Communitas map script

[Tomice]

The only problem is that Thal only drops by once in a week or so and I have no idea what his plans or ambitions are.

I play his mods since the very beginning (shortly after vanilla release) and I can assure you there never was any problem with his forum activity - he usually posts daily. He just tends to get a little quieter when he's working on big changes and needs to focus.

Here's a thread about jungles in CEP where Thal shares some design plans.

 

[DeepSoul]

Is it possible to remove the gold bonus from lakes so I can fill them in with an editor? As it is now they keep the gold bonus even if you set another type of terrain in their place.

 

[stackpointer]

See line 7714:

			if not Cep and plot:IsLake() then
				--Game.SetPlotExtraYield( x, y, YieldTypes.YIELD_FOOD, -1)
				Game.SetPlotExtraYield( x, y, YieldTypes.YIELD_GOLD, 1)
			end

Did you not have any luck with the lakeSize constant in the script?

 

[DeepSoul]

Thanks. The lakeSize constant did nothing. I think 10 means a lake of one tile so setting it to less won't have any effect.

 

[DonQuiche]

Thanks. The lakeSize constant did nothing. I think 10 means a lake of one tile so setting it to less won't have any effect.

Nope: every water area of ten tiles or less is a lake. Otherwise it is an ocean. This is a hard-coded rule in civ5. Hence the "lakeSize" constant defined in Communitas.lua to reflect this ; you should not change it.

Now I don't think that other map scripts add such an extra yield to lakes, I wonder if it was a mistake caused by a misunderstanding.

 

[heinous_hat]

Nope: every water area of ten tiles or less is a lake. Otherwise it is an ocean. This is a hard-coded rule in civ5. Hence the "lakeSize" constant defined in Communitas.lua to reflect this ; you should not change it.

Now I don't think that other map scripts add such an extra yield to lakes, I wonder if it was a mistake caused by a misunderstanding.

I'm glad this came up because I wasn't aware he was using game.SetPlotExtraYield to get desired yields for special case tiles during map generation. That's actually really useful and, for whatever reason, the method doesn't appear in any of the Firaxis scripts (or Perfectworld).

In the case of extra gold for lakes, it only applies when using the Communitas map script standalone. Maybe Thal is attempting to balance the abundance of lakes generated by this script (in absence of the full Cep mod). Larger lakes give you a lot of contiguous low value tiles where the opportunity for trade routes is lower.

The other usage of game.SetPlotExtraYield is to nerf food on jungle hills after the same function converts the terrain to grass . The net gameplay effect is that chopping the jungle exchanges 2 for 2 while farming it won't improve the tile without one of the conditional farm bonuses. Interesting approach when combined with leaving flat jungle tiles as plains.

 

[DonQuiche]

I'm glad this came up because I wasn't aware he was using game.SetPlotExtraYield to get desired yields for special case tiles during map generation. That's actually really useful and, for whatever reason, the method doesn't appear in any of the Firaxis scripts (or Perfectworld).

It usually does not appear because there is usually no reason to do so. Here it is used to adjust all lakes' yields. Imho it looks like the wrong way to do it where the proper way would be to change the "FEATURE_LAKE" feature's yield. Unless of course if this yield is actually hard-coded and Thal had to use that trick to circumvent that problem (I put my bucks on this one).

Now I am not aware of a single script generating "special" tiles. And even if there was, creating a new resource/terrain/feature would be a better choice than SetPlotextraYield.

All of that being said, it made me realize that I never added the ability to edit bonus yields into IGE. I guess I will have to.

 

[heinous_hat]

...
Now I am not aware of a single script generating "special" tiles. And even if there was, creating a new resource/terrain/feature would be a better choice than SetPlotextraYield.
...

I think it seems convenient to use setPlotExtraYield with a conditional expression, like with jungle&grassland. That way, you can target only grass tiles that once had the jungle feature to yield less food once they've been cleared (special case). It's one solution anyway, custom terrain for jungle area would no doubt be more desirable (if not trickier to implement). Something tells me that sort of thing hasn't been attempted yet due to wonky behavior with feature/terrain graphics modification.

But yeah, with the lakes case, the only condition is that Cep isn't active (whereas it's otherwise handled by the mod).

 

[DeepSoul]

			if not Cep and plot:IsLake() then
				--Game.SetPlotExtraYield( x, y, YieldTypes.YIELD_FOOD, -1)
				Game.SetPlotExtraYield( x, y, YieldTypes.YIELD_GOLD, 1)
			end

Strange. I disabled that code but I don't get any gold bonus with CEP installed(I like it that way), so I don't understand why he put it there. It can't be to balance the lakes.

Speaking of lakes. My knowledge and interest of geography might be deeper then the average person's but I noticed something that isn't realistic. This script can generate many large lakes close to each other, with a river running through them, in desert areas where the evaporation is too high to support such a lake system. A lake in a desert usually doesn't have an outflow to the sea because the water level isn't high enough. See the Caspian Sea or Lake Aral. If the elevation is constant however you would get a river like the Nile or Tigris and Euphrates. Lake systems connected by rivers only appear in temperate regions with a lot of rain, like northern USA and Sweden.

I also made another interesting observation. Why does the desert favour the hills in this case? They should have grassland in the south and plains along the desert's border. I have edited the script a bit but I don't think I edited it enough to cause this issue.

Spoiler :

 

[stackpointer]

Strange. I disabled that code but I don't get any gold bonus with CEP installed(I like it that way), so I don't understand why he put it there. It can't be to balance the lakes.

Are you saying that commenting out the code doesn't work? Or just that there isn't a bonus with CEP enabled but there is with it disabled? Either way, modifying the lake yields was a way of balancing lakes that Thal was trying out (was +1 food in earlier versions) and any differences in the map with or without CEP enabled can be attributed to legacy code that may need to be removed.

I also made another interesting observation. Why does the desert favour the hills in this case? They should have grassland in the south and plains along the desert's border. I have edited the script a bit but I don't think I edited it enough to cause this issue.

What map size and other map setting? Has anybody else noticed this too? Since DeepSoul has modified his script we'll have to confirm that this is actually an issue.

 

[DeepSoul]

In the case of extra gold for lakes, it only applies when using the Communitas map script standalone. Maybe Thal is attempting to balance the abundance of lakes generated by this script (in absence of the full Cep mod). Larger lakes give you a lot of contiguous low value tiles where the opportunity for trade routes is lower.

Commenting out the code works but the code affects CEP too in contrast to what heinous hat wrote. So if I disable the code the gold bonus will be disabled for CEP too.

Regarding the desert on hills issue I started with a Huge map. I have these settings in my script:

Spoiler :

--Important latitude markers used for generating climate.
mglobal.tropicLatitudes = 15 -- tropicLatitudes to 0 : grass, jungle
mglobal.horseLatitudes = 28 -- polarFrontLatitude to horseLatitudes : grass, plains, desert
mglobal.iceLatitude = 65 -- bottomLatitude to iceLatitude : ice
mglobal.polarFrontLatitude = 60 -- bottomLatitude to polarFrontLatitude : snow, tundra


--Adjusting these will generate larger or smaller landmasses and features.
mglobal.landMinScatter = 0.00022 --Recommended range:[0.02 to 0.1]
mglobal.landMaxScatter = 0.03 --Recommended range:[0.03 to 0.3]
--Higher values makes continental divisions and stringy features more likely,
--and very high values result in a lot of stringy continents and islands.

mglobal.coastScatter = 0.075 --Recommended range:[0.01 to 0.3]
--Higher values result in more islands and variance on landmasses and coastlines.

mglobal.mountainScatter = 0.12 --Recommended range:[0.1 to 0.8]
--Lower values make large, long, mountain ranges. Higher values make sporadic mountainous features.


-- Terrain
mglobal.mountainWeight = 0.8 --Weight of the mountain elevation map versus the coastline elevation map.
mglobal.belowMountainPercent = 0.95 -- Percent of non-mountain land
-- flatPercent to belowMountainPercent : hills
mglobal.flatPercent = 0.72 -- Percent of flat land
mglobal.hillsBlendPercent = 0.33 -- Chance for flat land to become hills per near mountain. Requires at least 2 near mountains.
mglobal.terrainBlendRange = 2 -- range to smooth terrain (desert surrounded by plains turns to plains, etc)
mglobal.terrainBlendRandom = 1 -- random modifier for terrain smoothing


-- Features
mglobal.featurePercent = 0.70 -- Percent of potential feature tiles that actually create a feature (marsh/jungle/forest)
mglobal.featureWetVariance = 0.10 -- Percent chance increase if freshwater, decrease if dry (groups features near rivers)
mglobal.islePercent = 0.05 -- Percent of coast tiles with an isle
mglobal.numNaturalWonders = 2 + GameInfo.Worlds[Map.GetWorldSize()].NumNaturalWonders


-- Rain
mglobal.marshPercent = 0.08 -- Percent chance increase for marsh from each nearby watery tile
-- junglePercent to 1 : marsh
mglobal.junglePercent = 0.80 -- junglePercent to 1 : jungle
mglobal.zeroTreesPercent = 0.25 -- zeroTreesPercent to 1 : forest
-- plainsPercent to 1 : grass
mglobal.plainsPercent = 0.48 -- desertPercent to plainsPercent : plains
mglobal.desertPercent = 0.25 -- 0 to desertPercent : desert


-- Temperature
mglobal.jungleMinTemperature = 0.70 -- jungle: jungleMinTemperature to 1
mglobal.desertMinTemperature = 0.46 -- desert: desertMinTemperature to 1
-- grass: tundraTemperature to 1
-- plains: tundraTemperature to 1
mglobal.tundraTemperature = 0.22 -- tundra: snowTemperature to tundraTemperature
mglobal.snowTemperature = 0.15 -- snow: 0 to snowTemperature
mglobal.treesMinTemperature = 0.17 -- trees: treesMinTemperature to 1
mglobal.forestRandomPercent = 0.05 -- Percent of barren flatland which randomly create a forest

Anyone who can tell me what this does? "mglobal.terrainBlendRandom = 1 -- random modifier for terrain smoothing"

 

[stackpointer]

I might have encountered a weird edge case with the ocean rift code. I'm using the 1.4 map; small size, low sea levels, narrow rifts and encounter a 1 tile wide coastal connection through the ocean. I've attached a screenshot and my logs but I haven't been able to duplicate this behavior either.

 

[macheteman]

Just noticed that the Terra option for Communitas stopped working. There are no AssignStartingPlots.lua in my MOD folder, so I'm not sure what would be making Communitas map start Civs on ALL continents when "Terra" is selected.

edit: nvm dont know what happened. its fine.

 

[macheteman]

Tundra starts all over for Spain.

Reloaded at least 10 times on a standard Terra communitas map and there is Tundra within 4 tiles on 7/10 starts.

Anyway to fix this? Spain's coastal bias works just fine, but its always near a tundra....

 

[mitsho]

Easiest way? Download the Really Advanced Setup Mod and chose your own start bias in the start screen.

But this may just be by chance that it gives you coastal bias (why exactly still?) which just also happens to be near tundra (because other civs take precedence and "need" their desert or whatever).

 

[stackpointer]

Spain doesn't have a coastal bias. The only civilizations that have a coast bias is:

CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND 1
CIVILIZATION_OTTOMAN 1
CIVILIZATION_JAPAN 1
CIVILIZATION_POLYNESIA 1
CIVILIZATION_DENMARK 1
CIVILIZATION_CARTHAGE 1
CIVILIZATION_BYZANTIUM 1
CIVILIZATION_INDONESIA 1
CIVILIZATION_PORTUGAL 1
CIVILIZATION_VENICE 1
CIVILIZATION_NETHERLANDS 1
CIVILIZATION_ROME 1

 

[Thalassicus]

I think Spain has no terrain bias. I believe map scripts can't change this. Starting near tundra probably happens because so many other civilizations have non-tundra preferences like desert, plains, grass, etc. They take up the lower latitudes and leave civilizations like Spain with nowhere to spawn but the tundra. It's one of the problems with the vanilla start placement system. I often considered replacing that system with a new one... but it would be so much work I never really got around to doing it.

 

[macheteman]

I think Spain has no terrain bias. I believe map scripts can't change this. Starting near tundra probably happens because so many other civilizations have non-tundra preferences like desert, plains, grass, etc. They take up the lower latitudes and leave civilizations like Spain with nowhere to spawn but the tundra. It's one of the problems with the vanilla start placement system. I often considered replacing that system with a new one... but it would be so much work I never really got motivated enough to do it.

Makes sense! I didn't think of it this way, but I see why Spain gets the short end haha.

 

[qadams]

Communitas Map is my favorite map to use, EXCEPT for one thing -- I often prefer to play on a single large continent, i.e., Pangea. Why is that option not included with this mod?

 

[Spheniscine]

Communitas Map is my favorite map to use, EXCEPT for one thing -- I often prefer to play on a single large continent, i.e., Pangea. Why is that option not included with this mod?

Probably because the landmasses are generated with Perlin noise, so controlling the number of continents might be difficult; you can get Pangaea-like gameplay by having only one ocean rift, but you may sometimes get landmasses separated by channels (coastal tiles).