How to add new forests and terrains in CivBE?

[Azem.Ocram]

I have a plan to make a new biome in CivBE. To do so, I want to add more terrain types and forests, like those found in FreeCol. I don't want to change terrain graphics (only forests) until I've completed more aspects of Carboniferous Biome.

I'd love to eventually (within a year) add new sponsors, new buildings, new improvements, additional Affinity levels, new victories, new wonders, new resources, new terrain features/forests, my new planetary biome (Carboniferous), and continental biome graphics (European vs American vs African vs Asian) to CivBE.

Anyway, the new forests I want to add are Boreal (tundra + snow coniferous trees with visible snow), Mixed (biome typical forest with some conifers), Rain, Scrub, Wetland, Softwood, Jungle, Fern and Toxic Jungle.

The terrain types I want to add are Swamp (looks like Marsh), Prairie (looks like Grassland), Savannah (looks like plains), Rocky Desert (looks like flat Mountains (if possible)), and Mycelium (looks like fungal biome grasslands).

The Toxic Jungle would only grow on Mycelium and would generate negative health. Forests on the Fungal biome will become Toxic Jungle in my future mod. There will be building quests to remove the unhealth and a high Harmony quest to actually make Toxic Jungle increase health by 1.

Most terrain types would also get changed yields, while cities and normal population will consume 2x the food (specialists might consume 1.5x food).

New tile improvements to take advantage of the forests are also planned. I've also toyed around with luxury and strategic resources in Civ5. I think through a combination of new basic resources and new (or upgraded from basic) strategic resources (Minerals, Copper, Iron, Aluminum, Uranium, Tritium) used for buildings (some which offer promotions), I can make the Carboniferous biome even more unique.

So, how should I go about adding new forests and terrain types?

 

[HandyVac]

Terrains and features are defined in the <Terrains> and <Features> tables, and their yields in <Terrain_Yields> and <Feature_YieldChanges>. so you'd need to add new rows to those tables.

Adding new Terrain Types will cause existing map generation scripts to crash.

Adding new Features will not cause crashes, but they won't be placed on the map by existing mapscripts.

Either way, you'll need to write your own lua to put your new stuff where you want it. (Either your own mapscript, or a function that's called between the map being generated and it being displayed on screen, like my own Seas of Fire & Caves of Ice mods).

 

[Azem.Ocram]

Thanks a ton, HandyVac! Are there any tutorials for making map scripts in CivBERT?