Bridges

Kamahawk · Post by **Kamahawk** » March 25th, 2004, 6:47 am

I think bridges should have thier own terian type so water based units can move under them without a movement penalty and Land units can move over them normaly.

Christophe33 · Post by **Christophe33** » March 25th, 2004, 8:04 am

Thats a good idea. Whaat the defese rating would be? The best of either plain or water, or something in between?
Any interest in stone bridge?
Also it might be interesting to have bridges going over swamp or other terrain like that.

Woodwizzle · Post by **Woodwizzle** » March 25th, 2004, 6:09 pm

Its a good idea but it has a lot of issues. Can 2 Units be on the same bridge (1 under 1 over). How would you select each one? Can they attack each other? etc.

Circon · Post by **Circon** » March 25th, 2004, 8:25 pm

That's not an issue. The point is that bridges count as grassland, which mermen take 4 movement points (mps) to cross.
I agree with suggestion of defining "bridge" as a new terrain taking 1 or 2 MPs for mermen. There aren't going to be 2 units there.

Post by **Dave** » March 25th, 2004, 9:01 pm

For anyone who didn't know, currently bridges are considered 'aliases' of grassland. They are essentially grassland, that look different for aesthetic appeal.

Perhaps a good way of implementing the desired results would be to make it that a terrain type can be an alias of multiple other terrains. i.e. a bridge could be an alias of both 'grassland' and 'shallow water'. Then, when deciding a unit's movement and defense on it, the better of the two possible options will be used.

So basically, mermen will treat it as water, spearmen will treat it as grassland.

This concept has further possibilities, such as an Elven Village being an alias of both 'Village' and 'Forest', so that most units treat it as a village but Elves treat it as forest for defensive purposes. Ditto with e.g. Dwarvish Village.

David

Christophe33 · Post by **Christophe33** » March 25th, 2004, 9:17 pm

Dave wrote: Perhaps a good way of implementing the desired results would be to make it that a terrain type can be an alias of multiple other terrains. i.e. a bridge could be an alias of both 'grassland' and 'shallow water'. Then, when deciding a unit's movement and defense on it, the better of the two possible options will be used.

So basically, mermen will treat it as water, spearmen will treat it as grassland.

This concept has further possibilities, such as an Elven Village being an alias of both 'Village' and 'Forest', so that most units treat it as a village but Elves treat it as forest for defensive purposes. Ditto with e.g. Dwarvish Village.

David

I like this alternative a lot

, it is both simple (no need to define a new terrain) and bring a nice new feature. Can it be done easilly?
What would happen right now if two aliases were entered for the same terrain?

Dobob · Post by **Dobob** » March 25th, 2004, 9:27 pm

Dave wrote: Perhaps a good way of implementing the desired results would be to make it that a terrain type can be an alias of multiple other terrains. i.e. a bridge could be an alias of both 'grassland' and 'shallow water'. Then, when deciding a unit's movement and defense on it, the better of the two possible options will be used.

Mmm, that would be neat. That way, some units (elvenfoot, swimmer, dwarf) could get worse defense on normal villages (by 10%) because they will still have a good one on their specialist villages.

Christophe33 · Post by **Christophe33** » March 25th, 2004, 11:33 pm

Here is my stone bridge in case anybody is interested in using it.

Post by **Dave** » March 25th, 2004, 11:37 pm

Christophe33 wrote:Here is my stone bridge in case anybody is interested in using it.

Cool! Would you be able to do it going in other directions (ne/sw and nw/se) and if possible, also do a stone/paved road (we already have one, but it was done by me, and looks awful

)

Also, we haven't used some of the other terrain (ice, dead forest) you've done yet, but we definitely want to. I've fixed my version of Gimp now, so I can process images more easily. Would you please be able to send me all the terrain images (davidnwhite@optusnet.com.au) (or put them up somewhere convenient to download).

Btw I'm also looking for someone to redo the 'dirt road', if you're interested

David

Christophe33 · Post by **Christophe33** » March 26th, 2004, 12:30 am

Here is the paved motif I used under a mask for the bridge. I should work for the paved road. I will send you the rest by email.

Post by **Dave** » March 26th, 2004, 12:36 am

Christophe33 wrote:Here is the paved motif I used under a mask for the bridge.

We do need transition tiles as well though (for instance, when the paved road is next to water it will need to transition).

David

Christophe33 · Post by **Christophe33** » March 26th, 2004, 1:47 am

Is there a better way to do transition than applying a mask one by one for each orientation?
Would it be possible to have a general mask (or a few) that will be automatically applied to generate the various transitions., rather than having a picture for each and every transitions and terrains.

Post by **Dave** » March 26th, 2004, 4:07 am

Christophe33 wrote:Is there a better way to do transition than applying a mask one by one for each orientation?
Would it be possible to have a general mask (or a few) that will be automatically applied to generate the various transitions., rather than having a picture for each and every transitions and terrains.

The transitions system was designed a long time ago by fmunoz and myself. The system we came up with was with a reasonable amount of thought, and we looked into several possibilities that would make it easier upon artists, but eventually decided that all of them would compromise quality.

Hence the current system. Awkward, yes, but it seems to be the best way to do it.

David

Christophe33 · Post by **Christophe33** » March 26th, 2004, 4:35 am

OK, too bad. The number of transition is increasing a lot with the new terrain so we end up with really a lot of pictures. If I counted correctly there are 18 pictures for the grassland transition. Do you need the same for the road?
Actually I kind of like the dirt...looks like dried mud. Maybe I could add a few flowers or rocks like for the grassland. Or do you want some more texture.

Post by **Dave** » March 26th, 2004, 4:58 am

Christophe33 wrote:If I counted correctly there are 18 pictures for the grassland transition. Do you need the same for the road?

Only six transitions are absolutely needed.

road-n.png road-ne.png road-se.png road-s.png road-sw.png road-nw.png

If, for instance, there is road to the north, and north-west of a hex, then both road-n.png and road-nw.png will be displayed.

If you were to decide that road-n.png looks good if there is road only to the north of a hex, and road-nw.png looks good if there is road only to the north-west of a hex, but if there is road in both directions, overlaying the images on top of one another doesn't look good, you could provide road-nw-n.png and then that would be used instead of overlaying the two iamges atop one another.

But this is entirely optional. You need only supply the six transitions I listed.

Further, for many terrain types, probably including roads, all you really have to do is two transitions -- road-s.png could be produced by flipping road-n.png over the x axis, road-se.png could be produced by flipping road-ne.png over the x axis, road-nw.png could be produced by flipping road-ne.png over the y axis, and road-sw.png could be produced by flipping road-ne.png over both axes.

This doesn't work for all terrain types -- e.g. forest and mountains. It is true that the program could do this for you automagically, but it's probably more efficient for the images to be supplied (and it's not that hard to create them).

Christophe33 wrote: Actually I kind of like the dirt...looks like dried mud. Maybe I could add a few flowers or rocks like for the grassland. Or do you want some more texture.

I think the dirt looks good in some respects, but if it was done up with someone with a vestige of artistic skill (i.e. not me, the person who did it in the first place) it'd look much better.

David