I can only speak for Emperor, not Zeus/Poseidon, but in several of the custom campaigns I built I did script exactly what you are talking about - gifts received from the same city I'm playing in. I think this is a great example of creativity as long as it is explained properly in the storyline.

Here are some examples of how I scripted this with support from the storyline:

1. Finding treasure - the storyline of a mission was to find a lost treasure. So I scripted a huge gift to be received by the player, given by the same city they are playing in.

2. Finding a dead body (cremated) - the storyline of a mission was the player taking over a city that had been sacked and razed. A key point in the mission storyline was that a rival city had stated they would pay a ransom for the ashes of the prior king, who had been killed when the city fell. I scripted a gift of one lacquerware from the player's own city, to simulate the player's soldiers finding the body, cremating it, and placing it in an burial urn. Then a couple of game months later I scripted a goods request from that rival city, asking for 1 lacquerware (the urn with the ashes). Then a couple of months later I scripted a huge cash gift from that rival city to the player's city (to simulate paying the ransom).

3. Reincarnation - the storyline of a mission stated that a ghost would appear and present a gift of a menagerie animal, which would be the ghost's spirit reincarnated in a new physical form. So I scripted a gift of a bear, given by the player's city.

This works very nicely in Emperor, because the wording of the 'goods gift' request that the game engine uses also includes the city leader's name. So by carefully writing the storyline of the mission to match the city leader's name, the event holds even more impact. For instance, in my example 1, I said in the mission storyline that the treasure was being hunted for by an explorer named Ji Ru. I also had set the city leader's name to be Ji Ru. So when the goods gift event fired and the player received the gift, the event message stated something like "I, Ji Ru of Chao, am happy to give you this gift."

I don't remember if Zeus/Poseidon allows city leader names to be chosen and used in event dialogue, but if so this is an added bit of creativity that you can use.

[This message has been edited by Gweilo (edited 01-18-2017 @ 06:30 AM).]

Wow!! The first one is exactly what I did for the 2nd and 3rd parent episode. Srsly, in the adventure I'm constructing, the treasure is hidden in an inventor's workshop that represented a couple's honeymoon compound, accessible only by a divine disaster event in the 2nd parent episode.

The 2nd one too, is kinda similar to the bull-skin negotiation, and placing the husband's ashes (representing 1 amphorae of wine) in the honeymoon place. Man, this is crazy, haha!! Yours are *really* creative though. Wow!!

But yeah, I get what you're saying. The storyline needs to explain the mechanic of having gifts from yourself in order to make it seem more understandable - whilst telling a story, of course.

The city leader's name thing also does have a lot of merit, and it's a really great suggestion. I believe though, that the only way I could implement such a thing in Zeus/Poseidon is to add a city with the same name as the parent city; name the governor "the natives" and hide it somehow. I tested this out and it really is doable. The only odd thing is the shield and money icons that appear above, but nothing too major though.

Too bad I have to sacrifice a city though. And all of them are really important in their own way, as most of them are used for triggers firing if a player decides this, or decides that, like who he sided in the Trojan war in the beginning, or what temple will he choose to repair etc. But I'll try and figure it out somehow. :P

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.
*thumbs up*

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 01-18-2017 @ 09:58 AM).]

Sounds like you have solid ideas. I really wish the 'triggers' on events that you mention had been carried forward into Emperor; I could have done so much with them. But at least you can still enjoy tinkering with them in Zeus/Poseidon.

^ In fairness though, these triggers on events do kinda have their own quirks. Many of them fire their triggered events even when they're not fired at all. The only ones I've seen that fire triggers only when fired are invasions, city requests and rival army away events, and even the last two aren't reliable.

Invasions on the other hand, are perfect for replayability and really fit my criteria, as they could be used like a sieve, which fires (and hence, triggers events) only when the city involved is a rival. So they can be used to separate rivals from allies, and even actives from inactives.

Also, I have to say, thanks a lot for that simple suggestion you brought forth regarding the city leader's name. I thought of an idea with this, and not only did it work, but it also provided me with a myriad of more ideas on how to improve the beginning parent episodes!! I believe I could even use this idea to implement a concept I saw only in Caesar3, which actually really does fit the setting of the story a lot!!

Just make a city, make it Active, and Hidden. It can send Gifts and Requests. It is quirky because I found it can also attack&conquer your vassals but invasions against you don't seem to work.

As for gifts from Parent City; it never uses your name but the name of the governor who oversees Parent City when you're setting up a Colony City(ies). So if you have no Colonies planned, you can easily use the governor's name for your 'gifts from natives' and wahtnot.

@Gweilo: no, you can't choose city leader names in events / dialogs. If a certain city does something, then that particular leader's name (might / will) appear in the pop-up text, but you can't actively script a name in.

And good Lord, reading through the previous posts, some of you have some serious imaginations as far as storylines... you should be writing and publishing instead of playing Zeus, because you'd probably make a mint.

[This message has been edited by Nightwolf (edited 01-25-2017 @ 08:20 PM).]

Quoted from Haspen:

As for gifts from Parent City; it never uses your name but the name of the governor who oversees Parent City when you're setting up a Colony City(ies). So if you have no Colonies planned, you can easily use the governor's name for your 'gifts from natives' and wahtnot.

Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

Unfortunately, I cannot use this option because my main adventure is featuring 2 different characters, but with similar fates: One who was expelled from her home, and decided to build a new city for her people, without fear of slavery, discrimination and murder; and another character who was expelled from his home, and decided to find new land for his people.

Colony episodes in my main adventure, are used as a lever, to switch from the main character in parent city, to the other main character in the colony - and both of them will be rivalled to each other, until at a certain episode when both these characters will unite and fall in love.

So assuming I'm at a colony scenario; playing the role of the second main character, the parent city in the world map will bear the name of the first main character of the story. This is why I can't use this option you gave - albeit I can use this suggestion for another adventure.

Quoted from Haspen:

Just make a city, make it Active, and Hidden. It can send Gifts and Requests. It is quirky because I found it can also attack&conquer your vassals but invasions against you don't seem to work.

Now this is very useful, and I think it's better than what I originally had in mind. If I use a city, giving it the same name as the parent and make it active and visible, I would have to hide it behind the real parent city, but that means I have to delete the real parent city and place it again - in order to hide the fake one, meaning I have re-do all my trade routes, which took me 13 hours to do before.

But if I do it your way, I can bypass this side effect. The quirkiness you stated wouldn't be a problem for me, because I originally didn't want the fake city to invade the true city, but making it send gifts and request goods makes it so much perfect!!

Plus, if it actually shows the "city becomes hostile" event without sending even one invasion, this would give so much immersiveness to the first few episodes as I originally intended, and give it more impact and cohesiveness to the story. Thanks for the tip, and I'll see if I could implement this in my adventure.

Quoted from Nightwolf:

good Lord, reading through the previous posts, some of you have some serious imaginations as far as storylines... you should be writing and publishing instead of playing Zeus, because you'd probably make a mint.

Lawl, haha!!

I have so many ideas for this adventure, but the thing is the editor is really limiting many ideas I wanted to implement, so I'm trying to learn how to adapt and make limits with my ideas in order to at least pour some of them into the adventure.

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 02-02-2017 @ 10:13 PM).]