Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Now that the Devs have brought out among us many wonderous gifts of terrain type shapechanging, that we may Know of them and be Pleased by them, it occurred to me suddenly that ocean terrain is pretty much surface terrain-atleast in it's variety-it just happens to be under water, instead of under air.

So here's some suggestions for new and varied water terrain types, that might make things more fun and interesting for our fans of aquatic nations:

Coastal Plane: Impassable by ships.
Occupied by Ichthytosians, Shamblers. Low in Resources, Gold, very high in Supply, Low in Sites.
River: Low in Resources, high in Gold, high in Supply, Low in Sites.
Shallow Sea: (simplified term for continental shelf and shallow ocean waters, as well as actual shallow seas). Occupied by Atlantians. Average in Resources, Gold, Sites, high in Supply.
Coral Barrier: Impassable by ships. High in Resources, Gold, Sites. Very high in Supply.
Sea Basin: Basic land type, average Gold, Resources, Supply, low Sites except for Water, which is average.
Confluence: (where two or more bodies of water meet, like a river meeting the ocean). Very high chance of Holy and Water Sites, average otherwise.
Deep Trench: Very low in Resources, Gold, Supply, Sites, except average in Water, Death, Fire.
Sargasso: (forest of kelp) High in Resources, Supply, low in gold, sites, except for Nature sites, which are high.
Sea Cave: Impassable by ships. Very High in Resources, low in everything else, except Earth sites which are high.
Tumulous: Impassable by ships. (simplification: consists of coastal stacks, cliffs, tides, whirlpools, sand banks, coral, and any other geological features close to the shore that would make the area dangerous for sailing) Impassable by ships. High in Resources, average everything else, except high Earth sites and average Astral sites. Low in other sites.
Salt Marsh (oceanic swamp, basically) Very Low in everything except Nature and Death sites.
Seamount. High in Resources, Average in Gold, Low in Supply, Low in Sites except Earth and Fire.

To clarify, "impassable by ships" means you can't sail through that area to get to another province. They're basically amphibious provinces, functioning as both land (as regards to sailing through them) and water (as regards everything else), at the same time.

Slight revision on this: Ideally, this could work that you could land on one of these provinces, and then sail off it the next turn, continuing on, or in another direction, but you'd still be in the ocean, and subject to attack from amphibious creatures, etc.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Oh and before any oceanographic or geologic experts show up and start dismantling this innocent little post in some sadistic fashion, I'm neither of those things.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Can you combine e.g. Ocean and Swamp terrains? How would that play out?

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

The ideas are very nice and thematic, even if I personally wouldn't like to play with so many different kinds of "water terrain"... So for the land we should create Jungle, Savannah, Permafrost, all the terrain variety around the Mediterranean, and much much more... the game seems me already so difficult! But for you experts' mods and maps it would surely add tactical variety. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I can't agree just with one thing: River low in sites? o.O Rivers have been magical places for tons of legends and religions. Just think about King Arthur, or the godly aura around the Nyle and the Mesopotamian rivers... any kind of magic shall be present in the proximities of a river imho.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Excellent ideas HoneyBadger! I would really love to see some of them implemented thus diversifying the otherwise dull sea provinces.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

There is a problem with the implementation side with the bitmasks getting really ridiculous. Bordermountain is already a very long bitmask and they would simply keep getting longer. I suppose it could be done, but it ain't going to be user friendly. That's assuming that the extra long bitmasks are not going to break something else.

The alternative would be some modification on how the land sea division is done and each of those having its own bitmasks, but that would not be backwards compatible and all existing maps would have to be redone. So while this thread subject is very interesting, it does pose a set of possibly non-trivial issues.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

I'm not sure what you mean, Endoperez, could you clarify the question please? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm not sure how it would work, Edi. I don't have access to the code, and I know we have a lot of maps that people are very fond of, so it might at best have to be an add-on, something that only comes into play for new maps, like cave provinces. Could your alternative be applied in an optional way? So that it could be turned off for maps we already have, and on for new maps?

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

I don't have access to the code either, but I know terrain is a bitmask currently. Just giving a heads up on why things may not happen even though it's a good idea.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Heh, that's ok. I'm pretty used to having what seems to me, anyway, as a "good idea", and it not happening. The Devs are truly awesome in their work ethic and generosity, but there's only so much they can do, and I can't expect more than a tiny portion of what they can do to represent any inspiration directly from me. It's just creatively and logistically unfeasable to expect more than that.

I have my fun coming up with ideas, good or bad, and "laying them out" so to speak. There's just something about a nice presentation that hopefully other people can get behind, even if it amounts to little more than putting an idea of how things might be expanded, that they might not have thought of, into their heads.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

I suppose we could always open another bit.

Too bad we cant logically split things then and put the terrains in one and other items in the other. But that would not "grandfather" well with older maps and such. Another thought for the Dom4 bucket I guess.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

The thing about putting sea with swamp brings up a good point. Can some of these be logically placed by mixing bits we have now? Farm and sea? waste and sea? inland water with something?

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Rivers would be great for sites, but which ones? Water's obvious, but at the same time, the water's constantly moving, and washing away most sites in time, plus rivers themselves might not be large enough to support many types of sites, even if we're talking about the Amazon. And in that case, with very large rivers made up of many tributaries, it's no longer a river, it becomes a Confluence. Besides, my thought for rivers is that they'd generally be valuable enough, serving as easy access to inland provinces, and as roadways.

I *was* trying for some parity between land and sea terrains, actually, Gandalf. I'm not sure how obvious it is, but if what we have now could be renamed and placed in the water, or even just shoe-horned in, it might work.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

I found that the massive Orieda map has two provinces that mix land and sea features. One is farm and sea and the other is waste/mountain/sea. The provinces funcion okay and have those atributes, so I asume every combination of land attributes and sea attributes is okay. After all, they are just bits, not real, so the game doesn't know that the combinations defy the dev's intentions.

So a deep sea underwater mountain range is viable. I think you would have to input the bit combination into the map file.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

True. Keep in mind, however, that the combinations also defy the intentions of magic sites' authors (whether the devs or some modder), and you are likely to get magic sites underwater which don't make much sense. E.g. sites which allow the recruitment of non-aquatic creatures who will drown as soon as you recruit them.

-Max

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Doesnt it also affect what poptypes defend and can be recruited?
I would be much more bothered by inconsistancies there.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

That might take specific work to implement, as in directly modding provinces to reflect their underwater status. But for all that hard work, I bet a large amount of creative energy could shine through. I mean, if one chooses to make such a map, and in the process is forced to mod every underwater province, there's a good chance-depending on the person-that they'll make atleast some of the provinces more interesting, if only to save themselves from death via boredom.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

I've only been aware of the two provinces for 3 games. The poptypes have always been aquatic types. Nor have I encountered any sites that conflict, but undoubtedly that could be an issue. I do not know how the game actually reads the bits to determine sites and/or poptypes. There is a possibility that the sea component of the bit description will negate land poptypes and sites, but there is also the possibility that it doesn't.

I will have to defer to someone with more knowledge.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

This is what I meant before:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...25606-test.JPG

Sailers can sail above it, land units can't enter, aquatic and amphibious units can enter. I didn't check if non-swamp-survival amphibious units get swamp terrain penalties, but I quess they do.

With this (and special sites):


Coastal Plane: Impossible.
River: It would be nice if rivers could be defined somehow. There are large and small provinces; perhaps rivers should always be large?
Shallow Sea: coastal seas?
Coral Barrier: can't stop sailing, but sea/forest/farmland?
Sea Basin: also known as sea?
Confluence: Very high chance of Holy and Water Sites, average otherwise - this is interesting. Something similar might happen if the sea had the Freshwater tag? Possibly it would just slightly boost income and allow "There have been floods and XXX people have drowned" events. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Deep Trench: Also known as deep sea? Alternatively, also known as Gorge of Glowing Wish.
Sargasso: (forest of kelp) High in Resources, Supply, low in gold, sites, except for Nature sites, which are high.
Sea Cave: Sea + Cave could be done, but sailing would be allowed. Maps could be constructed so this wouldn't matter (e.g. sea/cave province connecting two seas with each other, with no or at most one land neighbour)
Tumulous: Can't stop sailing, sea + border mountain
Salt Marsh: Swamp + Sea
Seamount: Mountain + Sea

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

You get bad things with magic sites when you mix land and sea terrains. You cannot mix even caves and sea.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

Mountain and sea works nicely. One of the major hurdles that aquatics tend to face, is resource anemia. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Adding a Mountain tag significantly increases resources to a sea province, as can be seen in The Lonely Mermaid Map, for example.

Re: Idea for new oceanic terrain types.
 

I only had problems with deep sea + caves (getting caves sites).