I need some help

[teturkhan]

Hey guys, I would post this in creation etc but general forum usually is busier…

Making this mod, and I have some questions… anyone that can shed light on some of this – hey I would greatly appreciate it.

• Disappearance probability of a resource. Does the disappearance only happen when you use it? Mine it etc? Or does it just vanish on its own? How about lets say Ivory, the game puts the disappearance probability at 0, I shot this way up… so then… would ivory disappear over the years?
• Changing the tech rate… lets say you already have a map, if you go into that map and change the tech rate on a huge world, does that alter the mod right away? How does the editor know your map is huge?
• Changing terrain attributes, what negative effects can this have? Like lets say I change forest to enable it to have coal placed on it… otherwise I got to stick a hill in there… what should I watch out for if I edit this?
• Offshore Oil, can this resource be used if I place it at sea but still within reach of a city?
• Is it not better to have limited resources in a game? The less the more competition etc right?
• Finally, people say world maps are boring cause the resources are all in predictable places… so what if you hiked the disappearance and appearance rates of the resource? Wouldn’t this work to create more random placement during the game?


That’s it… any modders I would be so thankful if you could help me out with some of this stuff…

[Willem]

Re: I need some help

Originally posted by teturkhan

• Disappearance probability of a resource. Does the disappearance only happen when you use it? Mine it etc? Or does it just vanish on its own? How about lets say Ivory, the game puts the disappearance probability at 0, I shot this way up… so then… would ivory disappear over the years?

The disappearance rate works as a probability fraction. Which means that if you have 240 entered, there's a 1/240 chance every turn that the resource will disappear. There's seems to be a bottom limit though, since I've read of people setting it at 1, and not having the resource disappear every turn. Which it should do with a 1/1 ratio. And the resource doesn't start to disappear until it is connected by a road.

• Changing the tech rate… lets say you already have a map, if you go into that map and change the tech rate on a huge world, does that alter the mod right away? How does the editor know your map is huge?

Any changes you make to a mod won't take effect until you start a brand new game.

• Changing terrain attributes, what negative effects can this have? Like lets say I change forest to enable it to have coal placed on it… otherwise I got to stick a hill in there… what should I watch out for if I edit this?

There's shouldn't be any problems with changing this. In fact I've done it myself with no problems at all. Once though I seemed to encounter a conflict. I'm guessing the game tried to put two resources on the same square, causing it to crash while it was creating the map. After I changed the terrain options of one of the resources the problem cleared up, and I haven't had any trouble since.

• Offshore Oil, can this resource be used if I place it at sea but still within reach of a city?

You need to have the resource connected by a road in order to use it. And since you can't build roads on water squares...

You could possibly create a ship to build roads, however that would give the human a huge advantage, since the AI probably wouldn't know how to use it. And it would look a bit strange having roads in the sea IMO.

• Is it not better to have limited resources in a game? The less the more competition etc right?

That's a matter of preference.

• Finally, people say world maps are boring cause the resources are all in predictable places… so what if you hiked the disappearance and appearance rates of the resource? Wouldn’t this work to create more random placement during the game?

The appearance ratio only affects how many resources are placed on the map when it is first created. Once the game has begun, that number no longer serves any purpose. Only the disappearance rate has any real effect after that.

[teturkhan]

just a few more questions

first your idea about ships making roads is awesome.. of course it couldn't be roads but what if it were light colored blue lines that somewhat blend with the water?

I know it needs more thought, but man that is one great idea IMO.

Disappearance probability, so when the resource disappears does it pop up somewhere else? how does this work... I was hoping to create something where the map starts with 16 ivory, but as time (hunting etc) goes on the numbers dwindle... I think its a neat concept if I can do it..

[Willem]

Unfortunately, you won't have control over the colour of the water "routes", the game will only use the normal road graphics. And like I mentioned, you'd probably be giving yourself a huge advantage over the AI by doing that.

The only thing I can think of is to make a ship that has all the Worker flags enabled, otherwise it won't even be able to use it. It's an all or nothing thing with that particular kind of unit. But that would mean it could build colonies in the water as well. And you'd no doubt have the AI building roads/railroads all over the sea, which would look really strange.

Sorry, but once the resource is setup, the total number remains fixed. If it disappears in one area, it will pop up somewhere else on the map. There's always the same number of them throughout the game. As for having 16 of them, you'd want to have an appearance ratio of 160, if I'm understanding the help file correctly

[teturkhan]

how do you know so much?

you seem to have quite a bit of knowledge about such things.

Too bad there are too many complications with regard to the ship/worker idea... oh well...

So I can never make a certain resource lessen in numbers as the game goes on... shoot that would of been great for wildlife ones like Ivory, Furs, even some luxuries like Gems etc...

anyhow... thanks for your help... was up better part of this evening trying to figure this out... come to think of it.. is there a place a thread that give indepth detailed explanations on all of this?

[Willem]

There's been a few here and there, but nothing I can really point you to. And they tend to get buried rather quickly. Most of what I know comes from trial and error in my own mod.

I agree with you about the complications. I would really like to see something like they had in SMAC, with the supply crawlers. The whole colony idea is good in principle, if they could just extend it a bit more.