Map Graphics

[Richard Bruns]

If the art is a problem, we could use satellite images. They would have everything we need, they would look okay, and I'm sure we can find some that are public domain.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well if i can get the right art programs i can work on that part so don't worry. Although my art style for any cutscrenes or similar stuff probably won't work for clash since i tend to draw anime style similar to Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z, Chrono Trigger).

[Richard Bruns]

Chrono Trigger had excellent map graphics. . .

[alms66]

I personally think the new graphics are much better!
I was going to suggest going for a more photo-realistic look, but it appears Magnus already has.


I hope you stick with us for a long time, Magnus; excellent work and Welcome!

[axi]

I prefer Magnus's graphics too. They're not so Irish -looking.

To do Paul Crocker justice though, he was aiming to improve his tileset.

[Richard Bruns]

The player needs to know the following information by looking at the map:

Geology
Vegetation

Geology has a big impact on movement and fortifications. Vegetation has a big impact on economic activities. So the player needs to be informed of both. But drawing all of the combinations seperately is impractical.

I have an idea for doing this quickly:

Draw the geology graphics in grayscale. This simulates borders and shading seen due to the geology. Then, draw textures for all of the vegetation. On the map, put the textures over the geology background. Now you have the vegetation texture with the shading to represent the landscape.

The seasons would simply be a different texture. These are optional, but I think that it would look silly if the land looked the same in winter and summer.

I've tested the concept and it works pretty well. Of course my drawings were horrible but the combination effect did work. An artist would be able to make it look really good and would only have to draw as much as a normal tile set.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Okay here's the landforms i've come up with, this is only the underlying landforms. Again, I think for this we need only 1 type for each section.
These definitions don't ness. reflect real-world meaning but are best for the game.

Base underlying landform:
Flat - Fairly even terrain, can be horizontal or sloping continuously. EX: Kansas plains
Hills - Uneven terrain with peaks and valleys, generally no rough terrain. EX: Think of any hill pretty much
Foothills - Between Hills and Mountains. EX: Appalation mountains.
Moutainous - Jagged terrain with sharp peaks that are quite high. EX: Himalayas
Plateaus - 2-layers of flat terrain seperated by a fairly sheer cliff. EX some areas of the continetal shelf

Anymore? Can't think of any....also volcanoes are listed under mountainous for the most part. I'll post the other layers later.

[Beör]

LGJ

Do you think it is necessary to differentiate hills and foothills? Will they have different effects on gameplay?

Same thing for plateaus: Aren't they just flat at a different altitude? I doubt that the transition from one level to the next will have any effect on gameplay, that couldn't be modelled by differences in altitude.

Of course artistically I agree that both would look cool. I just don't think they will have any great effect on gameplay.

I suggest that at least for demo5 purposes we limit ourselves to flat, hills, and mountains. It should be a breeze to extend this selection later.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Ok...letting u know i updated it about as much as possible right now so you can discuss it now.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Beor:
Aggh! Got to it before i could update! On well. As to foothills, yes there is a signifigant differnce IMO for gameplay, mainly in altitude and mineral content. Most foothills are old mountains (few exceptions like the ozark mountain range near me) and hiss are usually differnt nature. Foothills aren't mountains though because they are much smaller and more gentle, but still to large for hills. This would be reflected in altitude and thus ecology, mineral content, use for other purposes other than artistic.

As to plateus, yore right, except for the explicit example i made which does need to be modeled.

Some new things to add, mainly in referance to plate techtonis. Note that even though they may be underwater in our world and therefore mostly irrelavent, in other possible worlds this might not happen.
Base underlying landform:
Flat - Fairly even terrain, can be horizontal or sloping continuously. EX: Kansas plains
Hills - Uneven terrain with peaks and valleys, generally no rough terrain.
Foothills - Between Hills and Mountains. EX: Appalation mountains.
Moutainous - Jagged terrain with sharp peaks that are quite high. EX: Himalayas
Continental Shelf - Edge of the land part that is ontop of the plate in a geologically active world.
Valley - Opposite of hills, foothills, mountains. These are generally though not very sheer like mountains because of erosion and more along the line of the opposite of hills, though they can be on much larger extent. EX: Mediterainian (at one time this was also not underwater)
Trench - Formed along subduction zones these are extremely deep and sheer and long. Although physics on our world don't allow these to be above water as far as i know, it may differ for other worlds.
Ridge - Well not really a good term, but this is where there is a divergance in 2+ plates. Although generally below ground, they are found above ground (Africa). Ridges are lower than the rest of the and if it is on the landmass and higher if it is off the continetal shelf.
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First off i'll generally skip over tempature since it isn't directly seen on the tiles, but it does have impact based on latitude, altitude and landshapes. I think its ness. to model all 3 in the ecology model somehow.

Water info: Water for map graphics will come, in general, in 4 types: Glacial/tundra, rivers, ocean/seas lakes/oasis and swamps/bogs.

glacial/tundra - the tempature here is cold enough for permafrost to exist. Even if its only the surface, this is what the player should see (this is that map graphics after all) We might haveto deel with the receeding and expansion do to seasons, but IMO we need ocean ice modeled because of restictions in movement (that's why the panama Canal was built...too long to go around S. America, and too dangerous most times to go around the north because of ice). Glacial retreat on land might cause glacial valleys if we want. Dunno bout the number of tiles, but atleast 1 for glaciers and 1 for tundra for several landtypes (tundra being just the snow and ice).

oceans/seas - in general there should be 2 types, shallow and deep. Shallow is for those on the contiental shelf and deep for those off. This doesn't include costal and transition tile layers. There could be a thrird for deeper parts on continetal shelfs, that aren't deep enough to be a deep ocean floor. It would be nice if these could be animated somewhat. Also oceans aren't ness salty.

rivers - these should be represented by blue lines of whatever width seems appropriate and whatever direction seems apporpriate for that tile. We shouldn't make too many variations and there can be things like meanders inside the tiles. Also rivers can create canyons, although whether a canyon or waterfall is created could be difficult to decide. Deltas can extend land and should be allowed to add land to the end and extend that land over long periods of time. A good example is the Tigris/Euphrates(?) valley. During the Mesopatamian era the delta was so far back the 2 rivers weren't joined. Now it is and a lot more land besides that has been clearly added. When new land tiles should be changed to reflect this i dunno, but this is not for this model to decide.

lakes/oasis - these are bodies of water that are small. These are less than 1 tile each by far (therefore the Great Lakes wouldn't be covered here, but on oceans/seas for modeling and art purposes. Lakes/oasis can vary in shape, but i dunno if its too good idea to do more than 1 shape per land tile layer except for flat lands and then only 2 maybe. Lakes can also exist as the beginning/ending or within rivers.

swamps/bogs - this also ties into vegetation a lot, but before vegetation can happen in this type of setting, water needs to be there. This is a place where the water table is above the ground level in many places, but trees, etc can grow easily. Also there are still many places that are still above the water table level, but the ground is saturated to an extent that it is always moist and usually difficult to walk thru do to the fact you can sink into the land itself.

That should be all. underground water isn't needing to be modeled neither rain (cloud modeling would be nice, but i doubt it will happen. Maybe underground water could be used for underground tiles. Right now this is focusing on surface area only.

vegtation: this area has tons of possibilities, more than any other. A few types have somewhat been mentioned in the other models. Tundra and swamp/bogs. There's also forests, deserts, savanas/plains, grasslands, jungles/tropical rainforest, brushlands, salt oceans (such as in austrailia), etc. And these can vary do to the tempature. FE forests in colder weather are usually pine forest (up to some extend both latitude and altitude), decidus in warm temperate (mixed in center) and other more equatorital areas there's other vegitation. Also some types of these can only exist on some type of land layers and water layers. A savana/plains cannot be on a mountain. Also there could be differnt denesites.

For the most part, underwater vegitation need not be worried about except maybe for reefs and kelp. Other areas are too small in area or don't add anything except frustration when creating.

Human habitation goes above this in layering because human habitation comes after natural vegiatation. I'd like the general look to be small villages surrounded by the natural landscape so they look more apart of it perhaps to large city look with maybe no natural vegiatation. Again this doesn't include underground/water types either. I don'r right now want to list all types for the latter 2, but you are welcome to give ideas (and city types will vary on tech levl and a style chosen by the player at the beggining). One thing though, should the city tile change if it is conquered to match the new ruler or not? Is there a compromise and ifso how should it be implimented.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited October 04, 2000).]

[Beör]

LGJ

Foothills:
If the only thing that distinguish foothills from hills and mountains are their altitude they don't need to be modelled, since altitude will be tracked separately in the mapsquare object. But if - as you say - it is worth modelling a radically different ressource component (one that couldn't be handled by adding specials or making small adjustments to the base of either mountains or hills) then foothills need to be modelled. IOW if foothills will be modelled separately by the movement, combat or ecology model then they have to have a unique map-graphic. I don't recall if the ecology model says anything about foothills. Do you think foothills will have unique effects on movement and combat, or will they just be a variation on the hills theme caused by different ground cover?

Continental shelf/shallow sea/deep sea:
Is the continental shelf then just a separator between shallow sea and deep sea (like a cliff or something) rather than the continental shelf itself.
I wondered: Isn't the underwater terrain on the continental shelf/shallow sea just variations on the aboveground terrain features, but covered with water. Mostly flatlands, but also some hills drowned by the ocean. Even mountaineous terrain is drowned by the sea: FE Norwegian fjords. In that case the transition between shallow sea and deep sea (what you call the continental shelf) is really a dividing line between landlike terrain and the oceanic floor. This would give the opportunity to model alterations in sea levels very easily. If we wanted it to be really beautyfull we could define graphics for partially ocean-covered hills, foothills or mountaiins. This would require that we define an average height of each terrain, and have a variable controlling sea level.
In that case I think the inclusion of underwater ridges and trenches will work fine for being the base terrains of the oceanic floor.
So what I am saying is that I think there are two different base terrains, with a number of different variations:
Landlike: Flat, hills, foothills, mountains
Oceanic floor: Flat, ridge, trench
The transition zone betwen the two is shown by a cliff
In theory all can be either above ocean level, partially above ocean level, or below sea level (each one requiring it's own graphic - the last one being the easiest ), although for earthlike scenarios the oceanic floor would be permanently submerged with the possible exceptions of volcanic activity in the middle of techtonic plates (hotspots like Hawaii). This could be modelled by a onesquare ridge (I know it's not accurate, but it is simpler and I think it will work). Another possibility would be to include another variation of oceanic terrain: Mountains.
Each sqaure should then have a base altitude, sqAlt, above some arbitrary zero level. Each terrain (flat hills etc) should have a base average height, teHeight, above the sqAlt:
If oceanic level < sqAlt then the square is above water level
If sqAlt < oceanic level< sqAlt + teHeight then the square is partially covered with water
If sqAlt + teHeight < oceanic level then the square is below sea level
In general I think the oceanic floor terrain types should not be allowed to have any vegetation, while submerged landlike squares could have kelp. I would disregard reefs for the moment.

Valleys:
I kind of figure valleys to be an integral part of the mountain/foothills terrain. If we want valleys approaching 100 km in width, isn't this just flatland (and likely a river) between two rows of mountains/foothills. I guess the Mediteranean and the Baltic could be seen as underwater valleys, but how do they differ from shallow sea/submerged land.

Water
Glacial/tundra: We have to model large bodies of ice off course. However, I'm not sure that tundra is a water type, rather a vegetation/groundcover type. For the moment I would forget about modelling the retreat or growth of ice sheats on land. At sea, however, changing sizes of the ice cap with the season would be nice, and easily modelled. I don't think that the distinction between salt amd freshwater oceans needs to be covered graphically. It might however be necessary to model it in the ecology model.

Sea/Ocean: If done as above the distinction would no longer be between shallow sea and deep sea, but between ocean above ocean floor, and ocean above submerged lanlike terrain. Basically they could be shown as two different hues of blue.

Rivers: IMO opinion forget about canyons and waterfalls, concentrate on deltas, which have had large influence on civ in some places (notably Egypt, Mesopotamia).
BTW I know it will not look pretty on a square-based map, but have you ever discussed having rivers and such along the square-edges, instead of in the square. This is rather attractive on hexbased maps, and might give some additional opportunities regarding bridges, rivercrossings etc. I will make an inquiry in the Mapsquare OO thread re hexmaps.

Lakes/Oasis: I agree with lakes, but again i think oasis is more like a vegetation type, only existing in desert areas where there is a local access to surface water or relatively easy access to underground water sources.

Swamp/bogs: Again more like groundcover

Come to think of it these water-objects (including ocean) should be handled just like other groundcover/vegetation objects, with the possible exception of rivers, since they have connections to neighbouring squares and are more akin to infrastructure. There are some important OOA implications of this, so if this is the way to do it we would have to integrate it into the Mapsquare OOD, which should be very easy.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Thanks for your critiscm. It does help alot.

quote: Foothills: If the only thing that distinguish foothills from hills and mountains are their altitude they don't need to be modelled, since altitude will be tracked separately in the mapsquare object. But if - as you say - it is worth modelling a radically different ressource component (one that couldn't be handled by adding specials or making small adjustments to the base of either mountains or hills) then foothills need to be modelled. IOW if foothills will be modelled separately by the movement, combat or ecology model then they have to have a unique map-graphic. I don't recall if the ecology model says anything about foothills. Do you think foothills will have unique effects on movement and combat, or will they just be a variation on the hills theme caused by different ground cover?

Herein lies the problem with modeling them as one or the other. Resource wise, they'll be like mountains, save easier access to most resources. Movement, more like large hills with vegitation in most cases similar to hills.

quote: Continental shelf/shallow sea/deep sea: Is the continental shelf then just a separator between shallow sea and deep sea (like a cliff or something) rather than the continental shelf itself. I wondered: Isn't the underwater terrain on the continental shelf/shallow sea just variations on the aboveground terrain features, but covered with water. Mostly flatlands, but also some hills drowned by the ocean. Even mountaineous terrain is drowned by the sea: FE Norwegian fjords. In that case the transition between shallow sea and deep sea (what you call the continental shelf) is really a dividing line between landlike terrain and the oceanic floor. This would give the opportunity to model alterations in sea levels very easily. If we wanted it to be really beautyfull we could define graphics for partially ocean-covered hills, foothills or mountaiins. This would require that we define an average height of each terrain, and have a variable controlling sea level. In that case I think the inclusion of underwater ridges and trenches will work fine for being the base terrains of the oceanic floor. So what I am saying is that I think there are two different base terrains, with a number of different variations: Landlike: Flat, hills, foothills, mountains Oceanic floor: Flat, ridge, trench The transition zone betwen the two is shown by a cliff In theory all can be either above ocean level, partially above ocean level, or below sea level (each one requiring it's own graphic - the last one being the easiest ), although for earthlike scenarios the oceanic floor would be permanently submerged with the possible exceptions of volcanic activity in the middle of techtonic plates (hotspots like Hawaii). This could be modelled by a onesquare ridge (I know it's not accurate, but it is simpler and I think it will work). Another possibility would be to include another variation of oceanic terrain: Mountains. Each sqaure should then have a base altitude, sqAlt, above some arbitrary zero level. Each terrain (flat hills etc) should have a base average height, teHeight, above the sqAlt: If oceanic level < sqAlt then the square is above water level If sqAlt < oceanic level< sqAlt + teHeight then the square is partially covered with water If sqAlt + teHeight < oceanic level then the square is below sea level In general I think the oceanic floor terrain types should not be allowed to have any vegetation, while submerged landlike squares could have kelp. I would disregard reefs for the moment.

In general i agree with everything. I make an exception to your last paragraph in the fact that I think ocean floors should have some form of plant life,though probably less so. I mean we find tons of life down there and they need something to survive on. Hell, we find life in the bottom of trenches.

quote: Valleys: I kind of figure valleys to be an integral part of the mountain/foothills terrain. If we want valleys approaching 100 km in width, isn't this just flatland (and likely a river) between two rows of mountains/foothills. I guess the Mediteranean and the Baltic could be seen as underwater valleys, but how do they differ from shallow sea/submerged land.

In general flat land could be okay, but there are in some places where the terrain slopes at such angles you can't really call it flat, but we can see.

quote: Water Glacial/tundra: We have to model large bodies of ice off course. However, I'm not sure that tundra is a water type, rather a vegetation/groundcover type. For the moment I would forget about modelling the retreat or growth of ice sheats on land. At sea, however, changing sizes of the ice cap with the season would be nice, and easily modelled. I don't think that the distinction between salt amd freshwater oceans needs to be covered graphically. It might however be necessary to model it in the ecology model.

I agree with you. I even mentioned later that tundra also is kinda a vegitation type. We could just have it to where its just permafrost on land for this section and the vegitation layer where it goes. But I do feel we need to seperate the 2 because of the layering effect since not all ice-covered land need support life.

quote: Sea/Ocean: If done as above the distinction would no longer be between shallow sea and deep sea, but between ocean above ocean floor, and ocean above submerged lanlike terrain. Basically they could be shown as two different hues of blue.

My idea exactly. Although very deep blue for ocean floor and maybe slightly darkening hues for the underwater land as it gets deeper to make it easier for the player to tell the depth.

quote: Rivers: IMO opinion forget about canyons and waterfalls, concentrate on deltas, which have had large influence on civ in some places (notably Egypt, Mesopotamia). BTW I know it will not look pretty on a square-based map, but have you ever discussed having rivers and such along the square-edges, instead of in the square. This is rather attractive on hexbased maps, and might give some additional opportunities regarding bridges, rivercrossings etc. I will make an inquiry in the Mapsquare OO thread re hexmaps.

Well deltas are important. However, they are just one part. Yea i know how they work and we could have a spreading out fan-like of the rivers on the delta. Still can you give an idea how to work with the mesopatamian example i gave?
But canyones/waterfalls are important. Maybe not as much so, but an army in acient times would have much more trouble crossing a canyon then they would a flat surface where a waterfall eneded downstream.

quote: Lakes/Oasis: I agree with lakes, but again i think oasis is more like a vegetation type, only existing in desert areas where there is a local access to surface water or relatively easy access to underground water sources.

Your missing the point. An oasis fits the definititon similar to a lake. The vegitation around it is a result of the water. An oasis that initally forms say after an earthquake allowing water above the surface wounld't instantly have vegitation. That's why it should be seperated, vegitatation is plant life only.

quote: Swamp/bogs: Again more like groundcover

I agree that it is very much linked with vegitation, but the way this should be done is similar to the oasis. Just because you have the water, doesn't mean you have the vegitation.

quote: Come to think of it these water-objects (including ocean) should be handled just like other groundcover/vegetation objects, with the possible exception of rivers, since they have connections to neighbouring squares and are more akin to infrastructure. There are some important OOA implications of this, so if this is the way to do it we would have to integrate it into the Mapsquare OOD, which should be very easy.

No they shouldn't. The only one you'd have any signifigant case on would be swamp/bogs, but as i explained, its possible to have water level with no vegitation or the wrong type also. Oceans are definatly not like this either and i can't see how you could claim this.
As to rivers, i dunno. There's nothing wrong with your statement, but down in flatlands, there could be problems with meanders since i'd like each square to all the river on it till it goes upstream/downsteam, not side to side and then you'd have 2 squares with river going back and forth between them. Also might have trouble with starting points, if you want it to be from snow runoff on a mountain and the mouth as far as deltas go. I really don't like the idea of haveing both possibilities also. That adds tons of work for the artist.

Anyway can u give some suggestions on the other 2.

[Lord God Jinnai]

F_Smith:

Can you explain grades better. Also i don't think there should be too much emphasis here because already with what i have proposed there will be tons of tiles or tile layers maybe better sounding?

As to water, how would you then model dry areas below see level?

[F_Smith]

Just a note:

The code right now has 'terrain' as just the representation of how 'broken' the ground is. So there's going to have to be 'grades', like in SMAC -- which has 'flat', 'rolling' and 'rocky'. The square will have 'elevation' values.

'Water' will be a 'resource' on the terrain.

So a 'valley' within one square will be easily done by something like 'terrain = hills'. A multi-square 'valley' like the Mediteranean would be done via 'elevation' values in mapsquares.

Then a valley could have 'water' objects in the squares. The 'water' objects would have depth, width/% of square covered, that kind of info.

This also means that an 'ocean' square is easily modelled. Just define the world's terrain first, then set a 'sea level'. Then fill in 'water' objects on all mapsquares that are both lower than sea level and connected to other filled squares.

That's why this object model has been chosen -- it easily allows all those combinations without the hassles.

[F_Smith]

Lordy:

'Grades' is just a name I came up with. The terrain object describes the different types of 'Earth's Crust' that might be in each mapsquare.

I think ya'll game designers should define them. I'm just telling you we'll need them.

I would think it could be any number of different things, tho -- volcanic, flat, fault, rolling, rocky/mountainous, etc. Maybe none of those. It could be expanded to include 'lake bed', 'river valley', 'mountain pass', 'plateau', or anything, later. Ya'll decide.

The idea is that a mapsquare will be a combination of 'crust' (the terrain object) and water, if present.

So a mapsquare below sea level that was not flooded would just have a crust with no 'water' resource present.
[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited October 06, 2000).]