FlavourMod - Mapscript Module

[pimparel]

Well... you can put the elfs near the BONUS_FRUIT_OF_YGGDRASIL, which is in the same tile as the Yggdrasil.

Also every civilization should stay away from BONUS_MANA_DEATH, which indicates Barbatos lair.

Malakim should also have FEATURE_FLOOD_PLAINS, FEATURE_OASIS and BONUS_INCENSE (to help religion...)

Elohim should also be near BONUS_INCENSE

Khazad and Luchuirp might be near BONUS_GEMS, due RoK

Lanun near BONUS_PEARL

Amurites and Sheaim near BONUS_REAGENTS

 

[Demus]

Well... you can put the elfs near the BONUS_FRUIT_OF_YGGDRASIL, which is in the same tile as the Yggdrasil.

Khazad and Luchuirp might be near BONUS_GEMS, due RoK

Lanun near BONUS_PEARL

Amurites and Sheaim near BONUS_REAGENTS

with these i sort of agree (Yggdrasil might be to powerful though). Almost all religions need incense (all but AV), and to be honest the elves rely on it even more than the malakim and eholim. Making sure noone likes the death node simply means the last civ to get placed will be placed near barbatos, since this mapmod doesn't change the starting positions, just redistributes them.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Thanks for your suggestions.

Well... you can put the elfs near the BONUS_FRUIT_OF_YGGDRASIL, which is in the same tile as the Yggdrasil.

Flavourwise it would be nice, but to have Yggdrasil right beside your capital is usually very powerful. Like I stated before, I will try to add a check in the future if a unique feature is located at least on the same continent as a civilization matching its flavour.

Also every civilization should stay away from BONUS_MANA_DEATH, which indicates Barbatos lair.

Making sure noone likes the death node simply means the last civ to get placed will be placed near barbatos, since this mapmod doesn't change the starting positions, just redistributes them.

Like Demus said, I can't do anything about this at the moment. If Barbatos is near a starting location I'm evaluating, one of the civilizations has to live with him. Not necessarily the last one, because there is no placement order. Instead of generating new starting locations to solve this problem I could simply replace Barbatos to some remote area, but that's not really the scope of this mod.

Malakim should also have FEATURE_FLOOD_PLAINS, FEATURE_OASIS and BONUS_INCENSE (to help religion...)

If I'm not totally wrong here, they don't get their movement bonus on floodplains, but I will add some weight for oasis.

Elohim should also be near BONUS_INCENSE

Maybe I will go for this because of their strong disposition for religion. Monks etc.

Khazad and Luchuirp might be near BONUS_GEMS, due RoK

Maybe. I'll have to reread their stories before making a decison.

Lanun near BONUS_PEARL

Very good idea. I hate to start half a world away from pearls with them.

Amurites and Sheaim near BONUS_REAGENTS

Will do.

 

[loffenx]

Hello, I've tried to apply your very promising script to other ones, like Big_and_small, pangea and the likes, but all i get is a blank (all grassland) map with a small sphere of terrain around each players startingposition, just as if the flavoured script doesn't kick in.

any idea?

version 3.13, latest FFH etc.

and thanks for a nice script

 

[Jean Elcard]

Hello, I've tried to apply your very promising script to other ones, like Big_and_small, pangea and the likes, but all i get is a blank (all grassland) map with a small sphere of terrain around each players startingposition

That sounds like you are trying to start a game by choosing FlavourMod itself as your mapscript, because grass everywhere is exactly what would happen in this case.

Here the two steps for making it work:

1. If you haven't already done so, add these 6 lines to the top of the mapscript you want to use FlavourMod with (a backup of the original mapscript first is advised):

###########################################################
## This mapscript is modified to use the "FlavorMod".      
## See "FlavourMod.py" in the same directory for details.  
###########################################################
from FlavourMod import *                                 
###########################################################

2. Load Civ4, BtS, FfH or whatever and choose the modified mapscript as your mapscript for the game you are going for. Don't choose FlavourMod!

This way it should work with almost every mapscript. For the ones you mentioned above it works for sure. Have fun.

 

[loffenx]

I've done exactly that, but it doesnt work for any of the map-scripts that comes with the game.

It works with others though, at the moment I'm playing a flavoured smartmap script with the map from "Classic Warlords FFH" as layout, works fantastically

 

[Jean Elcard]

Just uploaded the new version 1.1.0 of FlavourMod. Please use the download link in the first post and tell me, if you find any bugs.

The most important changes in this version:

• Add: flavour information for Dural and Sheaim
• Add: new flavour parameter: FoodFocus (high food yield of starting area)
• Add: new flavour parameter: ProductionFocus (like food focus, but for hammers)
• Add: new flavour parameter: CommerceFocus (like food focus, but for commerce)
• Add: new flavour parameter: MobilityFocus (prefer flat land without features)
• Add: allow different shaped search areas (fatcross or square)
• Change: moved FlavourMod to a later stage of the map generation process
• Change: allow some of the normalization functions for buffing dull starts
• Change: fine tuning of the flavour info of all civs (see the current list)
• Fix: civ-specific search areas will take effect now
• Other: many code improvements, some more docu

The Flavoured Civs List looks like this now:

• Amurites: mana nodes and reagents nearby
• Calabim: prefer an area with high food potential to keep the human stock well-fed
• Doviello: tundra start - for some reason they like it cold
• Elohim: incense nearby to make the monks happy
• Hippus: flat and featureless land to ride without hindrances
• Illians: tundra start - don't ask why, stupid winter god worshippers ...
• Khazad: hills, hills and hills again to dig nice little holes in
• Kuriotates: lots of workable land around to support their super city capital
• Lanun: coastal start with pearls and as much water around as possible
• Ljosalfar: forest for the good treehuggers
• Luchuirp: prefer areas with high hammer potential with some hills
• Malakim: hot desert, preferably with oases
• Sheaim: mana nodes and reagents nearby
• Svartalfar: forest for the evil treehuggers as well, but with some mana in it
• Archos: food resources to breed some more eight-legged pets.
• Cualli: jungle! forest in case there is no jungle around, tundra eeks!
• Mazatl: lizard stays lizard - the same for them like for the Cualli.
• Chislev: plains, pampa, steppe, you name it
• Dural: marble in the vicinity

 

[WCH]

The 7 Civilizations not on the list are the Bannor, the Elohim, the Sidar, the Balseraphs, the Clan of Embers, the Sheaim and the Dural. If anybody finds a reference to which kind of landscape they prefer I would be happy to add some flavour to them too.

Or Grigori.

Elohim should obviously be near at least one special feature, as their flavour is defending the sacred sites. So, "near Yggdrasil or near Remnants of Patria or near Letum Frigalus, etc."

Clan of Embers, maybe near jungle, but with a softer weight than for the lizards? Orcs get a bonus in jungle I remember right

 

[pimparel]

Clan of Embers, maybe near jungle, but with a softer weight than for the lizards? Orcs get a bonus in jungle I remember right

Also near the pyre of sepharic?

 

[Jean Elcard]

Right, I forgot the Grigori. But hey, they don't want to have anything to do with the other civilisations anyway. Maybe I should just put them on a far away island, so they can try to build their utopia there.

Elohim will get a general unique feature preference with the next version. Thanks for the protectors of sacred sites hint, WCH.

The Clan ... hmm ... I know, it's a shame they didn't get any flavour through this mod till now. The problem is, they are kind of contradictory. On the one hand they are described as jungle dwellers, but on the other hand, they don't get any real bonuses for living in this hell of terrain. Only a feeble 10% attack/defense, if I remember right. That doesn't compensate the difficulties you face in there by any means. Furthermore, the stories tell, that their capital "Braduk the Burning" is located somewhere near the Pyre of the Seraphic. That's odd, because the Pyre is nowhere near any jungle.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I just downloaded it, but I'm not sure I'll have time to test it today.

I really don't think that incense is that good for the Elohim. Monks don't actually need it. Thematically, the Elohim should start near unique features (probably excluding the Broken Sepulcher, just to be fair)

When I think Incense I picture the type of rituals perfromed by the Order. Would an Incense start be better for the Bannor?

Since Orks get combat bonuses in Jungle, giving the Clan a preference for jungles would be good too. They should also start near the Pyre of the Seraphic if possible.


The Illians should really star near the Letum Frigus when possible.

 

[Demus]

incense would be better suited to the elves imho, simply because they need it to cast bloom.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Small update to version 1.1.1 with a fix and few flavour additions:

• Fix: no python exceptions any more if flavour parameter "improvements" is set
• Add: flavour Info for Bannor (incense)
• Add: flavour Info for Clan of Embers (jungle, plains, desert, Pyre of the Seraphic)
• Add: additional flavour info for Illians (Letum Frigus)
• Add: additional flavour info for Elohim (sacred sites except Brocken Sepulcher)

@MC: As you can see, some of your suggestion were in the unreleased version, already. I only had to add the Bannor. Incense was proposed before and it seems really fitting for them. The Elohim will keep a small preference for it too, in case there are no unique features around. And by the way, you don't call your capital Chahir Abbey, if you don't like the smell of incense. Seems they are a very clerical folk. The incense was never thought for their unique unit Monk.

@Demus: You might add incense for the elves too, if you like, but I'll probaly never add it to the mod by default. They might need it for Bloom, but flavourwise it's a catastrophe. They would probably set their own forest aflame by running around with these incense burners between the trees. And you know what smoke alone is leading to in FfH.

 

[Kasdar]

how would one go about using this placement script in place of the creation mapscripts placement?

 

[Jean Elcard]

The same way as usual. But be aware that for Creation it is not really necessary to use FlavourMod. Creation has it's own placing algorithm which is considering the flavour of many civilizations coming with FfH when searching for a nice starting spot for them.

However, if you want to use FlavourMod with Creation anyway these starting locations should be overridden by the ones FlavourMod is applying automatically. Never tried ist myself though.

 

[Kasdar]

I have tried that and I think the script ends up using the creation placements.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Tried to run FlavourMod for Creation myself and had to realize that FlavourMod sometimes broke down while trying to redistribute the starting locations assigned by Creation, resulting in Civ4 using the old ones. Fixed the reason for this in version 1.1.2 and added some FlavourInfo for the Kahdi at this opportunity.

Version 1.1.2

• Fix: a starting loction near world's end (map boarder) could break FlavourMod
• Add: flavour Info for Kahdi (same for the renegades as for the Amurites)

 

[Kasdar]

so I can now use this with creation and it will work?

 

[Jean Elcard]

Yes, it will.

 

[Jean Elcard]

I discovered a very annoying problem, while fiddling around with FlavourMod once more. It's probably the reason why some of you had a problem using FlavourMod for the Continents mapscript and most of the other mapscripts coming with Vanilla Civ4 or Warlords.

If you modify these scripts to use FlavourMod without renaming the files itself (like I always did) or putting the modified version into "Beyond the Sword/PublicMaps", FlavourMod won't kick in. The reason for this: There are newer versions of these scripts available, which came with Warlords and Beyond the Sword. Civ4 will always use the newer version, if it finds them in the Warlords or the BtS PublicMaps folder.

So keep in mind, if you want to be on the save side, rename the modified files or take care to modify the most recent version of each mapscript!

Theses are the affected mapscripts:

Updated with Warlords: Archipelago, Balanced, Continents, Custom_Continents, Fantasy_Realm, Fractal, Great_Plains, Highlands, Hub, Inland_Sea, Islands, Lakes, Maze, Mirror, Oasis, Pangaea, Ring, Shuffle, Team_Battleground, Terra, Tilted_Axis, Wheel

Updated with Beyond the Sword: Highlands, Terra