PerfectWorld3

It seems to me that while the world is being formed that graphic updates are not being linked. In my first perfectworld3 game I not only have plains/grassland showing as mountains, but floodplains as plains hill, grassland as desert, etc. on a large map. Show up correctly under strat view.

These errors are just frequent enough to be irritating, but may prevent me from its continued use until updated.

Sadly they don't seem to be the fault of the script, but a bug in the underlying game. The reason you don't see them as much in other scripts is because they have less varied terrain that seems to not hit the specific triggers for the bug as much.

I've definitely seen them in the base game maps, even the "Earth" map where Alaska touches the map edge.

edit: it's also worth noting that I've found they frequently go away if you reload the game.

SlightlyMad, if you were responding to me, these anomalies are constant upon game reloading.
I've even got a mountain (in newly captured lands) appearing as a grass/hill. I've never seen such problems before. With PerfectWorld3 I also have ghosting of unit images as had occurred at game release (having map seam in view, barely visible with this script, move view to another visible area via the mini map).

My continent is mostly east of the map seam, but crosses it (just in case this is relevant).

I want mountain-horses too!

and conga-rats to the tiny human Cephalo.

Jaybe said:

SlightlyMad, if you were responding to me, these anomalies are constant upon game reloading.
I've even got a mountain (in newly captured lands) appearing as a grass/hill. I've never seen such problems before. With PerfectWorld3 I also have ghosting of unit images as had occurred at game release (having map seam in view, barely visible with this script, move view to another visible area via the mini map).

My continent is mostly east of the map seam, but crosses it (just in case this is relevant).

Click to expand...

When you make a map script, you only define the map tiles once. The fact that the strat view is showing different info than the 3D view, strongly suggests a problem with the game itself. That should never happen no matter what the map script does, because there are no functions exposed to specify the data separately.

I still think it has something to do with the maps border throwing things out of whack. One reason I think that you may see this problem with PW3 more than other maps is because I do not treat the wrapping edge any differently than the middle of the map. Most PW3 maps have a large continent right across the seam, where any internal problems are likely to be exposed.

Hopefully, they'll fix it someday.

Gewar said:

find this:
--east west attenuation may be desired for flat maps.
mconst.eastAttenuationFactor = 0.00
mconst.eastAttenuationRange = 0.00 --percent of the map width.
mconst.westAttenuationFactor = 0.00
mconst.westAttenuationRange = 0.00

replace with this or something similar:
--east west attenuation may be desired for flat maps.
mconst.eastAttenuationFactor = 0.50
mconst.eastAttenuationRange = 0.08 --percent of the map width.
mconst.westAttenuationFactor = 0.50
mconst.westAttenuationRange = 0.08

Click to expand...

This totally works, granted you don't desire some kind of pangaea that wraps around the width of the map (which I had seen a couple times before I changed it). Interestingly too, I've noticed that the game doesn't necessarily draw the world's X-axis at the edge of the interface's minimap, but it seems to occur in a random place relative to the x-axis of the minimap. Nevertheless, that bit of script makes sure there's always a good couple columns of ocean along the buggy meridian.

No new version? Is Civ5 modding dead?

Baleur said:

No new version? Is Civ5 modding dead?

Click to expand...

Do you have a problem with the current version? It's working pretty great for me.

A possible improvement would be to add a tectonic system to the random height map.
Maybe it's my settings, but I got the impression that there's no continental plains or mountain/islands ranges like like Japan or the Andes. And I have difficulties to get a map with multiple continental masses like we have IRL, instead I tend to have one continuous, stretched out pangea, except when I set the water proportion very high.
That would probably work better on smaller maps, and since the game crashes often on huge maps anyway, that's not a pressing matter.

A toroidal (or spherical, ugh) wrap would be nice too.

Originally Posted by Baleur
No new version? Is Civ5 modding dead?

Click to expand...

The creator just had a child.

space measurer said:

The creator just had a child.

Click to expand...

I've also spread myself a bit thin across games. Right now I'm working on a new version of Elementerra for Elemental, and I'm also a bit behind on updating PerfectWorldDF for Dwarf Fortress.

Burned said:

A toroidal (or spherical, ugh) wrap would be nice too.

Click to expand...

I agree, but right now those are not allowed in Civ5. To make it work you have to have an even amount of tiles in the Y direction, and I think they didn't want that complication/special case to deal with.

Hi,
I very much enjoyed playing Perfect World in BTS, and am happy to see it for CiV. This is the first time I've tried loading a mod in CiV, though, and am having trouble with it: I simply cannot see the map script when I select "setup game" from within the Mod-menu. I've followed all the instructions in the original post, but I just can't get it to work. What am I doing wrong? I'd be very grateful if someone can assist me. Thanks

Cheers!

Waterhouse said:

Hi,
I very much enjoyed playing Perfect World in BTS, and am happy to see it for CiV. This is the first time I've tried loading a mod in CiV, though, and am having trouble with it: I simply cannot see the map script when I select "setup game" from within the Mod-menu. I've followed all the instructions in the original post, but I just can't get it to work. What am I doing wrong? I'd be very grateful if someone can assist me. Thanks

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Did you download from in game and also enable the mod? There are two steps there.

Thanks for the reply.
I did download the script from within the game (as well as attempting the "manual" solution), but I dont know what "enabling the mod" involves? Ive tried downloading other mods to check if Id be able to see them, but I wasnt - so it seems it is this "enabling" bit I havent properly done (I *have*, however, used the "install" function once the download was complete). So how do I enable it?

Lol, ok, I just tried going through the process again, and finally discovered the "enable" button next to the name of the mod. I clicked it, it lit up, and now Ive access to Perfect World.
Thanks for the tip

Waterhouse said:

Lol, ok, I just tried going through the process again, and finally discovered the "enable" button next to the name of the mod. I clicked it, it lit up, and now Ive access to Perfect World.
Thanks for the tip

Click to expand...

I had the same issue when I first tried to test PW3.

SlightlyMad said:

edit: it's also worth noting that I've found they frequently go away if you reload the game.

Click to expand...

If graphic anomalies go away when you reload the game, you are looking at what happens when the map size being run (and land vs sea on that map size) is overwhelming your video and system memory. In short, you don't have enough memory to run that map script at that map size.

There is a size at which NO computer can properly run a script. This is due to the limitations of memory usage in 32-bit software, and Civ5 is currently restricted to 32bit because Steam is 32bit. Civ5's graphics take more memory than those in Civ4, so cannot support as large of maps as the Civ4 engine could. Terra's Huge size is too much for almost any map script. Terra gets away with it because nearly all of the action takes place in Eurasia. If players avoid scanning the entire world every turn, or reload frequently, they can keep their memory consumption down and the game playable. But really, Terra in Civ5 is aimed at Large or smaller sizes, with Huge being "at your own risk" because of inevitable memory issues in the late game.

I've read our stalwart map scripter's reasoning for "when people want huge, they want HUGE" but it's not practical for Civ5. Considering the number of users reporting these memory problems in the thread, I would urge trimming back on grid sizes -- for performance as well as gameplay reasons.


- Sirian

Sirian said:

If graphic anomalies go away when you reload the game, you are looking at what happens when the map size being run (and land vs sea on that map size) is overwhelming your video and system memory. In short, you don't have enough memory to run that map script at that map size.

There is a size at which NO computer can properly run a script. This is due to the limitations of memory usage in 32-bit software, and Civ5 is currently restricted to 32bit because Steam is 32bit. Civ5's graphics take more memory than those in Civ4, so cannot support as large of maps as the Civ4 engine could. Terra's Huge size is too much for almost any map script. Terra gets away with it because nearly all of the action takes place in Eurasia. If players avoid scanning the entire world every turn, or reload frequently, they can keep their memory consumption down and the game playable. But really, Terra in Civ5 is aimed at Large or smaller sizes, with Huge being "at your own risk" because of inevitable memory issues in the late game.

I've read our stalwart map scripter's reasoning for "when people want huge, they want HUGE" but it's not practical for Civ5. Considering the number of users reporting these memory problems in the thread, I would urge trimming back on grid sizes -- for performance as well as gameplay reasons.


- Sirian

Click to expand...

So you are saying that because Civ5 is a 32 bit program, Terra huge size is always going to be impractical, even as computers get better. Oh alright... .

I will now use this opportunity to complain about how the map is such an enormous resource hog. The map looks pretty good, but not so so good that it's worth making tiny maps when compared to Civ4. I really wish Civ5 could have supported large maps. Even if Civ5 itself doesn't really need them, its really useful and desireable for some mods to have a high res map. I like them in Civ because I can turn the land percent lower and get more varied and crazy continent shapes. I also like vast swaths of unusable terrain, all of which cuts down on the playing area.

When I first sat down to make my first Civ5 mod, I wanted to make a Marco Polo type scenario, and many of my ideas needed a high res map for lots and lots of exploring. I also wanted to orient the map in the medieval style, with Jerusalem in the center and east at the top. Then I ran into the fact that Civ5 doesn't support tall maps! Ugh.

This two pronged assault on my modding ambitions really took the wind out of my sails, so I retreated back to Elemental modding for now.

Tall maps are possible after the patch with the New World scenario in it. Prior to that, no Firaxis maps for Civ5 had attempted to be taller than wide, and some bugs were around, undiscovered. You could go back to the tall-map idea now. (The world builder still caps at 80-tall, but the game engine now supports tall maps -- as long as, again, the map as a whole does not overwhelm system and video memory.)


Graphics being good is important for every video game. No 32-bit game is ever again going to support maps as large as Civ4, much less Civ3. Civ5, however, is not really a 32-bit game -- not intrinsically. And Steam is going to have to make the leap to 64bit support some time; it's only a question of when.

However, Civ5 is also a 1UPT game, and moving large armies across a mega map one unit at a time would seem to be less fun than moving Stacks of Doom in the past.

I know from personal experience running the Realms Beyond Epics in Civ3, we only ever ran one event on a Huge map. The game was so long, few participants finished, and I personally never was able to complete my report for my entry. I spent weeks on it and still wasn't half done. ... At some point, even fans of large and huge maps (like myself!) have to confront the reality that there can be such a thing as too much. We held a myriad of Civ3 events on maps from Small to Large, but only a couple on Tiny and one (ever) on Huge -- and those latter seemed better on paper than they worked out in practice. Small, Standard, and Large really are the sweet spot for the franchise.

Civ5 can handle Huge (if barely -- within the 32bit constraints) and a lot of work went in to optimizations to make it so. But Terra is oversized -- a necessary evil for its concept to work out in practice. Terra works great in Civ5, in the Small to Large window. Huge Terra really wants 64-bit to run properly, as will any other script needing to bust out past the 32-bit memory boundary.

Civ5 on Large is what I like to play, and what I have played the most. I would expect your script to play best at this size: large enough to enjoy all the things unique to the script, but not too large to where 1UPT mechanics start to drag. As much as I have always been a fan of the largest maps possible, in review, my best games on average came on Large, not Huge. I'm sure that's not true for everyone; it is just my personal observation and perspective.


- Sirian