Advanced RMS: Part 1, Introduction and Prerequisites

By Matei of Woad Creations
created 9/10/03

In Age of Mythology, Ensemble Studios created a brand new scripting system for random maps, more like a programming language than the old Age of Kings: The Conquerors system. The new scripting language may have a steeper learning curve, but it opens up a world of possibilities for the random map scripter. In this article, I will talk about some of the advanced features in the new scritping system and how to make use of them. I will also provide a quick FAQ section on triggers, since the trigger system in AoM RMS is very powerful but is not too well documented anywhere in my experience. This article assumes that you have some general knowledge of how to make RM scripts in AoM – an excellent place to start is Mr Fixit Online’s RMS Guide. I won’t concentrate on how to use specific RM system functions. The article also assumes that you have a little bit of programming experience – JavaScript, PHP, C, Basic, or anything of that sort.

One thing that might come in handy is Age of Mythology’s built-in RMS debugger. If you enable it, it will pop up whenever there’s an error in an RM script and let you see where it was. Once an error occurs, the debugger will show you the line where it happened, as well as a list of all the variables in your script and their values. You have to press Run (perhaps multiple times) for the map to continue generating, and after it’s done, close the debugger by clicking the X in the top right corner. To enable the debugger, rightclick your AoM desktop shortcut, select Properties, and under Target add “+debugRandomMaps”. For example, your shortcut target might look like “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\aom.exe” +debugRandomMaps. This will enable the debugger to pop up if there’s a script error when you launch AoM from the desktop shortcut (if you launch it from the CD’s Play button, the debugger won’t come). If you want, you can create a copy of the AoM shortcut and add the debugger to that instead of using it on the original shortcut – the benefit of this is that maps played in multiplayer often have script errors, and you don’t want to have to click Run hundreds of times on the debugger to get into a game with your friends on a map you didn’t make.

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