Naming Map Regions

[Boco]

Otherwise titled as "Hey Henrik" (I didn't want to hijack Koby's thread).

How about placing unitless barbarian cities producing capitalization at certain odd-even coordinates?

What's the easiest way to create (move) these cities? It's been described before, but I'm usually inept at searching forums.

[klesh]

And what happens when someone walks into these cities? And why have you never told me about this before Henrik?

-FMK.

[St Leo]

1. Build a city.
2. Change its ownership via CivCity.

[Boco]

Is there a version of CivCity that allows a switch from even-even or odd-odd to odd-even coordinates?

[Boco]

Okay, I had some luck searching CivFan: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...threadid=1526&. So, Nemo discovered that odd-even (twilight zone) coordinates could serve as destinations for MoveUnit commands. Someone (Marko?) noted that if you placed a settler there, he could build a city.

I'll admit this one seems tricky to me. So let me know if I've got this straight.

1) Move a human-controlled(?) settler via an event to the desired odd-even coordinate.

2) Build a city.

3) Use CivCity to change its build to capitalization and its nationality to barb.

4) Run DelEvents on the save file?

Henrik, you posted something cryptic about an easier way:

Oh and I've got better ways of placing units in those zones, but I think its a bug in the mac version of civ (but after being placed they work fine for the PC as well as the mac).

Please say that it isn't a mac-specific feature! (Some programmer defined bug as an undocumented feature.)

[Henrik]

I suppose one can use hex editing to place the units/cities, but I usually do it (in the instances where I have done it, which is basicly just a few un-released mini-projects of mine) by placing a few units with the events.txt on the first turn, then build the cities (either playing as barbarian via the "no human player" skip or placing the cities for a player and change ownership later).
I find that if you just place one unit in an odd-even coordinate, activate it and press view pieces, you will be able to place these units at will (as long as you navigate with the numeric pad, if you click you will be back to the normal coordinates).

As for terrain improvements, I find that they will already be present in odd-even tiles, roughly mirroring the ones placed on the normal coordinates, I don't do anything with these though, I just place cities to name places (see the screenshot bellow of a wheel of time scenario I was working on a while ago for another example).

[Henrik]

Seems you posted while I was typing ;o
You got it right above pretty much.
That "better" way is to simple click around a while, eventually you will "hit" an odd-even coordinate and once the marker is there all you have to do is move it around with the numeric pad as described above.
That's the thing I suspect of being a bug

[Boco]

Thanks!

Have you ever seen the AI move units toward these 'regions' to attack barb cities in the twilight zone?

[Henrik]

No I haven't, that doesn't mean it won't though...
I suppose it'd have to be tested more thuroughly.

[kobayashi]

Any trouble with the invisible cities imposing ZOC?

[Henrik]

Nope, cities haven't got ZoC
And as long as you make sure those cities produce capitalism they wont get any units.

[:) Smiley]

What else can these twilight zone cities be used for besides map labeling?

[Alinestra Covelia]

If you set the production to, say, fanatics, then could you have a fundamentalist stronghold of fanatics that cannot be captured?

[Boco]

I don't know whether the AI will move units from 'illegal' coordinates to 'legal' (and visible) ones.

Here's an old idea from Kobayashi for invincible cities in oceans.

The Invinciple Pirate Port Idea
Its basically a variation of the sleeping beauty city (for those of you unfamiliar with my scenario building tip, its a city built in the ocean where all units fall asleep as soon as they are built). Just had this fantastic idea to combine it with barbarian ownership (I have already tried it out and it works)
1. Create a settler for race A and then use it to build a port city on a grassland tile. (not the event create unit, use the cheat menu)
2. Edit the city to change its size to say 5
3. Set reveal map to barbarian.
4. Create a few barbarian warriors next to the city
5. Set player to none and hit return.
6. The barbarians will takeover the city and start producing warriors.
7. Use the terrain editor to make grassland change to ocean when you irrigate.
8. create a race A setler inside the barbarian city.
9. Activate the settler and close the city screen.
10. Order it to irrigate.
11. Disband the settler.
12. Reverse the terrain change so irrigation becomes normal again.
13. Use the unit editor to change warrior to some kind of ship
(The concept should be novel because not many people would know all the bizzare techniques I've listed let alone combine them in this sequence. However, if someone else has thought of this before, do let me know.)
a. Ships won't fall asleep so they can go hunting as soon as they are built. The city will keep churning out pirate ships.
b. Enemy ships and planes can attack but can't occupy the city.
c. Enemy land units can't attack as the city is on an ocean tile.
d. Probably the only way to takeover the city is to use helicopters. (not tested0
variations:
If you change the city style of race A to invisible, make sure no other race has the same city style and then kill off race A, you can have pirate ships appearing out of nowhere.
If you change the terrain of the surrounding land to ocean, you will have an invisible invincible pirate port which is almost impossible to find. This could also be a rift to another dimension which lets invaders in.
You can create a special way of ending the pirate threat - a quest which will result in a change in the terrain of the pirate city tile which will then erase the city.
You could also use the same concept on land if you changed the warrior unit to a plane with say 50 turns in the air.
[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited August 06, 2001).]

[Harry Tuttle]

Interesting. I'll have to test it. Problem is that the unit creation could be reproduced with a random or turn based event (multiple pop points if prime pop point is occupied). This technique could be useful for limited event space, but not for a large map with the 255 city limit. Also you'd have to use up multiple city tiles, or at least one for a very large city if you'd want it to be invisible.

Hmmm, the ocean city idea does have a definite use though, like in SMAC.