City terrain

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bigkahuna
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by bigkahuna »

timberwolf16739 wrote:since I have a major faction of rogues, some of whom I'd like to have the ability to hide in villages -- which is completely useless without a terrain like this.
{ABILITY_CONCEALMENT} lets units hide unseen in villages. And thanks, Lurker!
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lurker
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by lurker »

Skizzaltix wrote:My one comment is that the colors seem kind of………too saturated, maybe? It looks kinda like some of them are lit by the warm glow of sunset, or something. I know they're meant to be painted (or red brick), but maybe just tone that down a little bit? I feel like they kinda jar with the rest of the terrain.
Hm, not sure. The dull colors started to bore me and this way I hoped to get nearer to the effect I wanted: A crowded, lively, somewhat confusing city. Which house(s) would you specifically want to be changed? Btw: I welcome feedback on individual houses too, if anything seems odd.
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lurker
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by lurker »

timberwolf16739 wrote:Honestly, the effect of giving better defense can be done in the movetype definition (or the unit file, if you're so inclined) anyway.
This sounds interesting. In forests mounted units are slower than on plains. I planned right from the start to have them at least as slow in the city (mounted units cannot go across houses and must seek a way around them which is bound to slow them down on average). How is that done?

Thanks

Lurker
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Alarantalara
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by Alarantalara »

lurker wrote:
timberwolf16739 wrote:Honestly, the effect of giving better defense can be done in the movetype definition (or the unit file, if you're so inclined) anyway.
This sounds interesting. In forests mounted units are slower than on plains. I planned right from the start to have them at least as slow in the city (mounted units cannot go across houses and must seek a way around them which is bound to slow them down on average). How is that done?

Thanks

Lurker
This is probably approaching the point where it is better posted in the WML workshop, but...

(This part just elaborates on timberwolf16739's decsription)
There is a movetype tag which allows you to set movement costs and defense values based on the terrain id (e.g. residential for your new terrain) as well as resistances to attack types
You then assign that movetype to the unit type.
There are ~30 movetypes currently defined.

I can think of several methods to add new movement rules to units, but none of them work as a drop in solution. They require the addon use custom units, add extra events to scenarios, call custom Lua code at scenario start, or other such things.
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zookeeper
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by zookeeper »

Alarantalara wrote:
lurker wrote:This sounds interesting. In forests mounted units are slower than on plains. I planned right from the start to have them at least as slow in the city (mounted units cannot go across houses and must seek a way around them which is bound to slow them down on average). How is that done?

Thanks

Lurker
This is probably approaching the point where it is better posted in the WML workshop, but...

(This part just elaborates on timberwolf16739's decsription)
There is a movetype tag which allows you to set movement costs and defense values based on the terrain id (e.g. residential for your new terrain) as well as resistances to attack types
You then assign that movetype to the unit type.
There are ~30 movetypes currently defined.

I can think of several methods to add new movement rules to units, but none of them work as a drop in solution. They require the addon use custom units, add extra events to scenarios, call custom Lua code at scenario start, or other such things.
Yeah, if you want to add a whole new terrain type with unique defense/movement values, every unit needs to specify their defense/movement on that terrain, and there's no way to insert that kind of stuff into the core unit definitions from an add-on. So, what you should probably do would be to have some events which grant defense/movement values on that terrain for every single unit which appears in the scenario which uses that terrain; however, that means that everyone who makes a scenario using that terrain must include that mechanism in the scenario code (it can be a one-liner, though).

In a couple of hours I could probably write it for you, it shouldn't be terribly complicated.
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lurker
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by lurker »

zookeeper wrote:
Alarantalara wrote: This is probably approaching the point where it is better posted in the WML workshop, but...

(This part just elaborates on timberwolf16739's decsription)
There is a movetype tag which allows you to set movement costs and defense values based on the terrain id (e.g. residential for your new terrain) as well as resistances to attack types
You then assign that movetype to the unit type.
There are ~30 movetypes currently defined.

I can think of several methods to add new movement rules to units, but none of them work as a drop in solution. They require the addon use custom units, add extra events to scenarios, call custom Lua code at scenario start, or other such things.
Yeah, if you want to add a whole new terrain type with unique defense/movement values, every unit needs to specify their defense/movement on that terrain, and there's no way to insert that kind of stuff into the core unit definitions from an add-on. So, what you should probably do would be to have some events which grant defense/movement values on that terrain for every single unit which appears in the scenario which uses that terrain; however, that means that everyone who makes a scenario using that terrain must include that mechanism in the scenario code (it can be a one-liner, though).

In a couple of hours I could probably write it for you, it shouldn't be terribly complicated.
One one hand I would not want to make you unnecessary work. I myself am not yet ready to create my own campaign (I have a general idea but it needs to ripe a lot, and may still get to nothing). So that depends mostly on the people which have shown interest in using the terrain. Maybe such a behaviour is what they want, maybe not.

Thanks anyway

Lurker
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zookeeper
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by zookeeper »

lurker wrote:One one hand I would not want to make you unnecessary work. I myself am not yet ready to create my own campaign (I have a general idea but it needs to ripe a lot, and may still get to nothing). So that depends mostly on the people which have shown interest in using the terrain. Maybe such a behaviour is what they want, maybe not.
Well, in case someone wants it, here's a (completely untested) piece of code which should do in most cases.
Spoiler:
Assuming I didn't make any mistakes, which sounds unlikely, all you'd need to do is add more of those [value] blocks. However, as I said, this it untested so there's probably something wrong somewhere in there. And of course you need to have a terrain with id=town.
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lurker
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by lurker »

There is probably an lot of code missing, right? ;-)
Skizzaltix
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Re: A new terrain type?

Post by Skizzaltix »

lurker wrote:
Skizzaltix wrote:My one comment is that the colors seem kind of………too saturated, maybe? It looks kinda like some of them are lit by the warm glow of sunset, or something. I know they're meant to be painted (or red brick), but maybe just tone that down a little bit? I feel like they kinda jar with the rest of the terrain.
Hm, not sure. The dull colors started to bore me and this way I hoped to get nearer to the effect I wanted: A crowded, lively, somewhat confusing city. Which house(s) would you specifically want to be changed? Btw: I welcome feedback on individual houses too, if anything seems odd.
The red and orange are the ones that look off to me--the white ones look fine, although the grey ones look like they should be white but are standing in shadow or something. But if you think making them less saturated would make them too dull, I defer to your judgment.
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lurker
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Re: City terrain

Post by lurker »

Back again after a long time of silent work. I have changed a lot in the city terrain type:
- The houses are scaled up to the regular terrain scale and have more detail
- I have added a set of "healing" houses to go with them. If you would like to see whether you can spot them in a large city, please try to do so before I talk some more about them:
human-city.png
The healing houses are not towers, I was not very convinced by that proposal, but are modeled after arsenals instead. They all have at least one tower and a court, which none of the regular houses have, and feature very bright red roofs and white walls - two signal colors to make them easy to find.

Tell me what you think of it.

Greetings

Lurker
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Boucman
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Re: City terrain

Post by Boucman »

I got them right away. Readability-wise, you're right on spot

I won't comment on the artistic aspect, I find them great but i'm peanut-level, artwise
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Zerovirus
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Re: City terrain

Post by Zerovirus »

Needs more texture, of course, but you've got some cool designs there! I think this new terrain both looks and acts in on a generally high-quality level.
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artisticdude
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Re: City terrain

Post by artisticdude »

Zerovirus wrote:I think this new terrain both looks and acts in on a generally high-quality level.
Emphasis mine.

However, and while I realize these are still under development, I'd like to suggest that perhaps the buildings (other than the healing ones, which look great) could use a brighter palette to match the existing buildings.

Or maybe you already know this, and I'm just rambling needlessly. But I thought I'd put it out there. :)
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lurker
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Re: City terrain

Post by lurker »

artisticdude wrote:[..]Or maybe you already know this, and I'm just rambling needlessly.
No, I need this kind of feedback. And it seems to contradict what Skizzaltix said earlier in this thread. I think I will tone down one of the healing houses - the one with the golden door - and add bright highlights to the normal houses. Will take quite some time once more...

Greetings

Lurker
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Dovolente
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Re: City terrain

Post by Dovolente »

After playing around with the terrain for a couple of weeks in some campaign concept tests, I really like it.

One thing I think might add to it is a little more variety with 1-floor buildings. I know the multi-story buildings provide clear contrast to the standard village terrain, but I think if there were some/more smaller buildings in the mix, it could add a lot to the realistic look (and avoid a "Medieval downtown Manhattan" feel).
Thanks for your work on this!
Dov
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