RFC Europe: Extending/Fixing City Name Maps

[Michael Vick]

Hope it doesn't dissapoint.

 

[Michael Vick]

Why won't the attachments go on??? Ok I think I got it

 

[jessiecat]

Why won't the attachments go on??? Ok I think I got it

I can live with your changes but with the following exceptions.

1. Fas (Fes) should be south of the mts. where you put it but not on the mt. or west of it.
2. Temouchent should be Tlemcen (Are you using modern Algerian spellings?)
3. Mrachute on the west coast should be Mogador
4. Marrakesh (or Murrakush) should be SE of the copper. (where it spawns now).
5. It would be better to have 2x2 for important cities instead of only 1 for lesser ones.

 

[Michael Vick]

The ideal tile for Fez to be founded on is South of the left Mountain. If not there, then above the Sheep. The place you're suggesting is a bit too far East in my opinion.
No, I meant Ain Temouchent. After taking a second look Tlemcen should take up the tile below that, and maybe the forested tile under that one too. See the Easternmost tile tagged as Wajda? That one and the one below it are Tlemcen.
Mrachate is a city there. Mogador is the old name of Essaouira. I'm glad you caught that, though. @micbic, the tiles marked as Esauira on the Spanish and Portuguese maps should be Mogadur for the Spanish and Mogador for the Portuguese. How did I miss that?
Do whatever you want with Marrakesh, I wasn't sure where to put it anyway. I doubt many cities will be founded there, we could just have the whole area as Marrakesh. Let's just do that because that area is really sparsely populated and it would be very hard to find appropriate city names let alone their Arab spellings. Just make sure for Arabia and Cordoba it's spelled Murrakush.
I kept the 2x2 rule in mind, jessiecat, this is what I came up with. Most of these major cities especially Oujda, Tlemcen, in Algeria have no water access, I had to find something else for the coast spaces.

 

[jessiecat]

OK. But bear in mind that both Oujda and Tlemcen were ports since Roman times. So they had access to the coast even if it might not look like it now. So north to south it should be Ain Temouchent, Tlemcen, Tlemcen. Agreed?

 

[Michael Vick]

You're right, and there is a fourth tile. Ain Temouchent, Tlemcen, Tlemcen, Tlemcen.

 

[sedna17]

Okay kids (particularly micbic), it is clear that synchronization of city name maps is hard to do by hand, and generally editing these maps is a pain. So I'm almost done with a simple python program to display and edit these names. This is based on the framework I use for making the UHV maps for display in the Reference folder.

Essentially, you click on a square of the map. The program highlights this square on the map and displays the names for each civ for that square on the right-hand side of the map. You can edit these names and save them and the program will print them back out to the original file. I'm still trying to find one little bug with this last stage, but other than that the program is functional. I'll have it available for download tomorrow, just too tired to find the last bug right now.

It's all in Python, so the Windows users among you may have to download Python, but it works fine on Windows once you do. This is actually my first GUI app with Python, and I chose a very... simple package to do it in, so it's not fancy, but it gets the job done.

I hope this will be useful in synchronizing city name maps. For consistency, I will still only be accepting files that have "gone-through" micbic (or a single other person he appoints if he gets bored of this job) to be cleared for inclusion.

 

[micbic]

Wow that must surely be good!

 

[sedna17]

Okay, let me know if this works for you, or if you have any questions. Here is a copy of the README.

Instructions for CityNameHelper

DISCALIMER: This program is highly tempermental. Please experiment with it to understand how things work before investing a lot of effort in something and then losing it all. Save early, save often. Make backups.

Setup:
1. Install Python for Windows. This program is not compatible with Python 3, but any other relatively modern version will work. I suggest 2.6.2 (http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.6.2/).
2. Unzip the folder anywhere. You need all the files that are in the archive.

Running the program:
0. The program is dumb about screen resolution. Currently it assumes your screen is at least 1300 pixels wide and will be cut-off on smaller screens. This could be changed if you really, really need it to be.
1. With Python installed you should just be able to double-click the file CityNameHelper and have it launch.
2. Within the program, you can click on any square in the map and it will highlight that box and display the current city names for each civ for that square.
3. On the right-hand column you can change these names.
4. After you change these names you must hit the SAVE button (which will turn black) or your names will vanish when you switch to another square.
5. Exit the program by hitting the QUIT button.
6. Your changes will be saved to RFCEMaps.py. You can run the program again or copy this file to the the

Mod/Assests/Python/ folder to test the new names within the game.

Points to remember:
1. If you forget to hit save before transferring to a new square on the map you will lose your edits. You do not have to hit save between editing e.g. the French and the Spanish names of a sinlge square.
2. You are updating the file RFCEMaps.py within the CityNameHelper.py file. If you need a new copy of this file (because you break the old one), you can MAKE A COPY of RFCEMapsBase.py and rename it RFCEMaps.py. The program needs both RFCEMapsBase.py and RFCEMaps.py present in order to run. You will always just be reading and editing city names from RFCEMaps.py however.

 

[micbic]

Two points:
1) While I get Compiled Python Files for consts, graphics and rfcemaps, I dont get any such file for citynamehelper.
2) Trying to open the other 3 compiled Python files, I get something like a ''bad magic number error''.
Should I dowmload another version of Python (gone with the third)?

 

[jessiecat]

Two points:
1) While I get Compiled Python Files for consts, graphics and rfcemaps, I dont get any such file for citynamehelper.
2) Trying to open the other 3 compiled Python files, I get something like a ''bad magic number error''.
Should I dowmload another version of Python (gone with the third)?

If you're able to figure out how to use this program I'm happy to leave the actual changes to you. And I've not got any any major changes to suggest anyhow though maybe someone else does. In any game I'm playing, if I don't like a particular city name I just go into Worldbuilder and change it. In my opinion there's far more important fixes that need to made in this mod before it gets to the beta stage.

 

[sedna17]

Two points:
1) While I get Compiled Python Files for consts, graphics and rfcemaps, I dont get any such file for citynamehelper.
2) Trying to open the other 3 compiled Python files, I get something like a ''bad magic number error''.
Should I dowmload another version of Python (gone with the third)?

1) Somewhat counter-intuitively, that is the correct behavior. Python is not a compiled language, so you want to just "run" the plain CityNameHelper.py file. With the version of Python I installed on my Windows partition, all my .py files now have a Python icon and I could just double-click on CityNameHelper to run it. You can also try running it from the DOS prompt as outlined here http://www.python.org/doc/faq/windows/. Sorry, I don't actually know a lot about how this "Windows" works

2) You shouldn't try to open the compiled Python files. They are created when CityNameHelper.py runs (because it is faster to import them that way). I don't understand "(gone with the third)". Python 3+ probably will not work, Python 2.6.2 is your best bet.

Anyone else care to try and get this running on their machine? Since it just works for me, I'm not sure what else to suggest.

 

[micbic]

Progress!!! Found which file should be opened, and how to open it. But it tries to open, gives me a command line, opens a maps window and suddenly closes...
Anyway, in case I dont figure it out, I think I found another way to work it.

 

[jessiecat]

Progress!!! Found which file should be opened, and how to open it. But it tries to open, gives me a command line, opens a maps window and suddenly closes...
Anyway, in case I dont figure it out, I think I found another way to work it.

Exactly what I found when I tried it. Black screen, command line, page opens, crashes in 1-2 seconds. I've got Windows XP. Same with you?

 

[micbic]

No, Vista. Anyway, as you said yesterday, there are more important things to do currently

 

[sedna17]

Yeah, probably there are more important things to work on, but I spent some time on this program and it's going to work!

I'm pretty sure I found the problem. I actually have Python 2.5 and Python 2.6 installed, and this program was launching in 2.5. In 2.6 I got the same behavior you guys described. I was able to find the problem and fix it.

So, you can just download the new version (v1.1) and see if that works for you.

 

[jessiecat]

Yeah, probably there are more important things to work on, but I spent some time on this program and it's going to work!

I'm pretty sure I found the problem. I actually have Python 2.5 and Python 2.6 installed, and this program was launching in 2.5. In 2.6 I got the same behavior you guys described. I was able to find the problem and fix it.

So, you can just download the new version (v1.1) and see if that works for you.

OK. I've downloaded that and tried opening each folder with python.
These are the results.

RFCE Maps (Python File - 1961KB) - won't open, same as before
RFCE Maps (Combined Python File -1468KB) -won't open, same as before
RFCE Maps Base (Python File -1948KB) - won't open, same as before
Color Map 1000x730,Gif Image - opens to preview only
CITY Name Helper 73KB - opens to full screen, cursor can select individual tiles, double-click or right-click does nothing. Menu bar to the right of the screen almost completly obscured but clicking on individual items does nothing. Maybe if the screen resolution was reduced it might work. I don't know.

 

[sedna17]

This is good (actually). Only CityNameHelper.py is a standalone program that will work by double-clicking on it. Sounds like the only problem is your screen resolution. If you can increase your monitors resolution to anything larger than 1250 pixels (horizontal) that's by far the easiest solution. Otherwise I'll have to create a scaled-down version -- which I really should do anyway.

 

[jessiecat]

This is good (actually). Only CityNameHelper.py is a standalone program that will work by double-clicking on it. Sounds like the only problem is your screen resolution. If you can increase your monitors resolution to anything larger than 1250 pixels (horizontal) that's by far the easiest solution. Otherwise I'll have to create a scaled-down version -- which I really should do anyway.

OK. After a lot of messing about with screen resolutions I've come up with 1280x800 as the most workable option though it makes the rest of my graphics and script pretty weird. If you could scale yours down a bit it would be a big help. I'd rather stay on a 1024x768 for everything else.

 

[micbic]

Yay! Opened it as well. Many thanks!.