Scenario Design
    Scripting Basics

by Talon-Thorn

Part II: The Events Main Tab - Trigger Settings

The trigger section of the Events Main Tab (labeled "Trigger") determines what causes an event to occur. A trigger is different from a condition (next section) in that an event occurs only when the trigger occurs. If a condition "occurs," it has no bearing on triggering the event, but rather puts restrictions on whether the event can occur.

A trigger is set up by choosing one of the pre-defined trigger types. Each trigger type has additional settings to define what causes an event to occur.

The additional settings for a trigger depend on what type of trigger is selected. For the "Enter Area" trigger, you specify "Players" which trigger the event, a map location, a radius around the map location, and whether the army stack's movement is stopped when it first enters the effective area.

Triggers which have a "Player" setting can work directly with associated events and conditions that also have a "Player" setting. If you specify "(Trigger Player)" for the event or condition, then the event or condition will be evaluated based on the player who sets off the trigger. This also allows you to make one condensed script to handle events for several players, simplifying the process of setting up scripts.

For more information on how triggers work in Age of Wonders : Shadow Magic, review the article about Flags and Triggers in AoW:SM. Details about each trigger type and the additional settings for each trigger can be found in the Appendix at the end of this article.

Next, let's look at the conditions settings at the bottom of the events settings tab, as discussed in Part III.