Adding Terrain "Lake" [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Got everything but muddy waters so far, but some colors looked more riverish.

Well, the most easy thing will be to play a little with the colouring of "Ocean".
I can do so much 2D graphical work myself - although I am not an expert.

But you can send what you have so we can look at it.
Might save us some time and effort.

I could give it a shot at making a lake button as well.

Thanks for the offer, we might get back to it.
But let me ask @Zeta Nexus maybe first, because I love his Terrain buttons.

 

[Nightinggale]

But I fully understand that for a graphical modder or a player it may seem boring ... (simply because you do not face the issues we programmers do).

This is why I don't really see the point in the poll this time. The target audience for this thread is mainly programmers.

• stability improvement (bugfixing and avoding bugs)

• performance improvement

• effort reduction (for future features)

This is the essence for non-programmers. Think of programming like driving from home to work. You can pick multiple ways to get there. Some are faster than others, some requires more effort (traffic etc), some are more prone to crashes than others. It's kind of the same with programming. It's possible to write code, which is more prone to future bugs than some other code even if the two pieces of code seems to be doing precisely the same. The same goes for how friendly it is to add new features in the future, how fast the game is running etc.

This proposal is mainly about ending up with the same gameplay (more or less anyway) while removing parts of the code, which makes future additions more difficult and are prone to cause future bugs. The fact that it can be used to reduce the time we have to wait for the next turn is also attractive.

Writing this reminds me of one of my first "from scratch" feature I wrote for any Colonization mod. It caches the yield cost for professions instead of calculating from scratch each time. The gameplay is 100% the same, but it reduced the waiting time for the AI by 17.5% (40 to 33 seconds in my test savegame). Without caring for the internal change, players would still benefit from the reduced waiting time. Needless to say this cache is included in WTP.

 

[raystuttgart]

Waterfalls not come from me/not was my idea, "nor a want it really much" category.

I know but that was not my problem.
Sharing an idea once is ok.

My problem was that the discussion continued even after @Nightinggale said "no".
My problem was that the technical judment of a pro-modder was simply ignored and even questioned.

That is why I asked for "Please create a new thread if you want to discuss this."
It is my polite way of telling "You are now taking it too far and we should focus again on the actual concept."

---

Simply accept the answers already given by a team member or a pro-modder.
Everything else is going to waste your time and the time of the team members.

If you do not want to and continue discussing, please be at least polite enough to create a new thread for your personal discussions.
But then you are wasting your own time only and not the time of the team members.

---

Otherwise let us get over with that please and concentrate and focus again.

 

[raystuttgart]

This is why I don't really see the point in the poll this time.

Also correct, but it does not really hurt either.

The target audience for this thread is mainly programmers.

I fully agree, but still we need to discuss it with people that cooperate e.g. for graphics or texts.
How should we e.g. ask for help from grahical modders considering Buttons or Terrains otherwise.
(I can try myself but I would rather have great quality from experts.)

This is the essence for non-programmers. Think of programming like driving from home to work. You can pick multiple ways to get there. Some are faster than others, some requires more effort (traffic etc), some are more prone to crashes than others. It's kind of the same with programming. It's possible to write code, which is more prone to future bugs than some other code even if the two pieces of code seems to be doing precisely the same. The same goes for how friendly it is to add new features in the future, how fast the game is running etc.

Very nicely explained.

Summary:

I guess we both agree that we are going to do this.
(Again, you really had a good idea with this.)

 

[nci]

I believe special tiles for lakes are required. Here's what happens without them - while fun, feels like a cheat.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

yes, I sometimes have fun like that too)))

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I believe special tiles for lakes are required. Here's what happens without them - while fun, feels like a cheat.

View attachment 597167 View attachment 597169 View attachment 597170 View attachment 597171

If the "cheat" is that you have build cities close to each other, some directly into the next square, so that the ships can move from city to city to pass over normally dry land or small rivers or through a city from the ocean into a lake - I see no problem with that.

Reason: You handicapped your own cities in that line, because they overlap about half of their available squares. And building in that way would be the closest that could be done ingame to building a row of locks along a river.

 

[raystuttgart]

I believe special tiles for lakes are required. Here's what happens without them - while fun, feels like a cheat.

It will not work like that with "Lakes" anymore because only the "Small Ships" like e.g. Coastal Ships can then still travel on "Lakes".
(Rules for Ship Movement on Lakes will be similar to Ship Movement on Large Rivers.)

So it will become less "cheating".
But you can still use similar strategies for e.g. "Coastal Ships".
(Just no more "Galleons" on Lakes. )

That is by the way one of the main reasons why I want to have it.
(Adjusting "Lakes" to behave similar as "Large Rivers" in XML.)

 

[nci]

If the "cheat" is that you have build cities close to each other, some directly into the next square, so that the ships can move from city to city to pass over normally dry land or small rivers or through a city from the ocean into a lake - I see no problem with that.

By cheating, I referred only to Galleons deep into the continent, not the concept of allowing any ships to travel through lakes by building colonies and forts between lakes.

@raystuttgart will any other ships be allowed to travel into the lakes, besides coastal ones? E.g. smaller ones like Sloops or Smuggling ships?

 

[raystuttgart]

@raystuttgart will any other ships be allowed to travel into the lakes, besides coastal ones? E.g. smaller ones like Sloops or Smuggling ships?

Yes, because they should already be allowed to do so on "Large Rivers" as well.
I plan to have almost the same "Movement Rules" for "Lakes".
Anything else will confuse the players and cause issues to gameplay.

 

[Ramstormp]

@raystuttgart, just a picture to show that I have started trying things.... Maybe make take 1 of a button tomorrow.

 

[raystuttgart]

@raystuttgart, just a picture to show that I have started trying things...

Awesome !
Really like it.

Maybe make take 1 of a button tomorrow.

Thanks, but the button will not be the big issue, once we have the Terrain Graphics.

@Zeta Nexus has answered me that he might create a button for "Terrain Lake" for us.
And if I start begging / annoying long enough other graphical modders I know they might also help ...

 

[<Nexus>]

@Zeta Nexus has answered me that he might create a button for "Terrain Lake" for us.

And here it is. I made 3, so you can choose the one you like the most:

Let me know if you like any or not. I can make more versions, if none of the above suites you.

 

[raystuttgart]

And here it is. I made 3, so you can choose the one you like the most:
View attachment 597747View attachment 597748View attachment 597749

Thousands thanks again.
They are awesome.

Let me know if you like any or not.

I LOVE them all !!!!
Hm, do we now need to create 3 "Lake Terrains", to use all 3 buttons ... ?

Edit:
I think for the I will actually use the right one because it is easiest to recognize "as Lake".
(And it even seems to match the colors that @Ramstormp has chosen for the Terrain.)

 

[Ramstormp]

Thousands thanks again.
They are awesome.


I LOVE them all !!!!
Hm, do we now need to create 3 "Lake Terrains", to use all 3 buttons ... ?

Edit:
I think for the I will actually use the right one because it is easiest to recognize "as Lake".
(And it even seems to match the colors that @Ramstormp has chosen for the Terrain.)

My wish is of course and ambition still to have climate-specific lake and large river colors. I really don't know why, since I actually hate that all the rivers and lakes around here look like sewage.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Ramstormp

Could you please attach your Terrain graphics for "Lakes" in this thread until Friday?
Because I can currently only really work intensively on such topics on the weekends - so every weekend I miss is more or less a full modding week missed ...

This weekend I would really like to create this and graphics that look different than Ocean or Large Rivers - even if it still "prototype version" - will help me to test.
(At least the basic game logic and XML setup, so other team members can test and e.g. improve texts.)

 

[Ramstormp]

@Ramstormp

Could you please attach your Terrain graphics for "Lakes" in this thread until Friday?
Because I can currently only really work intensively on such topics on the weekends - so every weekend I miss is more or less a full modding week missed ...

This weekend I would really like to create this and graphics that look different than Ocean or Large Rivers - even if it still "prototype version" - will help me to test.
(At least the basic game logic and XML setup, so other team members can test and e.g. improve texts.)

Will do

 

[historix69]

By cheating, I referred only to Galleons deep into the continent, ...

This reminds me of following Uncle Scrooge story where they find a spanish galleon in the desert (last picture) :

Spoiler :

The mystery is explained on one of the following pages :

Spoiler :

I guess from coast upwards until the 1st ford a Large River can be presented by coastal tiles, allowing galleons to travel upstream into the continent before water gets to shallow.

 

[<Nexus>]

...but we haven't heard the best part yet!

 

[historix69]

...but we haven't heard the best part yet!

Spoiler :

The story is named "The seven cities of Cibola".
In old Colonization there was a random event where the player finds the seven cities and gets a huge treasure as reward.