Help With Sn00py's "Greener" Terrain

[Ozymandias]

I just tried to "plug-and-play" modifying a .biq with Sn00py's Greener Terrain (replacing the usual Terrain folder files with his) and everything went totally FUBAR, e.g., "Plains" & "LM Plains" each resulting in what the standard editor "sees" as "LM Plains," resulting in mismatches all over the place ("Tundra" won't even mesh with the usual northern & southern map edge "ice.")

Before your humble Village Gfx Idiot starts swapping files in-and-out willy-nilly, can anyone provide a "translation" of the Sn00py .pcx files to what one might expect while using "standard" terrain?

,

Oz

 

[Virote_Considon]

Copy the files on the Left. Rename the copies of these as the files on the right:

xdgc.pcx -> lxdgc.pcx
xdgp.pcx -> lxdgp.pcx
xdpc.pcx -> lxdpc.pcx
xggc.pcx -> lxggc.pcx
xpgc.pcx -> lxpgc.pcx
xtgc.pcx -> lxpgc.pcx
wcso.pcx -> lwcso.pcx
wooo.pcx -> lwooo.pcx
wsss.pcx -> lwsss.pcx

Note that upper/lower case is irrelevant.

Explanation:

Basically, for Base Terrain Types (Plains, Deserts, Grassland, Tundra, Coast, Sea, and Ocean), the graphics are taken based on which terrain types are next to each other (allowing transition effects).

The terrain types beginning with x (e.g. XTGC.pcx) are predominantly, and in some cases entirely, land based. The terrain types beginning with w (e.g. wOOO.pcx) are entirely water.

Each letter in these files represents a terrain type:
d = Desert (Floodplains also uses this).
p = Plains
g = Grassland
t = Tundra
c = Coasts (note how c is in both water (w) and x (land) files)
s = Sea
o = Ocean

So wOOO.pcx is a terrain file full of only Ocean tiles which transition with other Ocean tiles.
But wCSO.pcx contains transition effects between Coast, Sea and Ocean tiles.

Note that some combinations aren't possible - there is no capacity for a file interacting between Tundra and Desert tiles or Tundra and Plains tiles.

The files work by tessellating the graphics in these files with the corners of terrain on a map. They are the same size as a tile but instead they take up 1/4 of the North, South, East and West tile of a corner. This is why in the editor you can't have a 4-tile diamond of (clockwise, E-W) grassland, desert, plains, coasts.

So why rename the files as shown?

Basically, because Landmark terrain was only introduced in Conquests, terrain packs in Vanilla and PtW won't have LM terrain. For base terrain, the simple answer is to copy the files you're using for non-LM terrain, and add the L prefix - LX is basically Landmark Land and LW is basically Landmark Water.

Forests/Hills/Mountains are a little different, but if you don't add LM graphics it won't mess things up too much (it'll just use the standard C3C graphics).

 

[Ozymandias]

Thank you as always VC!

- However, I did exactly as you said, with the initial result as shown in the 1st attachment. When I attempted to add a Tundra tile to "mesh" with the southern map edge, I wound up - with "single tile" selected - with a Tundra tile, not only not "meshed," but surrounded by Grassland

Cheers,
z

 

[Virote_Considon]

Tundra tiles cannot go next to Plains, Deserts, or Flood Plains is why - as it says in my explanation above, there's no support for the game to have these types of tiles next to each other.

The same would happen if you placed this tile combo in a regular, unmodded game of C3C too.

To rectify the problem, the editor's engine adds a band of grassland between any tundra and plains/desert/flood plains tiles.

 

[Ozymandias]

Tundra tiles cannot go next to Plains, Deserts, or Flood Plains is why - as it says in my explanation above, there's no support for the game to have these types of tiles next to each other.

The same would happen if you placed this tile combo in a regular, unmodded game of C3C too.

To rectify the problem, the editor's engine adds a band of grassland between any tundra and plains/desert/flood plains tiles.

Ah! I just saw that bit about the Tundra, which addressed that issue (although it does strike me as bizarre that Tundra can be adjacent to Grassland but not Plains) nonetheless, the Polar ice wouldn't "mesh," but there was so little land area involved that I just made those tiles Ocean.

,
Oz

 

[Virote_Considon]

Yeah, the polar icecaps need to be tailored to the terrain type sadly.

 

[timerover51]

Ah! I just saw that bit about the Tundra, which addressed that issue (although it does strike me as bizarre that Tundra can be adjacent to Grassland but not Plains) nonetheless, the Polar ice wouldn't "mesh," but there was so little land area involved that I just made those tiles Ocean.

,
Oz

Actually, thinking back to my time in Alaska, that does make sense. Just to the south of where the Tundra starts, you have forests, which means sufficient moisture for Grasslands, and more than you would have for Plains. The underlying permafrost, which is still there, but deep, keeps the available moisture near the surface. Tree growth is pretty slow though. The rule of thumb that we used in the Army for the middle of Alaska was One inch of tree diameter represented about a century of growth.

 

[Ozymandias]

Actually, thinking back to my time in Alaska, that does make sense. Just to the south of where the Tundra starts, you have forests, which means sufficient moisture for Grasslands, and more than you would have for Plains. The underlying permafrost, which is still there, but deep, keeps the available moisture near the surface. Tree growth is pretty slow though. The rule of thumb that we used in the Army for the middle of Alaska was One inch of tree diameter represented about a century of growth.

WW One inch per century!? Wait ... Are you saying that something which seems FUBAR in C3 actually makes sense?

Cheers,
z

 

[timerover51]

WW One inch per century!? Wait ... Are you saying that something which seems FUBAR in C3 actually makes sense?

Cheers,
z

For terrain approximating near-tundra conditions, yes. What would also be correct is having no wheeled movement on tundra, or else very slow movement. Basically, in the summer, the tundra turns into something approximating a huge marsh or bog. In the winter, you have different problems.