Bonus distribution tweaks (mainly ivory!)

tejon · Dec 26, 2009

I'm not sure if this is best seen as a modmod or a feature suggestion or a bug report or what, so I'm just putting it here...

It all started when I wanted to play Siam.

I couldn't find any elephants. I finally opened the editor, checked the whole world, and there were NONE. A bit of experimentation seemed to indicate that I got one ivory plot per two maps generated (Standard size). This was increased to about one per map by turning off Barbarian World, which is interesting but I didn't investigate that tidbit any further. Which map generator I used had no noticeable effect.

The upshot is, I fixed it. I also made a few other tweaks, because I noticed ivory wasn't the only thing affected. Attached is a revised Civ4BonusInfos.xml with the following changes:

Ivory: Can be found on flood plains, can be found on hills, moved to order 1 placement and 256-tile frequency (like horses) BUT will not be found beyond 30 degrees latitude; moved to the RUSH group.
Rubber: Cannot be found on plains, restricted to 10 degrees latitude. (Still surprisingly common.)
Relics: Can now be found in forests and on forest/jungle hills, but will not be found beyond 15 degrees latitude. This keeps them from hogging jungle squares.
Silver: Can be found in plains. (Seriously, tundra and ice only? Where'd the Pharisees get those coins to pay Judas, eh?)
Sugar: Can be found in plains and on hills. (Sugar beets are just as appropriate as sugarcane.)
Dye: Can be found in forests, on plains, and on hills. (There are LOTS of dyes in the world. Tyrian purple also occurred to me, but I'm not sure fishable dye is a good idea. Or if it would even work without extra modding.)
Silk: Can be found on forested hills.
Potato: no in-game change, but its group setting was blank instead of 0.

Tea is still vanishingly rare (often none on a map) and a few other things are infrequent, but these seemed like the priority fixes.

Updated! See post 55 on page 3 for current version.

generalstaff · Dec 26, 2009

tejon said:
[*]Relics: Can now be found in forests and on forest/jungle hills, but will not be found beyond 15 degrees latitude. This keeps them from hogging jungle squares.

I am working on a module with part of it editing city ruins (razed cities) have a chance of "finding" relics.

Tea is still vanishingly rare (often none on a map) and a few other things are infrequent, but these seemed like the priority fixes.

Tea is a rare resource historically. It was originally only in China, and later transplanted. Maybe the solution would be for some sort of tile improvement to "find" tea.

I like the changes you made to Silver, Rubber, and Dye. I also think Dye should be a resource to be Obsolete in the Modern Era and have Chemicals have the same effect as Dye to represent the invention of Synthetic Dyes.

civ_king · Dec 27, 2009

I have a beef with sugar, sugar beets weren't usable until ~1800 so it shouldn't be used as sugar, unless you want to make a unit which can plant sugar beets for a high price

tejon · Dec 27, 2009

civ_king said:
sugar beets weren't usable until ~1800

Whoops... yeah, looks like you're right on that. Plains and hills should go, then; but possibly non-jungle grass and marshes should go in, with a restricted latitude range.

Meanwhile, I've become uncertain about putting ivory on flood plains. I did this because pre-RoM, flood plains were desert only (and ivory doesn't appear on desert flood plains even with this tweak); with flood plains over plains, HUGE amounts of otherwise ivory-friendly tiles became invalid for them, which is probably one of the biggest reasons it became so rare. The problem is that an early-game (tribal civ) elephant on a flood plain is a 5/4/3 square... and last night I wound up with a starting city that had TWO. I'm going to try turning off grouping so the chances of such an amazing start are much lower, but it might just be too good no matter what.

So, where else might ivory belong? Plains forests could be appropriate (though elephants tend to rapidly convert them to nonforests...) but grasslands forests probably aren't... I think? Less familiar with Indian elephants. They're why I added hills, though. Maybe marshes for them, too?

Killtech · Dec 27, 2009

tejon said:
So, where else might ivory belong? Plains forests could be appropriate (though elephants tend to rapidly convert them to nonforests...) but grasslands forests probably aren't... I think? Less familiar with Indian elephants. They're why I added hills, though. Maybe marshes for them, too?

if you consider mammuts one could take tundra and ice tiles into account...

tejon · Dec 28, 2009

Killtech said:
if you consider mammuts one could take tundra and ice tiles into account...

Ha! Well, mammoths were extinct prior to 6000 BC. But it could solve that nasty issue of Siam and Khmer frequently being unable to obtain their signature troops until they're obsolete, should they start too far north/south...

tejon · Dec 29, 2009

Update. Fiddled with several more resources this time through. There's a lot of stuff which used to favor jungles, probably because in base Civ there's no such thing as a jungle camp and they were otherwise worthless; but realistically, most of the jungle-only resources should be more widespread (but not necessarily more common).

Changes to original changes:

Ivory can now be found in forests, but not on hills. (This is a lesser-of-two-evils compromise based on restrictions in how the XML specifies allowed locations. African elephants shouldn't be on hills, but both African and Indian can be in forests... in fact the African forest elephant is apparently being proposed as a third separate species.) Other changes have made the flood plains issue less of an issue, I hope. They really do belong there.
Per civ_king's comment, sugar beets are no longer modeled; no sugar on hills or plains. However, cane can be found in flood plains and marshes, limited to 30 degrees latitude.
Silver expanded some more (see below).

New changes:

Gold, silver and gems can all now appear in any non-flat, non-marsh plot. Gems moved up to placement order 5 (from 2) to match gold and silver.
Tea is allowed on (forest/jungle) hills, limited to 30 degrees latitude.
Deer are allowed in all forests except marshland, but not within 30 degrees of the equator.
Fur can be found in any plot outside of 50 degrees from the equator (arctic/subarctic).
Horses will no longer be found on tundra plots, or within 20 degrees of the equator; however, they can be found on riversides (not flood plains).
Cow, pig and sheep can be found on riversides. Cow and pig can be found on flood plains, sheep cannot. They are now placed as random resources with a chance of grouping rather than with an "even" distribution, but are still very common.
Cows can now appear in marshes (water buffalo).
Pigs can be found in any grassland, marsh or plains plot regardless of other features, but not beyond 50 degrees latitude.
Sheep can be found in any non-forested grass or plains, including hills, outside of 20 degrees from the equator.

Dancing Hoskuld · Dec 29, 2009

Deer are allowed in all forests except marshland, but not within 30 degrees of the equator.

Why? Think antelope and kangaroos - alright kangaroos aren't deer but I have pictures of the two grazing together all wild. BTW, just a suggestion - its your modmod after all.

tejon · Dec 29, 2009

I did consider antelope, and in fact there are true deer nearly everywhere. It's not that they don't exist closer to the equator. What finally made me to decide not to place them everywhere is that tropical and equatorial deer (and equivalents) are so much smaller. Kill an antelope and you've brought home a tasty supper for your extended family... kill a caribou and you've fed them for a week! It's the same reason rabbits and turkeys aren't in the game. Yeah, they're a plentiful food source; but they're a daily subsistence resource, the sort that's represented in Civ by the plot's base values (the 2 food from grassland is not because you eat the grass).

The upside is, since ivory extends up to 30 degrees and deer cover the rest, there's something to build camps on in every latitude.

mussbu · Dec 30, 2009

Tejon, great work - I'm going to give this a try in my next game. But how/where do I install this? To the RoM/Modules?

zappara · Dec 30, 2009

If you're going to tweak the bonus values, please check Resource calculations -thread that I just started. There you can find a tool that I made to do some calculations with resources.

tejon · Dec 30, 2009

mussbu said:
But how/where do I install this? To the RoM/Modules?

Within your main RoM module folder, go to Assets\XML\Terrain. This file goes there, replacing the original. (Make a backup if you don't keep a copy of the RoM archive!)

mussbu · Dec 30, 2009

tejon said:
Within your main RoM module folder, go to Assets\XML\Terrain. This file goes there, replacing the original. (Make a backup if you don't keep a copy of the RoM archive!)

Thanx, I'll give it a try now. :goodjob:

szemek77 · Dec 30, 2009

tejon said:
Within your main RoM module folder, go to Assets\XML\Terrain. This file goes there, replacing the original. (Make a backup if you don't keep a copy of the RoM archive!)

Would it affect the working of New Dawn 1.54 if I replace this?
Should I replace the Terrain file AFTER or BEFORE installing New Dawn?

os79 · Dec 30, 2009

szemek77 said:
Would it affect the working of New Dawn 1.54 if I replace this?
Should I replace the Terrain file AFTER or BEFORE installing New Dawn?

Look into the folder after installing AND. If there is no bak in there, you can easily install after installing AND. However, if there is a bak file, check its name. If it is the same as the above files, then use Winmerge. If not same, then go ahead and install.

(I will make the above files modular later.)

os79 · Dec 30, 2009

I changed my mind since he had a lot! of changes. It is better that I refer him to this tutorial about modularizing his changes.

tejon · Dec 30, 2009

szemek77 said:
Would it affect the working of New Dawn 1.54 if I replace this?
Should I replace the Terrain file AFTER or BEFORE installing New Dawn?

AND adds a "peaks" option to the XML. I can only assume this means that he's edited many resources to allow them on peaks, and there may be other edits as well. For now, I wouldn't try using this with AND, "modularized" or not.

Afforess · Dec 30, 2009

Jeez, someone PM me next time I start ignoring the RoM forums. 8 unviewed threads! It's a crime! Ugh. I've been in deep-dev mode.

tejon said:
AND adds a "peaks" option to the XML. I can only assume this means that he's edited many resources to allow them on peaks, and there may be other edits as well. For now, I wouldn't try using this with AND, "modularized" or not.

os79 said:
I changed my mind since he had a lot! of changes. It is better that I refer him to this tutorial about modularizing his changes.

szemek77 said:
Would it affect the working of New Dawn 1.54 if I replace this?
Should I replace the Terrain file AFTER or BEFORE installing New Dawn?

AND's code is modular to the teeth. I only edit the bonusInfos once, in the Mountain folder, and it just enables resources on peaks. Nothing more. So these changes are completely compatible with AND.

@Os79,

I doubt these changes can be made modularly, because he is editing the contents of arrays. (Arrays are the lists in the XML). Arrays can be added to in modular format, but not cleared or removed from. (At last not ATM. That feature is in the pipe for RevDCM.) I'd like to here some more feedback on these changes, but if everyone likes them, I'll include the latest version in Better RoM. (As long as it's okay with Tejon.)

tejon · Jan 3, 2010

Afforess said:
JI'd like to here some more feedback on these changes, but if everyone likes them, I'll include the latest version in Better RoM. (As long as it's okay with Tejon.)

Fine by me! Some review of coffee and perhaps sulphur is probably in order, though.

tejon · Feb 15, 2010

Here's an update!

Horses can now appear on flood plains (but not over desert).
Apples, olives, spices and tobacco can appear on hills.
Apples configuration was... weird. Less weird now.
Spices can be found in marshes and normal plains.
Tobacco can be found in forests and grasslands.
Coffee can appear in forests over grassland, but is limited to 30 degrees latitude.
Sulphur now works on a per-X-tiles system like other "rush" resources.

Tobacco and coffee are still almost nonexistent for me, and I'm not sure why. Not a huge issue since they're just extra luxuries.

Bonus distribution tweaks (mainly ivory!)

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