How can I put gold mines, stone mines and gazelles in scenarios?

In the Scenario Editor, click players and choose Gaia player. You will find in this list gold mines, roads, elephants, berry bushes, fish and other things. If you put “normal” units or buildings, then they will be in the human player’s possesion once he finds it/them during the scenario.

What is the grid and how can I use it?

By pressing Ctrl-B, you will turn on/off the grid. Useful sometime for easier placements. The grid is divided in tiles. A tile is the size of a single block of wall.

I need wonder(s) in my scenario, but only as decoration. Why the countdown always start?

Because the Global Victory Condition is set to standard. Choose another option. Conquest is usually the best option unless you plan something special as your victory condition.

How do I rename the heroes, and create new units?

You can’t create new units but you can rename any unit by editing the language.dll files with a Hex Editor. The two files that contain the game text are language.dll for AoE and languagex.dll for RoR. Make a copy of them to work on first, and Be Very Careful! Always overtype, never delete, and do not type over the dots, as they will simply come out as underscores. Used carefully, you can rename your heroes and other items to add extra atmosphere to a scenario. Then simply copy your originals to a safe place and replace them with the ones you have edited to see your changes. Although the idea has been around for a long time, Conan of Cimmeria was the first ever campaign on the Granary to actually use it.

Everything is done perfectly, why does my computer player not build a wonder?

You have to select None as his .CTY file. The default.cty does not have an emplacement for a wonder. 

I’ve created a custom scenario, but I don’t know how to put my map into it

Put the map you made into your AOE directory. Open the scenario editor and load the scenario that you want to add the map into. Click on the cinematics tab on the top of the screen. Find the scenario instruction map button and click on it. You will be presented with a list of all available maps. Find the map you wish to insert into your scenario and click on it. Resave your scenario. That’s all there is to it.

How do I make the Computer ask for tribute?

Make a custom .PER file with the following lines in it:

124 * //SNTributeAmount

125 * //SNTributeChatFrequency

126 * //SNTributeChatRandomness

127 * //SNTributeTimeout

128 * //SNTributePlayer

129 * //SNTributeSuccessOutcome

130 * //SNTributeFailureOutcome

132 * //SNTributePersistence

133 * //SNTributeRevokeOnAttack

* = Value See the .PER file section for more information.

I want the computer player(s) to bring back artifact(s) to his home town. Why does he let them sit there when he finds them?

The problem is that the only action the cpu will do with artifacts is to move them back to their town center. So, if there is no town center for that civ, the artifacts won’t be moved. The only tweaks you can do in the .per files is to increase Artifact Defend Priority and Artifact Return Distance. The latter determines how many tiles away from the town center the cpu will place the artifacts.

Okay, but I WANT him to win as soon as he bring back the artifacts to a location, using “Bring Object to Area” victory condition. How can I do this?

I understand your problem exactly, as I ran into it myself. As described above, the computer player will not understand the “Bring Object to Area” victory condition, only moving them close to his town center. So, if there is no town center for that civ, the artifacts won’t be moved, and the “Bring Object to Area” becomes useless. The only fix is to put a town center in the area you need the artifacts moved to. This was the only way I found to fix this in my scenario, although I wasn’t happy with having to give that civ a town center, but, those are the breaks! Make sure the value of Artifact Return Distance of the .per file is inside the intended victory area. -thanks to Eggman

What the heck’s a flare? And Invisible Demons?

FLARES: When you are attacked by a ranged combat unit, a flare is dropped to show where the enemy is. (note: attack ground does not drop flares) The flare was left in the editor to allow an area to be explored when the scenario begins. DEMONS: Simply units that are invisible until they attack, they are usable by the computer AI only pretty much because a human can’t find them to order them around. -Thanks to Timotron (Ensemble Studios) Basically the flare was left as a way to give the computer players a “Seeing Eye”. What I mean by this, if you are designing a scenario and have player building all over the map, the flare will give the computer player a little more smarts to find the building or area. Put the flare by/on the map position you want the computer player to find. (Please note the flare is invisible on the map) -Thanks to Archangel (Ensemble Studios)

How do I change a civilization name?

You have to save your scenario as a campaign. Then exit the scenario builder, and run it like a real campaign. This is the only time the name change will show up in the little “unit box” in the lower left hand corner.