Alexander the Great Scenario: Help!

[mrtn]

Originally posted by Kryten


Well, perhaps the Scythians were semi-nomadic.
Nomads don't usually wander about aimlessly, but follow their animals set migration patterns....up to the north in summer and back south in winter.
And it seems reasonable to me that they would errect semi-permanent mud & straw huts to see themselves through the long harsh winter months (they are living in what would one day be known as southern Russia, and we all know what their winter's can be like!).

Southern Russia produce fizzy wines. Northern Russia, on the other hand produce fizzy lemmings. It's a big country.

But tents would also work just as well.
I think the smaller wagons look much better PCHighway.
Just one thing, would it be possible to have more wagons around the larger settlements....say add two extra wagons as each 'city' increases in size?

Good idea, but in that case I think it should be fewer wagons in the small cities. Just two or three, and maybe a tent or two.

 

[PCHighway]

LoL, good point there, I will make the cities wagons expand as it gets bigger. As for the tents, I like the idea, but the problem is, I am really bad at drawing, I remember I had to make a wall once, and cut\pasted it to about 40 pixels longer. The problem is finding a good tent graphic, and if this will be included in conquests, then I have to be extra careful where I find it. I’ll scan the completed graphics forums, and ask if someone will let me use some of their graphics.

As I see it now, I will continue with the way it is now, finish it, and then go out looking for the tents. Two versions for it won’t be hard, and in case one doesn’t turn out, we can always fall back on the other.

About Russia, I remember reading Scythians used yurts, not just any yurts however, but mobile ones.

Obviously a modern one, but you get the idea. It is sort of a mix between a tent and a ‘hut’.

Static units for the time being sound fine . As you said, it is easier to tinker with something, than to make it from scratch.

 

[PCHighway]

What’s going on here, has all this talking messed all of you up already .
As for me, well, Justice never sleeps... Wait, that would be, spam never sleeps.

The top one is what I had already uploaded before I saw all of Mrtn's last post, the part about less wagons, which, admittedly is the only logical way to go. So I started fixing it accordingly, as seen in the next pic.

I think I have the 'hut version' of the first line (era) done. What do you think? Also, I have to argue about AoE units being used. Lets face it, we may not get into conquests, and even if we do, there is NO way they are going to lets us put 30mb+ on their disk. DyP, TAM, and other MODs had to use all installed graphics, i.e. no custom ones. So if we do get on there, we will not be able to use 99% of the great customs units Kryten makes, and most probably none of the building\civilopedia\city gfx. Just a thought, but at this stage, we shouldn’t worry about such things, as all of the MODs out there are using such animations\graphics as we have at our disposal.

 

[mrtn]

That's looking really good!
If you could fill some of the wagons would be good, Kryten made them awfully empty. And I don't really like the longhouse in the north east corner, especially the chimney makes it look like a submarine. Other than that:
As I understood Kryten you only need one era. And if you don't care about copyright (you have a point there) you can steal yurts from the fantasy mod in ToT.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

PCHighway, great cities

 

[PCHighway]

Thanks Mongoloid Cow, but I don't mind constructive criticism either. Mrtn, I agree with you, even if I am starting to question your sanity (Submarine? ). But I do think I need to put something there, but what? More huts or a wagon and huts? I'll try to think of something to put in there, in an earlier pre-view I had pots next to a wagon, but they were hardly noticeable at that size, so I removed them (they looked like a blob, for lack of a better term).

 

[mrtn]

Well, it's an oblong blob with a blob sticking up from it. Of course it looks like a submarine. I'm thinking the Beached-radioactive-Russian-wreck type of sub.
If you compare the yurt you posted with what you have in the cities, you see that your huts/tents (?) is much more pointy than the yurt. Is this something you can do anything about? Perhaps you can put a market stall in the bigger city/cities?

 

[Kryten]

Excellent work PCHighway.

And I do disagree with mrtn about the 'beached submarine'.....
....mind you, it does look strange having the Confederate Ironclad Merrimack in a Scythian encampment.

Just a suggestion; would it be a good idea to try to make their settlements a little bit more 'round'?
It may be easier to add wooded palisades if they were.

I've been thinking about the city improvements.
Almost all cities would start the scenario with the following:-
City Walls, Temples, Colosseums, Marketplaces, Aqueducts, Courthouses, Libraries, Harbours, Granaries (some of these re-named).
After all, these cities had been established for many centuries long before Alexander came along.

But....again....the Scythians are a problem.
Being nomadic, they wouldn't have these stone buildings.
So I'm thinking of giving them a "Nomadic Tribal" government which no-one else can have (a re-named Despotism), and only they will have the following:-
* Wooden Palisades instead of Walls
* Shaman's Hut/Tent instead of Temples/Shrines
* Wooden Rings instead of Colosseums/Amphitheatres (like Stone Henge, but of wood)
* Freshwater Springs instead of Aqueducts/Water Wells
* Leader's Hut/Tent instead of Courthouses/Petition Houses
* Hunter's Lodge instead of Libaries/Schools
* Storage Pits instead of Granaries/Storehouses
* They wouldn't have Harbours, and marketplaces would be unchanged.
(I know all this is a lot of trouble for a bunch of people who only have a relatively minor roll in the scenario, but you have to admit, it is more realistic)

In the mean time, I am struggling with the fascinating effects of terrain tiles.
Because in Civ3 the grassland tiles dominate all other terrain, and overlapps onto them, all my 'Dirt Tracks' (re-named desert) has a green outline when placed across my new 'Sandy Desert' (re-named jungles) and plains.
It looks AWFUL!

The best solution I have found, after many experiments, is to change the dominance of green tiles so that they are overlapped by other terrain.
I also have to change jungle hills & mountains (I'll convert all the green bits to light brown instead so that they blend with both grassland and the new 'Sandy Deserts').

I should have a preview in a day or two.

For the moment, how does this 'Sandy Desert' (re-named jungle) look?

 

[mrtn]

Damn server, I wrote an answer to this one.

Originally posted by Kryten
...But....again....the Scythians are a problem.
Being nomadic, they wouldn't have these stone buildings.
So I'm thinking of giving them a "Nomadic Tribal" government which no-one else can have (a re-named Despotism), and only they will have the following:-
* Wooden Palisades instead of Walls
* Shaman's Hut/Tent instead of Temples/Shrines
* Wooden Rings instead of Colosseums/Amphitheatres (like Stone Henge, but of wood)
* Freshwater Springs instead of Aqueducts/Water Wells
* Leader's Hut/Tent instead of Courthouses/Petition Houses
* Hunter's Lodge instead of Libaries/Schools
* Storage Pits instead of Granaries/Storehouses
* They wouldn't have Harbours, and marketplaces would be unchanged.
(I know all this is a lot of trouble for a bunch of people who only have a relatively minor roll in the scenario, but you have to admit, it is more realistic)

Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the Scythians only made camp with fresh water nearby? So, instead of making a new improvement, you could distribute some small lakes or two-tile rivers.
I like these, except the Wooden rings and the Hunter's Lodge. These sound kinda cheesy, why not just punish the Scythians for being uncivilized barbarians?

Originally posted by Kryten
...For the moment, how does this 'Sandy Desert' (re-named jungle) look?

I think that the shadows in civ3 falls from the lower right side. So your shadows looks wrong. You should turn it
upside down
I'm turning
inside out
round and round.
So, both upside down and right to left. And maybe make it more yellow, the dunes are paler than the underlying desert.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Kryten, I agree with Mrtn here. Woden Rings and Hunter's Lodge sound kinda cheesy and unimaginitive. Why not make it impossible for the Scythians to build certain improvements (if that is even impossible), it would be a lot better IMO.

PCHighway, I looked back to the long hut which looks like a submarine and decided it looks like a stretch limo with a skyroof at the very back and a guy standing out of it. Maybe just get rid of that building all together...

 

[PCHighway]

I'm sorry for the slow work, but I think I have the palisade down.
I am going to skip adding things to the back of the wagons for now (it was a lot more trouble than it was worth). The Limo has been removed, and here is a preview of the palisade so far:

 

[mrtn]

Looking good!

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Great work PCHighway.

 

[Kryten]

The Scythian encampment looks just right PCHighway.

You are doing better than I am.
I have just spent a whole week trying to alter Snoopy's terrain tiles....
....I failed!
One week totally wasted.

As I posted before, the problem is that glassland tiles 'dominate' all adjacent tiles (i.e. the green overlaps plains and desert), and all hills & mountains are placed on glassland....which looks odd in a desert.
I tried again, and again, then gave up, and tried again.

Here is an example of using desert terrain as 'Dirt Tracks', and is the only terrain that roads can be built on in the scenario.....

This doesn't look too bad, but the following example shows the problems I'm having with adding desert/dirt tracks to my new 'Sandy Desert (formally jungle)' tiles....

As you can see, there is an outline of grass around the 'Dirt Tracks'.

Now given another week or two I'm sure I could do better....but that's the problem.
I just don't have the time, as there is so much more to do.
So I'm going to leave it as it is for now and move on.

If anybody want's to try it for themselves, or if they would like to try to improve it, then please do!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Alex_Terrain.zip

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Later Edit: Oh, and I agree with everyone....the Scythians won't be able to build certain buildings.
They will be sort of 'super barbarians'.
Irrigation & mines for example....being nomads, they wouldn't have these, so their workers/slaves can only really be used for building roads (they need roads to get to the resources).

 

[mrtn]

Does grassland need to be that green? If you remake the grassland, you wouldn't have these problems, would you? I'm typing while thinking, so I might be wrong, but... You would need to remake all those three letter .pcx's, so it might be too much of a pain in the donkey. If you make grassland in some plains colour, you'd still get those differences, but they wouldn't be so visual. Or maybe try to fade those three letter .pcx's, so the green part is smaller.

 

[Kryten]

I tried again, and again, then gave up, and tried again.
....I failed!
One week totally wasted.

Ooooo.....you what not believe how much I tried!

First of all, each of the six terrain files has a different palette, so simple cut-'n-paste didn't work.
I solved this by making a 'universal terrain palette' so all files used the same one.
But then I found it very, very hard to try and blend/fade one terrain type into another.
And there are 81 tiles per file, for a total of 486.
And the edges of each one must match each possible adjacent tile....not only because of the coastline, but also inland.
Plus the fact that each tile is not placed on the map as you see it, but each is divided into 4 quarters that 'merge' into each other.
And many of the tiles are chosen at random, so you only get a true picture once you have converted EVERY ONE OF THEM....
....only to find that it looks 'orrible!
("Stick to something you know Kryten, such as units!")

I now have some insight into how it can be done, but I don't want to waste another week only to end up with nothing to show for it.

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by Kryten

...I now have some insight into how it can be done, but I don't want to waste another week only to end up with nothing to show for it.

You chicken!
Seriously though; if it doesn't work with desert, how about making plains the only terrain that can have roads? That wouldn't give that a difference between desert and 'road', would it?

 

[Kryten]

Very well, I tried out mrtn's suggestion.
Here is an example......

....and I must admit, it does look better.

So then, if we make the following changes:-
* plains re-named as 'Dirt Tracks' (the only places roads can be built)
* desert re-named as 'Plains' (and recoloured as a yellowish-brown)
* floodplains re-named as 'Watered Sites' (the only places cities can be built)
* jungle re-named as 'Sandy Desert'
* change the green of the jungle hills & mountains to brown
....then that should give us the effect we are after.

It would be a simple job to convert Loulong's version of Exsanguination's old map to this (and more importantly, it doesn't require hours and hours of cutting-'n-pasting the existing Snoopy tileset!).

It does mean that the new 'Plains' will look the same as the new 'Watered Sites', and so it may be a bit hard for the Macedonian player to tell where they can & can't build all those namesake cities of Alexandrias....but this is a small price to pay for allowing me to finally move on to something else.
(I could always make a small 'freshwater spring' resource and place it on top of the 'Watered Sites'....just as a visual aid. )

How does that sound?

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by Kryten
Very well, I tried out mrtn's suggestion.
Here is an example......
....and I must admit, it does look better.

Woohoo! My ideas rules!

Originally posted by Kryten
...It does mean that the new 'Plains' will look the same as the new 'Watered Sites', and so it may be a bit hard for the Macedonian player to tell where they can & can't build all those namesake cities of Alexandrias....but this is a small price to pay for allowing me to finally move on to something else.
(I could always make a small 'freshwater spring' resource and place it on top of the 'Watered Sites'....just as a visual aid. )

How does that sound?

How about not making it a 'freshwater spring', but some sort of little village instead? Something like a Goody Hut? I think that could look cool. A spring could very well look either as a weird river, or a lake, and both could look strange.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

A little village woudn't be bad. But it is up to you.

Kryten, words cannot express how good you are at these things It looks like this project is finally getting somewhere