flavour map script(s)

[dreiche2]

well, of course teams work , but, like you said, by default scripts put team members close together, and this behaviour is indeed currently removed in my modified scripts.

If I get around to doing it I might implement something similar. Though, again like you said, it will be difficult to manage teams and at the same time optimize the positions with only few locations to choose from. The easiest thing is probably to place the flavor civs first and then consider teams when placing the remaining civs. Though that wouldn't have helped in your example when you were playing Lanun and Malakim...

ya, like you said, it's nothing horrible, but maybe I add a note to the first post so people are aware of it.

 

[Sureshot]

i think the only good way of doing it would be to change the terrain of where they do start, rather than finding them appealing sites.

a mix of the two might be nice as well, like find them close spots that agrees with the first player in the team, then apply some spell like effects over any other terrain specific civs that are on the same team. like a Genesis type effect for Ljosalfar in the fat cross of their starting spot (so that it turns more green and adds forests in empty spots).

but either way, the fhf fractal was nice, and Smartmap is a great script, should be even better with some flavour in it

 

[dreiche2]

yep, changing the terrain locally wouldn't be hard to do. Well, maybe it's a little bit more difficult to do it consistently.

Though, if I had the time I'd rather write/modify scripts to generate maps that are more interesting for FfH to begin with before mixing terrain generation and finding of start locations more than necessary.

 

[Maniac]

So, what about other civs? Are the Illians Tundra lovers?

Place the Hippus near large flat plains or grassland patches?

 

[Sureshot]

Place the Hippus near large flat plains or grassland patches?

ideally with animals that can be pastured (since a natural tech for hippus is animal husbandry on the way to horseback riding) and farmable stuff since they start with agriculture

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Are the Illians Tundra lovers?

They don't get bonuses from it at the moment, but their leader kinda likes the cold.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

How about Amurites near as many mana nodes as possible? Hippus on plains is good. Svartalfar might be well put in forest, too, until Kael & Co. decide their final flavor. I'd say that the Clan of Embers might be nice near jungle, but that might be tough on them. No tougher than putting the Doviello in tundra, I guess. Maybe Kuriotates in city spots that have three rings of workable tiles, always?

 

[dreiche2]

... No tougher than putting the Doviello in tundra, I guess.

Well, at least in case of tundra and the fractal script, the base script considers spots *in* tundra not as good start positions, hence Doviello usually only start more or less close to tundra, not inside.


Darn, I simply cannot stop touching myself.... uh, I mean, my script.

Anyway, I now have a version working where for every civ an arbitrary set of terrains, features and boni can be defined and each can be given a value separately for determining the total score of a starting location. I'm somehow reluctant to include boni for a civs (though the functionality is now there), cause that seems very specific to me.

So as an example, I've currently set the Hippus to like plains, grassland, and slightly dislike hills and forests. I'm going to add some further details before I upload the scripts...

 

[dreiche2]

ok, here comes the update, see first post.

Be sure to check out the changelog and the new scripts

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Seems like there's too many sentry towers now. Seldom do I find one that's not within sight of another.

 

[dreiche2]

with which map? It seems like SmartMap creates many towers by default, so a 50% increase is maybe overkill.

Seems like it has to be adjusted for each script specifically. I didn't want to completely remove the old placement, so in order for the choke point effect to be visible, I somewhat increase the tower number and placed only half of the total on choke points. But maybe I'm going to go back to the old number.

 

[Sureshot]

lots of sentry towers and at choke points is great, will be fun with my "sentry towers gets improved with forts" modifcation

 

[dreiche2]

lots of sentry towers and at choke points is great, will be fun with my "sentry towers gets improved with forts" modifcation

yeah, that was the point

I really like the 'built fortress on a resource' solution, if at least as a temporary compromise to get the AI to use them in more or less useful spots.

Or Kael&Co. could make two separate things from it, as in some way fortresses with a zone of control could play a different role then fortresses on choke points... So maybe make Fortresses have some sort of zone of control (e.g. increased withdrawal chance for units inside), if the AI can be teached to use them. And separately for the choke points you add some kind of resource (something like "(ancient) pass" or something), which can be improved with a fortification, and then gives some commerce bonus (because of trade coming through) and some defence bonus, which will be useful if the choke point is really in a good position..

So this idea could even be realized independently from fortresses. The main problem is how to place the "pass" ressource on choke points. I mean, with map scripts specifically tailored for FfH it works (as you see), but Kael probably wouldn't want to loose a game mechanic when arbitray map scripts are used.

I mean, other map scripts place FfH resources too, but they do not know what a choke point is. I wonder if the plot.canHaveBonus() (or whatever it is called, can't look it up right now) can be hacked with the SDK to recognize choke points for the 'pass' resource... that would be a solution.

Or place the resource from where FfH normally runs the map checker, this is independent from the map script (but then again, it doesn't work when you regenerate the map instead of restarting the game)...

Does somebody know if the SDK part would work?

ok rant over...

 

[Sureshot]

heh, im still confused as to what the SDK is so i cant help you

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

(For my money I agree with Fractal's bias against Tundra startups. I've seen many runt AI civs who were hamstrung by a tundra statup site. So far as I know Doviello doesn't have any special economic system that allows them to thrive in Tundra. You counld say the same sort of thing for the malakim/Desert, but the Spring spell seems to 'fix' the matter anyway.)

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Let's see, about the Doviello: they get a substantial combat bonus on tundras (more than the Malakim do on deserts), their capital is always a site with nothing but good tiles in its fat cross, and though tudra might extend out east and west, there's still habitable land toward the equator that the Doviello can expand towards. Further, the Doviello were never meant to be peacemongers, so starting without an abundance of good land just means that they are best played with early warring for territory, something that they're supposed to do anyway.

About the Malakim: I like the way that FfH Fractal deals with them. One word can be used to say why: "floodplains." Sure, they might have some nigh uninhabitable land near them, but their capital also gets an abundance of floodplains, and there's normally some more nearby. I'm not complaining about it, and the Malakim are my number one Civ.

About the sentry towers, I'd like to say for the record that I'm not exactly opposed to there being a bunch of them. Lightbringers+Sentry Towers=

Alright, and about the elves: might it be possible to give them an aversion to deserts? This is more of a flavor issue than anything, but keep in mind that their special ability is absolutely useless on floodplains, and the worker speed penalties stack. Workers build on floodplains at 80% speed or so, elven workers build at 80% speed across the board, so we're talking 64% worker speed on floodplains for elves. Much better to give them a small aversion; the floodplains and useless deserts balance out.

 

[Quetz]

I really wish that kind of racial info was in the Fallopedia. Only flavor stuff there and in the wiki.. don't know what most of the civs do till someone randomly posts it.

That being said, I have to ask, where do you put these script files?

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Let's see, about the Doviello: they get a substantial combat bonus on tundras (more than the Malakim do on deserts), their capital is always a site with nothing but good tiles in its fat cross, and though tudra might extend out east and west, there's still habitable land toward the equator that the Doviello can expand towards. Further, the Doviello were never meant to be peacemongers, so starting without an abundance of good land just means that they are best played with early warring for territory, something that they're supposed to do anyway.

About the Malakim: I like the way that FfH Fractal deals with them. One word can be used to say why: "floodplains." Sure, they might have some nigh uninhabitable land near them, but their capital also gets an abundance of floodplains, and there's normally some more nearby. I'm not complaining about it, and the Malakim are my number one Civ.

About the sentry towers, I'd like to say for the record that I'm not exactly opposed to there being a bunch of them. Lightbringers+Sentry Towers=

That's all great regarding the Doviello ... if it actually works out like that in practice. I've seen many civs that never got out of the starting gate due to barren starting locations. Players can overcome this sort of thing, but the AI often gets stuck. Same sort of thing applies to desert, but the Spring spell makes desert even easier to handle than tundra. For players ... I've never seen the AI use Spring, but I have seen some pretty feeble Malakim AI realms. :shrug: That's just what I've seen; your milage may vary.

 

[dreiche2]

I really wish that kind of racial info was in the Fallopedia. Only flavor stuff there and in the wiki.. don't know what most of the civs do till someone randomly posts it.

That being said, I have to ask, where do you put these script files?

in the public maps folder in the civ4 main directory...

about the elves & deserts: yes, that sounds reasonable.

 

[Jean Elcard]

First, I really like your map scripts. Thanks for making them.

Ouestion: Is it intended hat sentry towers now seem to cluster together? I had a spot on the last map where two towers stand right beside to each other and a third on was only two tiles away.