Graphics Mod

[budd]

looking forward to it, thank you.
budd

[Ormand]

OK, I think I have a good working Version 2.0. I have uploaded the eight new files for the distribution. I have checked that these files work when installed in the proper place. They zip files contain sub-directories that get expanded from the ATG main directory. As before Parts 1-3 are REQUIRED since they contain the main images that will make the medium hexes. The BIG images are in Parts 3-8. This is a bit different than before as the the BIG images were in Parts 4-8 before. Some new terrain features made these bigger, so the only way to get it to fit in the 8 files was to put some of the BIG images in Part 3. Part 1 contains the two master files, and two files in a /mods directory that will pop up when ATG starts to give the option of setting either ScenarioDesign.at2 or ScenarioDesignNato.at2 as base masterfile for random games.

I have run several random games with the new graphics with full climate for a full year, and haven't had a crash yet. (I haven't actually played them, just advanced them and let the AI run since I was checking for crashes).

There are several new things:

1) All terrains work in the weather/climate system. They aren't used in the random map generator though. I can't see how to do that just yet.

2) There are now four seasons, as opposed to three. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. All terrains work.

3) The standard forests and jungles were reworked. As was mangrove swamp.

4) Light forests were added.

5) Oasis was also added to desert terrain. It is mostly for looks, like lakes are for forests. The deserts also got a slight upgrade with the appearance of dunes.

6) I fixed an inconsistency between Forest Loaf Mud and Forest Pine Mud. They had inconsistent movement data. Especially for wheel, where Loaf was set to 9999 (Vic should look in this for the generic masterfile).

7) I changed some of the weather related entries in the string lists weatherclimate and landscapemorph to suit my thinking of weather a bit. For example, seas are now rainy in winter (as well as fall, but not spring), and I tweaked the winter/mud interface a bit. This is a matter of taste, and you should feel free to do what you like.

I thought about adding sea ice for arctic winter, but this would be fairly tedious since I would have to make 64 different images. So that is a project for the future

Another thing that would be nice would be to set up a looped map as a full world map, i.e, northern and southern hemispheres with weather. This is straightforward to do with more zones, and I suppose WAW must do this. But, the map generator would need to set the zone. Currently, the game is set up to have random maps that are really in the northern hemisphere.

That's most of it. I'm sure that there will be some issues, so please feel free to report. I won't be able to address any issues until next Monday though, as I have to travel and go to a conference on Tuesday.

Hope they work and that you enjoy.

No to try and actually play!

[Ormand]

I uploaded a new Part #1 today to do two things:

1) Fix a small issue with Spring Forests overlapping fields.

2) Added a new feature to have the rivers freeze during snow turns. This in the master file ScenarioDesignNATORivers.at2. I've done it only for NATO counters so far. In addition to the master file, there is also mod file for loading it as a default for random games. The frozen rivers don't quite remove all movement and attacking penalties, but do reduce them substantially. Thus, I thought it would be a good idea to give you the option to use them or not. After I saw the event command to change rivers, I thought this would be straight forward, but it is actually fairly tricky. There are still some slightly odd things that can happen with a river that is running east-west at the snow/mud interface. In this case one can have just the northern part of the river freeze. Basically, I freeze all the rivers only in a snow hex. So, this would be hard to fix.

I can see that there are at least two issues with the graphics. There may be a slight offset in the transitions for the medium sized transitions for fields. Some of the rivers (especially frozen) have a line that shows up in the center of the river for a horizontal river. I know what causes this and it will take some work to fix. Hey, this is a hobby.

[budd]

downloaded and installed. took a quick look, they look great. will start a new game soon and let you know if i run into any problems. thanks.
budd

[Ormand]

Hopefully, the worst you'll run into is a mistake with the transitions, such as a missed overlap, or two terrains overlapping each other (which is what I fixed with the spring forests and fields).

I am contemplating pulling the lakes out as separate terrains, since in principle they should be more difficult than forests.

I am also, thinking of adding a lake terrain that freezes in the winter. This is tricky though since it would likely have to be just a single impassable (except in winter) hex. Frozen rivers and lakes did impact offensives and supply on the Eastern front. A trouble is with the AI not getting harmed because it used it, exploited it and then got caught off guard by the change.

[Ormand]

Huh, a double post. Sorry