Advancing the region generator and region display.
The basic tile type generation is done.
– Rocks and gravels depending on height variations and climate level of erosion. Each climate has its default rock type, like in the prototype.
– There’s 3 types of basic tile types for each climate now, scattered randomly. For example you’ll get sand, gravel and gravely sand for deserts and you’ll get ground, poor ground and gravely ground for a Mediterranean regions.
– There’s 3 types of ground fertility : low , regular and high. These can appear depending on the tile types used by climates. For exemple, Arid may only include low and regular while oceanic may include high and regular etc…
– Added “dryness” map on the terrain. Some tiles like grounds or clay even have a visual dry version. So even if you have a potentially fertile ground, in a dry region like desert or arid it will be displayed as dry and will not be usable for agriculture until irrigated.
– Started to implement cosmetic vegetations. There’s 2 types of grass and one type of bush per climate, with 3 variants as it was shown in previous weeks photoshop previews. They’ll be animated. They’re now ingame , though their placement is just basic for now.
Some of the remaining things to do in next weeks to finish the region generation and display : River generation on regions, a new optimized water display, cosmetic vegetation final placement, game resources placement and a lot of optimization to do to improve frame-rate despite all these new added contents.
We’re also adding new animals. This week : the camel (will also potentially be used for military units).
@Zankman
We though about dinosaur and possibility of starting a game at this period. Maybe some fictionnal animal some days. 🙂
Things look great. Cool that you feature camels, I hope to see as such different animals as possible!
Will you also feature fictitious animals?
That would be cool, you know, to add a bit more unique flavor to the game. You know how it is, fanbases always clamor over unique little critters!
Oh, there was ? Man, it’s so old now. We need to do another one game. 😛 Someday.
And good news for little tribes. Deserts are not friendly, this need to be know ! Let’s spread the word !
Or maybe just, not go here. Maybe.
Primitive tribe starts should never happen in deserts with no water and no food.
Things in the prototype were a bit too random, its also why a part of doing this whole new generation will be to ensure some minimal resources for player starts.
And yes there was definitely cliffs on sea shores!
Oh, right, roads are tiles too. I forgot. ^^ Thank you for the quick answer.
I was curious when I played last year in the beta, I started in a desert, wasted my supplies, then moved away in the jungle … losing the rest of my supplies along (I had just enough to build a lumber camp). I recovered eventually and rather quickly, the jungle been great for a start.
So I have some bad memories of deserts. ^^
If irrigation isn’t available at the start, well, good luck to thoses who debut here.
About map relief, I don’t remember if cliffs can exist next to water or if every coast was made of beaches. Can you confirm or infirm, please ?
Well the water map depends of the climate first. Each climate as an average “water source” level, so arid regions are dry by default but oceanic ones will basically always be irrigated.
Then there’s fresh water proximity : a river will of course generate an irrigated area nearby.
And yes, eventually i plan that players will be able to build small canals like roads , and they will diffuse water influence to otherwise dry areas. Or wells , that will create “points” and will be the first available thing.
Now even a dry tile has in fact a specific level of dryness, and for exemple, the cost of making a well will depend on that level, making it harder to dig a well in a desert than in an arid region where dryness is less strong.
This dryness represents in a way the level of the ground water, so even if its dry in surface, the water might be more or less deep in the ground and easy to access with a well.
Yay, camels are the best cavalry ever !
Apart this, screenshots look nice like always. They … just … greats. Have you an idea how to remove the black display under cliffs ?
Will you give some insights on how irrigation should work ? It’s a buildable tile, like farms are ?