Map Editing question

[Edratman]

I am now confused by the masks.

What is the difference between "site location masks" and "terrain masks"?

When I open a map file I see, for example,

"#terrain 331 4194312"

Which category does "4194312" fall into?

I have never typed in that number. Whenever I want to change terrain types I just open the map editor and click away. (I'm a little less fastidious about province colors than most.)

[Agrajag]

That looks suspiciously like the Middle East. Except it's somewhat green.

Hehe, didn't notice it before, but I guess you are right
That just proves that it can output maps that look realistic

Looks like you are off to a good start Agrajag. What language are you using?

C++ with Allegro, on Code::Blocks
Though from a hard-core programming perspective you could argue I'm just using "OOP C"

It'll probably look a bit better when I'm finished, but I'll get to beautifying it after I'm finished with the province setting stuff and with the border-determining-and-drawing stuff. (Luckily I've already got some algorithms in my head )

[Edi]

Edratman said:
I am now confused by the masks.

What is the difference between "site location masks" and "terrain masks"?

There are two types of terrain masks. The first one is locmask or terrain mask for sites. This is used in site modding to determine what kind of terrain sites can appear in. The second type is terrain mask for map terrain in map files.

Edratman said:
When I open a map file I see, for example,

"#terrain 331 4194312"

Which category does "4194312" fall into?

That's 4194304 (border mountain) + 8 (fresh water), which is what you get if you check both border mountain and fresh water checkboxes for the same province. Province terrain masks are always a sum of the terrain masks of all terrains contained therein.

Edratman said:
I have never typed in that number. Whenever I want to change terrain types I just open the map editor and click away. (I'm a little less fastidious about province colors than most.)

Which is precisely the way to do it if you want to avoid headaches. The specialsite terrains need to be added manually, though.

[Edratman]

It is patently obvious that I've never used the site mask codes. I have only used #feature and #knownfeature.

You are going to have to walk me through this.

Air and water site codes (from previous post in this thread) are 16384 and 32768 respectively, for a total of 49152.

Using my example province, "#terrain 331 4194312", how would I put random air and water sites there? I see three possibilities:

1. Add the two values up - "#terrain 331 4194312" goes to #terrain 331 4243464 (4194312 + 49152)

2. Both are separate line entries -
#terrain 331 4194312
#terrain 331 49152

3. There is a separate code for masks and used as a separate entry:
i.e. (as a WAG) #terrainmask 331 49152

Personally, I am thinking choice #3.

However, either way, I now am sure that this old dog won't be learning this trick.

Thanks for your help Edi.

[Edi]

The specialsite terrain masks just mean that in random site determination sites of those paths are favored.

#1 is the way it works. Final terrain mask is the sum of all applicable individual masks.

Assigning sites by #feature and #knownfeature lock that site in stone, i.e. it's always there. The special terrain masks affect the probabilities of available random sites, so you are more likely but not guaranteed to get something.

[Edratman]

Thanks Edi.

I could see a use for using both codes, if I ever get much better at making custom maps.

But all I do is adapt either existing or random generated maps. I like magic so I always set sites to 100 and I like to put the rare sites on the map, just to see what they do.