Terrain Types

[Andemagne]

does anybody know, are we going to get new terrain types, such as swamp and glacier, with PTW?

[statusperfect]

don't think so. maybe we'll be able to make new types with that new great editor they are talking so much about?

[Coracle]

One type we always needed was DIFFERENT TYPES OF HILLS.

Right now if you built an exact map of the world, the hills in the middle of the Sahara Desert would be green and food producing!!

We need DESERT HILLS, JUNGLE HILLS, GRASSLAND HILLS. Tundra Hills, too, for Arctic situations.

[Capt Dizle]

Hey Zouave, I agree. That would look odd. Good point.

[Caliban]

Originally posted by Coracle
Right now if you built an exact map of the world, the hills in the middle of the Sahara Desert would be green and food producing!!

Hmhm... you could use mountains to "simulate" those hills, so they look at least brown...

Or... maybe these hills contain some sort of fertile land... or catch clouds to rain... no, not logical in the middle of a dessert...

So... different types of hills really are necessary or this will be the end of human civilization!

Can we get back to some more important issues now?

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by Caliban

Can we get back to some more important issues now?

Yes, like the evils of the US culture.

But seriously, I thought I remember hearing that it will be easier to add terrain types in the editor with the upcoming additions. I honestly don't recall where, but I would not be surprised if that, at least, was included.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Coracle
One type we always needed was DIFFERENT TYPES OF HILLS.

Right now if you built an exact map of the world, the hills in the middle of the Sahara Desert would be green and food producing!!

We need DESERT HILLS, JUNGLE HILLS, GRASSLAND HILLS. Tundra Hills, too, for Arctic situations.

someone actually made some new desert terrain files with desert hills (dunes). They'll count as desert terrain, not hill terraon, buy you'll get the look.

[WarpStorm]

Have done some graphics mods, new hills would be doable. As far as a new terrain type, that would be hard and most likely won't happen. Why? There are two main types of terrain graphics, what I call floaters and base tiles.

Hills, mountains, forests, rivers, etc. are "floaters" because they are drawn above the base tiles. It would be relatively easy to add these to the engine (notice I didn't say easy, just relatively easy).

The base tiles graphics files don't have the actually tiles in them. They have the transitions between tile types in them. A single graphics file has 81 transitions between (no more than) 3 different terrain types. This would be much harder to implement because just adding one more terrain type, for example Swamps, would mean adding files and graphics for the transitions between swamps-coast-grassland, swamp-plain-grassland, swamp-plain-coast, etc. This is a lot of work. I don't see it happening, but I could be wrong.

BTW, there are currently some illegal combos. Due to the file structure, you can't put a tundra tile directly next to a plain or a desert.

PTW will make it easier to put a terrain mod (like snOOPy's) into a scenario. I hope they put snOOPy's latest on the disk.

[Hagbart]

There will be a hole new terrain set available in PTW. Even 2 I think. One being a European set and the other a 'winter' set.

[WarpStorm]

..and a "watercolor" set...and with any luck that new one by snOOPy...

[neonext]

let's just hope if they add new terrain it doesn't go the way of Civ2's Test of Time, which had new terrain but IMO (and many many others' opinions) had the worst looking terrain seen in any civ game

[SABRA]

There should not only be more types of terrein there should also be the option of terraforming !