Grautvornix

New mercator beta 0.11.3 (download from initial post of this thread) based on @Asher's reports and sugestions: fix: limiting the zoom factor (in/out)and show the current zoom factor on screen fix: correct time output when a map was handed back from Atlas fix: lighting up small entity images a bit New: group select: add random rotation of elements of a group (makes tree groups/forests less uniform, and may look more like an organic settlement for houses and fields) New: group select: add alignment of selected elements N/S/E/W,or same rotation. New: area fill: define an irregular area (polygon) and fill it with a tree mix (e.g. 80%oak, 30%pine, 10% birch), or deer, or houses, etc. at a defined density with randomized spacing, leaving out existing buildings or fields. Note that roads are painted textures that currentlycannot be spared.

@ltms @Atrik@Stan`@Mentula How can I get my mod signed in mod.io? Tried to PM ltms as well but to no avail. Is he not around anymore? (not listed in the @ list anymore) The issue is not important, and certainly not urgent. I would just like to understand the current process, Thanks a lot!

Zooming out : indeed you can zoom out both in 2D and 3D far too much. I suggest limiting it to the entire map + 20%, ok? The time you read: the text said "(07:30 - now, …)", and 07:30 was when Atlas was started, not when the map came back. Both will be fixed in 0.11.3 (will upload tonight, lets see if more issues surface and need fixing - I am slowly closing in on version 0.12.0 which is the terrain editing change that I already started testing but did not dare publishing yet) Regarding the wxWidgets I cannot do anything as this appears to be related to Atlas itself. Woudl you like to raise a PR? (I'll provide some input as attached - please fill in your MacOS version atlas-bug-report-cinema-assertion-macos.md)

Had to update to fix a few glitches, hence it is now mercator beta 0.11.2 (see initial post of this thread): - converted spinners to sliders in map managemept for wonder and relic - fix: map data from previous edit sessions on "unnamed_map" are not carried over - fixed rectangular arrangement of elements (fences, walls, palisades) - group select allows moving, rotating, deleting and re-assigning of that group (e.g. walls,houses, fields, fences...) - added new icons to the entity placer when a group is selected.

@Asher Thanks for your feedback and suggestions! please have a look at mercator 0.11.1 in the initial post of this thread. It provides with these fixes and features: Every kind of Gaia object now has its own colour on the map, the same as in the 3D view: trees green, ore gold, stone grey, animals brown. Round map: for a circular map the Entity Placer cuts the picture to its circle and draws the edge, instead of showing a black square. A map with no terrain is a round field. Select many to delete or change player: Selecting: in any tool, Ctrl+drag selects a rectangle and Ctrl+click adds or removes one thing. A selected thing gets a blue ring. Acting on it: Del, or the new Selection box (Delete, Owner..., Clear), acts on all of it as one Undo step. A right-click on the selection offers the same choices, and Esc clears it. Delete: the map's own objects go into the bin. Planned ones are simply dropped. Owner: a planned wall changes owner as a whole, and Gaia's trees, mines and animals stay Gaia's. The status bar says how many were skipped. Houses snapping to each other: A building you click near another building moves flush against it, beside it or in front or behind. Its edges line up with the other's, and it turns to the other's angle. The ghost shows where it will land. It works against buildings (including fields and fences) on the map and ones you've planned. Trees, mines and units never snap. It leaves a 0.1 m gap between buildings, because the game's overlap check wants a hair of air. Straight Lines of trees, fences, or anything: Tick "In a line, every ... m" (default 8 m). Press where the line starts and drag to where it ends. The chosen entity goes down at the start and then every distance along, as a wall is drawn, and the ghosts show each place while you drag. Places the game would refuse are left out, and so are places where the same thing already stands. The status bar says how many were placed. It is one step to Undo, a plain click still places one, and Esc drops a line you're drawing. The distance is fixed from the start, so where the last tree lands depends on where you let go. I did it this way rather than stretching the spacing to hit the end exactly; say if you'd prefer that. Houses placed in a line don't snap to each other, because you choose the spacing yourself. Atlas error on MacOS: this is the same assertion as in 0.9.1 (wxArrayString::Index, from CinemaSidebar::ReloadPathList). It comes from Atlas with wxWidgets 3.2 on MacOS and appears on every map, please continue past it. Nothing in Mercator causes it. The walls loaded this time, so the 0.9.1 player fix held. Upstream's fix would be a case-sensitive search in that one call; I can draft a report for 0 A.D. if you want one.

Thanks - at least something imnproved. What did the error message say and how was it triggered?

Here is a minor update of post-Atlas 1.10.0. It fixes a few minor things and adds a more detailed view on treasures, and another test for gaia-owned resources that were wrongly allocated to a player (occurs in some maps form the past). Also should clear issues when using with snap installs on Linux. Let me know any issues you may find or any suggestions you may have. Edit: another small update post-Atlas 1.11.0 providing improved fixing of detected map issues (handover of wrongly player-owned gaia assets to gaia) and a correcting a few GUI glitches (cropped labels, sliders instead of spin boxes etc.) README.md CHANGELOG.md post-atlas-1.11.0.zip

Another BETA release 0.11.0 is available (download form top post of this thread. Along with many bug fixes and usability improvementsm it features - a complete rework of the GUI (particularly the entity placer) - capability to load a 2D heightmap to create a raw 3D terrain and save it to a pmp-file for ATLAS editing - a summary tab that also verifies map integrity using many tests of post-atlas and allowing to fix these. Next steps will include a terrain sculptor that allows preparing a basic terrain layout for refinement in ATLAS.

Please have a look at the top post of this threat. I uploaded mercator verison 0.9.1 preventing entities of tjhe same owner placed twice at exactly the same position. It also enforces the game rules Putting a building on top of a tree or rock is refused. An object placed on top of an actor (citizien or other) creates a warning (the game seems to allow that) Objects off the map: refused. Mercator now also support defining screenshots taken in Atlas or putting its own simplified map layout as in post-atlas. Note that the tool is still in Beta version. I appreciate any suggestion, bug report etc.

Sorry that I exposed it

Oh! Thanks! Sorry to hear - it used to work for me so far. Will look into this tonight.would you have more details , e.g. the xml that threw this error (byPM if you wsnt) Investigation showed that the map can be loaded, but Atlas always starts with an empty map. You have to load your pre-created map (to be accessible by Atlas, the fresh map must be stored in a game map folder, e.g. mods/user/maps/skirmishes on windows - e.g. using "save into game"). The error message is supposedly coming from MacOS's numpy implementation, where Claude Code claims that "On Macs numpy uses Apple's Accelerate library, which can flag "invalid value" for perfectly good numbers." I cannot verify this though,unfortunately, so I asked Lumo AI to verify. Here is the result: Based on my research, the statement is substantially correct, but it requires some nuance. Here's what the evidence shows: Evidence Supporting the Claim 1. NumPy GitHub Issue #25433 - Direct Confirmation A NumPy bug report explicitly documents this problem: The issue notes that this warning was triggered "despite the numpy build not being linked to Accelerate", confirming that false positive "invalid value" warnings can occur on macOS systems using the Accelerate framework. 2. NumPy GitHub Issue #25532 - macOS-Specific Behavior The issue author notes that operations like inf + (-inf) = nan and 2 + 3 = 5 are well-defined in floating-point arithmetic, yet NumPy produces inconsistent warnings. 3. Recent M4 Mac Issues (2025) GitHub Issue #28687 reports: Users reported getting RuntimeWarning: divide by zero encountered in matmul in code that previously worked fine. Downgrading to NumPy 1.26.4 resolved this for many. Why This Happens Cause Details Accelerate framework limitations Apple's BLAS/LAPACK implementation has historical inconsistencies compared to OpenBLAS/MKL Floating-point precision differences Different handling of edge cases (division, logs, etc.) can trigger spurious warnings New chip architectures M-series chips with SIMD extensions (SME on M4) introduced new bugs in NumPy's matrix operations Verdict Partially Correct — The statement captures a real phenomenon but oversimplifies it: ✅ Yes: NumPy on macOS can use Apple's Accelerate library ✅ Yes: False positive "invalid value" warnings have been documented ⚠️ Nuance: Not all Macs have this problem—it depends on NumPy version, macOS version, and chip architecture (older Intel Macs vs. newer M-series chips) ⚠️ Nuance: The issue has been partially addressed in recent NumPy releases Workaround If you're experiencing this, try: # Option 1: Suppress the warnings with np.errstate(invalid='ignore', divide='ignore'): # your calculations # Option 2: Force NumPy to use OpenBLAS instead of Accelerate # (requires reinstalling NumPy with pip --no-binary=numpy)

Would not reduce the impact of Mercator to his famous projection. As I wrote, he did other things as well (producing an Atlas). Regarding spherical maps, this is specifically a question to the game mechanics, i.e. a unit leaving through one side must reappear on the opposite side. this might have quite some consequences on pathfinding.

Just used an old map from the forum for demonstration

Having played around with Atlas and a post processor/analyzer/converter post Atlas (https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/169808-map-making-support-and-conversion-tool-post-atlas/?do=findComment&comment=762301 ) I thought it might be useful to add a few capabilities to Atlas without actually changing it. My initial concern was the difficulty (for my clumsy attempts of editing) to place walls with segments and turrets properly algined and without gaps. Hence, I started defining a tool that replicates the in-game way of placing walls by dragging and connecting rather than placing individual elements. For this the tool would manipulate the Atlas-generated xml-file and hand it afterwards back to atlas for further editing and final touch. Well, implementing this handover in both directions, Atlas --> tool and tool--> Atlas, certainly allows manipulating other simple things in a kind of co-editing mechanism. Important to note: ATLAS is and will remain the primary tool mastering all the map creation complexity. My tool tries to help offering a few workflows only preserving Atlas' role as the master editor. So currently the workflow can be like this: You define a maps basic parameters, game characteristics, player characteristics etc. - either in Atlas or the new tool (in this case with a handover to Atlas). Then Atlas is used to sculpt the terrain and place landscape items. The tool can read the xml file output by Atlas and visualize both in 2D plan view and in simplified 3D what has been placed where and for which player, listing all elements. If desired, a wall or palisade can be drawn like in the game and gates can be added by simple selection of a wall segment. The tool also allows placing entitites of all kinds selected from a list with little images representing what the entity looks like in game. I also allows searching for and replacing entities on the map, e.g. all aleppo pines by oaks. The game's rules where entities can actually be placed are explicitly applied (e.g. no house in the ocean or on a cliff slope). Handover back to Atlas for modification/manipulation finalizing, whatever. If finalized, it is certainly possibly to use post-Atlas tool to verify a map works Oh, and finally, I had to find a name for the tool (used to be "prep-Atlas" similar to "post-Atlas"), but then I thought I should be a bit more creative. With a probably a bit to much creativity enhancer made from grapes, I cam up with this silly story: A character in history used and improved historical maps and related all to the legendary King Atlas of Mauretania, said to have been a geographer and astronomer (potentially related/referring to the Greek mythodologic Titan Atlas). This occured many centuries later (in the 1590s) when the Flemish cartographer Gerard de Kremer (Merchant), latinized Gerardus Mercator, came up with a map collection in a book named "Atlas" referring to that King and/or Titan. Our tool also came much later than the Atlas tool and uses its maps and tries to improve a bit. Strictly speaking the name "Mercator" in this context is not at all related to the 0AD timeframe, but, hey, the game calls a roman trader rightfully "Mercator" as well) So here is another BETA version for people willing to test: README.md mercator-0.11.3.zip CHANGELOG.md

Thanks @Asher for testing and finding this out: despite an already converted copy existed, outputting it again converted it again, i.e. it deleted the copy and made it afresh from the untouched source. (there was supposed to be a warning ("Anything you changed inside it is lost") but bueried into a longer warnign text that nobody reads (I wouldn't , so your replacements went with the old copy. The new release 1.9.2 (QUICKFIX) now will make sure: Every change made in a copy is now recorded inside the copy, so the record survives a restart. Output over a changed copy says "the converted copy is your output", lists the changes map by map, and keeps them by default (Esc keeps them too). Only "Convert again, losing them" converts again. Frankly, this developed into an unecessarily complex "slideshow" of confirmation windows and a lot of bloat text. For the time being it works, but I have to look into the logic a bit and try simplifying it.

No, that would be far too complex - what I have in mind is more a wrapper tool that helps defining the map/game/player characteristics, then hand over to the real Atlas for terrain sculpting, but then help placing entities, particularly walls and palisades (as a start) and visualizes that in 2D and a simplified 3D map. I am trying to use the new tool with Atlas in a kind of "pair-editing" (the tool only looking at and manipulating xml, Atlas basically everything). Atlas is very powerful but appears complex to me. The new tool is an attempt trying to reduce complexity where possibly without actually taking away Atlas powerful capabilities. Confirmed: convert_again deletes the copy and regenerates it from the untouched source, wiping any replacements. Please wait for a yet another version 1.9.2 .... (also saw a lot of documentation flaws that needed fixing). (thus demonstrating why short release cycles can be dangerous even with a lot of (automated) testing.)

@Asher Please see the latest release 1.9.1 in the first message of this thread (the onyl functional change). There are other changes inside as I am also preparing a second tool to prepare, support, manipulate and visualize Atlas maps. The two tools post-atlas and the new one share common components hence the update of atlas-common 1.4.0 package (I actually should rename that to make clear this is not linked to the actual atlas tool in 0AD). I'll publish a first version of the new tool shortly in this part of the forum.

Instead I would like to suggest walls that can be walked on (mechanics: moving garrisoned soldiers sideways replacing the next empty slot) towards the area of attack. Then, there could also be a successful attacker moving along the wall in the same way - garrisoning a wall segment from a siege tower or a ladder (and only from those) could be possible with a certain probability.

My amateur "historians" opinion: Isn't the typical infantry attack on walls somehow representing kind of an undermining? (frankly, you may hit a stone wall for a VERY long time with a sword, a spear, or arrows, even with an axe, but without ny thing breaking ewxcept your own weapons.This is why city walls were so successful until the late middle ages, I believe.)

Like this? (next release will have it) =============================================================================== == isles-r28 <- pack.zip output: C:\x\mods\isles-r28, 12 files copied mod.json: ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- maps/scenarios/greek_isles.xml renamed gaia/flora_tree_oak -> gaia/tree/oak (3x, r27) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- maps/scenarios/delta.xml renamed gaia/flora_tree_oak -> gaia/tree/oak (3x, r27) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 maps: 2 changed, 0 needed nothing; ... =============================================================================== Result: no failures left - ...

post-Atlas V. 1.9.0 is now available (please refer to the top of this thread to download). Fixed interlock between post-Atlas and the game when accessing the same archives Analyze tab: Player balancing information (staritng resources per player) fixed map enlarged preview Findings tab: fixed more replacement rules now also including actors and props double click to open "fix selected" window (thanks @Asher!) a mod's templates can be replaced with the game's own. (thanks @Asher! Please let me know if you find any bugs, or if you have more ideas and suggestions

Tried to have it fixed in the next release. Here is what Claude commented: "Isn't letting me pick a replacement". Most likely those templates are supplied by another mod installed on the tester's machine. Then they aren't missing: they show up as one "N templates … come from mod X" finding, and there was nothing to replace. Choose replacements…, and a double-click on that finding, now offer to replace them with the game's own templates, chosen one by one in the usual table. The other possible case is an actor (a model placed directly, actor|…): the message now names those and says to replace them in Atlas. It's still worth asking the tester which mods they have installed. Yes, indeed, switching from Findings to Convert means pushing the convert button (or selecting the tab or the menu). Finally, when everything is finished, there is the output button (I don't like that button labelmyself but was not able to come up with anything better yet. "Do it" doesn't look so fancy and repeating "Convert" might be confusing)

@Asher Thanks for the testing! Oh! Which type of templates are these? Any specific or just some? Good point! Will change that!

@AsherIf you select only one map at a time then only that map is converted. When this is however a map pack, the entire pack is converted map by map but into the same folder, same as its source. Sorry, could not help it - just made another release 1.8.0 that provides better entity conversion support including automatic suggestion of most likely replacement and a few other improvements (e.g. @vladislavbelov's tree randomization script). One new architectural thing is that I extracted a common code package that will be also used by other ATLAS-related tools that I am preparing. Please find the latest release 1.8.0 in the top message of this thread (with updated screenshots)

Here are a couple of older maps I was able to collect form the forum. Some (that I played in the past already) are pretty awesome like Fall of Constantinople, Alesia, or TheLegendofMali. The others will most probably also be interesting. I'd suggest you look into one map and verify if it can be converted and is still palyable, if you like. That would be very helpful!!! Thank you so much! alesia.zip Athens.zip Alpine Settlement 0,1.zip Epiphany_v5.pmp Epiphany_v5.xml Fall Of Constantinople.pmp Fall Of Constantinople.xml Halicarnassus.pmp Halicarnassus.xml TheLegendofMaliSecondVersion.pmp TheLegendofMaliSecondVersion.xml