C2C - Weather Discussion

I started this thread to focus discussion on weather in C2C.
Summary: Storms are an option in C2C Storms, weather effects can be instant Events.
We were previously thinking that maybe rain/storms could be unit?
I really really like the idea of more rain moving around the map.
Weather is interesting and would mix up game play a little.
Any thoughts?

A line of thunderstorms could be a terrain free moving set of units that uses a linear mathematical formula like a map script for random generation that morphs aross the map like fractal weather formulas.
Simply use a spiral version of that formula to spin out rain for a hurricane, you could theoretically use a smaller version of the random map script for creating spiral galaxies from final frontier or final frontier plus modpacks.
The forumla could shrink or degrade over turns and evaporate.
The math seems complicated but it is just a line forumla plus a random element to break it up a little.

Maybe this could be combined with the ideas of disasters into a feature:

Weather Mod - component

..combining instant storm events,
and storm spawing unit scripts,
and gradual climatic events like ice age simulated in the Fall From Heaven mods.

This theory could be used for interesting seasonal changes (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter); would love to see leaf changes in fall, around globe.
-as well as (Wet (Rainy/Flood) season / Dry) time of year for a precipitation script (could add El NINO like weather effect, Gulf Stream temperature changes)
-as well as (Ice Age/Global Warming) or hurricane frequency increasing models.


or there could be a combined:

Disaster Mod component

..that could include Sim City like features both instant or more severe spreading and ongoing things including:
Spiral Hurricanes,
spawning tornados (Tornado alley),
regular rain (could affect morale/attack bonus and movement),
thunderstorms,
ice storms,
dust storms,
wind storms, Santa Ana like winds (spreads forest fires in dry areas)
and other forms of exciting global and civilization affecting weather:
(floods,
spreading forest fires,
freezes,
sinkholes,
mudslides,
earthquakes,
etc.) disasters inspired like Sim City; would make Civilization a lot more interesting.

rightfuture said:

A line of thunderstorms could be a terrain free moving set of units that uses a linear mathematical formula like a map script for random generation that morphs aross the map like fractal weather formulas. Simply use a spiral version of that formula to spin out rain for a hurricane, you could theoretically use a smaller version of the random map script for creating spiral galaxies from final frontier or final frontier plus modpacks. The forumla could simply shrink or degrade over turns and evaporate. The math seems complicated but it is just a line forumla plus a random element to break it up a little.

Click to expand...

The big challenge is graphical representation. If it's a unit how does it appear? If it is tile filling it would totally obscure the terrain. If it's not tile filling it would look weird in terms of the way it tessellates when on adjacent tiles. How would you see it if it is Sharing a tile with real units (or see them)? I don't think the civ4 engine enables a good answer.

I kinda like the representation for the storms/rain already. I'm very open to improving on it though.
I'm sure some other video game has a graphic for something similar that could be used.
Worse come to worse, you could take a small animation from a video clip on the news or a youtube video.
Or cut out and shrink down a picture from a photograph.
The picture could have a level of transparancy so the graphics would show through.
I think some mod or scenario had one for tornados.

@rightfuture

Have you heard of just editing your post rather than making a new post?

Thanks, I thought I was responding directly. I will edit the post a bit. I was planning on using the other posts to summarize ideas that were discussed eventually.

rightfuture said:

I kinda like the representation for the storms/rain already. I'm very open to improving on it though.
I'm sure some other video game has a graphic for something similar that could be used.
Worse come to worse, you could take a small animation from a video clip on the news or a youtube video.
Or cut out and shrink down a picture from a photograph.
The picture could have a level of transparancy so the graphics would show through.
I think some mod or scenario had one for tornados.

Click to expand...

Yes, but my point was not that we couldn't produce a graphic, but that the system has no way to display it that does not hide what's under it (be that terrain type or unit stack). The current storms achieve that by being a terrain (so that units appear on top of them), but that's incompatible with the storm moving onto any tile that already has terrain (so only base ocean and one or two other types that can never have forests etc.). That is why current storms never are allowed onto land.

On a side note AAranda has posted a tornado event with graphics. The problem C2C has with it is that there are so many events i does not go away for a long time. Same for the volcano event. It may be possible to convert it into a unit.

Koshling said:

Yes, but my point was not that we couldn't produce a graphic, but that the system has no way to display it that does not hide what's under it (be that terrain type or unit stack). The current storms achieve that by being a terrain (so that units appear on top of them), but that's incompatible with the storm moving onto any tile that already has terrain (so only base ocean and one or two other types that can never have forests etc.). That is why current storms never are allowed onto land.

Click to expand...

How are patroling aircraft displayed? You can see them circling a city without them obscuring the land units below, right? Could we code the storms to use that graphical mode?

Koshling said:

Yes, but my point was not that we couldn't produce a graphic, but that the system has no way to display it that does not hide what's under it (be that terrain type or unit stack). The current storms achieve that by being a terrain (so that units appear on top of them), but that's incompatible with the storm moving onto any tile that already has terrain (so only base ocean and one or two other types that can never have forests etc.). That is why current storms never are allowed onto land.

Click to expand...

What about buffering the feature type and variety of the old feature while the storm is there and restoring it after the storm has moved on?
It is not displayed in the meantime, but the storm is the dominant feature of that plot then anyway.

AIAndy said:

What about buffering the feature type and variety of the old feature while the storm is there and restoring it after the storm has moved on?
It is not displayed in the meantime, but the storm is the dominant feature of that plot then anyway.

Click to expand...

That could work I think. Seems like the least worst solution

Koshling said:

Seems like the least worst solution

Click to expand...

Thats not a good solution "least worse"

Anyone have a better solution?
Is a better solution possible?
or does anyone know of a mod where they did more?
I really would like to see more weather in C2C.

I have been messing around with the engine a bit and it seems to actually support more than one feature graphic on a single plot. For example I got it to display both forest and bamboo graphics at the same time.

AIAndy said:

I have been messing around with the engine a bit and it seems to actually support more than one feature graphic on a single plot. For example I got it to display both forest and bamboo graphics at the same time.

Click to expand...

So in-essence then, what your trying to do is were you have a forest and it burns down, you get a burnt forest, something in that area of reference?

strategyonly said:

So in-essence then, what your trying to do is were you have a forest and it burns down, you get a burnt forest, something in that area of reference?

Click to expand...

What I tried to do was displaying two features on the same plot at the same time and it worked. It was mainly an attempt to find out what the Civ4 graphics engine can do.
But I assume it could be used to have weather effects like a storm over featured land.

In general it looks like it is also possible to extend the DLL to have multiple features and their effect on each plot but that is considerably more work as currently the code assumes that each plot has only one feature.

That would be interesting to have "weather features" such as ...

- Thunderstorms
- Tornadoes
- Hurricanes
- Sand Storms
- Blizzards
- Wildfires
- Locust
- Floods
- Alien Fungi

AIAndy said:

In general it looks like it is also possible to extend the DLL to have multiple features and their effect on each plot but that is considerably more work as currently the code assumes that each plot has only one feature.

Click to expand...

So then it sounds like it would be MORE trouble than its worth

strategyonly said:

So then it sounds like it would be MORE trouble than its worth

Click to expand...

It depends on what we actually want to do with it.
If it is only weather, then we might just add one additional weather feature to each plot that is hidden from most of the existing code. And it should actually only matter for a subset that there is a storm or something on that plot at the moment.