map Rheinland map mod (WIP)

[sternstaub]

===

Once, some new 0ad player created a map called "map-rheinland". It was supposed to play around a river in old Germania. He tried to imagine how such rivers might have been like, long ago. He had no experience in the game and no idea of the balance whatsoever, so he simply decided to place ore in the mountains and rocks in the swamps and rivers. It was published soon.

Since the original map became unloadable with vanilla, a multiplayer / skirmish map is being created from scratch. The main thread, which you are reading now, has been edited and renamed. This could someday become a map pack. I am not sure yet.

===

 

While there is further development, i provide the mod in this thread, so it can be used until existing problems are fixed. Also, please consider that it is recommended to use Alpha 27 with Vulkan Backend for good performance / stability. Maps can be huge and contain many resources. For me it works fine with Vulkan on mid-end system.

The A27 version of the map...
requires Delanda Est, which does not apply to the old A26 map. For some reason, after i had opened the map in Atlas - with DE activated -, the game cannot find any objects when loading it with vanilla 0ad. I try to find out why that happens and will provide the fix.
While that is so, the Skirmish version of the map is supposed to work on Vanilla (although, as mentioned, it does not, right now). But for now, it should not be played anyway. I was focussing more on the DE scenario (see below), so that the Skirmish remains kind of unfinished. TBD.
The A27 file can be found at the end of this post.

Delanda Est Patch
On top of that, you can then use the Delanda-Est patch if you like to. It contains a Scenario (1p vs 4 AI) aswell as balancing changes for DE that are designed for this very map. So please remember to turn it off when you play another map - else it will likely disrupt the balance of the original mod.

The old file...
If you want to play the vanilla map, you can still get the old A26 modfile on mod.io (ingame mod menu) - but it only has 3 player slots, it is not balanced and the terrain and forests are much more generic and dull. Also be aware that there may be changes in the file structure - renaming for example. Need to get a better overview of the map

Sources for creation (for myself; can contain german articles. Feel free to share knowledge about how the terrain might have  looked like at the time):

"Geschichte des Waldes in Mitteleuropa" - Wikipedia (has translations)

"Wie breit war der Rhein früher" - the-duesseldorfer.de
"Der Rhein in römischer Zeit" - neuss.de
"Maps reveal the historical path of the rhine" - uu.nl

"Publius Cornelius Tacitus described "Free Germania" (Germania magna) in the 1st century as "terra aut silvis horrida aut paludibus foeda" – a land, covered by horrid forests or loathsome bogs. Tacitus' Mediterranean homeland at that time had already been a cultural landscape for centuries, its forests cleared for fields, orchards and towns, to say nothing of the use of wood for home fires and maritime construction." - Wikipedia

Current Map:

 

Old image:

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FILES

map-rheinland.pyromod  REQUIRES 0ad A27 AND Delanda Est (for now)

map-rheinland-v02-patch-delanda-est.pyromod REQUIRES 0ad A27 AND map-rheinland.pyromod AND Delanda Est

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Edited December 15, 2023 by sternstaub
Update contents

[SolarEagle]

 Thanks for this new map! I've just played it, and it worked well. There's some complex pathfinding at times, but nothing is blocking movement, and it's probably by design.

 With so many resources, one player more is maybe possible.

 The sole problem is that, in easy mode, my enemies stockpiled resources, but didn't build a city centre, so when I had built an army to attack, I've just found docks and a few citizens working.

[sternstaub]

1 hour ago, SolarEagle said:

 Thanks for this new map! I've just played it, and it worked well. There's some complex pathfinding at times, but nothing is blocking movement, and it's probably by design.

Thank you  There are some spots which should block pathfinding, i tried to make these spots recognizable with different textures, like cliffs. If that is what you mean.

1 hour ago, SolarEagle said:

 With so many resources, one player more is maybe possible.

 The sole problem is that, in easy mode, my enemies stockpiled resources, but didn't build a city centre, so when I had built an army to attack, I've just found docks and a few citizens working.

Yup, i have also encountered  these problems with the AI. I could create a Singleplayer-version of the map (as scenario, not skirmish) with AI players that are already settled. Also, a 4 or 6 player version would definitley make sense.

Also i have to say that it is probably poorly balanced, because i have not played the game long enough to know proper balancing. There really is abundance in some places (abundance of ore in the mountains is intended). With 5 players, maybe this could bring some dynamic with trace?

[asterix]

@andy5995here is good candidate for your community maps mod 

[andy5995]

On 03/02/2023 at 2:56 PM, asterix said:

@andy5995here is good candidate for your community maps mod 

I chatted with @sternstaub in the matrix channel and ze didn't ask me to include it.

[sternstaub]

On 06/02/2023 at 6:40 PM, andy5995 said:

I chatted with @sternstaub in the matrix channel and ze didn't ask me to include it.

Yes, well, it is probably poorly balanced and all. I just opened atlas and started playing around with it just for the sake of creating a map  

[sternstaub]

Remade some parts of the map, did some adjustments regarding the paths through swamps and choke points, added 3 AI players and had some good fun with Delanda Est on singleplayer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still more work to do here...

 

[sternstaub]

 

map-rheinland.pyromod

New version of the map. It has been created using Delanda Est (github dev version) and A27.

Changes: A lot of adjustments. Balanced choke points and resources, remade the forests to not look dull, added mercenary camps, added artifacts etc., added info to the description.
For some reason, when trying to load the map without DE, none of the map objects can be loaded. So i have added it as a dependency for now (although only the Scenario version is supposed to require DE)

[Grautvornix]

Beautiful! I already love the old version - will try the new on tonight! Thanks for your effort, well done!

[sternstaub]

Thank you It is nice that some people can enjoy it

Will try to fix the dependency issues and do some fine tuning within the next weeks, so it can also be used on A26 without DE (although would i highly recommend using the A27 Vulkan backend because of the stutter)

[Grapjas]

Honestly looks really good for your first map. My first looked quite @#$% in comparison. Good job.

[sternstaub]

23 hours ago, Grapjas said:

Honestly looks really good for your first map. My first looked quite @#$% in comparison. Good job.

Thank you But do not worry, i invested a lot of time over the course of a year.

After finding out how to remove the flickering in wayland KDE ( ... ), i can start playing with the changes. So the next package will contain some patch files for DE files, making expansion cost glory and coin, for example.

On second thought, it makes more sense to create a separate patch for the DE users. So there will be map-rheinland and map-rheinland-DE-patch. The scenario version will then be packaged into the DE patch.

[sternstaub]

The Scenario Version is almost finished for use with Delanda Est now. Main post updated. Sadly, i must have somehow broken the map somehow. When trying to start it without DE, the game tells me that it could not find templates for gaia/tree/pine_tall ... etc. . After failing to load thousands of templates, the game freezes, then my system sound freezes and it just crashes

Seems that no game objects can be found at all (not only missing DE objects). I would be very grateful if someone has an idea how to fix it and can help.

[Grapjas]

Can you post the logs?

[sternstaub]

7 hours ago, Grapjas said:

Can you post the logs?

userreport_hwdetect.txtmainlog.htmlinterestinglog.html

 

Sure... my bad ^^

Edited December 13, 2023 by sternstaub

[Grapjas]

Well it's trying to load a bunch of DE templates (and/or art/models w/e) that don't exist in vanilla, so trying to start it without DE won't work. Likewise a map made in vanilla might not work in DE because they might have restructured/renamed templates (idk haven't looked into their code).

You'd probably need to make 2 completely seperate maps if you want a vanilla version and a DE version, since i'm pretty sure DE touches ALOT of files (even stuff like trees i think). If you enabled the mod you will see a mix of vanilla and DE stuff in the scenario editor, you want to disable the mod if you wanna make a vanilla version.

[sternstaub]

24 minutes ago, Grapjas said:

Well it's trying to load a bunch of DE templates (and/or art/models w/e) that don't exist in vanilla, so trying to start it without DE won't work. Likewise a map made in vanilla might not work in DE because they might have restructured/renamed templates (idk haven't looked into their code).

You'd probably need to make 2 completely seperate maps if you want a vanilla version and a DE version, since i'm pretty sure DE touches ALOT of files (even stuff like trees i think). If you enabled the mod you will see a mix of vanilla and DE stuff in the scenario editor, you want to disable the mod if you wanna make a vanilla version.

Thanks for your reply.

I could try to remove the missing DE template references for mercenaries, artifacts etc. manually from the .xml file. But it is weird that the trees are not found, since their paths should not be different in Vanilla and DE. I compared the logs to my mods/public/templates dir, and the log states that files are missing although they are actually present.

@wowgetoffyourcellphoneSorry to bother you, but do you have an idea what could be tried here (without creating a whole new map)? Your experience from the DE creation would certainly be helpful to understand. Of course only if you can spare the time

Much obliged!

[Grapjas]

You need to focus on the ones that aren't there, theres a decent chance the other errors will dissapear aswell. Also templates have a inherit/mixin system, is the entire root present?

You could try working from a version that last worked with vanilla (if there was one), instead of a full reset this would obviously better.

I doubt Wow has a magical solution for you but who knows.

[sternstaub]

37 minutes ago, Grapjas said:

You need to focus on the ones that aren't there, theres a decent chance the other errors will dissapear aswell. Also templates have a inherit/mixin system, is the entire root present?

You could try working from a version that last worked with vanilla (if there was one), instead of a full reset this would obviously better.

I doubt Wow has a magical solution for you but who knows.

I will try deleting the game objects successively. In the worst case, the map will end up with only terrain data.
But in fact, recreating ALL game entities is a good opportunity to apply what i have learned from the previous process of creation. Also, the tree specimen have not been placed correctly. Oaks, for example, need light, while beeches can also sustain in the shadows of other trees. The latter were thus dominant trees in central europe - i did not know that before.

The aim of such maps should be in alignment with the 0 A. D. philosophy of historical accuracy. In that regard it should be considered that the whole vegetation was by far, far, far, far richer than it is nowadays. Different kinds of trees were more present than today, others less, again others not at all.

I would like to take such considerations into account. So please - if you have any thoughts or criticism on how it can be improved or expanded - visually, conceptually, structurally, balance etc. -, feel free to share your thoughts on the matter.

Maybe this becomes a mini-package of the same map in different variations / game modes?

So - i will just recreate it once more, learn from the past and create a clean package. It could be finished with A27 release. Thanks again to everyone who offered their help so far, here and in the IRC. It is a great support for moving forward

======= Offtopic =======

Another matter has come to cross my mind whilst writing the post. Since there should not be 10000 topics with some far-reaching ideas which perhaps never can be realistically implemented, this OT-section here is likely to be a better place for it.

0AD is a modular game, which is great. But it can also cause problems like this one, where vanilla trees become incompatible.

But what if the modding community would contribute their meshes and other resources from their mods (not the scripts or gameplay logic, only objects themselves) to a "mega-package"? Like a large database, which everyone contributes to and is credited for their work? It can be updated in some interval and would reduce the likelyhood of such errors, because no changes to the local meshes are neccessary when switching mods.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

What seems to work for me is to load the map in Atlas without DE enabled. So, base game, no mods. Boot up Atlas, load the map in Atlas. You'll get a bunch of those errors. Save the map as <filename>_EA or something different. Atlas has a cleanup feature, so the act of saving the map will remove the missing files once you reload the map. So, once it's saved as a new map, close Atlas and reopen it again and reopen your new map and see how many errors you get. You might still get a few, but the previously missing objects will be gone. At least now most of the missing files will be stricken from the map file and you can see what you need to replace. 

 

Only other way is to manually edit the map's XML file. Look in the Pyrogenesis Log file for the list of bad files and then go through the XML file and delete them by hand (or use ctrl-H and replace).

[sternstaub]

Tried to load into atlas after removing all entities from the map.xml - this happens. Issue seems to also affect the contents of the .pmp file.

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

What seems to work for me [...]

First of all, thank you for taking the time and trying it out yourself

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

[...] is to load the map in Atlas without DE enabled.

This is weird, i can open the file in neither in the game nor in Atlas. Always crashes with segfault. ô.o

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by sternstaub

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Missing terrains can definitely cause the map to hard crash. A27 has removed or renamed some old terrains probably. Did you start designing the map with A26?

[sternstaub]

3 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Missing terrains can definitely cause the map to hard crash. A27 has removed or renamed some old terrains probably. Did you start designing the map with A26?

The same on A26. And you can open it in atlas w/o Delanda Est? Could you send the file which you have opened / saved?

Edited December 13, 2023 by sternstaub

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'm at work right now. I can maybe do a deep dive tonight.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 29/01/2023 at 5:38 PM, sternstaub said:

map-rheinland-v02-patch-delanda-est.pyromod REQUIRES 0ad A27 AND map-rheinland.pyromod AND Delanda Est

I loaded this up in Atlas and the only error messages I'm getting are these:

WARNING: [ParamNode] Could not remove token 'Siege' from node 'List'; not present in list nor inherited (possible typo?)

WARNING: [ParamNode] Could not remove token 'Elephant' from node 'List'; not present in list nor inherited (possible typo?)

 

So, there's an issue with Delenda Est where there are classes removed from a list somewhere. Might be with ships. I'll look into it.