Sanotra's Colonial America [Map]

[Isabelxxx]

There are no goody huts? I'll have to fix that. I don't understand your concern about the empty ocean space. I am not sure why there are not too many natives. Every time you load the game it is different. The amount of natives seem to change.

Neither goody huts nor natives in the west/north (they are covering the south of America and Caribbean isles). Pretty strange the empty space. I will try to show you a screen-shot.

As I said, goody huts need to be added "by hand". That's a pity.

What I said about Europe tiles is simple, trade units are able to seal to Europe but pirate units will not do it. Since trade units will automatically seal to Europe when entering in the first Europe Tile available and Pirate units don't, that enormous amount of Europe tiles could lead to Pirate units to be there moving and moving without doing nothing useful. Have in mind that trade units will never go so far... so there is no reason for pirate units to allow them so.

 

[Isabelxxx]

A pretty map. Thank you, Sanotra.

I have three questions or suggestions:

• At the Eastern Coast of North America there are no hills or peaks. It will be very difficult to produce tools oder weapons there. That's geographically authentic, but a problem for the balancing.
• You have no pacific plots. It won't be possible to finish the pacific quest of TAC. Perhaps you could create some pacific plots and change the one-tile-area of Panama so that it will be possible to build a settlement there (at the moment there are only peaks).
• The distances between the Europe plots and the coast are erratic. Sometimes it will be possible for ships to go to Europe directly, sometimes it is not possible. This is a problem for the balancing.

That's true, you need to add pacific plots. But have in mind that doing that you will completely destroy any compatibility with Vanilla or other mods so this map would require TAC mod.

I also agree about the Europe plot placement, there seems to be something strange at the bottom of the map. I just played with 2 AIs and no problem but having 3 or more players would probably lead to have one of them in a privileged place.

I think you will need to choose between accuracy and balancing.

 

[Sanotra]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

I fixed the goody hut issue. Yesterday I placed them all by hand, using the placement distance I saw common in the TAC maps.

As far as the natives are concerned, I was hoping someone would leave a comment on here telling me how to fix the lack of natives. Some of the tribes that spawn only have like 2 villages. The screen shot you saw before was where I placed natives by hand. But unfortunately the game won't let natives be static and the player random. They all must be random! I looked at the TAC maps and the natives are evenly placed every 4-7 tiles or so, and they are random! I looked at the WorldBuilder saves with Notepad++ and I was not able to find where it makes natives spawn like this, so please help me TAC guys! I'm guessing there is a seperate file which is a mapscript for each map. I thought maybe the mapscript for natives effected each map read with TAC before it. So I renamed it to TAC Colonial America and moved it to the right folder, but I was wrong.

I'm not sure what the complaint is about the pirates. I don't know how a pirate could get lost in the ocean, unless it has an ai to hang out on Europe squares. In all the games i've played the pirates seem smart enough to hang out near the coast.

You suggested I add Pacific tiles. But there are Pacific tiles, below Panama. I thought the Pacific tiles were Sail to Europe West tiles. If not, which tiles do I place for the Pacific?

Balancing the Europe plots along the coast was a tricky one for me. But they're erratic for a reason. The plots which are closer to the coast are closer primarily because if they were the normal length away, it would give the player an unfair disadvantage. For example, Florida is closer to Europe tiles than New York. Why? Because near New York a player may build all along the coast and not cost his ships extra movement burden. However in Florida, if a player builds on the west coast, his ships have to sail around the tip of Florida. Thus it appears to me to balance out correctly, but I could be mistaken. Up north by Canada, it is really close, but Canada is already a harder place to build successful colonies, as compared to the central coast. The Europe tiles are closer to the islands above Cuba, because they can't be too far away from Cuba, or that would be unfair to anyone playing Cuba.

Ok, lastly about the hills along the coast in America. I'll look into it, and see what I can do.

 

[Isabelxxx]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

I fixed the goody hut issue. Yesterday I placed them all by hand, using the placement distance I saw common in the TAC maps.

As far as the natives are concerned, I was hoping someone would leave a comment on here telling me how to fix the lack of natives. Some of the tribes that spawn only have like 2 villages. The screen shot you saw before was where I placed natives by hand. But unfortunately the game won't let natives be static and the player random. They all must be random! I looked at the TAC maps and the natives are evenly placed every 4-7 tiles or so, and they are random! I looked at the WorldBuilder saves with Notepad++ and I was not able to find where it makes natives spawn like this, so please help me TAC guys! I'm guessing there is a seperate file which is a mapscript for each map. I thought maybe the mapscript for natives effected each map read with TAC before it. So I renamed it to TAC Colonial America and moved it to the right folder, but I was wrong.


You suggested I add Pacific tiles. But there are Pacific tiles, below Panama. I thought the Pacific tiles were Sail to Europe West tiles. If not, which tiles do I place for the Pacific?

Ok, lastly about the hills along the coast in America. I'll look into it, and see what I can do.

Well, maybe i'm wrong, That's something TAC modders should answer you but I thought/understood the Pacific tile was a special type of terrain added by the TAC mod itself. At least that's what Writing Bull seemed to say...

I'm not sure what the complaint is about the pirates. I don't know how a pirate could get lost in the ocean, unless it has an ai to hang out on Europe squares. In all the games i've played the pirates seem smart enough to hang out near the coast.

You are right, they shouldn't... but you have to consider that these units could still be created in those plots, or enter there to attack trade units, or... who knows. Anyway, that's not a big problem. This can be changed easily if it gives problem when implementing your map to an specific mod.

Because near New York a player may build all along the coast and not cost his ships extra movement burden. However in Florida, if a player builds on the west coast, his ships have to sail around the tip of Florida. Thus it appears to me to balance out correctly, but I could be mistaken. Up north by Canada, it is really close, but Canada is already a harder place to build successful colonies, as compared to the central coast. The Europe tiles are closer to the islands above Cuba, because they can't be too far away from Cuba, or that would be unfair to anyone playing Cuba.

Well, I would not change anything yet. I think we are just giving some ideas but this has to be tested in game... as I said, for me the balance issue could happen with many players; but that was just an opinion; testing is needed, don't worry yet.

Also, there are maps in Vanilla which could also be considered to have balance problems (see Caribbean for ex.), players starting at top will clearly have less opportunities than the others. Here we will have to accept this as a problem, change the Europe Plots or consider this a additional random factor in every game.

 

[Writing Bull]

there are Pacific tiles, below Panama.

Yes, you are right. Sorry!

Well, maybe i'm wrong, That's something TAC modders should answer you but I thought/understood the Pacific tile was a special type of terrain added by the TAC mod itself. At least that's what Writing Bull seemed to say...

No, the Pacific tiles aren't a specific TAC feature ...

 

[Sanotra]

Well, I would not change anything yet. I think we are just giving some ideas but this has to be tested in game... as I said, for me the balance issue could happen with many players; but that was just an opinion; testing is needed, don't worry yet.

Yeah, we'll have to see. That's why I slapped a ver.1 to the end of the download file, simply because I knew we would likely have to change a few things.

Yes, you are right. Sorry!

It's good to hear that I placed the right tiles. However I found a problem, and feel free to test it to make sure I am not mistaken. When the event came up that urges you to find the Pacific. I made a mad journey to Panama, made a settlement there and everything, and saw the Europe west tiles, but the game did not say I found the Pacific. You know whats wrong there?

Also I did not address your earlier concern about a settlement at the Panama. There are plots you can settle there, specifically, you can make a settlement at the exact location of the Panama Canal itself. You said there were hills blocking your way. Maybe you could show me in a screen?

 

[Sanotra]

Who is the TAC modder who made the natives appear so regularly? The issue of the few and far between natives is a primary concern.

 

[Writing Bull]

However I found a problem, and feel free to test it to make sure I am not mistaken. When the event came up that urges you to find the Pacific. I made a mad journey to Panama, made a settlement there and everything, and saw the Europe west tiles, but the game did not say I found the Pacific. You know whats wrong there?

Sorry, I don't know it ...

Also I did not address your earlier concern about a settlement at the Panama.

My mistake!

Who is the TAC modder who made the natives appear so regularly? The issue of the few and far between natives is a primary concern.

The settlements of the natives will be placed randomly. But it is possible to place the native nations (not their settlements) at a certain area of geographical width (ray has explained it to you).

 

[Sanotra]

A pretty map. Thank you, Sanotra.

Thanks for the compliment. Do you use the Blue Marble graphics pack? I find that that pack brings out the best in the terrain. (With one exception, for personal taste, I deleted the Blue Marble file to modify the appearance of hills. Blueish mountains are ok, because of snow caps, but to have what looks like snow decorating the hills of South America, or any other hot region, is kind of ridiculous. Don't you think? )

The settlements of the natives will be placed randomly. But it is possible to place the native nations (not their settlements) at a certain area of geographical width (ray has explained it to you).

I guess I will have to wait for Ray to get back to me. I have looked at what he has said, but I do not recall him adequately addressing the problem. Comparing the text files of a TAC map and my map, you will find hardly any difference. So there must be something outside of the worldbuilder save that is enhancing the TAC maps. I do not recall Ray, or anyone else filling me in on this mystery. But I have often been mistaken before, I could be mistaken again.

 

[koma13]

Who is the TAC modder who made the natives appear so regularly? The issue of the few and far between natives is a primary concern.

The decision where the auto placement founds native settlements depends on the amount of food a city radius could provide. If you have a lot of bad (=low food) tiles on your map, it will have an effect on the number of settlements created for natives.

We had that situation in TAC and introduced an entry called "MIN_FOUND_VALUE_FOR_NATIVES" inside GlobalDefinesAlt.xml . When you reduce that value, the density of native settlements should be increased. This of course will only be working in TAC.

If you want to increase settlements in Vanilla, try to replace bad food tiles by better ones (e.g. remove jungle, tundra).

If that doesn't help, there is something wrong with you map settings.

 

[Sanotra]

Interesting Koma. Thanks for your response. If you have downloaded the map already, you may notice that the natives tend to spawn away from the American coast, to places where there should be less food. I'll have too look at the native placement and confirm what you have just said. However it does seem that they have consistently spawned more on mountainous and/or tundra areas, than they have on savanna or coastal areas. Except in CA and South America where the native density is normal, or close to it. But you are telling me that the GlobalDefinesAlt.xml files regulates native density for all the maps loaded whilst the TAC mod is loaded?

If that doesn't help, there is something wrong with you map settings.

You're welcome to download the worldbuilder save and take a look at the settings yourself. I don't think you will find that anything differs from a TAC map.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Sanotra:
I will take a look at your map, once the currently urgent things in Religion and Revolution are done.

 

[Sanotra]

@Sanotra:
I will take a look at your map, once the currently urgent things in Religion and Revolution are done.

Sweet!

 

[Sanotra]

I uploaded version 1.5 of the map. Please download the updated version. koma's remarks were very instrumental in helping me understand the native density problem. In order to get the game to spawn more natives, I had to sacrifice the beauty of having forests on every tile. By getting rid of forests in numerous areas, natives spawned more normally. I also addressed other important issues, including the difficulty in making tools along the coast due to a lack of hills. The Find the Pacific event is still not triggering effectively. Other than that. This map is the one I'll be playing the game on! Let me know if you have as much fun as I do!

Here is a quick list of the things I changed from the original release:
- Added more hills along the American coast (for tools).
- Increased native density by removing numerous forest tiles.
- Added more Pacific (Europe West) tiles near Central America.
- Placed Goody Huts all over the map.
- Made all Europe tiles 3 tiles away from the coast.

 

[Sanotra]

I found out the Pacific specific problem by testing the map. I accidentally put Europe West tiles where only Europe East tiles should be. The only place I know this to be, is by Florida. I will run over all the tiles with Europe East, and re upload the map when I get the chance.

 

[Sanotra]

Everyone, be on the look out for my new West Indies (Caribbean) Map. I am likely going to upload it today, tomorrow (hopefully) at the latest.

 

[Sanotra]

Version 2.0 of the map released. Major work has been done to the terrain to balance the game's production lines. It should play a lot better. Give it a shot!