Victory condition

From GenieWiki

A victory condition is a goal a player must achieve in order to win a scenario. The word victory condition can be used interchangably with objective as a general word for describing the goals of a scenario, but in the context of this article it refers specifically to victory conditions as an aspect of scenario design in Age of Empires.

In Age of Empires there are two types of victory: Individual victory and Global victory. These can be edited from the two tabs in the top left corner of the scenario builder or using the hotkeys Ctrl+I (individual) and Ctrl+V (global). These two functions control what is required for each player to win. In the Age of Empires II map editor the global victory fuction remains, but the individual victory tab is replaced with the new triggers menu which maintains a set of conditions similar to the individual victory menu, but allows for a similar set of effects.

Individual victory is achieved by a player fulfilling all of their individual victory conditions, causing all non-allied players to be defeated. [1] There are a total of 18 different individual victory conditions, and each player may have up to 12 of these. Global victory awards victory to any player who meets the global victory requirements, which are separate from those used in individual victory [2]. A player may win by completing all of the individual victory conditions or by fulfilling the global victory requirements, however mixing conditions from each area is not possible. [3]

Ordered victory conditions

Normally victory conditions have no particular order - the player can achieve them in any way they please. However, it is possible to create situations where the player has to achieve one task before they may move on to the next. This can be accomplished by level design (e.g. a linear level) or by defeating the player if they do things in the wrong order. The latter situation is a trick that can be used as explained in the following paragraphs.

Imagine a level where an artifact cannot be touched until the wizard who controls it is killed. The players victory conditions could be to kill the wizard and then bring their hero to the box. However the designer may want the player to lose if they bring the hero to the artifact first. To make the player do this in the right order a CPU player's individual victory condition should be set to bringing the hero to the artifact, meaning the player will lose if they do this before killing the wizard. However if this CPU player is defeated (say for example Player 8 is just the priest unit representing the wizard) then the loss condition will be lifted when the player kills the wizard. To make the scenario more interesting the designer could also require the hero to kill the wizard by his own hand (see Bring object to object).

Of course, this could also be achieved by other methods. For example to avoid defeating the player, a barrier could be raised around the artifact which is destroyed when the wizard is killed, using dynamics (e.g. knocking down trees with a diplomacy change).

To sum the process up, for each ordered victory condition, there should be a corresponding victory condition belonging to a CPU player where defeating that player lifts the barrier to advancing to the next step. That player's victory condition should always simply be to achieve the goal you are being prevented from doing until you kill them. This process can use more than one player in this way to create a series of ordered tasks. Defeating a player may be achieved in several ways: In the case of single unit players killing one unit (or converting it) will be adequate (e.g. converting a temple before advancing into an allied village), and bring object to object offers a trick to allow the destruction of a single unit to defeat a player (even a non-player unit like a lion. Using dynamics it is also possible to defeat a player indirectly using a workaround (for example based on a timer, a tribute, diplomacy or line of sight), so many options are available to the creative designer to make ordered victory conditions, even in non-linear levels. Combining victory conditions (using multiple conditions and/or players) also allows more complex rules, for example not approaching any of three areas before defeating an enemy player, or destroying two different player's government centers before advancing to the final task.

Victory conditions and AI

Contrary to what new designers may believe at first, a victory condition has no influence on the AI of a CPU player.

Quoted from an explanation by Eggman Thread:

Sorry- the computer doesn't care a hill of beans what it's victory conditions are. The only way it will win with them is if it happens to blunder into victory. If you want the computer to win in a certain way you have to force it to take an interest- like make sure the tech you want it to get is in the .ai, or fiddle with the .per file to get it to do what you want.

Notes

1. This is not always the case though - see allied victory.
2. Though most of the conditions available under individual victory are different from those in global victory, some are available in both, e.g. exploration is a parameter in both games, and the same is true with discovories, though this requires a workaround to be used in individual victory.
3. For example one cannot ask the player to get a score or 400 and gather 1000 wood.