mimesot
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Posts posted by mimesot
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Hi there,
thanks a lot for your replys.
On 1/11/2019 at 9:58 AM, stanislas69 said:The skybox has been improved in the dev version. You might want to try it. As for your initial question not to my knowledge however you might be able to do what you want if you have a height map. I'm not sure you can export and import ones in Atlas.
Yeah, its time t install SVN again :-)
Indeed such an hightmap export tool would be an ideal solution.
On 1/11/2019 at 2:14 PM, (-_-) said:That's the map settings part in the xml file.
Would it actually fix it? I don't know. But it should.
Awesomt that you looked up that information for me so quickly.
On 1/12/2019 at 5:19 AM, (-_-) said:No, it would not. Thank the person who actually checked it. (Not me)
Oh. Thanks nevertheless. And of course thanks to the unknown one.
So, I guess I need to have a look at the source code of the hight import to get to the necessary information, right?
Best regards
mimesot
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Hi everyone,
is there a way to increase the hight level of the whole map? (the water level is no issue as it can easily changed manually). The reason behind my question is, I would like to get rid of the parts of the skymap which fade to black on the bottom end and therefore are quite disturbing in flat angle screenshots.
I guess it would need a bit of coding and I'm not shy of writing a small script myself. But in order to do so I would need some documentation on how the files containing textures and hight information are built. It possibly involves a process which is the reverse from importing a highmap to the editor. Is there anybody, who can help me with some information?
Thanks in advance and greetings!
mimesot
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16 hours ago, Loki1950 said:
That discussion takes place during the review process for the patch @FeXoR mentioned
Hi,
wait, what are you talking about ... i seem to have missed something. Just for clarification, I am talking about balancing for the map, not the overall game - just in case. Or do you mean a discussion on the patch created in the process of submission of the map which is then going to be discussed. But in order to make changes noteworthy enough for issuing a submission I would rather need a discussion beforehand, don't you think? Sorry if I am confusing things right now.
Greetings
mimesot
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13 minutes ago, FeXoR said:
(Since I was called I thought there was an urgent need to update this map in the official repository but even after close comparison I couldn't find any difference between Egypt_1_0_7 in your fist post and "Egypt (3v3)" in the current SVN version. But it's absolutely possible I missed something for I only did check in Atlas.)
Oh no. That were just some tiny aesthetical changes. Riverbanks with more vegetation, Underwater design with rocks, Road textures, fences,...
But if someone is willing to discuss balancing with me that would be totally awesome, and I would love to contribute a balanced version to alpha 24 one day.
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Thanls a lot folks!
2 hours ago, FeXoR said:...so what's left to do?
Well, I guess it is a work I will regularly find things to improve on.
Things that come to my mind depend on other things than map editing alone
- Balancing (requires some play throughs with experienced players and is not really pressing)
- A fixed sky box. I missed the opportunity to make areas of high mountains around the playground in order to hide the black circular area around the map. Screenshots look stupid if the horizon gets black towards its lower edge before it hits the ground. (probably needs technical changes)
- Some paths are very small and have a width of 1 block. They can be traversed by most infantry and horse cavalery but not by bigger units and the AI gets stuck inside such areas quite often.
Kind regards
mimesot
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Hi,
I was in the mood to update my map, so I made some design detail changes and repaired a few mistakes. The file is attatched to the first post.
A fence placed in order to make citizen feel more comfy on the cliffs of the persian town.
The red sea now has sime underwater structure.
And I just realized that the map on the first page is very ountdated ... it did not even contain the Kushite town.
Greetings and everyone have a happy new year!
mimesot
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Hi!
On 3/13/2018 at 12:15 PM, elexis said:Yep, 0.20.7. I went with the ' or just keep “Egypt”' proposal by Nescio.
Thanks. I am perfectly happy with Egypt as well.
On 3/13/2018 at 12:15 PM, elexis said:We can still do changes to the maps, just no more string changes.
Please tell me what you mean by string changes. In my understanding string is any array of characters, like a map name in contrast to e.g. coordinates.
Regarding this I found the map name to currently be "Egypt (4)" while it is a 6 player map in its current state.
On 3/13/2018 at 12:15 PM, elexis said:It should be possible to replace the owners for the flora and fauna owned by players from command line. Not sure how now though.
As the map consists of 99,9% gaia entity objects, it would be the fastest way to open the xml with a text editor, replace <Player>[1-6]</Player> with <Player>0</Player> and then reassign the few player entity objects to their correct player again using the editor. Takes me probably half an hour. Do you want me to perform the changes?
(Writing a small Python script to do that would be much more fun, but I think it would probably cost me more time)
Greetings
mimesot -
12 hours ago, elexis said:
Don't worry, it's too late now but I have committed your map description and map changes.
Keeping egypt. The names like necropolis needed capitalization. A bit long, but the map deserves it. Gj.
Hmm. Did I really miss a deadline? I hope you adapted the name Aigyptos by nescio. What version did you actually commit. I hope it is 0.20.7 because there were some really relevant changes.
11 hours ago, elexis said:There are still many flora and fauna owned by players btw. I guess they'll get a funny "you have been attacked by" message when the poor trees are chopped.
Noted down.
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On 10.3.2018 at 12:15 PM, elexis said:
befor -> before
located -> located,
"Balancing is achieved by" not a fan thereof, but whatever
Please base your further updates to the map committed in svn, at least the updates that I should commit to the repository.
Some properties I had removed creeped in again, AISeed BaseHeight BaseTerrain and the name shouldn't be Egypt condensed (vX variant Y). (The easiest fix will be fixing these property changes rather than redoing the entity updates)
(Also a link here instead of the first post would make it easier to find the correct file, at least for me)
Sorry, i didn't notice that anyone else was editing the map files.
I will provide version 0.20.8 asap. Hopefilly this evening. After that i will switch to svn updates each time I start the map editor.
How can I provide a Link? Where shall I place the source file?
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7 hours ago, Servo said:
Sea trade could still be possible though but that northern water gap should be widened so that Carthage could also trade with the Persian. So far the Carthage can’t recognize the sea trade (maybe the gap is too narrow for their merchant ships?) as they keep on training land carts only that just die along the Gaia area trying to reach the Kushite.
Maybe a bug I notice is a line (kind of old borderline (from square map?) along the Carthage base near the Roman temple Vista and stretching through the sea. It can only be noticed if you look at it in angle from the east of temple vista. Maybe it follows the human player color as I see it blue (my color). Also the Gaia hunts(deer) seems keeping the Roman gate open?
Hi!
Thanks for posting so many helpful remarks. :-)
The sea trade thing is indeed very strange. I already played games, where the Persians started sea trading with the Carthage via the gulf of Cyrene and Suez channel successfully, but the Romans wouldn't participate in trading for no appearant reason. I just tried to play as Romans and successfully traded via sea with the Persians.
I also hunted down that stupid deer, who was keeping the doors open. (The problem was the deer was marked as belonging to player 6)
Unfortunately I wasn't able to recreate your bug. Would you please post a screenshot.
On 2.3.2018 at 8:40 PM, elexis said:I've committed the map in https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/21420, but we still need a map description.
Don't speak of recent games, yourself, the pathfinder, missing playtesting or that the map is about getting crucial positions and trade (because the latter is the case on almost all maps).
The position descriptions are good, just needs some general preface.
I updateed the map description (and forgot about something, darn it)
I strengthened the persian economy and the memphis military to enhance balancing.
What shall we do about the map name ?
All canges can be found in the first post, update 0.20.7.
Greetings and good night
mimesot -
On 1.3.2018 at 11:46 AM, elexis said:
Bit imbalanced with yellow having much free space to build while the others have to use their ships, but that's not that decisive as players already have docks and ships.
I addressed the problem and posted a map update. There is now a shallpw seabed in the gulf of suez. This makes it easier for the persians to conquer the red sea territory and allows bypassing the mighty fort, which was created to block the north south route, and not the east west route anyway. I firther fixed some small problems and added some eyecandy to the vast date palm forests in the delta.
Find the update in the first post.
Greetings
mimesot-
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19 hours ago, elexis said:
I've committed the map in https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/21420, but we still need a map description.
Don't speak of recent games, yourself, the pathfinder, missing playtesting or that the map is about getting crucial positions and trade (because the latter is the case on almost all maps).
The position descriptions are good, just needs some general preface.
I hope I can manage to provide one soon. (busy times)
8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:Ptolemaic Egypt
Indeed, a reference to the time frame is a good idea.
7 hours ago, Sundiata said:Since it's mostly Ptolemaic Egypt here, how about the Greek term for Egypt: Aegyptos, or the Latin Aegyptus
It kind of has that historically romantic flavour, and is still recognisable enough for all..
With the Kush in the south, the romans in the north west and other invaders present, egypt split between the traditional and hellenistic influences you could even call it "The last days of egypt". It is interesting to see the AI fight heavily over Memphis while contiually obliterating the place.
Unfortunatly map versions with Cyrene enabled as playable instead of Siwa don't work that well, because battle zones are almost exclusivly shifted to the north. Nothing left for the Thebes to worry about. It just expands happily through the nubian desert and great sand sea.
What actually does work is a 3 vs 3 with the three egyptian parties against the invaders. The problem here is, that the alliance along river nile is quite strong due to obvious geographical reasons. It is necessary to provide the invaders with benefits. Especially giving the southern oasis Kharga to Siwa as a expansion increases the pressure on Thebes incredibly. This balances the game but still leaves Persia in its separete position with basically just two paths for entering the african mainland. I could possible enhance this by creating a shallow place in the red sea (where the small island is located). What do you think?
Greetings
mimesot -
Thanks for the feedback!
- Removed one hero on Thebes (black in skirmish, dark brown in editor, why's that?) player.
- Overlapping temples in Thebes: There are so many overlapping temples, so I guess you are referring to the two apdemak temples. Correct me please, if I'm wrong. I changed those two facing to the south the to be an actor and placed fences beneath them as blockers.
- Balancing Persians: You are right in that the Persian player has the most free space within its starting area in the beginning. This becomes especially true, when you compare it to Alexandria, who must (!) expand in order to even have enough space for farms. This is why the natural expansion in the delta exists, which of course will be harrassed by the Persian player. On the other hand, the Persian player lacks starting buildings, has no wonder, libeary or theatron and has the hardest time expanding into new territory.
- Condensed ... I am not happy with that too. It was more of a working title than personal preference. I chose that supplementary word in order to addesse that everything-compressed-into-a-single-spot nature of the map. But the primary reason for having such an addition was simply that I didn't feel It was appropriate to occupy the title “egypt“ all for myself. Didn't you ever plan to create a genuine Egypt map for your portfolio? (Especially since this map starts with full citties and thus does not offer a usual gameplay. A map subversion devoid of any city buildings is planned, but would either need an indestructible atlas-visible-only blocker entity in the stock game or some modding efforts.) I am open to all suggestions.
AND: I uploaded maps with the recent changes (=v 0.20.4) in the first post.
Greetings
mimesot-
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Thanks, that explains everything.
I just uploaded a verion compatible with alpha23 in the first post of the thread. No player and environment subversions yet, but they will follow in the next few days, s well as small fixes. You can download thus version for reviewing the map.
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That's good news :-)
Additinal questions arise. In the XML-section <ScriptSetting> this line appears.
"Script": "saharan_oases.js"
I gess this might have something to to with the random map generator and is thus an irrelevant line for this sort of map, right?
Another thing is, that I searched the XML for e.g. the great pyramids and the persian inn. These objects didn't cause an error, when I loaded the alpha 22 map in the alpha 23 map editor but were simply gone. No reference to them in the XML any more. The treasures on the other hand were still there but with paths I could change in order to restore them. What might be the reason?
Greetings
mimesot -
Progress update:
Ptolenaic specials relocated from thebes to memphis.
Rebuilt a kush city of thebes. I admit, I likes my previous assembly better, but for the moment it should suffice.
I will address the errors and missing entities tomorrow and post the files then.
Greetings
Mimesot
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12 hours ago, Sundiata said:
Deir el-Medina, the home of the workers and artisans that worked in the Valley of the Kings, is the most famous site.
No need to wholly "transform" it in into a Kush settlement, although adding some Kushite models will add some authenticity.
I found that Kushite houses mixed in with Carthaginian houses provide the most authentically Egyptian looking feel for any Nile Valley settlement.
And Deir el-Medina is located directly on the other riverside across from Luxor. I will try to squeeze some in there. It is a pity that you can't expand a map afterwards :-D
I looked into the Kush-Ptolemeian mix and it looks kind of odd. The design of Kush buildings stands out with cylindrical or dome-like roofs and dark gray foundations, which clashes with the consitently flat roofs and saturated orange-ochre of the ptolemaic obes. So I will probably stick to the Kush buildings. Regarding Carthage buildings, I do agree. The white buildings definitvely don't clash so hard with these almost pink buildings (I personally think the saturation of the barracks etc. should be reduced and adapted to the color of the temples. I guess they will recieve a bump map as well, otherwise it looks a little like plasic) as the orangy ptolemaic do. One problem is, that mixing Kush and Carthage buildings looks good at the scale of your examples. If I had that much space it would work out for my settlement as well, but due to space limitations, I will probably better strick to Kush. Nevertheless I will give it a try.
Well, first of all I will deal with the errors.
22 hours ago, stanislas69 said:We should check for actors just in case.
And of course, when a such a case might probably occur, it almost certainly does :-P
Interestingly my classical pyramids are gone too, but that didn't throw an error or an exception. Why's that?
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On 19.2.2018 at 4:21 PM, elexis said:
http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/SubmittingPatches
https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Phabricator
TLDR: Register, click on create differential revision somewhere.
To get the new models, just checkout the most recent code on svn.
http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildInstructions or the link Lion.Kanzen gave you.
(As long as you don't change c++ code, you don't need visual studio)
Thanks a lot!
I installed SVN and had a thorough look at the new content. I'm really looking forward to play with this new content. Transforming the city of Thebae into a Kush settlement and including pyramids from Meroe is an exciting prospect.
But this is probably no task I will be able to fulfill within this week. I am sorry. The Kush design features much less saturated colours, which exchanges the vivid athmosphere of the ptoleleian buildings with one that fits the ambiance of the harsh dry desert much better. But the yard in the Thebae temples with the water basin and the botanic garden does not blend with the dark grey foundations of the Kush castle and walls too well. Thus I will definitly move this building complex to Memphis, where I will stick with the ptolemeian design. (The current central complex of Memphis isn't my favourite anyway).
Have any Kush pyramids ever been found in the vicinity of Thebae? I would use them in the very south of the river Nile, perhaps creating a little sandy plateau for that purpose. Perhaps I should also replace the current southernmost pyramid with Kush pyramids, but that would still be quite far in the north. What do our experts say?
Finally, I can see that the ptolemeian, seleucidian and greek range of buildings expanded, so I should probably try to free some space in the existing cities. Did I mention that even the map size "giant" is still a little constricting ;-)
Greetings
mimesot-
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1 hour ago, elexis said:
I'd take the map without alpha 23 models too.
Please do whatever you prefer. I will try to add the Items asap, but I cannot guarantee I'll be able to achieve that in time. I wil try to install SVN this evening.
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Hi!
First off, I posted an uodate to the map. Again mostly minor fixes.
20 hours ago, elexis said:You can upload it on Phabricator already.
You can certainly place the buildings and units on your map.
(Phabricator) Can I just join in there? I have never worked with that platform. Do you have some kind of tutorial for me?
(Kushite buildings) Are they part of the current developement version, which is actually accessible by regular users?
Greetings
mimesot -
Hi!
17 hours ago, elexis said:This skirmish map doesn't have to go through Phabricator, the latter can't test anything with it.
Is that something you would consider for future versions?
17 hours ago, elexis said:What is important is that the map is balanced between the opposing parties. On the screenshot I see some players with prebuilt cities and walls and one player with only a civic center. That is okay however if it's supposed to be a 2v2 and both teams have a player with an advantage and one without. Same for the resources, teams should have roughly the same access to resources.
The advantages of having theaters, wonders, additional civil centers, libraries, fortresses,etc. is tremendous. I will hopefully have more balanced version available on Monday morning. Currntly, in a 2 vs 2 between Upper+Lower Egypt vs Sinai+Siwa, Siwa has the hardest start. For reasons unknown to me Alexandria directly expands to Giza while Thebes and Sinai just play agressively but don't expand early. Siwa does expand but gets crushed first often, so i intend to give them either additional supplies or another civil center. I will report asap. Tomorrow morning I will host a LAN-party at my home, which will yield further inside.
5 hours ago, Sundiata said:Well, Kushites were active as far as Thebes during our timeframe, and were quite influential politically and religiously in the Thebaid region in general. They even built temples and monuments in Southern Egypt, like the original temple of Debod in Philae (currently in Madrid, Spain) built by Adikhalamani and the original temple of Dakka built by Arqamani. These were built in periods of Kushite supported revolts against Ptolemaic rule in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, against Ptolemy IV and Ptolemy V. Even the massive Kiosk of Taharqa, in the first courtyard of the temple of Amun in Karnak (Thebes) was built by... Taharqa, in addition to other monuments like the Edifice of Taharqa by the Sacred Lake in the precinct of Mut, in Karnak.
This s very interesting information. I would love to implement that! But the Kushites are not planned for this release, are they?
Greetings
mimesot-
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Hi!
I created an update, which you can find in the threads forst post. Minor changes, but I fixed some annoying mistakes.
Greetings
mimesot
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Hi!
I am maintaining just one Version of the map (full grown cities, 8 players, day, currently 0.19.6 with no letter suffix) and derive all other from that. Its just lighting, remocing dust storms and thats it. No problem there.
Greetings
mimesot
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2 hours ago, stanislas69 said:
Alpha transparency for this could have disastrous performance though.
What makes transparency in this context so much worse than the semi-transparence of water or clouds?
OK, if you alter the terrain surface to include alpha, (knowing this is not accurate)
- you add 8bit (one third) to each terrain pixel you have to render
- the engine has to ask each pixel whether it it is transparent or not and decide if it should bother with another pixel behind it
- in the few cases this happens, it has to render one more pixel and mix them.
This is already happening with the actor textures, but not with the terrain textures. Is the rendering of actors or terrain more intensive regarding rendering time? Anyway I would not call it disastrous if it was just the points I mentioned, so I assume the problem lies much deeper. Can somebody please satisfy my curiosity.
Something I noticed with the reeds (and probably some grass patches): Some seem to have oriented faces and backface culling appears to be enabled. This creates an odd effect. If you look at them from one side, they are present and from a different point of view they disappear.
There could be another approach to solving the black horizon problem. What if the map was actually much bigger than the playable area. What if you created a large ring around the playable area, which still has just terrain texture but no entities. That wouldn't hurt your graphics card much. I guess the path-finder is the most processing-intensive part and if it does not cover the ring area it might be ok. Now create a beautiful landscape surrounding for the playable map and bend it downwards. It would act like earth curvature (sorry flat-earthers). This curvature would create a natural horizon and the actual borders of the map would not be seen except for very high camera positions. (Yes, you would have to curve the seas as well). The downside is, that you would loose the smooth transition into darkness.
why alpha 24 is not nice ?
in General Discussion
Posted
I really don't appreciate the tone of some community members. This makes me sad. Giving critical reviews is essential for the developement of the game, but not a wildfire of anger. Thats detrimental to the morale of a dev team. A critical statement should always include a very specific description of an issue, a reasining wha it is a problem and a qualifier on how much it actually reduces the fun in the game as well as a suggestion on how to resolve it. I would like to ask people to use this forum to support de devs and not just rant.
And yes, I agree that the un-diversifivation of the factions is reducing the excitement in picking a faction and yes, the romans took a steep, painful dive to bottom tier. But overall the improvements in A24 are significant and I wanna se us stay in an appeciating mood.
Is there any chance that we might have a balancing patch a24.1 in the forseeable future?