My Terrain (Mine!)

[beetlenaut]

Looks great! If you are stuck on what to work on next, give some thought to a merfolk castle. Even at this late date, their only choice is to use a human one that decayed and sank into the water.

[doofus-01]

Those poor, aquatic people... If they were to have a castle of their own, would it be water terrain, like the water villages usually are, or would it be a regular castle type? Castles aren't usually overlays, but maybe they could be.

[DeCoolest_Cat]

Not sure if you are looking for an opinion that isn't beetlenaut's, but I think it should stay as water. It would be better to stay consistent with other water buildings.

[beetlenaut]

I agree that following the water villages is a good idea. I think water makes more sense from a standpoint of realism too: standing on top of an underwater building isn't going to do much to help you dodge. Also, if you want normal castle defense on your map, the sunken castle still exists.

[zookeeper]

While the race description says they can breathe both water and air, I've always assumed that merfolk can't live underwater indefinitely and have to surface at least from time to time, and that they prefer to live at or near the surface. Gameplay-wise they should be be accessible to land units and thus aliased to shallow water if not castle, but whether they should grant castle-level defense or simply alias their defense to shallow water as water villages do, I'm not sure. If they were visually somewhat reef/coral-like, then maybe they could take movement from shallow water and defense from reef,castle?

So, I'd expect their castles to rise to surface level and still have some towers sticking out, even if most of the internal space is underwater. The courtyard inside the walls could be pretty flat like with all other castles, submerged just enough to treat it as shallow water. Keeps could perhaps be a kind of an elevated pool? If you wanted to make it really fancy, some towers could double as fountains similar to the one at the top of that one animated water village. Whether the architecture should take more cues from the elvish castle or the existing water villages, I'm not sure.

P.S. I've been trying to get some other terrain stuff out of the way first, but I'll put the ruined sand castles in as soon as I can.

[Wussel]

Why not an underwater castle? It would obviously not a full replacement of the sunk castle. I would go for awesome graphics and let the rest be solved later.

Is the trollish castle allready mainline? What about an undead castle?

While the elvish castle is very classical, I find it kind of boring. Far to civilised and not woodish enough.
Let's suggest a fairy castle as addition which might be used by more remote elves, woses and such.

[doofus-01]

Why not an underwater castle?

There's probably some expectation that these things will transition with other castles and terrains, underwater castle would make that difficult. Otherwise, I guess you could have such a thing, as long as the graphics make its terrain type intuitive.

So, I'd expect their castles to rise to surface level and still have some towers sticking out, even if most of the internal space is underwater. The courtyard inside the walls could be pretty flat like with all other castles, submerged just enough to treat it as shallow water. Keeps could perhaps be a kind of an elevated pool? If you wanted to make it really fancy, some towers could double as fountains similar to the one at the top of that one animated water village. Whether the architecture should take more cues from the elvish castle or the existing water villages, I'm not sure.

Well, I went with giant Turritella shell-like things as towers, ropes as walls, and reef-like floors. All of which still need some revision, but this is the first draft for the castles (no keeps yet). The chasm and other-castle-type transitions need images too, I think, but I don't have them yet either. For the keeps, I plan to use branched coral walls and more interesting towers, but not elevate it - we'll see how it goes.

One thing that I wanted to ask about was the ripple rings in the existing sunken castles; they are a nice touch, but they seem to clash with the new water. The water-lilies also look a bit odd as they are now. Would it be worth making a calm-zone transition where the animated waves were masked away? I'm not currently sure how to do that, if it is possible... Or maybe just a fading solid blue transition over the waves would work.

If anyone wants to test things as they are up to this point, I've attached the PNGs in a compressed archive.

The WML I used (as add-on) was:

Code: Select all

# no keep images yet, just castle for now...

{NEW:WATER_342_180         Cmfy         water/water 17}

{OVERLAY_RANDOM_L        Cmfy                               -320          castle/merfolk/reef} 
{NEW:WALL             Cmfy                (!,C*,K*)                    castle/merfolk/castle}
{DISABLE_BASE_TRANSITIONS_F     Cmfy    non_submerged}
{TRANSITION_COMPLETE_LF    (Cmfy)       (!,Cmfy,W*,Ss)    0  non_fading  castle/merfolk/castle-to-ground}

###############################################################################
# These lines in core were changed, got tired of trying to override mainline, when this will (maybe) be mainline some day.

# this one does not really do the trick, dedicated images are needed
# {WALL_TRANSITION_LF   Qx*              (Cmfy,W*,S*)                             -90  ground  chasm/water}

# this one is important, gets rid of the brown aura 
# {NEW:BEACH                 !,Cmfy,Chw,Khw,Khs,W*,S*,Xv,Qx*,A*,_*        W*         flat/shore}

screenshot:

[Gyra_Solune]

Ooooh, I really like the idea of using huge seashells from some enormous mollusk as battlements, and things like the bones of whales, seemingly, for the walls. That's really really nice!

[zookeeper]

Well, I went with giant Turritella shell-like things as towers, ropes as walls, and reef-like floors. All of which still need some revision, but this is the first draft for the castles (no keeps yet). The chasm and other-castle-type transitions need images too, I think, but I don't have them yet either. For the keeps, I plan to use branched coral walls and more interesting towers, but not elevate it - we'll see how it goes.

One thing that I wanted to ask about was the ripple rings in the existing sunken castles; they are a nice touch, but they seem to clash with the new water. The water-lilies also look a bit odd as they are now. Would it be worth making a calm-zone transition where the animated waves were masked away? I'm not currently sure how to do that, if it is possible... Or maybe just a fading solid blue transition over the waves would work.

I just recently (after 1.13.14) made the sunken castles use the normal shallow water animations on them (combined with transparent cobbles), replacing the bright blue look. However, the ripples are still an issue, and basically they just need to be removed from the existing images. We could replace them with animated ripples, but that should be done as a separate animation placed by separate terrain rules. Lilies could conceivably also be animated (subtle up-down bobbing motion). It would be easy enough to make static fadein/out transitions, but I'm a bit sceptical of whether it'd look good.

Anyway, the general idea seems pretty sound. The rope netting doesn't strike me as very effective fortification, but it does look pretty fun, and wooden encampment walls aren't that much more impressive anyway. If I had to pick something that maybe requires the most extra attention, I'd suggest the towers, although I don't really have specific ideas.

The reef interior seems good, but maybe the stones could be somehow more systematically arranged? Or, perhaps, the rocks could just have passages between them, forming clear (and maybe deeper?) road-like waterways between adjacent castle hexes (see attachment). I'm not yet sure what the best way would be to implement that in a way that wouldn't require a different image for literally every possible combination, but something like that might work nicely to give it a good mix of organicness and architecture.

You're probably intending on doing this already, but just in case: tiles for land and water should be separate (because otherwise on land there will be a weird fadeout effect). In practise you can probably just apply the transparency effect to the in-water tiles but keep them otherwise identical.

P.S. Added the ruined sand castle improvements.

[doofus-01]

I got somewhere with the keeps. I tried to make it cluttered and somewhat organic like a reef, but also substantial and artificial. The blue window will probably be replaced, either with a yellow glow to make it match the villages or just a dark hole.

If I had to pick something that maybe requires the most extra attention, I'd suggest the towers, although I don't really have specific ideas.

If you mean the details, I'll work on that once the foundation is done, no worries. If you mean the general shape & design, that's different...

The reef interior seems good, but maybe the stones could be somehow more systematically arranged? Or, perhaps, the rocks could just have passages between them, forming clear (and maybe deeper?) road-like waterways between adjacent castle hexes (see attachment). I'm not yet sure what the best way would be to implement that in a way that wouldn't require a different image for literally every possible combination, but something like that might work nicely to give it a good mix of organicness and architecture.

I'll get rid of the big rocks, which should help, and add more broken shells. Regarding the passages, using something like the rails or bridges seems too much for now, but maybe someday later. Some rule that randomly draws a short passage, or some multi-hex image, when there are big clumps of castle is certainly within reach.

You're probably intending on doing this already, but just in case: tiles for land and water should be separate (because otherwise on land there will be a weird fadeout effect).

The fade-out is a mask, so removing it is no problem. It just makes life so much easier to keep the number of images small for now.

[zookeeper]

I feel dumb for completely missing this architectural suggestion before, but maybe better late than never... So, seeing how the merfolk aesthetic is pretty greco-roman, that could work well here, too. I'm thinking that maybe pillars/columns could work as towers, whether for the keep, castle, or both. Another possibility would be simple aqueduct-style stone archs (for the keep only, I suppose). Some of the same decorations could still be kept on top of the columns, as well as the nets, shells and corals between them.

I got somewhere with the keeps. I tried to make it cluttered and somewhat organic like a reef, but also substantial and artificial. The blue window will probably be replaced, either with a yellow glow to make it match the villages or just a dark hole.

I like the south side quite a bit, the stonework is good and the decoration neat, but the north side with the windows looks so different that it looks rather odd. It's probably partially because all the towers are parallel to the screen and thus all windows are pointing directly south, regardless of what the corner's angle is. If the towers are rectangular and all in the same orientation (as opposed to being rotated to match the angle of the corner), then I don't think there should be that kind of big visual difference between the in- and out-facing sides? A binary front-back thing like that seems to clash quite a bit with the way everything else gets to face 6 different directions.

If you mean the details, I'll work on that once the foundation is done, no worries. If you mean the general shape & design, that's different...

No, I think the design is okay, it's just that it's probably hardest to get the shading right. Currently they're rather soft and blurry, whereas it needs pretty sharp-edged and well-defined shading, which I presume is tricky to combine with the fact that the shape is still round. Or maybe it's not, I don't know.

I'll get rid of the big rocks, which should help, and add more broken shells. Regarding the passages, using something like the rails or bridges seems too much for now, but maybe someday later. Some rule that randomly draws a short passage, or some multi-hex image, when there are big clumps of castle is certainly within reach.

Yeah, that would be easily doable. If we do that, then it should just be as multi-hex variations of the base, that's the simplest way to do it.

Also, if you feel like you want to do something unusual, like special connecting tiles in new places or anything else that castles usually don't have, please do tell, as there's a good chance I can write the necessary WML for it. For example, I envisioned this kind of little archs as a possibility, and while I don't think the current wall macros would allow it, it shouldn't be too hard to implement:

[Aldarisvet]

Wow! Thats awesome.
I mean waterways castle. Arch castle for me is too complicated, so I like it less.

[beetlenaut]

Wow! Thats awesome.

Yeah, nice idea zookeeper.

[doofus-01]

Also, if you feel like you want to do something unusual, like special connecting tiles in new places or anything else that castles usually don't have, please do tell, as there's a good chance I can write the necessary WML for it. For example, I envisioned this kind of little archs as a possibility, and while I don't think the current wall macros would allow it, it shouldn't be too hard to implement:

If flags could be set when a particular castle wall image is placed, little arches could be cool. Though they would have to be low probability, or it could become too complicated, cluttered, obscuring etc. It can almost be done as is, but I'd need to make sure all towers could potentially have the arch on them:

1458702013.jpg (70.72 KiB) Viewed 2695 times

(I haven't had much time to work on this, won't until the weekend, but I'm getting rid of the blue parts.)

[beetlenaut]

Zookeeper was saying that the arches could be used only on interior walls, which is cool. That way they wouldn't need to have anything underneath or in the middle, which would reduce the clutter. They also wouldn't need to extend from towers, the sides of the arches could replace the towers reducing their height.