Geo Realism: Discussion on a new SDK based map generator
- Thread starter primem0ver
- Start date
Yes, that is when tectonics make sense. But he also plans to do climate simulations which do change in the timespans that the game lasts now (glacials/interglacials and also global warming).
CivDad
King of Garama
I thought of a new idea for terrain. Every tile would have terrain (elevation) and a feature (climate/vegetation). Some combinations would be excluded (like very high mountains/desert shrub).
primem0ver
Emperor
I have thought of this and have some plans. However we do have some limitations which I will discuss below. I am planning on adding the following variables to CvPlot for creating new map views:
Climate (will point to a new CvClimateInfo class)
Temperature (if it doesn't already exist)
Humidity (if it doesn't already exist)
Rainfall
Altitude (will not currently affect the way the plot is drawn)
pPlotFeatures (generic pointer that will be used to hold additional geographic information not used in the actual game but in the new map generator and can also be used to point to the underground plot once the map is complete).
Limitations to your suggestion
The Civ IV map already does this to a certain extent. Mountains, hills, and flatlands are in a sense "terrain/elevation." That is why in the world view screen you can change both the vegetation (grass, plains, desert) without changing the hill/plains character of the plot.
As far as I know Civ (at least in Warlords) does not allow you to add to the hills/plains/mountains" options of a plot, while it is possible to "paint" any surface on those options. It would be nice if we could. I have often wanted plateaus and mesa's to be part of our selection of "heightened" surfaces.
primem0ver
Emperor
I have added a description and a downloadable xls file (in a zip) that includes the currently planned Koppen climate types and the associated C2C features that will be used to the second post in this thread.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
This is still true. There are two types of plot land and water; and there are two "terrains" which aren't terrains peak and hill.
BTW in C2C we can now have multiple features per plot but we are not using it yet.
primem0ver
Emperor
Cool! I didn't know that. Well it opens a few possibilities then.
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
Yeah we were discussing using the 2nd terrain layer for weather since before if you had a storm you would have to remove the trees. This is why storms only happen over water with no coral/kelp/seagrass.
primem0ver
Emperor
So storms will soon appear over land?
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
AIAndy said it was working but a bit buggy so we should wait on further devel there until he's fully back with us to help with any debugging I think... but yeah, its one of those abilities we haven't really done much with yet.
Tbh I have no idea if it is buggy or not as I coded it but never tested it (beyond checking if it still displays the normal features as I had not written any testing code). To activate it the DLL needs to be compiled with MULTI_FEATURE_MOD. There are still a lot of code parts that will not see any additional feature (as you need to use different methods).
It may be time to dust that off and activate it. Also, when are you planning on getting back from holidays?
An hour ago but I won't be getting to modding much until Tuesday.
OK, you can enable it then if you want to.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Don't forget to take a look at the Lawyer unit to see what I have not done or done wrong with missions and outcomes. The new action button is not showing up when in a city and no action buttons are showing when outside a city.
Also noticed yesterday that the science yield is not showing up on hover over of the subdue animal missions.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Is it possible that the potential yield gain is just too low? I was confused by this a few times but later on they seemed to start showing up and seemed to be increasing a bit over time. I figured, thereafter, that the yield was just 0 when I didn't see any.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
The yield is 1 (or 5) and you get it in the message after pressing the button but not in the hover over before pressing the button.
primem0ver
Emperor
The pace of development of this mod component is currently going much slower than I had hoped.
The basic algorithms are proceeding as I expected (actually the basic climate model is nearly completed on paper). However, since I have recently discovered that the map views are unmoddable,* at least as far as I am able to tell, I am having to develop a testing environment external to Civ IV where I will have to create and test the engine.
I have completed a mod to C2C that allows me to export geographical data that is currently incorporated into the game. Once I have developed the ability to display that data I will expand it and finally come up with GeoRealism engine. Once the engine is completed I will then need to translate it from C# to the SDK in C++ and finally we will have a working mod component.
*I started this thread to see if anyone knew how to do it but I have since traced and searched both Python and SDK for a way to do it and came up empty handed. All map views are handled by the executable
The basic algorithms are proceeding as I expected (actually the basic climate model is nearly completed on paper). However, since I have recently discovered that the map views are unmoddable,* at least as far as I am able to tell, I am having to develop a testing environment external to Civ IV where I will have to create and test the engine.
I have completed a mod to C2C that allows me to export geographical data that is currently incorporated into the game. Once I have developed the ability to display that data I will expand it and finally come up with GeoRealism engine. Once the engine is completed I will then need to translate it from C# to the SDK in C++ and finally we will have a working mod component.
*I started this thread to see if anyone knew how to do it but I have since traced and searched both Python and SDK for a way to do it and came up empty handed. All map views are handled by the executable
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I believe that's what Koshling's viewports are all about achieving. Speak to the Vorlon 
