Large Rivers (trying to make an old dream come true) [IMPLEMENTED]

[Tugboatspotter]

English is not my first language so feel free to optimize/change:

The spread of most civilizations tends to follow the course of large rivers, both because they offer high nutritional yields as well as the easier movement of cargo. As in the old world many existing societies have large centres near large rivers and the new arriving settlers also see the value in settling areas with easy fresh water sources.
A large body of water however has not only advantages, in a time when bridges were mostly only build on highly frequented routes the crossing of a large river was a strenuous and dangerous undertaking. Most large rivers in the new world were crossed at natural sites at which sand banks, shallow water or islets offered assistance, at other places a ferry system was put in place to get people, cargo and livestock to the other side.

This is great.

I would change a few things though. There is a mix of US and UK English (Civilizations is US but centres is UK). I rewrote it a little bit (with US spelling), so feel free to choose which version you prefer:

The spread of civilizations tended to follow the course of large rivers due to abundant resources of food and fertile land, as well as the economic advantages provided by easier movement of cargo. In the old world many existing civilizations have centers near large rivers; and new world settlers also saw the value in settling an area with both a fresh water supply and access for larger vessels.
In an age when bridges were mostly only built on highly frequented routes, the crossing of a large river was a strenuous and dangerous undertaking; so most large rivers in the new world were crossed at natural sites where sand banks, shallow water or islets offered assistance. At other places a ferry system was put in place to get people, cargo and livestock to the other side.

 

[raystuttgart]

@XSamatan and @Tugboatspotter

Thanks for helping me with the Pedia Text of the Game Concept Page of Large Rivers.
I integrated it into the mod. (I have not yet written the "Strategy" part though but can finish it tomorrow.)

Spoiler :

So there is not much of actual progress I can report at the moment.
But I hope I can do a bit of actual modding tomorrow.

Spoiler :

This week was really busy for me at work.
I was simply too tired and unmotivated for modding when I came home late from work.

Today we have several Zoom sessions (WTP Academy and WTP team meeting).
I had also had contact again to 2 other old modding colleagues and we had a longer talk as well.

 

[Schmiddie]

Hi Folks,

I have worked on the river ford and made two versions (in the end they only differ slightly on the map).

The ford now can be seen through the water and changes its shape when you set them because I have used the ice feature and changed it to the ford. That brings more variety to the model. You can now also easily set the ford on places where the river is wider than one field:

Model 1:


Model 2:



I like the first one.

By the way: I have also changed the river bed and made the water a little brighter. You can see the difference on the map so that you can see the difference to coast line.

Making the ford was a lot of work because all ice models needed to be changed.

 

[raystuttgart]

Can we make the "River Ford" a little bit smaller?
Just because it should look like Ships can also still pass through it.

Otherwise it looks great.

 

[Schmiddie]

This would be the result, when I change it a little bit (one change costs me half an hour):

 

[raystuttgart]

This would be the result, when I change it a little bit (one change costs me half an hour):

Let us leave it like that.
It looks really good and we should not waste countless hours of more unnecessary effort.

Will you commit it to "Large Rivers"?

 

[<Nexus>]

Looks soooo much better than what I could accomplish.
Well, an expert is an expert

 

[raystuttgart]

I agree, it looks great.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Very impressed with the river ford

@raystuttgart

One further suggestion for the pedia text for large rivers: ...due to abundant resources of food like fish and fertile land, as well as the economic advantages... is a little clunky. I would suggest changing it to:

...due to fertile land and abundant resources of food such as freshwater fish, as well as the economic advantages...

This is fairy pedantic though. It is fine as it is

 

[CurtnoAnna]

Can I add this to the current mod? How do I do that? This looks great.

 

[raystuttgart]

Can I add this to the current mod? How do I do that? This looks great.

It is not available for public yet because it is still in development.

 

[CurtnoAnna]

It is not available for public yet because it is still in development.

LOL, that's why it didn't work for me. I'm not very patient

 

[raystuttgart]

LOL, that's why it didn't work for me.

That is because the new DLL is not available for public.
(It is getting changes almost every weekend and we want to avoid getting bug reports and complaints about issues we already know about.)

I'm not very patient

I can understand that.
But it really is not yet finished.

It is generally already playable - the feature basics are all fully implemented - but it still is not yet a quality feature.
(Biggest issue is that Large Rivers need to be placed by hand.)

- Promotions for Large Rivers are still missing
- Adaptation of Maps (which is really a lot of effort) needs to be done
- Adaptation of Map Scripts (which is also a lot of effort) needs to be done
- Fine Tuning of AI (to really understand Large Rivers) still needs to be done
- Full internal testing (to ensure that it is free of bugs) still needs to be done

Considering effort, this is one of the biggest features we ever did.
(Which is basically the reason that we had not already implemented it in RaR.)

Since we are really busy during the week, progress on "Large Rivers" is currently slow.
(Just a little bit every weekend.)

Currently I expect that we will have a big release end of the year (before Christmas).
So sorry, community needs to be patient.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok guys, the next small step is taken.
Game Concept Pedia is done.

Spoiler :

 

[raystuttgart]

So ok, that is the current status:

Spoiler :

In some aspects it will act like a "Water" plot.

• It is not possible to found a City directly on top of it [DONE]
  
• The only Yield you can get of it is "Fish / Food" [DONE]
  
• It will only have Bonus Ressources like "Coast" Terrain [DONE]
  
• Allowing Coastal Ships to use it (and few other Ships) [DONE]
  
• Having normal Rivers flow into it [DONE]
  
• Allow Cities built next to it to build "Piers" (but no Upgrades of that, unless they also have Ocean access directly from another Coast Plot) [DONE]
• Ensuring that "Large Rivers" that do not end in Ocean do not get "Lake Food Bonus" (otherwise op) [DONE]
• Ensuring that Water Goodies are not spawned on Large Rivers [DONE]
• ...

But in other aspects it will act like a "Land" plot.

• Allowing (specific) Land Units to always enter / cross [DONE]
• Having new Terrain Feature (to allow other Land Units to enter / cross) [DONE]
• Having new Improvement (to allow other Land Units to enter / cross) [DONE]
• Allowing Pioneers to build the new Improvement [DONE]
• Teaching AI Pioneers how to actually build the new Improvement "River Ferry" in a purposeful way
• Having normal Rivers not directly affect it (e.g. no Yield modifiers) [DONE]
  
• ...

General aspects:

• Full AI Check (test games) - to ensure there are no problems
  
• Basic Setup of Terrain and its ArtDef [DONE]
  
• Buttons for Colopedia and World Builder [DONE]
  
• Writing Colopedia Concept Page for "Large Rivers" [DONE]
  
• Adapting Area Size Computation [DONE]
• Adapting AI (e.g. Settlement found values) [DONE]
• Balancing of Movement Speed of Land Units on Large Rivers [DONE]
• Balancing of Movement Speed of Ships on Large Rivers [DONE]
• Promotions for Large Rivers
• Clarifying if Land Combat Units should be allowed to capture e.g. Coastal Ships on Large Rivers [DONE]
• Forbidding Animals to be spawned there [DONE]
• Allowing most small Land Animals to enter it (like Crocodiles or Bears) [DONE]
• Forbidding giant Water Animals to enter it (like Whales) [DONE]
• Adapting existing Maps
• Adapting MapScripts to generate Large Rivers
• ...

@Schmiddie volunteered to take care of this.

• Promotions for Large Rivers

-----

Then I can for now fully concentrate on updating the existing Maps.

It will be a really annoying and boring task, but somebody needs to do it.
So it is probably that lazy German guy that has not been modding during the week ...

 

[Schmiddie]

Promotions for Large Rivers have been completed:

1. River Crosser ("Flussquerer" in German)
- Mounted Units get Double Move on Large Rivers and Large River Ford
- Requirement: Explorer 2
2. River Fighter ("Flusskämpfer" in German)
- Mounted Units, Combat Melee and Combat Gun Units get +10% Attack and Defense Bonus on Large River and Large River Ford
- Requirement: Swamp Fox Promotion
3. River Sailor ("Flußsegler" in German)
- Fishing Boats, Small and Big Coastal Ships get Double Move on Large Rivers from the beginning and +10% Defense on Large Rivers

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, the first map is done.
("Two Continents" now has Large Rivers incl. River Fords.)

This took me 2 hours - for this "Gigantic Map"- to really make it all look nicely.
(But I also did a full sweep over the map and also improved a lot of other minor things.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, the 2nd map is done also.
("The New World" now has Large Rivers incl. River Fords.)

I swear, if I anybody complains that "Mississippi", "Missouri", "Amazonas" and "Parana" were not drawn 100% correctly, I will ...
(I really tried my best with my limited geographical knowledge.)

By the way I tried not to overexagerate with Large Rivers.
(I gave every continent only 2 of them.)

--------

Maybe one day we will have a talented map maker in the team again.

He (or She) can of course correct my clumsy tries to create "geographical correct" Large Rivers on "geographically correct" maps.
(But for now I will focus on at least getting these map to have Large Rivers at all for gameplay purposes.)

 

[raystuttgart]

@Nightinggale

Thanks for taking care of this.

• Teaching AI Pioneers how to actually build the new Improvement "River Ferry" in a purposeful way

The concept "Have AI build River Ferries in City Connect Code just like it does with Roads" sounds really promissing.
(That would automatically ensure that AI does only build "River Ferries" when it needs them - meaning just to connect Cities.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, as it seems we are slowly but surely closing all missing gaps of this feature.
(This Saturday was actually quite productive.)

Done:

• Large River specific Promotions -> already done by @Schmiddie
• Improving Large River graphics -> already done by @Schmiddie

In Work:

• AI Pioneer Logic for "River Ferries" -> in work @Nightinggale
• Adapting existing Maps -> in work @raystuttgart

Open:

• Adapting existing MapScripts -> some skilled MapScript creator
  
• Full internal test phase (and bugfixing) -> team and supporters

-------

That is basically it !!!
(We are almost there.)

-------

@team:
Thanks guys, this is really great team work !!!