Topic: Adding and removing areas of the map. (Read 1856 times)

CaptApollo12 · « **on:** February 17, 2010, 05:22:06 pm »

Currently in DF a player will embark on a site and the site may be too large or too small for the fortress as I progresses.

I suggest the abiliy to go to the map screen and add or remove adjacent tiles.

A sit ecould start at one tile

[]

and when the immegrant wave comes in the player will up the land (new tiles are {})

{}{}{}{}
{}[]{}{}
{}{}{}{}
{}{}{}{}
{}{}{}{}

but a player doesnt like part of the map...

{}{}____
{}[]{}{}
{}{}{}{}
__{}{}{}
{}{}{}__

this could require prerequesits like tribute to the mountainhomes or something liek that.\

Maybe flags like the first embark tile cannot be taken away or it has to be within X number of spaces from embark.

Definatly not able to make squares around a place

[]{}{}{}
{}____{}
{}____{}
{}{}{}{}

And not able to separate portions of the map

[]{}__{}
{}{}____
{}{}__{}
{}{}____

This may have been talked about before since it seems logical to me.

What is your 2 cents?

Capntastic · « **Reply #1 on:** February 17, 2010, 06:09:07 pm »

While expanding territory is fine, removing random portions of the map would probably be incredibly hard to code, causing lots of bugs, etc. Especially since it removes the oblong nature of a map.

So for this example:

{}{}____
{}[]{}{}
{}{}{}{}
__{}{}{}
{}{}{}__

What happens when you scrolls down across the left side? You get blocked? It's nothing but black? That would be annoying and unrealistic. What if you discover there's a monster camp nearby, would you just be able to stop it from being part of your map? There's a lot of reasons why this is a bad idea, and I can't think of any immediate positives that would counter them.

Diablous · « **Reply #2 on:** February 17, 2010, 06:18:37 pm »

Expansion, great. Removal, bad, and would be difficult.

lucusLoC · « **Reply #3 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:15:27 pm »

i like the expansion idea, but keep it to a simple X x Y map, and no option for removal. you have to be commited to the expansion.

you should, however, have an option to preview the land you are about to annex, to make sure there is nothing there you do not want, like a giant frame rate killing waterfall. maybe a grayed out topography map?

NW_Kohaku · « **Reply #4 on:** February 18, 2010, 02:00:37 pm »

One thing I've noticed about this, though...

The land you settle on is apparently "randomized" by seed upon embark slightly. When I embark on the same area, but with different sizes (using save scumming), I wind up with pretty much exactly the same overall geography shapes, but with a few notable differences:

Embarking on the same size map produces the same map every time you save-scum it back.

Embarking on a different-size map, however, produces changes in the way that stagnant pools and ore veins are generated, however.

I assume that the stagnant pools and ore veins are generated at embark, using the same seed, so that a larger embark area would use that seed more times when generating the embark location, resulting in very different-looking ore veins.

lucusLoC · « **Reply #5 on:** February 18, 2010, 02:23:14 pm »

i don't really see that as a problem. call it map maker error.

Rafal99 · « **Reply #6 on:** February 18, 2010, 02:34:10 pm »

Quote from: NW_Kohaku on February 18, 2010, 02:00:37 pm

The land you settle on is apparently "randomized" by seed upon embark slightly. When I embark on the same area, but with different sizes (using save scumming), I wind up with pretty much exactly the same overall geography shapes, but with a few notable differences:

Embarking on the same size map produces the same map every time you save-scum it back.

Embarking on a different-size map, however, produces changes in the way that stagnant pools and ore veins are generated, however.

I assume that the stagnant pools and ore veins are generated at embark, using the same seed, so that a larger embark area would use that seed more times when generating the embark location, resulting in very different-looking ore veins.

To me it sounds like a bug in map generation code.
Imho the terrain, espiecially veins, shouldn't depend on your starting area size and position.
If I was Toady, I would use map square position and map seed to make unique seed for every map square, that is always the same for that square, no matter where you embark. Then use this seed to generate features for that square (veins, terrain shape etc). That way a specific map square in a specific world would be always the same.
It should be reported in the bug section imho.

About the suggestion:
Would be very nice if you could expand the map and decreasing its size would be fine too (for performance reasons mostly) as long as the map stays rectangular.
But I definitely vote no for removing random portions of the map.

CaptApollo12 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 18, 2010, 03:48:02 pm »

I guess it would have to be rectangular.

Would be cool if this was a feature

{}{}{}____[]{}{}
{}{}{}____{}{}{}
{}{}{}____{}{}{}
{}{}{}__________

One would scroll to the left and it would have an unexlpored 1 tile area. The left area is a goblin fort where your dwarvies are assualting.

Again what capntastic would point out would be the scrolling problems. I could probably type out a code, but it would be less efficeint than a simple scrolling algorithm toady uses for a rectangular map.

NW_Kohaku · « **Reply #8 on:** February 19, 2010, 10:57:53 pm »

Adding, if you don't mind the oddities of random ore veins, wouldn't be too much of a problem. Removing, however is a potential problem.

First, what if you remove land, then add it back in... You would expect that the land you removed would still be essentially the way you left it, right? Well, that means you need to save the state of that land.

Now, what happens if you had, say, a lava waterfall that was being fed by a tube, but since then, you closed that tube off, and killed the feed of lava to that area. When you add that area back into play, is there still lava there, frozen mid-plummet? Would you be able to preserve food or ice indefinitely by simply "quantum locking" it? If not, then you need to somehow simulate changes over time... and if you're still running that land "off-board", it's probably not saving you any framerate.

Now, let's get really tricky, because we all know that players live and die by their exploits of the system.

Let's say you really wanted to set up an elaborate defense for your fortress, all along the edges of the map, but there's a problem - you can't mess around with certain constructions on the outermost 1 or 5 tiles of your map, depending on the item... no problem! Just expand your map, work the now-not-edges, then retract your map right back!

CaptApollo12 · « **Reply #9 on:** February 21, 2010, 12:10:46 am »

aghhh make ur site have no entrance with hax.

But expanding is a good idea. Has it been noted before?

Hyndis · « **Reply #10 on:** February 21, 2010, 02:03:25 pm »

I do like the idea of being able to expand, but not removing or selectively picking tiles to expand to.

All or nothing.

If you start on, say, a 3x3 embark and you want to bump it up to 4x4 then sure, but you get the full thing and can't take it back later on if you change your mind.

snus-mumrik · « **Reply #11 on:** February 21, 2010, 03:44:29 pm »

Expanding sounds great, I agree with the most that it should just allow you to choose a larger "embark" area that would include your current one.

What about sending scouting troops to gather info (maps, creatures) of nearby areas?

What about a ruler asking you to take some land under your protection (i.e. it has road/bridge)?

Or a ruler asking you to pay for the land.

BTW decreasing land size may have some very interesting side-effects. What if I gather those annoying nobles on a piece of land and then 'decrease' it? Dwarven-noble-smasher?

forsaken1111 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 21, 2010, 04:00:13 pm »

I love the idea of having two accessable maps, one of which is a goblin fort your dwarves are assaulting.

Maybe having a certain amount of travel time required when moving off one map and onto the other, as well as supplied required.

But of course that isn't the point of this thread. I like the idea of being able to expand your map as you grow, but not selective expansion to specific tiles as that could cause issues and look ugly. Should be an option to simply add a row or column onto a side of the map.

Funk · « **Reply #13 on:** February 22, 2010, 12:59:35 pm »

on renbarks changeing the map size must be easyer.

teloft · « **Reply #14 on:** February 23, 2010, 06:05:16 am »

Sounds good.

I like to add a step.

lets say I have a 6x6 map to start with. I mark it with "P" as playable

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On the edge of the map are some tiles, perhaps with some evil pit or something, if we sould be able to expand the playable map, then the surounding of the edge of the map spuld also mater during play. With the "E" mark is the edge of the map, the dwarfs dont go there and I can not give any orders there (less pathfinding), but the evil creatures there are visible and can come into the playable map to kill and be killed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now if I am to add a colum or a row to my playable map I can simply add one of the "E" marked rows or colums, thus a new E markt colum or row is added.

With this option, we can all start with a much smaller map, and then expand it as needed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Personaly I would like to have districts in order to save on some CPU usage. here are tow distrikts where the playable are is marked with "1", "2" and "3". non-visible areas marked with "_"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So when I go to district "1" the other districs are turned off. To manage this, I could have an active dwarf that needs to travel to a district in order to activate it, thusly disactivating the playability of the other districs.

But I dont know if it is possible to handle the hidden districts automaticaly like using the world gen code to partly handle them or something.

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Author Topic: Adding and removing areas of the map. (Read 1856 times)

CaptApollo12

Adding and removing areas of the map.

Capntastic

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

Diablous

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

lucusLoC

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

NW_Kohaku

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

lucusLoC

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

Rafal99

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

CaptApollo12

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

NW_Kohaku

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

CaptApollo12

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

Hyndis

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

snus-mumrik

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

forsaken1111

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

Funk

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.

teloft

Re: Adding and removing areas of the map.