[Random Map] Realistic Terrain Demo

[FeXoR]

IMO this map is now ready for playtesting it.

Please help me with this since I can barely play 0 A.D. with my hardware!

scandinavian_meadows2016_6_30.zip

Some screenshots of some resource spots:

Food: Sheep in fences with kennel

Wood: Beech groves. Stone and metal: Some decorative stone and plant actors:

[niektb]

I'd vote for Scottish Meadows or Hilly Highlands or something

(I mean, it comes pretty close to what I see in landscape photo's of Scotland:

Spoiler

)

[FeXoR]

Some more changes after suggestions from elexis:

scandinavian_meadows2016_6_30b.zip

- Outposts in some groves

- Kennels replaced with farmsteads

- More random resources at start locations

- Some oaks

- Less berry bushes

- Some code cleanup

@niektb Yes, scotland or some parts of the brittish coast look quite similar.

We have some alpine maps and english channel though so I'll stick with scandinavian

EDIT: On the other hand: I also can't find a scottish map

[niektb]

@FeXoR: Which civilization comes from Scandinavia?  

[FeXoR]

Hm, what about some flavour text like:

Fertile lands sourrounded by harsh terrain. (Short description)

Remeins of recent snowfalls still haunt the forests and torrential rivers from the snowmelt barely died away. (Flavour text)

Focussing on realistic terrain this map might not always be fair. (Warning)

 

Name, hm. Scottish Meadows, Alpine Meadown, Scandinavian Meadows... not sure. Rough Meadows, Hilly Meadows...no idea what to chose.

 

Still to test:

- To many goats?

- Resource spot types not diestibuted equaly enough for all players to have each resource type as expansion? (On propper map sizes that is!)

 

Playtesting and code suggestions welcome!

[elexis]

• Seems like too much fish
• Still some players have access to indefinite amount of wood while others only have access to the initial trees only. This can be a bit challenging.
• No to the warning in the description.
• Maybe few more outposts in the forests?
• Player placement is quite random, I like that as it provides diversity. However it will also lead to rehosts as sometimes a player is placed right besides one or multiple enemies, potentially not being able to gather from the initial mines. Maybe you can implement a minimum distance to enemies? (Perhaps looping over randomized positions until finding one that fits the condition).
• Looks really great. IMO there should be more maps using this idea. So perhaps its easier to extract the heightmap lib and then making some more maps with few lines of code.

[FeXoR]

@elexis IMO there are (at least) two concepts to focus on when generationg random maps: "Balanced", granting all players access to the same ammount of recourses (for each type) as well as space and distance to other players.
"Realistic", focussing on presenting real world style to the player.
IMO both of them have their own value, maybe in different situation.
However, in some aspects they conflict with each other.
To communicate to the player what a specific map focusses on should be in the map description the player can read before actually loading the map.
That's IMO what a map description is for. The flavour text might be optional but neither the short description nore the warning is IMO.

An alternative method would be to categorize maps further but than categorization might be a problem so I'd just stick to the map description

Somehow you say that yourself in your 2nd, 3rd and last point.

Please make use of ways to communicate with the player!

 

I will try to address all other issues.

Especially player placement (though fair resource access will not always be possible, see above. I'll still try to "soften" that issue, yes.).

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I will try this. I will make 1 point first.

 

The art of map design is to give illusion of realism and aesthetics while at same time actually making it balanced. This is the goal for a "realistic" map design. At first, 2nd, and 3rd glance it look nice and realistic and cool to look at and all that stuff, but underneath everything is balanced for the players. Does balance mean all starting point need to look exactly the same? No. But this is the trick that map designers strive to achieve. So, let us say 1 player get 10 berry bushes near village, but another player only get 5. This is bad without somthing else to balance it. But let's say we give the 1st player 10 berry bushes and the 2nd player 5 berry bushes and 5 sheeps. This is not 100% balanced, but is a lot closer.

[elexis]

Maybe you can just place some random forest near players that are far from the other forests? might be possible with that stayClasses and avoidClasses thing. Would that look realistic?

[FeXoR]

It appears that "Scottish" was a term introduced several hundret years ad so that's likely out of question.

Remaining naming options are IMO:

• Scandinavian
• Gaelic (Mostly used for culture/language though then as a region)
• Celtic (Though Celts where basically everywhere in Europe so not very distinctive)

I will go with Scandinavian untill further notice

[Tiber7]

8 minutes ago, FeXoR said:

It appears that "Scottish" was a term introduced several hundret years ad so that's likely out of question.

You can use Caledonian no?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 9/24/2016 at 6:58 AM, Tiber7 said:

You can use Caledonian no?

Caledonian Meadows is good. Alpine Meadows was good suggestion too.

[elexis]

It has become one of the best random map scripts of 0 A.D, yielding a unique map with every generation. Everyone give FeXoR a some applause Would be great to see some more maps using this mechanism.

[FeXoR]

Some screenshots of things to come:

WIP file (not ready to be played!): wild_lake.zip

Similarly planned:

Wild Mountain
Wild Continent
Wild Bay
Wild Canyon
Wild Coast

This will include many additions to the random biome system for random maps sooo, if you have any plans to extending it beyond random maps (which I endorse) speak up now ^^

If anyone happens to have a better name than "Wild" that would be very welcome.

Also some flavor text for each of the maps would be nice

[Loki1950]

How about crater lake and variants as it reminds of several lakes I have seen here on the Canadian shield.

Enjoy the Choice

[Lion.Kanzen]

Why not experiment including some Mercenary camps? They work as well in DE. Not as I requested in my design( need lot coding)  but is the foundation of the concept.

[FeXoR]

Reminder

Bugs in Caledonian Meadows:

1. Start locations are smoothed AFTER global terrain painting causing woods to grow into bases.
2. Start location resource distance to CC to large for Iberian walls.

[elexis]

On 30.4.2017 at 1:36 AM, Lion.Kanzen said:

Why not experiment including some Mercenary camps? They work as well in DE. Not as I requested in my design( need lot coding)  but is the foundation of the concept.

They should be garrisoned by gaia (either men for defense or only women/healers to manipulate the capture rate) then I suppose? Otherwise it might be easy to capture them in the first 5 minutes of gametime, giving a too strong advantage to the one player having it captured. People should have a minimum amount of army to get it and the enemy should have a chance to react, so that players actually might have to fight over it, which would make it quite interesting.

Don't know how much this has in common with the Delenda Est idea, but actually this sounds like a quite good idea to me and would thereby also make the map appear less void. An example of such garrisoning can be found in the Danubius trigger script.

The number of such camps should be considered wisely, we still want to give players a lot of room to expand or do things without being annoyed by gaia. So I guess the correct number would be 1 per medium/normal map, 0 below (potentially 2 above if you would want to go for that). And if you're already having a garrisoned camp, you could add a cmapfire, some benches and few lone slingers or something around it. X) Just an idea.

[Lion.Kanzen]

may be take like AoE 3 building something around to capture(new type of capture by building)(?)

[FeXoR]

Here's a playable version: wild_lake2017_5_1.zip

Things to be done:

1. Replace raider entities by biome
2. Don't place "spots" on cliffs
3. More variation for textures and decorative props in the plains
4. Some biomes have unfitting "dirt" textures (used around forests on hills)
5. Adjust center entities in grove spots (e.g. lumbermills?)
6. Think about other interesting spots (e.g. mercenary camps (thanks @Lion.Kanzen), markets, tent camps, etc.)

The mercenary camps would be so easy to add if "civilization" would not be a property of a player but the starting entities.
This causes so many troubles/restrictions IMO we should remove that.

I don't really want to add triggers. Interesting maps should be possible within the system IMO.

"Untamed" may be a better name instead of "wild". Also thanks for the "crater lake" suggestion, @Loki1950. Let's see how this map ends up

EDIT: Sadly the randombiome system in general seems half-baked ;/

[Lion.Kanzen]

Yes in my design are linked by the biome, example. Desert biome you can get Persian units style, Egyptian can be the other.

North Europe can be nice by Celtic and why not our first German mini faction ( before start with the rest of planned civs.)

Returning to the topic, why not more human evidence in the maps, houses, little details. Looks an inhabited place.

But yes mercenary camps needs more development in future.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

14 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

But yes mercenary camps needs more development in future.

 

15 hours ago, FeXoR said:

The mercenary camps would be so easy to add if "civilization" would not be a property of a player but the starting entities.
This causes so many troubles/restrictions IMO we should remove that.

Mercenary Camps work 100% effectively in DE. What's the issue you are having again? Do you mean in regards to multiple civs getting access to the same merc unit? Like, say, on an Egyptian-style map, every player, regardless of civ, can get an Egyptian mercenary from the camp? Yes, you are right, that is an issue i ran into when doing it in DE, so I abandoned biome-specific mercs for now until the issue you brought up is fixed. It's not as problem at all if the unit is a champion, but a builder unit runs until problems as you mention. As a workaround, biome-specific mercs can just not be builders. That could work until a proper fix is made.

Edited May 2, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

Need more dynamic, have a random mercenary roster of  unit in them.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Need more dynamic, have a random mercenary roster of  unit in them.

Maybe this needs a new topic.

[FeXoR]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Yes, that's what I meant.

IMO players should start with access to one civilization (starting entities) but (besides some style elements like GUI and music) can later get access to other civilizations (by capturing/converting). Then "mini-factions" and mercenary camps could be added to maps easily.

There are other ways though and I'll experiment what is possible with 0 A.D. as is (if everything fails to show that the civilization <-> player entanglement - and maybe some other aspects - limit the game to much).