Map Resources Ideas and Discussion

I have not played this mod for quite a while now. I have not read the forums either. However, I think I am going to play the mod again now, since it is so awesome

My question is about the map scripts. Are they updated to allow new features and terrain types and such? If they are, which ones? What about the scenarios, like the GEM 15 preset? Are they up to snuff?

Sorry if this is off topic - did not want to create a new thread for this, and his thread seemed to discuss maps anyway.

TowerWizard said:

I have not played this mod for quite a while now. I have not read the forums either. However, I think I am going to play the mod again now, since it is so awesome

My question is about the map scripts. Are they updated to allow new features and terrain types and such? If they are, which ones? What about the scenarios, like the GEM 15 preset? Are they up to snuff?

Sorry if this is off topic - did not want to create a new thread for this, and his thread seemed to discuss maps anyway.

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Random maps with names starting C2C have all the terrains, features etc. Scenario maps I can't comment on.

0100010 said:

I have made new versions of BonusInfo XML and additional alterations to FeatureInfo for myself to test soon. I'll be working on making a table to post my proposed changes to post here soon.

Im going to try to get attachments of the files up before Mid-May, then you all can decide whats useable and whether or not you want some or all of it in v30.

After that, in June I'll try to go through all the improvements, as well as try out a map generator.

I'd also like to suggest separating out all the non-map resources out of BonusInfo XML, into its own file, just to keep it better organized.

I hope no one is planning to add more map resources before then. I just incorporated the Guava and Kava into my work since noticing they popped up in the SVN.

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Been lurking a few weeks waiting for v34, but got impatient and grabbed the latest SVN. I realized that I never bothered to upload my custom versions of BonnusInfo and FeatureInfo here after updating them w/ the versions from the SVN latest.

I have attached them below. Please take a look and decide what you want to add into the next version.

I have had a look at these or I should say I am in the process of looking at these.

Features
Some feature changes I am including. I just need to think more about the others. Then I need to look at the bonus stuff.

What I recently realized was that Very Tall Grass and Savanna don't have any improvement that don't destroy them (except for Watermills and Windmills). Maybe we should have a Very Tall Grass Gatherer Improvent and later maybe preservatives for those two features?

Faustmouse said:

What I recently realized was that Very Tall Grass and Savanna don't have any improvement that don't destroy them (except for Watermills and Windmills). Maybe we should have a Very Tall Grass Gatherer Improvent and later maybe preservatives for those two features?

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You can build the lumber improvement on savanna.

Very Tall Grass has the thatcher improvement.

What's the Thatcher improvement? Never seen this before nor did it show up on my workers so far.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

I have had a look at these or I should say I am in the process of looking at these.

Features

Tropical and Polar coast and oceans don't exist at the time the map features and bonuses are added. They are an after thought and done post map build. It is therefore no use having them in the terrain list.

Peat bogs do exist in uplands and on hills even on the side of hills so I did not include the requirement for flat lands.

Flood Plains - we go back and forth on this one. People complain when they are on lots of terrains. I am still considering your changes.

The removal of savanna and long grass from barren makes this terrain completely useless. I am considering this.​

Some feature changes I am including. I just need to think more about the others. Then I need to look at the bonus stuff.

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Inclusion of polar and tropical coast/ocean should not harm anything. I know they are done post-mapscript. The reason for adding them those is future map scripts or other means of map generation that might need to read the feature and bonus files for external scenario map generation.

Many bonuses were expanded to appear on flood plains along with the additional terrains those flood plains are on. It help them show up a bit more sometimes.

Rock arches, caves and expansion of many mineral bonuses onto barren at least lets barren have a chance to contain something useful. But to me, barren means barren (of vegetation). Plus later on, it gives you a reason to build things like windmill, watermill,s solar panels, etc. on, since you can't put other improvements there.

As for bonuses, I was also intended to rearrange the physical order of them in the xml file (positon in the file, not placement order of the bonus). However I have not done this yet because it makes side by side comparison in a diff tool more difficult.

Their grouping order (FLORA, FAUNA, MINERALS) and Sub grouping orders (Farms, Orchards, Plantation, Other; Pasture, Camp, Marine, Other; Mine, Quarry; Other) can be done after a final version is worked out. That is all purely for cosmetic in-flie organizational purposes.

It would be really awesome if the worldbuilder was cleaned up a little!

Faustmouse said:

It would be really awesome if the worldbuilder was cleaned up a little!

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Thats what happens when you only have 1 person knowing python . .. . He is way to burdened with stuff to do. I have been waiting for some things now for 3 years.

0100010 said:

As for bonuses, I was also intended to rearrange the physical order of them in the xml file (positon in the file, not placement order of the bonus). However I have not done this yet because it makes side by side comparison in a diff tool more difficult.

Their grouping order (FLORA, FAUNA, MINERALS) and Sub grouping orders (Farms, Orchards, Plantation, Other; Pasture, Camp, Marine, Other; Mine, Quarry; Other) can be done after a final version is worked out. That is all purely for cosmetic in-flie organizational purposes.

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Faustmouse said:

It would be really awesome if the worldbuilder was cleaned up a little!

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Yes it would be nice to reorder the bonuses to make it easier to find them in world builder. The order presented is the order they appear in the bonus file followed by the order loaded from the modules files.

I use the woc processes that SO removed to separate the one file into a file for each bonus. It makes reordering easier even if it does add in all the woc dependencies.

Ok, DH, I just saw which changed you incorporated and which one's you didn't

Below are the ones you didn't and these are my arguments for their inclusion

FeatureInfo Changes:
Added comment sections naming each feature to identify them when the XML is collapsed.
Ice: Added Terrain POLAR_COAST and POLAR_OCEAN (potential usage for external map generator)
Flood Plains: Added Terrain PLAINS, MUDDY, MARSH, SALT_FLATS (in my bonus changes, allowing these expands the legal locations for several bonuses)
Forest: Removed Terrain PERMAFROST ("permafrost" to me is treeless tundra/subarctic. Really the three arctic terrains are not ideally named. IMO SNOW = arctic/ice, PERMAFROST = Tundra (ie treeless), TUNDRA = Boreal/subarctic, which can support forest)
Ancient Forest: Removed Terrain PERMAFROST, (see above reason) and SCRUB (Ancient forest to me is thick old growth. Scrub terrain, as semi-desert, doesn't have the water table support thick forests)
Savannah: Removed Terrain BARREN (because to me Barren means no vegetation,. Also bonus changes allow barren as a legal plot more frequently for minerals)
Sword Grass: Removed Terrain BARREN (see above reason)
Crater: Added Terrain PERMAFROST, SNOW. (because meteors and angry volcano don't care how cold it is outside) Set bRequiresFlatLands to 1 (the only reason I do this is because the graphics look odd on hills)
Tarpit: Added Terrain SNOW (why can't oil/tar seepage happen in the arctic?)
Coral: Added Terrain POLAR_COAST, TROPICAL_COAST (potential usage for external map generator)
Peat Bog: Set bRequresFlatLAnds to 1 (Bogs form in low spots, not on top of hills, plus I'd double check the graphic on hills here too.)
Kelp: Set Commerce Yield to 0. (Kelp is mainly a food source) Added Terrain POLAR_COAST (potential usage for external map generator)
Sea Grass: Set Commerce Yield to 0. (Seaweed is mainly a food source) Added Terrain TROPICAL_COAST. (potential usage for external map generator)
Reef: Added Terrain POLAR_COAST, TROPICAL_COST (potential usage for external map generator)
Caves: Removed Terrain MUDDY (water table would flood them, thus removing their habitability and main game purpose)

0100010 said:

Added comment sections naming each feature to identify them when the XML is collapsed.

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Just shows I almost never collapse it. OK.

0100010 said:

Ice: Added Terrain POLAR_COAST and POLAR_OCEAN (potential usage for external map generator)
Coral: Added Terrain POLAR_COAST, TROPICAL_COAST (potential usage for external map generator)
Reef: Added Terrain POLAR_COAST, TROPICAL_COST (potential usage for external map generator)

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At one stage this did cause an error message but that must have been fixed so OK.

0100010 said:

Flood Plains: Added Terrain PLAINS, MUDDY, MARSH, SALT_FLATS (in my bonus changes, allowing these expands the legal locations for several bonuses)

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We did have this but people complained it was over powered.

0100010 said:

Forest: Removed Terrain PERMAFROST ("permafrost" to me is treeless tundra/subarctic. Really the three arctic terrains are not ideally named. IMO SNOW = arctic/ice, PERMAFROST = Tundra (ie treeless), TUNDRA = Boreal/subarctic, which can support forest)
Ancient Forest: Removed Terrain PERMAFROST, (see above reason) and SCRUB (Ancient forest to me is thick old growth. Scrub terrain, as semi-desert, doesn't have the water table support thick forests)

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Forest on permafrost is a hang over from early on. I am OK with that change.

Ancient Forest is not thick forest an but old stable biome so I disagree with removing it from SCRUB. the main use in C2C will be bandit hideouts and other nasties.

0100010 said:

Savannah: Removed Terrain BARREN (because to me Barren means no vegetation,. Also bonus changes allow barren as a legal plot more frequently for minerals)
Sword Grass: Removed Terrain BARREN (see above reason)

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I have to check your changes to bonuses before I can make my mind up on this.

0100010 said:

Crater: Added Terrain PERMAFROST, SNOW. (because meteors and angry volcano don't care how cold it is outside) Set bRequiresFlatLands to 1 (the only reason I do this is because the graphics look odd on hills)

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Sounds fair. Although glaciers (SNOW) tend to flatten everything except mountains.

0100010 said:

Tarpit: Added Terrain SNOW (why can't oil/tar seepage happen in the arctic?)

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Fine.

0100010 said:

Peat Bog: Set bRequresFlatLAnds to 1 (Bogs form in low spots, not on top of hills, plus I'd double check the graphic on hills here too.)

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Common misconception. Being born in Devon England I know different.

0100010 said:

Kelp: Set Commerce Yield to 0. (Kelp is mainly a food source) Added Terrain POLAR_COAST (potential usage for external map generator)
Sea Grass: Set Commerce Yield to 0. (Seaweed is mainly a food source) Added Terrain TROPICAL_COAST. (potential usage for external map generator)

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Kelp has been used since ancient times as fertilizer which is the reason for both the food and the commerce. I might consider changing the commerce to hammers but I would not remove it otherwise.

0100010 said:

Caves: Removed Terrain MUDDY (water table would flood them, thus removing their habitability and main game purpose)

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For game purposes makes sense.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

We did have this but people complained it was over powered.

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Could you at least agree for Flood Plains on Salt Flats? Those are rarer than the other terrain types and it makes the salt flats actually useful when a river runs thorough them.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

Common misconception. Being born in Devon England I know different.

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Ok, though when I double checked the graphic they suffer the same floating problem when on a hill. It's not a big deal though.

I'm not an expert, but if a river runs through saltflats, won't the water get salty as well? So even if there are saltwater algae that can make floodplains when overflodding occurs, isn't the area still hostile to normal plants?

0100010 said:

Caves: Removed Terrain MUDDY (water table would flood them, thus removing their habitability and main game purpose)

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Sorry but I think this is a bit picky. Caves are not always below ground. The map graphic shows them above. There could quite easily be rocky outcrops containing caves on muddy ground - just the same as on grassland/plains etc.

Secondly, I think the main game purpose of caves is defence bonus. I agree that they can't give this if they are totally below ground level and thus totally flooded. However, as above, even if they were partially flooded, they would still be advantageous defensive terrain.

0100010 said:

Could you at least agree for Flood Plains on Salt Flats? Those are rarer than the other terrain types and it makes the salt flats actually useful when a river runs thorough them.

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But no crops could grow on a salt flat since salt kills crops. Even if a flood plain could form it would not be good for farming. Thus the salt flats have no flood plains with rivers.

Hydromancerx said:

But no crops could grow on a salt flat since salt kills crops. Even if a flood plain could form it would not be good for farming. Thus the salt flats have no flood plains with rivers.

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At least not until genetic engineering There are plants that have little salt-deposits to get rid of it and can grow in quite salty water... If you engineer such system für Crops you can grow crops there.

True. Mangroves have such adaptations to live on salt water despite being descended from land plants.

Hydromancerx said:

But no crops could grow on a salt flat since salt kills crops. Even if a flood plain could form it would not be good for farming. Thus the salt flats have no flood plains with rivers.

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This only means one should not be able to build farms on them. It doesn't mean that they should automatically be devoid of the yield bonuses the flood plains provide.

Faustmouse said:

At least not until genetic engineering There are plants that have little salt-deposits to get rid of it and can grow in quite salty water... If you engineer such system für Crops you can grow crops there.

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Sounds like a good tech to enable building farms on them. In the meantime however, there is water there via the river, and there are plants adapted to live there. Therefore there will be an ecosystem of some type that has value which can be represented by the positive yields of the flood plains feature.

Look: Flood plains on a salt flat, not devoid of life: