the screenshot below, or customize them to your liking. Note these are only the default settings, they can be changed within the game itself.

Screenshot 2- Settings



The Next button can now be pressed which will bring us to the Theatres. This section allows us to import theatres from a .CVP file or create our own. We will be creating our own in this tutorial. Select the Generate button to open the Theatre Style pop-up. you can select from a number of different styles, for this tutorial we will use the '4 Corners' style. Click Generate in the pop-up to create the theatres (see Screenshot 3 & Screenshot 4 below).

Screenshot 3 - Generate Theatres



Screenshot 4 - Theatres



We can now click the next button which will bring us to the Regions section. Here we have the option to create new custom regions or merge in existing regions from another scenario. To keep things simple we will merge in our regions, click the Merge From CVP button. In the pop-up window, select the W2020.CVP file (see Screenshot 5 below).

Screenshot 5 - Merge From CVP



Now click Open and a Warning message will appear asking if you would like to keep the capital data associated with the CVP. Click 'No' this is the safest way to proceed, as the capital location may not exist in your custom map which will cause the game to crash (see Screenshot 6 below).

Screenshot 6 - Capital Data A new window will open called Merge Regions From CVP File. This is where you can select all the regions you desire to have available in your scenario. To select a region, click the Checkbox beside the region you wish to include. For this scenario I checked the regions Moscow, Marseille, Taiwan, and Massachusetts (see Screenshot 7 below).

Screenshot 7 - Merge Regions from CVP file



After all regions are checked, click on the Merge button. This will bring us back to the Regions section (see Screenshot 8 below). We can now click Next.

Screenshot 8 - Regions



This is the Resources Section, here we can adjust multiple values associated with each resource (see Screenshot 9 below). We will leave the default values in this tutorial, but feel free to adjust them as you please. Click the Next button.

Screenshot 9 -Resources Now we are in the World Market Section. Here we can adjust various world market variables (see Screenshot 10 below). Once again we will leave the default values but you can adjust them to what ever you want.


 * The Garrison Progression allows you to change the units as you progress through your garrison levels. It progresses from top to bottom (lower level on top, higher on bottom)
 * On Hex Resource Multipliers allows you to add multipliers to the resource Hex you have a structure on.
 * Battalion Size lets you change the size of your battalions for each unit type.
 * Social Spending Defaults lets you change the starting values of your countries social spending.

Screenshot 10 -World Market

The final stage of the scenario creator for this map is the ORBATS page where you can assign military units to each country


 * The Name dropdown at the top left allows you to select any country that you merged from a CVP
 * The big list box on the left side of the screen shows the units you are adding to the country you selected from the Name dropdown, the big list box on the right shows all available units you can choose from to be added to a country
 * The “Show Regional Units” checkbox filters for units only available to the region you have selected
 * The “Show Known Designs” checkbox filters for units available at the start of the game before having to do any unit research
 * The “Add To All Regions” checkbox allows you to add a specific unit to every country on your map when pressing the add button
 * To add a unit click the Add button next to the unit you want added to a region

If you scroll to the right in the box that shows your added units you can type in the quantity column to set how many of that specific unit you want the region to start with. Your ORBATS screen should look similar to this image below. The Final Step is to click the export button. A confirmation dialog will display and you can click OK to finish. By default, the map editor will launch.

Map Editor - Procedural Generation
...on to the map editor

If you have read this before please note there have been some changes made to the map editor in update 9.1.250, this tutorial has been updated to reflect those changes.

The biggest change is that you can now edit a file called DEFAULT.PPRF located in your Supreme Ruler game folder in Maps/DATA and generate the map based on this file.


 * If you edit the PPRF file you must reload the map you are working on to see the adjustments applied to your sliders
 * Any map you create will always start with the DEFAULT.PPRF data and you must use the sliders to change them or edit the file with a text editor
 * Currently you can only see the generation settings for each specific map when you load it into the map editor

The main talking points for this part of the walkthrough will be focused on the newly added Procedural Generation options.

To start you’ll have to load the Arena. Next step is to set the MAP SETTINGS. Because Arena 4A is meant for 4 players, set the Map Width and Map Height to 200. Clear the Background Image Name, as it is not needed, and toggle off the Background Image button. Finally, toggle on the Cylindrical World button and then click Apply (See Screenshot 8 below).

Screenshot 8 - Map Settings



Now click on the Cities tab, what you’ll see is 4 buttons used for procedural generation. The tire button is for resource settings, the mountain button is for altitude settings, the earth button is for humidity settings, and the yellow wand button is to generate the map. See Screenshot 9 below.

Screenshot 9 - Map Settings



For the Arena 4A map, the first settings adjusted were the altitude and humidity variables. Click the first Mountain button to open the Altitude Variables window. The only change to make is to set the Sea Level to -0.2. Setting the sea level to a lower level will increase the amount of land on the map, where as increasing it will reduce the amount of land (creating more islands). See screenshot 10 below.

Screenshot 10 - Set Altitude Settings



Next Click the Earth button to open the Humidity Variables window. For these settings I adjusted all 3 of the Humidity Threshold settings to modify the amount of light forest, heavy forest, and jungles that will be present on the map. I also adjusted all of the Altitude Thresholds to reduce the amount of shore, hills, and mountains present (See Screenshot 11 below). IMPORTANT NOTE All three of the Humidity Thresholds are related to each other, and the same for the Altitude Thresholds. For example, the value of the first Humidity Threshold is represented by its distance from the left. The value of the second Humidity Threshold is represented by the distance between the first and second Humidity Thresholds. The value of the third Humidity Threshold is represented by the distance between the second and third Humidity Thresholds. The same concept applies for the Altitude Thresholds. Because of this, you will notice that when adjusting a related Threshold to be a higher value than the one/s below it, the one/s below will automatically increase to be the same value.

Screenshot 11 - Environment Variables



Once you have adjusted all of the settings to your liking you are ready to generate your new map!

Additional Information
General Notes


 * The first time you launch a new map, the game will create a cache for that map.
 * If you don't like how the map was generated, you can keep pressing the Procedural Generation button (Yellow Wand) to regenerate maps until you get one you like.
 * The procedural generation isn’t perfect, sometimes you’ll have to manually edit the map yourself to get it to the way you would like it.
 * Play around with the settings, it takes some time to get a feel for how certain settings affect the overall map.
 * Roads and rails will only be placed on the single largest landmass generated.
 * The scenario tool will look for and use your default install directory for the game, but it is possible to change this along with where the scenario should be exported. To do so, simply click on the Options button at the top of the Scenario Creator and navigate to Change Working Directory or Export Scenario To (See Screenshot 13 and Screenshot 14  below).

Screenshot 13 - Change Working Directory



Screenshot 14 - Export Scenario To



Happy Map Making!