Network MA, Whyte (Full)

[thejeff]

So if it's not in the mapfile, why is it always there?

Just ran another quick test, went directly to 53 and there it was.

I can view the map file, but I don't know what to look for. How would a site be assigned to that province? Would it be in the terrain mask, or would there be another entry?

[Saint_Dude]

I have loaded a R'lyeh pretender.

As far as the site at prov 53 goes: I have not done any modding in dom3. But in dom2, if I wanted to add a particular site to a prov, I would type in the actual name of the site (maybe there was another method that I was not aware of). However, it looks like in this instance that the site is coded with the terrain mask as thejeff has suggested. Prov 53 has a unique mask number (4202496). Perhaps we could just change is to the more common (4194306) and get rid of the site? Either that or we could just leave it in. If everyone knows it is there, it becomes just another thematic element in the scenario.

Oh, and I have patched to 3.08.

[lch]

thejeff said:
I can view the map file, but I don't know what to look for. How would a site be assigned to that province? Would it be in the terrain mask, or would there be another entry?

The terrain mask is battle terrain. neighbours and starting locations are clear, too. What would have to be in there is some "#addsite" command, I think. Very strange that this magic site *always* pops up in that province, but I had the Steel Ovens, a mine of superior iron and an Arena in there, too. Would be interesting to find out why it happens.

[lch]

I copied the terrain mask to every province in the game, set independent strength to 0 and went exploring with Caelum... I encountered 3 Vulcanos in the first five turns. Other heat-increasing sites like the Plains of perpetual drought seem to be common, too. In that game, there was *no* steel oven in 53, though... Maybe because it's a unique site and went somewhere else?

[thejeff]

Changing the terrain mask to 4194306, as Saint_Dude suggested, removed the Ovens.

Is there a good tutorial/manual on the map file format anywhere? I'd like to know why this happens. And if there are any other sites on the map.
A random map shouldn't have sites, as I understand it.

We could leave it in as a thematic feature, but it's a little more powerful than I'd like. I'd make a beeline for it if I started in that area.

[thraveboy]

Uploaded pretender for Van..

[vfb]

Thanks for figuring the province #53 volcano issue out. I've changed the terrain mask as suggested.

I thought I made sure everything was normal with the provinces using the map editor, but province #53 just showed "large province, border mountains" checked.

The random generator must have decided on that mask because of the volcano. The only doc I saw for map editing is the pdf in the docs directory, and it doesn't have information on specific terrain bits.

Anyway, if you like, please download a new copy of the map from:

http://bemura.dyndns.org/Whyte.zip

Edit: I think everyone will have to upload their pretenders again, sorry! But please wait until thejeff checks the map.

[Ballbarian]

The random map generator places "special" provinces which are indicated by icons. For firesite the symbol is the volcano. I see it as completely fair as long as your remember that special icons appearing on the map can be worth making a beeline for them, and for fighting over them when you get there.

Also, I guess that there is a list of possible sites that can appear in such a province of which 1 is selected. In one of my multiplayer games there are actually 3 volcano provinces under my control. 2 of them are the volcano site and 1 is the steel ovens.

Code:

---

"small"            1

"large"            2

"sea"              4

"somewater"        8

"mountain"        16

"swamp"           32

"waste"           64

"forest"         128

"farm"           256

"nostart"        512

"manysites"     1024

"deep"          2048

"cave"          4096

"firesite"      8192 - MAP SYMBOL= volcano

"airsite"      16384

"watersite"    32768

"earthsite"    65536

"astralsite"  131072

"deathsite"   262144

"naturesite"  524288

"bloodsite"  1048576

"priestsite" 2097152

"edgemount"  4194304

---

Hope this helps.

[Eressil3]

Wow i'm late !!! OMG I still don't know which kind of pretender to make !!!

Should I end with a dom 10 awaken wyrm ?

[vfb]

Thanks Ballbarian.

I've reverted to the "firesite" map, since that's the way random maps work.

The way I see it, it's part of the game when random maps are on, and we can all have fun fighting over it.

Here all the other magic sites on the map:

#27 priestsite (looks like a little grey mushroom)
#53 firesite (the volcano)
#91 airsite (blue-white towers)

I've seen the mushrooms and such before on random maps, but never knew what they were. This is good to know.

By the way, #1 and #41 were islands when I made the map (no connections). So I gimped in the ugly cave tunnel things, there is no magic there.

Attached are the bitmasks in hex if anyone is interested, I did this since I can't read bits in decimal.

Edit: I'm sure someone's got something better to dump the data out of a .map, but for now here's Ballbarian's list in hex too, Code:

---

"small"            1

"large"            2

"sea"              4

"somewater"        8

"mountain"        10

"swamp"           20

"waste"           40

"forest"          80

"farm"           100

"nostart"        200

"manysites"      400

"deep"           800

"cave"          1000

"firesite"      2000

"airsite"       4000

"watersite"     8000

"earthsite"    10000

"astralsite"   20000

"deathsite"    40000

"naturesite"   80000

"bloodsite"   100000

"priestsite"  200000

"edgemount"   400000

---