Dawn of Man supports the creation of custom scenarios that can provide specific starting conditions, objectives, maps, environments and more.

They are accessible from the Community tab in the scenario select screen.

The game includes some builtin scenarios, but users can create more, and upload them to the workshop for other people to enjoy. This guide explains how to do it.

If you have any questions, issues or feedback, please post in our modding board.

A scenario is created using a bunch of XML files. These define the initial conditions, objectives, texts and various gameplay and environment modifiers.

If you are not familiar with XML files there are plenty of resources on the internet about the topic, but the bottom line is that they are text files that define stuff, you can just download the builtin[madrugaworks.com] or test[madrugaworks.com] scenarios and use them as starting point.



It's the main file for the scenario, this defines the starting conditions, objectives and modifiers for the scenario. It has to be named: "name_of_the_scenario.scn.xml", as an example, if your scenario is named "Build an amazing town", the file would have to be named "build_an_amazing_town.scn.xml".



This must be a png image named thumbnail_name_of_the_scenario.png and defines the small image that will appear in the UI of the game when choosing this scenario.



This must be a png image named image_name_of_the_scenario.png and defines the image that will appear in the UI of the game in the scenario details screen.



This file is optional. You can use a savegame as a starting point for your scenario. It has to be named "name_of_the_scenario.sav.bytes", in our previous example this file would be called "build_an_amazing_town.sav.bytes".



These store the text for the scenario: name, description, objectives etc... They have the same format as the string files for Dawn of Man, you can download the text files from the test[madrugaworks.com] scenario and just replace the text with your own.

You need to at least provide the English file for the scenario, which would be named: "en_name_of_the_scenario.lng.xml", but you can provide additional files for more languages, and the game will pick them up automatically.

If the user selects a language that your scenario doesn't provide, the English files will be used.

As an example, if we wanted to provide English and Spanish files for our previous scenario, we would have to create 2 XML files named: "en_build_an_amazing_town.lng.xml", and "es_build_an_amazing_town.lng.xml"

Note that the builtin scenarios have no text files associated with them as the text for these is defined in the main text files for the game.

Important
Strings are global for the whole game and its workshop items, so its a good idea to prefix the string IDs for your start locations and milestones with your item name, to avoid ID clashes.
Also you only need to define strings once, if you reuse the same start locations for various scenarios within a workshop item you only need to put them in one of the files.

To test your scenario you can put all your files in the "Documents/DawnOfMan/Scenarios/NameOfYourScenario" folder (create it if it doesn't exist), the game will pick them up and the scenario will appear in the community section in the game.

This section will go over the details of how to create the XML file that defines the starting conditions and objectives for the scenario.

NOTE: This section is work in progress, we will add more info to this document as soon as we can.

We will use the "temple_of_the_sun.scn.xml" file included in the builtin[madrugaworks.com] challenges as an example.

Optional. Defines the group for the scenario, you can group several related scenarios and they will appear next to each other in the game UI.

Defines whether this scenario can be played in hardcore mode or not.

Defines the size of the map, 4 is the default, beware that big maps can drain performance.

Defines whether a small icon will appear next to the scenario indicating it's completion status.

Optional. Specifies another scenario the user has to complete before playing this one.


Specifies one or more locations that the player can choose to start the scenario, each location has a random seed that will define the layout of the terrain.

The environment parameter specifies things like the types of trees and weather you will encounter in the scenario. The standard environment is "eurasia", "eurasia_north" provides a more alpine type of scenario with longer winters, "eurasia_conflict" is like "eurasia" but with sparser resources.

You can also define your own environments, see here to learn how to.


Optional. This defines the goals for the scenario that can be referenced later on.


These are the events in the scenario, each event will get executed when a set of conditions is met.
When this happens, all the actions in the event will be executed.

Using this mechanism you can create simple or complex scenarios. We recommend you use our builtin[madrugaworks.com]test[madrugaworks.com] scenarios as starting point and then modify them.

There is a basic reference for all the conditions and actions here[madrugaworks.com], you can also ask in the forums and we will answer any questions you might have.

One of the more interesting features of the scenario system is to use a savegame as a starting point. You can even use cheats or trainers to create the savegame you want.

To do this you need to:

• Create a regular scenario, as explained in the previous section.
  
• Play your own scenario, and save the game normally.
  
• Take your savegame from the saves folder (Documents/DawnOfMan/Saves), rename it to name_of_the _scenario.sav.bytes and put it in the same folder as the scenario.
  
• Play the challenge again. You can keep on saving the game and replacing the savegame file if you need to make tweaks to it.

Savegames are xml files compressed in gzip format, you can extract a save file using 7zip or any other compressor and then modify it using a text editor.

The game can also load uncompressed savegame files, but they need to have the .xml extension instead of .bytes.

Once you've tested the scenario on your machine, you can upload it to the workshop for other people to enjoy, by using the Workshop Uploader, see instructions here:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2040934323