Terrain improvements alterable?

[ScottN]

I just got around to picking up CTP (so far, I would describe it as "having lots of potential"), and I'm wondering: Is there any way to edit terrain improvements (farm, mine, road, etc.)?

The specific reason I ask is that I'd like to do a fantasy scenario, including dwarves. Dwarves tend to live in mines up in the mountains. As it is, though, there doesn't appear to be any way for them to generate food from mountainous terrain (which makes building huge dwarven cities like Moria sort of difficult). Ideally, what I'd like is a race-specific unit (ie, requires "Dwarf" tech, give dwarf civs that tech at the start, and make it as untradeable & unstealable as possible) that could build something like farms in mountains (the fictional explanation would be that they're cultivating plants that undergo manasynthesis (magic-based) instead of photosynthesis). But taking a quick look through what seem to be the appropriate text files, it looks to me like the only thing you can change about terraforming is the graphic it uses.

So, experienced mod designers: Is there a way to do what I'm trying to do?

[Paul]

Yes, you can put farms on mountains. You have to edit terrain.txt. For each terrain type there are entries on what each PW item will do on that terrain. For example, this is the farm entry for plains:

ENV_IRR1 {

ENV_FOOD 5
ENV_MATERIALS 200
ENV_TIME 2
ENV_ADVANCE ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE
}

It tells CTP that this is the first farm type (use ENV_IRR2 and ENV_IRR3 for advanced and hydroponic farms) and that it will give 5 extra food (use ENV_GOLD and ENV_SHIELD for gold and shields). It costs 200 PW, takes 2 turns to build and requires agriculture. You can change ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE to ADVANCE_DWARF or whatever you call your dwarf tech.

It is important that for each terrain type roads come first, then farms and then mines. I once got them in the wrong order and it would not work. Hope this helps; if you need more info just ask.