YnAMP sub-project: True location corresponding city names

[brick623]

Those screenshots look absolutely superb, brick623

Thanks!

Next area will be Russia (central area, around Moscow and Golden Ring).

Spoiler In progress :

I think at some point we'll run into the problem of what to do about the massive uninhabited area of northern Russia and whether or not we should code it.

Maybe we could just code in Arkhangelsk and other important places. However, if we leave any unassigned tiles, this may cause a problem:
Lets say Russia settled in an unassigned tile, city name given is "Smolensk". What happens if Russia or another civ then goes and settles in actual coded Smolensk just west of Moscow? There are 4 possibilities:

1) Crash to desktop.
2) We now have two Smolensks.
3) Random default name given (which would cycle the problem).
4) others have already thought of this and have a solution e.g. "New Smolensk".

 

[rock_and_ride]

1) Crash to desktop.

We have fallbacks in place, that should not happen because of city founding

2) We now have two Smolensks.

If you add a tile with range >1 than this is exactly what can happen.

3) Random default name given (which would cycle the problem).

yepp, that's the fallback

4) others have already thought of this and have a solution e.g. "New Smolensk".

We already know that we need to take care of that. we already started a discussion, but so far we don't have a real conclusion. My idea so far was to place specific prefixes to those city names according to their landscape tile. For example "Oasis Big City" --> There would be a tile with range >1 called "Big City" and if you have found "Big City" already, you will be founding a "Oasis Big City" if you found it on a desert tile. Gedemon liked the idea, as far as I understood, but we didn't discuss it any further. I also need the info how we want to proceed here to finish the Middle East. What are your guys thoughts on this?

Btw, I've updated the map. Also I wanted to merge @tomaltachpaulson s work of Iberia and the Balkans, but I've two problems with that: The Iberia changings are lacking the GamePlayText.xml and the Balkans it looks like we have a double work here, since brick also did them. Or do I mess up something here?

 

[brick623]

The Iberia changings are lacking the GamePlayText.xml and the Balkans it looks like we have a double work here, since brick also did them. Or do I mess up something here?

I believe @tomaltachpaulson 's work was to complement the city map I did, he added Roman and Arabic translations for the cities in the balkans (awesome), but I wouldn't know how to merge that work with mine or whether it functions as intended.

Meanwhile, could you update the map again @rock_and_ride ? See post #81 for the area I'm working on.

 

[rock_and_ride]

Meanwhile, could you update the map again @rock_and_ride ? See post #81 for the area I'm working on.

done

I believe @tomaltachpaulson 's work was to complement the city map I did, he added Roman and Arabic translations for the cities in the balkans (awesome), but I wouldn't know how to merge that work with mine or whether it functions as intended.

I have a map file for Iberia and Balkans here, not a name file.

 

[tomaltachpaulson]

I believe @tomaltachpaulson 's work was to complement the city map I did, he added Roman and Arabic translations for the cities in the balkans (awesome), but I wouldn't know how to merge that work with mine or whether it functions as intended.

I have a map file for Iberia and Balkans here, not a name file.

The name file for Iberia has already been merged—only the map file for Iberia and the other files for the Balkans need to be added. To simplify things though, here is a ZIP of all the changes that need to be made, as well as some new work I have done for the Roman names in Greece. Note that only the CityMap_Rome.xml and CityMap_Greece.xml files are there in their entirety; the CityMap.xml and GamePlayText.xml files contain only the fragments which I have changed.

EDIT: Nevermind, I have added these changes myself. No need to worry.

 

[tomaltachpaulson]

We already know that we need to take care of that. we already started a discussion, but so far we don't have a real conclusion. My idea so far was to place specific prefixes to those city names according to their landscape tile. For example "Oasis Big City" --> There would be a tile with range >1 called "Big City" and if you have found "Big City" already, you will be founding a "Oasis Big City" if you found it on a desert tile. Gedemon liked the idea, as far as I understood, but we didn't discuss it any further. I also need the info how we want to proceed here to finish the Middle East. What are your guys thoughts on this?

I really don't think we are going to be able to reach an ideal solution here. After all, the "Oasis Solution" is only going to stave off the problem a little longer, as you will doubtless be able to found multiple "Oasis X" cities, which brings you back to name duplication. I suspect the best solution will be for Gedemon to code a duplicate name preventer, but we will have to be careful in doing so that we don't block legitimate duplicate names, especially when we get to the world maps where there are many cities in the Americas named verbatim after cities in Europe. For now I guess the best solution is to cover as many tiles as you possibly can—even the most insignificant hamlet can become a city if there is no alternative! After that we can try covering gaps with region names, tribe names, ranch farm names, national parkland names, whatever. Hopefully what is left after that will be so inhospitable that neither the AI nor the player will settle there, though again, this is not an ideal solution.

 

[brick623]

I really like the idea for naming cities based on their surroundings, but the Oasis solution might not work in Arctic Russia, because almost all the tiles are tundra/forest. Another solution is something like New <city name> and Old <city name>. There's a few cities in Russia like this, for example Staraya Ladoga and Novaya Ladoga, Chara / Novaya Chara, Staraya Russa etc. We could even code the name according to civ, so for example in German "Alte" and "Neu", Russian "Staraya" and "Novaya", etc.

This definitely won't work in the New World on GEM but that map is zoomed out enough for us to assign every land plot a name, even in the Sahara.

 

[Gedemon]

We could use a name generator eventually, but for now I will code the following (hopefully this WE if I manage to finally debug my other mod) :

- check for duplicate for a specific civilization and near a specific location, for example to prevent Egypt to found 2 Memphis but allowing 2 Memphis on the map (Egypt/USA)

- on load build a list of city names for each civs that don't have a position set on the map and pick in that list when we can't find an adequate name (no name at this position or only duplicates available)

That could replace a name generator, as we can make a handcrafted list of potential new city names for each civs by just adding it to the game's city name table without setting a position for it on the city maps.

 

[Gedemon]

Pushed a version with the code to prevent duplicate, it should work as follow:
- no duplicate allowed for civ-specific names
- no duplicate allowed on same "continent" (as defined by civ6) for default name

no code yet to provide alternative names and prevent using a name that should be reserved to another position if no name are found for a position.

 

[brick623]

Russia (central area) added on GH. Screenshots:

Spoiler #1 :

 

[brick623]

Spoiler #2 :

 

[Gedemon]

Merged, thanks !

I've made a small function to list cities missing names, it should output something like this in the Lua.log after launching a game (when pressing "start game" after loading):

InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_VALLETTA
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_CARAVACA_DE_LA_CRUZ
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_RIOPAR
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_BENIDORM
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_RIOPAR
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_ZAFRA
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_LISBON
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_LISBON
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_PENISCOLA
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_SARAGOSSA
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_SARAGOSSA
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_VIVEIRO
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_FORT_ABERDEEN
InGame: WARNING : no translation for LOC_CITY_NAME_BILBILIS

I've seen that LOC_CITY_NAME_LISBON should be fixed by brick623 last patch, but I haven't looked at the other one listed yet, still testing another mod ATM.

edit : merged on GitHub

 

[brick623]

Next area will be Russia (east) to edge of map, roughly this:

Spoiler russia (east) :

When I've completed east russia I'll try to correct those missing names (probably typos in the XML)

 

[tomaltachpaulson]

When I've completed east russia I'll try to correct those missing names (probably typos in the XML)

Most of the missing names are essentially my fault (name file was updated before map file), I'll correct them via GitHub with my new work as soon as I've finished testing (I finally have the Fall Patch, so the mod works for me now!)

 

[Gedemon]

great, don't worry, no rush

 

[tomaltachpaulson]

Pull request submitted. Added stacks of Roman (and other) civ-specific names. Here are a few screenshots from testing:

Spoiler :

Testing as France—note the French names in northern Italy:

Spoiler :

Finally, it appears that the renaming code does work for the AI after all—see this screen-shot from Iberia:

Spoiler :

 

[brick623]

Some great screenshots there!

Russian east nearly done, I'll do the Russian Arctic too. A few R=2 cities and it should be done without too much effort. (famous last words).

@Gedemon, just looking at that area it appears the Dvina river flows into a one tile lake, when we need it flowing into the White Sea for Arkhangelsk, see correction I propose below:

Spoiler Dvina River :

 

[Gedemon]

Pull request submitted. Added stacks of Roman (and other) civ-specific names. Here are a few screenshots from testing:

Spoiler :

View attachment 460396

Testing as France—note the French names in northern Italy:

Spoiler :

View attachment 460397 View attachment 460398

Finally, it appears that the renaming code does work for the AI after all—see this screen-shot from Iberia:

Spoiler :

View attachment 460395

thanks merged.

the AI naming only works at the beginning of a game, once you reload it stops working as the game doesn't reload the required script ATM.

Some great screenshots there!

Russian east nearly done, I'll do the Russian Arctic too. A few R=2 cities and it should be done without too much effort. (famous last words).

@Gedemon, just looking at that area it appears the Dvina river flows into a one tile lake, when we need it flowing into the White Sea for Arkhangelsk, see correction I propose below:

Spoiler Dvina River :

View attachment 460400

Thanks, added to the to do list.

 

[rock_and_ride]

i've updated the project status. btw, still pretty busy after moving, so i can't contribute that much right now. @brick623 you even have my birth place on the russian map! (Tula)

 

[brick623]

i've updated the project status. btw, still pretty busy after moving, so i can't contribute that much right now. @brick623 you even have my birth place on the russian map! (Tula)

Nice! I hope I've got the geography right, Russia is a difficult area to work in because of map distortion and sometimes lack of features. I have completed the Russian East and also the Arctic area, so now all of Russia above Y=55 is done, please update the status map again (apologies for my poor attempt on MS Paint)

Spoiler Current Status :