cephalo

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="7" id="2872232"]There's a game balance issue with the fallen/grassland environments, since they give 10% more def/attack to those of the right allegiance, and 10% less to those of the wrong allegiance. You'll have to be careful not to make one environment be in more abundance than the other one. [/quote] That's kinda why I refrained from those in the past. Not really for game balance but because it's the development of their civilizations that are s

These environments don't have to be tied to one kind of magic. You can make some interesting patterns with combinations of different magic types. I was thinking I can scatter the lush green environments along the mild collisions of fire and water, and also place most of the food resources in those places. I'm not sure how to handle the fallen environment. I could use it for a scorched area right close to fire shards, within the surrounding desert areas. It might look good with volca

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="3" id="2872202"]Hey, I know we sort of had this discussion before, but I think it's a shame you're not utilizing different environments more. I mean you've already got your basic premise; fire=dead/desert, earth=grassland, water=swamp (actually a terrain but whatever), air= arctic. [/quote] Well, for now I'm putting a system in place. I need a fictional, magic related fuzzy logic to guide the placement of the other environments. This stuff is all ab

Ok, I have an example map here for the next version of Elementerra. It is playable at this point and I want to get some feedback on the new system. This is a drastically different style of map! So much so that it doesn't even work fully with the current game, but hopefully I can lobby for a few easy tweaks that can remove the mostly aethsetic obstacles. Give this a try and tell me what you think in terms of resource placement and balance. This is a large map made for

[quote quoting="post"]Hey all, Is there any drawbacks or bugs associated with that map generator? I read something about quests and monsters not working correctly? Can I place individual resources on map tiles in that map generator? [/quote] I haven't heard anything about that. I would definately like to know about it if anyone finds a problem.

I have a bunch a new stuff coming with Elementerra soon. Some of it is highly experimental however, and might need some toning down. Keep an eye on the mods forum in the next couple of days I will have an example map to show so I can get some feedback. It's like a different game almost.

So the modding system doesn't work for any old xml file eh? Only certain ones? At least I can stop trying and just do my experimentation with the original file. I'm ok with that.

Heavenfall, if you have time, I wonder if you could do me a favor. Try modding the TerrainTypes.xml file by setting the MaxHeight tag in the 'City' terrain type to 1000. When you build your first city, the city tile will suddenly form into a huge spire! That is if the mod is working. That's what happens when I mod directly to the install directories. The reason I'm trying to figure these values out, is because I am now making very nice and functional multi-level high relief maps... bu

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="13" id="2870699"] It's new ground from here on out! [/quote] Very clever mister! It is indeed new ground. It looks like some kind of wasteland instead of a sandy beach.

Ok, I have one more really strange observation. When I try to use my mod, the beaches on my map use the wrong texture! When I delete those extra folders with my mod in them, my beaches go back to normal... The thing is, I never touched anything regarding beaches or any kind of texture definition. I only changed the maxHeight of the city terrainType. And... one more question. When you said to copy the whole file, should I have changed the file name? <span style="text-decoration

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="9" id="2870644"]That's normal. Have you had any other mods work? [/quote] Actually no, this is my very first attempt at using an XML mod other than maps. To use maps I only needed to check the 'use mods' option and put the maps in the user 'Maps' directory.

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="5" id="2870403"]C:\Users\yourusername\Documents\My Games\Elemental\Mods\yourterrainmod\ on win7 64bit [/quote] I'm using Vista, and I'm thinking it should be the same. It's still not loading. I'm naming my directory 'Elementerra' but that's the only difference in the directory structure. Is this the exact directory structure I need? [quote who="Aerion Istari" reply="6" id="2870404"] Most likely there is a problem in

Ok, I put the whole modified file in my Documents\My Games\Elemental\Mods\Data folder, and also tried the Mods\Data\English folder, but it's not loading up. Can anyone tell my exactly what folder to put this file in?

Thanks, really I'm just making a few tweaks to get rid of some goofiness in the new Elementerra. I'll be ready to discuss this goofiness later with an initial map file example, but in all things are working very well minus some ugliness that will need to be addressed at some point. Also, to be clear, I put these files in the Mods/English folder correct? That's really a wild guess I haven't had any luck yet.

I'm having trouble getting my terrain tweaks to stick. If I mod the file in the main Elemental directory I get what I want, but I would rather not mod the original file. In what directory am I supposed to put modded TerrainTypes info so that it is read by the game? I do have the 'use mods' option set. Edit: I would also like to mod the CoreEnvironments.xml file so I can change the snow level. I haven't tried yet but I would expect similar issues.

I ran into a little snag in my verticalization plan. The problem is that the game automatically places hills of a set altitude between mountains and flat land. Grrrrr. I need to think of a work around for this, and I suspect its gonna be pretty goofy. Here is a screenshot so you can see what I mean. As an experiment, I set the altitude of all land squares and mountains to 200. I placed no hills of any kind and none are in the map xml file. As you can see in the pic, the valleys between l

I definately like the idea that you have to conquer the map rather than simply settle it. That has been a huge problem in my opinion. Conquering = dramatic tension, settling = why do I care about this lonely patch of dirt. If you aren't too far along in the design phase, I'd like you to think about the problems that can occur when you create map objects after they are 'discovered'. I made a semi-off topic rant about it in the Elementerra thread <a title="Spawned resourc

Ok, I've started to get back to a more normal routine, and I am currently experimenting with building the world according to rules that are governed by shard placement. I think that if the world is going to be barren, exploration can be more fun if we make it into a puzzle of sorts where you can use the rules to make educated guesses on whats hidden in the fog based on what you have already explored. Another thing I'm going to try, and this is only specul

I might agree with those who think that Civ5 is not quite as good as Civ4 BtS, but calling the franchise ruined is a gigantic overstatement. There's alot of really cool stuff in Civ5 that will improve the franchise well into the future. Selling the game in little pieces is something that will have to end, but that has nothing to do with Jon. I've enjoyed alot of Jon's stuff from the past few years, including BtS.

Wow, I think this is a great move for both Jon and SD. SD makes games for the love of the game, and if they keep doing that, they can't but be succesful... eventually.

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="228" id="2854421"]Yes, that is all entirely true. However, with this approach, you could place the goodiehuts->monsters->resources as you would normal resources. It is merely a workaround to pre-place defended world resources in the generated map. [/quote] So basically my little rant was not entirely on topic... You have to understand that I haven't really slept in 8 days, lol. You're saying that it would be nice if my

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="226" id="2854121"]Congratulations! I wanted to post about some progress we made in another thread, which you may or may not find interesting. It's in regards to defended world resources, which I know has been discussed earlier in this thread. We figured out a decent work-around. What we did was put a particular goodiehut on the map, and let that goodiehut have defenders. Then, once the monsters were cleared, the player cou

I promised a new version of Elementerra soon, but I have another fun project that's been keeping me busy. Like 20 hours a day busy... but wow.. Just wow.

I haven't played the new version yet, but from the comments it seems it would be preferable to have the mundane military stuff easy to get and have the 'magic' come in and make the difference. The way the game has many divided trees that get more powerful as you climb means that you really have to choose the best one from the get-go, while the others are just a clearly suboptimal choice. I think there is a serious conflict between the different flavors of tech rese

These are all really good spells. Do you really have to only add five?