PerfectWorld6 7

[cephalo]

Killzerslaul was kind enough to gift me gathering storm! No excuses now, I'll try to get this up an running as soon as possible.

Step 1 is to try to understand what Gathering Storm is about, I didn't even know it was about to come out. As it was I was an amateur for Rise and Fall. I any of you can spot any new terrains or features let me know, or any other issues regarding the map that you would think I would like to know.

 

[Baleur]

Volcanos need to be spawned, and supposedly vanilla Continents mapscript now has new continental plate simulation in the generation of mountain ranges (but they still look vastly inferior to PerfectWorld). Dont know if your mapscript needs to implement markers for the new sea level rising and ice melt features..
Because in the vanilla mapscript, some tiles along the coast will be marked such as "1 meter coastal lowland, will submerge after 1m sea level rise", 2m and 3m.
So those spots may need to be spawned in the script, unless they are cleverly overlayed by the game on any map upon loading / initializing the game, i have no clue xD

Some keynotes about the expansion features that you may want to consider in the mapscript when tuning your values..
0. Vanilla mapscript now generates A LOT of floodplains, even on grasslands and plains tiles. This is quite a good thing because it offsets the danger and damage that floods do, so the tiles are a bit juicier to settle nearby, and the farms have more of a valuable output until they inevitably get razed by floods.
1. Large flat areas devoid of trees or jungle will be very suceptible to droughts.
2. Deserts get sandstorms, tundra/snow gets blizzards, ocean gets hurricanes, plains/grasslands get tornadoes.
3. Volcanoes can spawn very close to each other in vanilla mapscripts, which is cool. Keep in mind their max radious for damage is 2 hexes away. Personally i think it might be cool to see some volcanoes literally surrounded by mountains or completely alone in the sea, just for aesthetics.
4. I *think* coastal cliffs are now natural defences against sea level rise, and only smooth coastal tiles can submerge.
5. Long rivers have flooding chance, but super long rivers isnt a problem because the game usually triggers up to 6 or so tiles along the river that gets flooded, so a river can be generated along the entire map, but only part of it will flood during disaster (so keeping super long rivers in your mapscript is no problem).
6. As for strategic resource generation, keeping them sparse is probably a good idea, since now you accumulate them +2 per turn per deposit, and use stockpiled resources to build (and maintain) units. Even if a civ has just 1 iron deposit, that's a new Swordsman paid for every 15 turns (on Epic). Plus there is a govenor with -80% resource requirement on units, and you get city states resources too. So keeping them sparse is probably best for international trading gameplay.

 

[cephalo]

I will be looking at the lua files over the next couple of days to see how things are placed, and see if there's anything in the map scripts regarding coastal floodworthiness.

 

[Strec]

Don't know if it matters but there are new civs grantly dependant on placement (I think mainly Canada and Incas)

 

[pokiehl]

@Strec - That doesn't matter and is not affected by PW6.

@cephalo - Before you push your update out, I need to update the map stuff on my end (there's a new table dictating the amount of CO2 required for temp change, and it is map size dependent). I'll get that to you soon. I will also update the modinfo file and make it compatible with both Rise and Fall + Gathering Storm.

 

[cephalo]

- Before you push your update out, I need to update the map stuff on my end (there's a new table dictating the amount of CO2 required for temp change, and it is map size dependent). I'll get that to you soon. I will also update the modinfo file and make it compatible with both Rise and Fall + Gathering Storm.

Thanks pokiehl! Also, I continue to be unable to kill my old files. The mishmash of old and new files keeps coming back to life in my mod folder. I'm surprised it worked. How can I tell the mod uploader to wipe everything and start over?

 

[cvb]

In addition to what Baleur already described, I'd like to mention the feature/terrain(?) of geothermal fissure tiles (giving extra science yield) in context of volcanoes & tectonics, which have to be spawned.

Completely new the naming feature: rivers, mountains, volcanoes, continents ... have specific names printed on the map, depending to the Civ of the scouting unit - perhaps this has to be initialised.

Also a GS design goal is to have less rivers , but the new ones more meandering (inter alia Hungarian unique ability).

 

[pokiehl]

Thanks pokiehl! Also, I continue to be unable to kill my old files. The mishmash of old and new files keeps coming back to life in my mod folder. I'm surprised it worked. How can I tell the mod uploader to wipe everything and start over?

That's very odd - I have simply never had that issue so I'm not sure how to address it. If you add me as a contributor to the mod on Steam, then I will be able to manage the uploading for you as well but if you'd rather not do that that's fine. I can figure something else out

In addition to what Baleur already described, I'd like to mention the feature/terrain(?) of geothermal fissure tiles (giving extra science yield) in context of volcanoes & tectonics, which have to be spawned.

Completely new the naming feature: rivers, mountains, volcanoes, continents ... have specific names printed on the map, depending to the Civ of the scouting unit - perhaps this has to be initialised.

Also a GS design goal is to have less rivers , but the new ones more meandering (inter alia Hungarian unique ability).

I disagree that the "GS design goal is to have less rivers." Nothing in RiversLakes.lua or anywhere else indicates that they have made rivers less frequent at all, but yes, the pathing is more meanding. If anything I feel like I have noticed more rivers than before. However, I don't think this is relevant to PerfectWorld6 because Cephalo's river gen system is entirely unique and certainly not harmful to Hungary.

 

[Strec]

It seems (just a feeling, not code mining) that the continents delimitations has been grantly modified.

 

[pokiehl]

It seems (just a feeling, not code mining) that the continents delimitations has been grantly modified.

This is very true! Continents are now typically marked by mountain ranges. @cephalo - you may want to ask @Seven05 about this. I saw him mention that the method is sort of backwards: the continents get assigned, then the map script will spawn mountain ranges at the borders.

 

[cephalo]

If you are correct pokiehl it could hold things up. Continents seem to be more important now, and I might have to roll my own once I know what it's supposed to do.

 

[NukeAJS]

I'd just add that climate change reduces the amount of ice tiles as climate change progresses. As far as gameplay is concerned, this means that ice tiles completely covering the northern or southern edge of a continent isn't as big as a bummer anymore. When level 2-4 climate change happens, it's almost guaranteed to open up a passage.

Also, canals mean isthmuses aren't limited to a single tile as far as "canal cities" are concerned. A three-tile isthmus can connect two bodies of water via two canals. As a result, you might want more isthmuses/large peninsulas to spawn so as to create possibly strategic choke-point cities. This would slow down exploration in the mid-game but increase the value of such cities in the mid-late/late game. A well placed canal city can literally shave 10-15 turns because a ship doesn't have to go around the entire continent.

 

[NukeAJS]

Also, the vanilla continents script seems to be generating A LOT more land than before but oceans still feel large. I haven't looked at the script yet, but I know you were having a problem with using a function to literally make the map larger. Whatever the vanilla script is doing, you might want to look into what it's doing and copy/emulate it if possible.

On the other hand, I could just be imaging this though I really doubt it. I'm on my third GS game and there was definitely a lot of land on all three playthroughs.

 

[cephalo]

This is very true! Continents are now typically marked by mountain ranges. @cephalo - you may want to ask @Seven05 about this. I saw him mention that the method is sort of backwards: the continents get assigned, then the map script will spawn mountain ranges at the borders.

I can't find any recent postings from Seven05. Where has he gone?

 

[Laurana Kanan]

I can't find any recent postings from Seven05. Where has he gone?

Steam as EvilVictor

 

[Strec]

I'm too lazy to go mining the code but as an analyst I think the idea would be (is?) :
1/ Define continents
2 or 3/ Define continent type (arid, rain, steppe, ...) depending of leader if leader set before
3 or 2/ Assign a leader, depending of the type if type set before
4/ delimit continent with river or mountain
5/ name mountains and rivers
6/ assign the tiles

M2c

 

[pokiehl]

I can't find any recent postings from Seven05. Where has he gone?

As Laurana said, he's on Steam now. I saw him post that on the discussion for his Detailed Worlds update here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1657281010

 

[cvb]

Also a GS design goal is to have less rivers , but the new ones more meandering (inter alia Hungarian unique ability).

I disagree that the "GS design goal is to have less rivers." Nothing in RiversLakes.lua or anywhere else indicates that they have made rivers less frequent at all, but yes, the pathing is more meanding. If anything I feel like I have noticed more rivers than before. However, I don't think this is relevant to PerfectWorld6 because Cephalo's river gen system is entirely unique and certainly not harmful to Hungary.

You are right, I have expressed 2 thoughts badly in 1 sentence:

In one of the video streams Ed (or Anton?) mentioned the design goal / purpose of more meandering to get more occasions of rivers touching one tile on 4 or even 5 sides (with cheaper districts "on the other side"). This "more meandering" leads to more tiles adjacent to rivers at all in vanilla. I like that, because I thought, there were too few in the beginning.

My feeling for PerfectWorld6 is, there are now enough (or even too many) rivers, which are often quite straight (& short). In order to avoid in river regions almost all tiles having fresh water access, less rivers would be the consequence. I think "more meandering" is nice also for aesthetical reasons.

 

[cephalo]

Ok, so the continents thing is no big deal. They are stamped after the terrain gen in Continents.lua. I can use that info to use the default placement of volcanoes and geotherms, but you don't have to place them that way. There might be a more fun way to place those.

pokiehl, I haven't touched the steam version since last time, when you subscribe to PW are you getting all the old junk in there also in your mod folder, or is it only happening to me?

I am also going to tweak the start placement system to make sure there is a minimum of contiguous real estate for a starting capital. It normally goes by fertility, but I have found that this fertility is often on the other side of a mountain range that you can't even get to until late game. It happens a lot on PW.

 

[pokiehl]

Ok, so the continents thing is no big deal. They are stamped after the terrain gen in Continents.lua. I can use that info to use the default placement of volcanoes and geotherms, but you don't have to place them that way. There might be a more fun way to place those.

pokiehl, I haven't touched the steam version since last time, when you subscribe to PW are you getting all the old junk in there also in your mod folder, or is it only happening to me?

I am also going to tweak the start placement system to make sure there is a minimum of contiguous real estate for a starting capital. It normally goes by fertility, but I have found that this fertility is often on the other side of a mountain range that you can't even get to until late game. It happens a lot on PW.

Glad to hear the continent stamping isn't causing any issues. FYI, here is what Seven05 said verbatim about it:

The changes Firaxis made are still in. They cheated, and I wish I would have thought of that method myself. When they "stamp" the continent zones, which is mostly random, they then use those borders to raise hills, mountains and volcanoes. It's backwards since those continents don't influence the landmasses but it works.

I will check the PW6 folder when I am done working today and let you know.

Also, glad to hear you're working on start placement. Maybe you can take into consideration city-states and have them distributed more evenly across the map. The vanilla starting placement has never been great, but since Gathering Storm, city-states are all being clustered into the same parts of the map and it makes for unfun gameplay.