Grassland Specials?

Visaggio · March 23, 2000, 17:00

Is there any way to tell if using my engineers tio transform grassland to something else will reveal a special.

Furthermore is there any way to tell if transforming non-special plains to grassland will reveal a shield producing square?

Smash · March 23, 2000, 17:42

yes and no.You will notice that specials appear in patterns of 4.Mine the squares where specials should be and you may get silk or pheasant.Not always though

Visaggio · March 23, 2000, 18:01

ok, i think i see a pattern in the specials, is there a pattern to the goodie huts as well?

Smash · March 23, 2000, 18:03

Yes!Make an all grass map and have a look
[This message has been edited by Smash (edited March 23, 2000).]

Sten Sture · March 23, 2000, 18:05

(almost a simul-post

)

An easy way to learn the patterns is to use the map editor. Set up a map that is all grassland to see the huts and grass shields - then change the terrain to other tiles to see the various specials.
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited March 23, 2000).]

rah · March 23, 2000, 23:48

Since the shield producing grasslands are not bound by the pattern, Yes a plain square transformed may me a shield producing grassland. It can't be predicted though.

RAH

War4ever · March 24, 2000, 00:53

you certainly take a chance mining grassland squares looking for the fourth special..... trust me i have done it lots once i found out from this site that it was possible and it works about half the time

for me anyways.... and it sucks turning grass in to forest

Tom DeMille · March 24, 2000, 09:00

Question: How do you use the map editor to make an all grass map (other than by going tile by tile?).

Cam · March 24, 2000, 09:45

Put the brush on '5x5' and hold down the shift key to drag/smear the new terrain around.
[This message has been edited by Cam (edited March 24, 2000).]

The Mad Monk · March 25, 2000, 01:38

The grassland shields, from what I've seen, stick to an 'elongated checkerboard' pattern; although I've noticed rows of three or four shields in a row, this is rare. The resource squares, on the other hand, are trickier; if you look at an all-water map, you can see that the whales and fish appear in dicrete ribbons (a ribbon of whales, then a ribbon of fish, etc.), with 'pods' of specials within the ribbons. The upshot of this is that you can predict the location and type resource squares with a reasonable degree of accuracy, if you look for all the right signs.
Looking for the four-special pattern is the right start, but don't forget to check the patterns of nearby specials. If the grassland in question appears to fit into more than one 'group-of-four', chances are good for a special; if it would break another nearby pattern by being to close to a known or guessed-at special, it probably isn't. If the next closest pattern is too far off, it's a toss-up.

[This message has been edited by The Mad Monk (edited March 24, 2000).]

The Mad Monk · March 25, 2000, 01:47

One more point: setting the resource seed to high or negative numbers will result in the type 1 and 2 specials being fairly well blended together. In this situation, discrete ribbons, for all practical purposes, do not exist. The specials still appear in groups, however, so prediction of the appearance, if not the type, of specials is still practical.
Does anybody know how often the random seed is high or negative?

Scouse Gits · March 27, 2000, 07:37

Just a small point - it seems that the AI can see grassland specials - while finally testing my new scenario (see later today) I spotted an AI settler busily mining a grassland special spot as the first improvement for a city.
This has to be too much of a coincidence - they must be able to see the pattern.

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

War4ever · March 27, 2000, 08:07

way to go scouse..... i had'nt even thought the ai oculd see the pattern..... mind you the ai can see everythign so this makes sense

Visaggio · March 27, 2000, 12:55

ok, if the AI can see the specials and shields that i might not notice, would that include automated settlers. IE would the auto settler eventually reveal all the shield squares around a city?

Sten Sture · March 27, 2000, 14:15

SG(uno) - wow that is the first I have heard of that one! What were the other conditions of the city area? What special did it reveal - silk or pheasant? Was the special square right next to the city?

(sorry I didn't get your scenario posted - thanks for stepping in and doing it. I have been playing Michael Dauman's Great Game scenario, based on the excellent book by Peter Hopkirk about the 19th century England vs Russia in Central Asia)

Scouse Gits · March 27, 2000, 20:46

Sten - The game recently posted by SG 1 (Camelot) was not the one we posted to you a couple of weeks ago! This one was not a scenario, but an actual saved game at 4000BC, on a medium map, with an eight tech start. It can always be used as a reserve OCC (or even ICS) comparison map, on a week when the cupboard is empty.

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SG (2)

Scouse Gits · March 28, 2000, 06:47

Sten, Visaggio - quick answer - I don't know.
The city was in a standard 4 special setting and (just for fun) I hid one of them with grassland (river) - I can't recall off hand to which special tree it belonged. It was simply coincidence that in the final stages of checking that my scenario seemed to be working more or less as scheduled (emphasis on less) that I noticed an AI settler mining - this is, at least to me, a pretty rare and unusual event in the first or second game turn so I looked more closely - and sure enough - there it was on the hidden special -- all else is conjecture.

p.s. Sorry that our dichotomy is giving you a headache...

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[This message has been edited by Scouse Gits (edited March 28, 2000).]