Step #1: Come up with an idea for a relic that would best suit something in your scenario. If you wish to allow god power relics, consider trying out the following ideas:

- Bowl of Liquid Fire (Activates Flaming Weapons)
- A Piece of a Sacrificial Slab (Activates Bolt)
- Eggs of the Trap Door Spider (Activates Spiders Lair)
- Seeds of Venus (Activates Carnivora)
- Jar of Locusts (Activates Locust Swarm)

If you'd rather aim for additional upgrades, you can simply use the Set Tech Status effect to grant the player additional technologies, but be sure that the technology that the relic grants isn't already available to the player, otherwise the player will only be getting the technology for free. Thus, the relic would be less of a relic, unless that is your intent.

Step #2: Place your relic where you want it to appear and set a trigger that changes the name of the relic and sets what relic it is (Force Relic). I usually set the relic to be the Buhan Flagstone or the Trojan Gate Henge since they only effect walls and are the least effective relics in the game. (It really doesn't matter which relic you use to mask your relic since the effects of that relic will not remain.)

Step #3: You'll need to set up a trigger that enables the god power, technology, protounit modification, etc.

*Trigger: Active, High Priority
*Condition: Unit Garrisoned In
- Unit: Specify Relic
- Garrisoned In: Temple
*Effect: Clear Chat History
*Effect: Message
- Message: The "insert relic name here" provides your with a "insert effect name here".
*Effect: Destroy
- Unit: Relic
*Effect: Ungarrison Unit
- Unit: Relic
*Effect: Grant God Power, or Modify Protounit, or Set Tech Status, etc.

(For the last effect, specify what you want the relic to do using Grant God Power, Modify Protounit, or Set Tech Status. If you want the relic to create a unit at the temple, you can do this by setting a Unit Create effect that places the specific unit at your temple.)

**Note: The reason why you must clear the chat history is so the relic message doesn't come up once the relic is garrisoned. The reason why you must destroy the relic after it is garrisoned is so that: one, the relic does not give you the actual benefits of the relic (i.e. Buhan Flagstone); and two, the relic cannot be ungarrisoned and stolen. The reason why you must ungarrison the relic after it has been destroyed is so that the icon of the relic doesn't remain in your temple.

Step #4: This step is extra for if you want to add special effects to a relic. For my relic, the Bowl of Liquid Fire, I want it to be so hot that it burns the hands of whoever touches it. Here's how I did it:

*Trigger: Active, High Priority, Looping
*Condition: Unit Garrisoned In
- Unit: Specify Relic
- Garrisoned In: All
*Effect: Damage Units in Area
- Center Unit: Relic
- Radius: 1
- Damage: 5

You'll also need a trigger to deactive the looping trigger once the relic is garrisoned in the temple. Also, you might want to have a trigger similar to the one above that gives the player a message that the relic will burn their hands.

*Trigger: Active, High Priority
*Condition: Unit Garrisoned In
- Unit: Specify Relic
- Garrisoned In: Temple
*Effect: Disable Trigger
- Trigger: (The trigger that inflicts damage when a unit holds the relic.)

Now let's try one more effect. Let's say you want the relic to be really heavy, like my Piece of a Sacrificial Slab, for example. You can set a trigger to slow down the hero that carries it. However, you must be able to specify the hero. So if you have enabled Hersirs, Priests, Pharaohs, or any Atlantean heroes, this won't work--use this only if you're using Greek Heroes.

*Trigger: Active, High Priority
*Condition: Unit Garrisoned In
- Unit: Specify Relic
- Garrisoned In: Specify Greek Hero (i.e. for Jason, use "Hero Greek Jason"--without the quotations)
*Effect: Modify Protounit
- Protounit: Hero Greek Jason
- Speed: -1.5

*Note: Decreasing the speed of the unit depends on the size of the unit and the current speed. So decrease the speed to your likings.

You'll also have to set a trigger so that when the Greek hero drops the relic, he gains his speed back. Add a Fire Event Effect to the last trigger you set. Set Fire Event to Fire the following trigger:

*Trigger: High Priority
*Condition: Units In Area
- Center Unit: Specify Relic
- Protounit: Hero Greek Jason
- Radius: 1
- Operator: ==
- Number of Units: 0
*Effect: Modify Protounit
- Protounit: Hero Greek Jason
- Speed: 1.5
*Effect: Fire Event
- Trigger: (Trigger that decreases the hero's speed when he picks up the relic)

Well that's all for now. If you any special requests for how to create your own relic, leave the relic specs here and I'll come up with the triggers necessary for getting your relic to work.

I hope this short and simple guide helped you in some way.

-Halo

[This message has been edited by Halo (edited 12-07-2003 @ 02:55 PM).]