C3C New Movement Possibilities

[Jorsalfare]

Absolutelly. New levels of roads requires new Overlays flags. And there are several unused ones, like 0x200 which is used now for land canals.

But new roads level means different weight in appropriate road graph being constructed every time a Unit makes an automatic move (it also happens when you're using Go To Action).

And haven't understant Trade Net working completelly.

Antal1987, the work you're doing has the potential to totally re-make Civ3. I would love to be able to have different movement-rates on roads depending on techs or maybe a wonder(?) Also different roadqualities (dirt, cobbled, and tarmac - and even motorways) could make the game much more interesting - in addition to restricted (but variable) movement along railways. To have navigable rivers and canals with bridge-crossing is something I have really missed in Civ3. I don't think you should worry too much about terrain/overlay graphics, since there are many excellent artists in here with an impressive record in making all sorts of game graphics.

Bugfixes like the non-pollution are fantastic - thank you (once again) for continuing the "forensic investigation" on the code! I'm confident that I'm not the only one who is cheering you on...

I prefer to play without the No-citylimits-hack since the game malfunctions and eventually crashes when standard city-count limit is exceeded. I agree with Ares that a .ini-file with the possibility to select/de-select the various features (current and future ones) would have been great. Thats not the most important thing right now, of course.

Regards Sigurd

 

[Balthasar]

I'm thinkg about adding new Game Rule Flag in BIC. For instance "Prohibit crossing neutral border without declaring a war". But it still requires understanding the AI.

Actually, I'm thinking the opposite would be useful - the equivalent of "free passage to all Civs unless at war".

Your work with overlays has me interested, Antal, for lots of reasons. My main schtick here is graphics, and the overlays have always been a rich source of experimentation for me. For instance, I made river files that look like telephone lines for The Super Scenario. That scenario also uses tile-wide roads files matched to plains terrain, and "freeway" railroads file, also a tile wide. I've also fashioned bridges from existing connecting terrain. I've even experimented with making coast and sea tiles into roads and rails in an effort to trick the AI into using land transport.

So you're embarked on a number of projects dear to my heart. So I volunteer my graphics services to you, if you need graphics for roads, bridges, or any other overlay.

I've often thought about how this all would be done, and I keep coming back in my mind to being able to assign a different terrain folder for each era. I would make them 'nested' (like russian dolls) so that each successive folder would change only the graphics it needs for the next era. The game already uses a hierarchical folder system (scenarios that have no terrain folder use the default game graphics, for instance). This would allow radical terrain changes, like seasons, or night and day, or simpler changes, like different roads, and literally quadruple the number of overlay types that could be modded for each scenario.

 

[ShiroKobbure]

Amazing stuff

 

[ZergMazter]

Oh Yes nights and days sound amazing!

 

[Antal1987]

Your work with overlays has me interested, Antal, for lots of reasons. My main schtick here is graphics, and the overlays have always been a rich source of experimentation for me. For instance, I made river files that look like telephone lines for The Super Scenario. That scenario also uses tile-wide roads files matched to plains terrain, and "freeway" railroads file, also a tile wide. I've also fashioned bridges from existing connecting terrain. I've even experimented with making coast and sea tiles into roads and rails in an effort to trick the AI into using land transport.

So you're embarked on a number of projects dear to my heart. So I volunteer my graphics services to you, if you need graphics for roads, bridges, or any other overlay.

That's cool... I just need some graphics for testing new rendering options. For the start I've made some canal images using Blender and now I'm trying to make bridges and I'm stuck.

I'm designing bridges connecting tiles in odd directions (1, 3, 5, 7):

		8		
	7		1	
6		0		2
	5		3	
		4

 

[Steph]

Is there a way to modify the roads system? Currently, a tile is automatically connected to all adjacent tile with roads.
Would it be possible, if 3 tiles (A,B, C) are forming a triangle (A adjacent to B and C, B adjacent to A anc C, C adjacent to A and B), to have a road going from A to B, and another from B to C, with no roads between A and C?

 

[Antal1987]

Is there a way to modify the roads system? Currently, a tile is automatically connected to all adjacent tile with roads.
Would it be possible, if 3 tiles (A,B, C) are forming a triangle (A adjacent to B and C, B adjacent to A anc C, C adjacent to A and B), to have a road going from A to B, and another from B to C, with no roads between A and C?

In theory, yes.
It requires at least 1 byte of class_Tile data space. This byte would be an 8-flag set: a bit per a direction (see directions above). Therefore the road between A, B (lets say A looks at B in 1-st direction, B looks at A in opposite (5-th direction)) would exist only if A has 1-th bit of that byte and B has 5-th one.

There are some known unused bytes in class_Tile object data. This byte might be stored at 0x2C offset in low byte. I recall that int value (0x2C) contains real and base tile types, but it use only 2-nd byte of the int value.

And here 3 problems appear:
1) Which way road levels should be defined? By default, road level exists only if appropriate overlay flag is true. Upgraded road system requires the way of the higher road levels to be defined as existing. There at least 2 ways:
- use a byte for each road level (in 0x2C int value we have 3 unused bytes) and use the above road system for each road level. It that case road overlays would be unused.
- use only one 1 byte and overlays for all levels. That means if a tile A "connected" to B and appopriate road level overlay flags of A and B are true only then the road level between A and B exists.

2) Which way the game has to provide new road constructing? By default, a Worker job object stores bits which are to set and unset to a tile being terraformed by a Unit. That means if a Unit builds a road on a Tile, this Tile gets 1-st bit to be set, and nothing to be unset (in irrigation case mines to be unset, for instance). Now it would be unnessesary. It requires completely dirrerent way of terraforming roads and specifying appropriate worker jobs. By using patch framework and rewriting some function I'd might be able to provide upgraded worker jobs. But it's properties would have to be stored in Ini file, not in the scenario.

3) Which way workers have to build upgraded roads? Unit has to build a road to a specific tile. By default, building a road is provided only by unit state value stored in Unit class object and worker job data stored in Tile class object. Now Unit has to remember coordinates of target tile. I could use GoTo coordinates and new Unit State to provide that option. But it still requires some changes in GUI: by clicking "Build road" button a User now would has to pick a tile to build a road to.

 

[Balthasar]

That's cool... I just need some graphics for testing new rendering options.

For the start I've made some canal images using Blender and now I'm trying to make bridges and I'm stuck.

I'm designing bridges connecting tiles in odd directions (1, 3, 5, 7):

		8		
	7		1	
6		0		2
	5		3	
		4

I'm sorry I've taken so long to get back to you Antal. As I describe below, finding suitable images was quite a chore.

So, I started with the following:

The thing is, there aren't really any bridges suited to this available online. The wood and stone road bridges I used are by an artist named Breed (greatly reduced in size). I was also able to construct some bridges from images I found on the Simutrans-germany website (also reduced in size). But we really need to get our model makers involved once you get this working.

So here are the two that I worked up (these are pngs, not pcx's - those are in the attached rar file):

Road Bridges, a.k.a. Bridges

I used a simple 4 x 4 template, and made four types - wood, stone, cobblestone and highway.

and Rail Bridges

Again, four types - wood trestle, iron trestle, brick and iron, and bow trestle.

While I was working, I thought of some possible rules -

That a box would pop up when a worker tries to build a road across a river -
"Do you want to build a bridge? y n (Worker job = build bridge)

perhaps even

What type of bridge do you want to build?


Also: I think that the rivers overlay should be ABOVE the roads overlay on the map, and that perhaps
it should be impossible to build a road across (or under) a river at all without a bridge.

So here is the Rar file: View attachment Bridges for Antal.rar I also included some single-bridge pcx's so that you can play with that "which bridge?" option. Single-bridge pcx's could also be used for Landmark Bridges (like the Golden Gate, London Bridge, or Brooklyn Bridge, for example). I'm also working on some larger images for terrain-style bridges, which I'll get to you later this week.

 

[Antal1987]

So here is the Rar file: View attachment 380164 I also included some single-bridge pcx's so that you can play with that "which bridge?" option. Single-bridge pcx's could also be used for Landmark Bridges (like the Golden Gate, London Bridge, or Brooklyn Bridge, for example). I'm also working on some larger images for terrain-style bridges, which I'll get to you later this week.

Great job... Thanks!