Oceans Eleven?

[techumseh]

Or maybe just Oceans Three. An interesting aspect of the Test of Time Scifi game is that map 3, the gas giant (Nona), has three terrains which are ocean: Methane (ocean), Hydrogen (glacier) and Ammonia (tundra). All have the characteristics of ocean, but look different and are named differently.

I've always wanted more than one type of ocean terrain for Civ2, even if it's just in appearance. It would be nice to have shallow and deep water. Perhaps there's some way the gas giant effect can be exploited in a regular scenario. Any ideas?

[barocca]

hmm - i no longer have a copy of test of time - it went walkies,
what is the gas giant effect?

can we make two terrains "ocean" (in civ2)
if so can the different type ocean squares be given different movement rates?

assuming no to one/both

what about using a different terrain for shallow water,

OR swapping roles/units?

if you were to want an entire "ocean" scenario where everything happens at sea could you not use "land" as ocean types, and land units AS ships?

after all if i declare a ship as a land unit i can cruise the countryside in it - fishing is a bit sparse though...(can catch the occaisional mutant 4 legged "catfish" if i trawl around with sardine's though...)

B.

[barocca]

Originally posted by barocca
swapping roles/units?

if you were to want an entire "ocean" scenario where everything happens at sea could you not use "land" as ocean types, and land units AS ships?[/i]

B.

all jokes about "catfish" (and especially trying to "de-scale" same) aside

by swapping domains,

you could make no actual sea domain units, original ocean squares would be impassable, paint them as beaches or whatever, use the caostal squares to "depict" land and as long as you surround them with beaches nothing can get "in"

aircraft carriers as such would be impossible though - no land unit can transport anything,
but you could use domain 3 as "refuellers" for aircraft,

make the deep ocean squares themselves have NO resources(stop the ai building useles cities), you could make reefs that are hard to move through, (high movement cost)
and so on.

you could set up a scenario with NO settlers, just prebuilt cities

B.

[techumseh]

I've done a little more research on this. The Gas Giant Effect (GGE) occurs only the following are the case:

1) You start a Scifi game.

2) The @SECONDARY_MAPS line for map3 is set to 5 for map type. (check out the Rules Txt. for the Scifi game)

If so, then Tundra and Glacier have the same characteristics as Ocean. Swamp becomes unavailable.

I tried using the Cheat Menu to change other terrain to Tundra and Glacier, but they become land terrain. The map then contains Tundra ocean and Tundra land. They look the same, are labled the same, but they're not the same.

more..........

[techumseh]

Hypothesis: When launching the Scifi game, map 3 contains ocean terrain, some of which the game disguises as Tundra and Glacier. It changes only some of the bits for ocean terrain, so they have the name and appearance of Tundra and Glacier only. But the other bits aren't changed. In every other respect, it is still ocean terrain.

Comments?

[techumseh]

I've done a bit more research. I tried launching a Scifi game using premade maps. Map 3 contained both tundra and glacier. When I revealed the map I found the tundra and glacier terrain that had been on the original map was still there, in land form. ToT did not convert them to ocean based terrain.

Ocean terrain that had been in the original map was converted partly to tundra and glacier in it's ocean based form. This means you can't really change the ocean based terrains using pre-made maps or by using the 'change terrain' cheat. It seems the only way they are generated is via launching the ToT Scifi game.

[Boco]

Do you see the same pattern each time, or is the 'visual only' map randomized changed by using a new map file?

[techumseh]

The program creates a banded pattern, similar to how deserts are generated in the original game. It can be broadly controlled using the @SECONDARY_MAPS section. Here's the relevent section from the Scifi Rules:

; Secondary Map Characteristics
; (modify at your own risk)
;
; 0, 1,2, 3,4, 5,6,7,8, D1,M1,F1, D2,M2,F2, D3,M3,F3
;
; 0=map type: 1-subsea, 2-subdirt, 3-floating, 4-land dominant, 5-gas giant, 6-std
; 1=avg blob size (types 3 and 5 only)
; 2=avg # of blobs (types 3 and 5 only)
; 3=avg bridge length: 0-no bridges (types 3 and 5 only)
; 4=avg bridges per blob: 1-4 chance, 0-none (types 3 and 5 only)
; 5=# blue rooms
; 6=# ice rooms
; 7=# fire chambers
; 8=# storms
; DMF=desired length, minimum length, frequency
; specific effects depend on map type
; for SF game:
; DMF1=Mts, Hil, No
; DMF2=For, Mts, Hil
; DMF3=Hil, No, No

@SECONDARY_MAPS
3, 15,22, 18,2, 0,0,0,0, 3,1,50, 6,1,50, 0,0,0,
4, 25,30, 0,0, 0,0,0,0, 12,1,50, 8,1,50, 3,1,50,
5, 15,17, 25,3, 0,0,0,17, 8,3,50, 0,0,0, 0,0,0,

[techumseh]

barocca, it looks like these other types of ocean terrain are really the same as ocean, just disguised as another terrain. Still, if it could be done manually somehow, it would be a very useful graphic enhancement to scenarios.

[Mercator]

I found this out myself quite a while ago. I think I posted about it somewhere before, but I can't remember where... Oh wait, it must've been in the El Aurens thread, when Boco got some weird Ocean effects because of this.

But yes, it's a fixed pattern, and only a graphical effect, as you say.

I think changing it to suit your own needs would be on par with customizing hut or resource locations.

So unless someone can actually use the effect using the existing fixed pattern, I don't think it's very useful.

Oh, but you said it needs to be a Sci-fi game and a gas giant map type. Does that mean you don't get the effect in gas giants in non-sci-fi games?

[Boco]

Originally posted by techumseh
Still, if it could be done manually somehow, it would be a very useful graphic enhancement to scenarios.

Merc are you saying that a seed is read from the SAV file, and the engine creates a reproducible pattern from Rules.txt?

I never went very far in looking at this in EAv2. Once you guys suggested the solution, I dropped it. IIRC (and that's always iffy) it was not stored in Map data block 2.

[techumseh]

@Merc:

It only occurs if all of these conditions are met:

1. you launch a new Scifi game,

2. it's map 3, and,

3. the map type is 5 in @SECONDARY_MAPS

I assume that when these conditions are met, the ToT exe. simply changes the bits which control the name and graphic of some of the ocean tiles, in a pre-set, banded pattern.

If that's true, then a similar effect could be achieved by hex editing, yes? Are these bits mapped?

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by techumseh
If that's true, then a similar effect could be achieved by hex editing, yes? Are these bits mapped?

Perhaps the same effect can be reproduced on non-sci-fi maps by hex editing.. that would be a really nice addition to scenario designers...

[techumseh]

Say N35t0r, what's happening over on the Spanish forum? Do they still do Civ2 scenarios, or is it all Civ3&4? Is Jesus Balsinde still active?

[Boco]

Found the CivFan thread on this topic (ToT Map3 Bug).

With my limited (especially at this hour) understanding, I see a few alternatives:

• The gfx banding is calculated each loading from a 'seed number' (stored somewhere in a SAV file) according to the data in @SECONDARY_MAPS. This seed could be a constant or randomly generated when the SciFi game is created. I hope this is not correct, because it limits how much we can edit the appearance.

• Each square of the gfx bands is stored in Map Block 3 or some unknown location in SAV file. This would allow some tinkering.

A few questions:

1) If you use the same map and same @SECONDARY_MAPS, do the bands appear exactly the same each time you create a new SciFi game? I'm trying to see how random the banding creation is.

2) If you change the settings in @SECONDARY_MAPS, does the banding change the next time you reload the SAV file? Here I'm trying to see where the banding information is 'stored'. Hopefully the banding will stay constant. That's necessary (but not sufficient) for the hypothesis that data are stored in a block in the SAV file.

Btw, all this is assuming the engine doesn't 'move the clouds' during the game.

I really shouldn't post on this with a foggy brain, but maybe it'll stimulate a hex whiz to correct me.