Proper Wonders on the battlefield in the campaign - BETA RELEASE

[Epistolary Richard]

http://www.geocities.com/epistolaryrichard/wonder1.jpg
The Egyptians & the Scipii battle amongst the mighty Pyramids

INITIAL BETA RELEASE - DOWNLOAD (http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?act=mod&id=475)

Caveat
This mini-mod is only intended for users who have had experience in modding their own games. This beta has to be manually installed and therefore requires a certain degree of familiarity with the game's file directory.

What does it do?
This mini-mod allows you to fight campaign battles actually in and around the proper Wonder structures instead of only being able to see them from afar.

How does it work?
Using the method of inserting custom battlefield tiles in the campaign map as developed by Myrddraal, it uses a different custom tile at each Wonder location.

What's the catch?
Because the Wonder models on the campaign map block any movement into those squares, for this initial beta at least we've had to drop the strat map Wonder models (as a result they are no longer visible from adjacent squares) and the associated bonuses. But, there are simple ways to restore most of these attributes. It's just a matter of finding the best method to do it.

How big is it?
Approx. 11 meg

Install instructions
1) Download wonders.zip
2) Place the custom_tiles_db.txt file and the custom_tiles folder in your campaign folder (eg, data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\)
3) In that same campaign folder, delete the map.rwm file if it exists.
4) In that same campaign folder, open up the existing descr_Strat.txt file and find the landmarks section - either delete or comment (ie, add a ; at the beginning of the line) this entire section
5) Launch RTW normally.

DOWNLOAD (http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?act=mod&id=475)

If you'd like to view the wonder custom tiles in battle then one easy way is to change the starting locations of some of the rebel units listed near the bottom of descr_strat. Just change the x and y co-ordinates to match that of the wonder you'd like to see:
X Y
pyramids_and_sphinx 181, 12
pharos 178, 21
colossus 160, 44
temple 157, 53
statue 134, 49
gardens 237, 46
mausoleum 160, 50

Thus the rebel stack will indicate exactly where the Wonder is and will allow you to view the wonder by fighting a battle there.

Feedback
There are several different ways that this mod can be improved upon, but I'm releasing this beta version to get feedback on which aspects are more important than others and the best way to go about restoring them.
- Strategic map models - These are easily restored by simply moving them or the custom tile into adjacent tiles. This means that the Wonders locations wouldn't exactly match up, but more significantly it would mean that the strategic map model would be visible in the background of the custom tile (thus there would be two Colossus, Mausoleums, etc.)
- Restoring bonuses - Putting the strategic models back on the map will simply restore the bonuses. But if you want to avoid the duplication issue then the strategic model can perhaps be alpha'ed and even moved to a less significant part of the province. Whichever square it was moved to, however, would then become impassable.
- Viewing from adjacent tiles – removing the strategic models also removed this feature and it cannot be easily replicated within a custom tile.
- Ideally, therefore, we'd like to stop the strategic model from blocking the square from being entered and put our own custom tile there. Any ideas as to how this could be done would be gratefully received.

Historical accuracy
At the moment, the Wonder buildings have just been placed in the middle of the tile that they occupied in descr_strat. In order to do them justice in the final version, we'd be interested in any information as to their real-life immediate surroundings so that we can make them as accurate as the game will allow.


http://www.geocities.com/epistolaryrichard/wonder2.jpg
At the very foot of Mount Olympus, the Spartans stand against the Roman invaders

Thanks as ever go to CA, the Org modding community and Myrddraal for discovering the custom tile method which was the only way this mod could be accomplished.

[Lonely Soldier]

I'll definetly DL this one once some of the bugs have been ironed out! It looks great! Finally someone has bothered to rectify that sorry state of affairs ~:) )

[Epistolary Richard]

The limitations at the moment all really revolve around the Wonder blocking the square on the campaign map. If there's some way to keep the strategic model but allow armies to move into it then that would go a long way towards a polished version.

[Epistolary Richard]

This is a WIP shot:

http://www.geocities.com/epistolaryrichard/wdn2.jpg

As you can see, we've managed to open up the Wonder squares by swapping strat models, thus allowing us to have a battle there. We retained the Wonder bonus by making it appear as a fishing village further up the coast.

So that's five Wonders done with two to go - unfortunately a different method will have to be used. And there have been a few casualties along the way - the camels and elephants will no longer appear on the strat map - you'll still only be able to recruit them in the same place but we've had to swap them to hidden resources.

Edit: Hmmm... the picture's broken because I've exceeded my data transfer limits apparently. It says it'll be back up in an hour.

[PROMETHEUS]

This seems the mod I was loking for , but coulld u post a pic of the colossus of Rodi to see how u made the battlefield?

[Epistolary Richard]

Not for a couple of weeks, I'm afraid, as I'm away from my copy of RTW. However, as I said above at the moment, the Wonder buildings have just been placed in the middle of the tile that they occupied in descr_strat. This is particularly bad for the Colossus of Rhodes, because historically it went over the port, whereas in RTW the tile it's placed on is just a hillside.

I've approached a couple of people who I know are involved in editing battlemap terrain to ask if they were interested in making the custom tiles more realistic, however I've yet to have any interest.

[Kraxis]

Not for a couple of weeks, I'm afraid, as I'm away from my copy of RTW. However, as I said above at the moment, the Wonder buildings have just been placed in the middle of the tile that they occupied in descr_strat. This is particularly bad for the Colossus of Rhodes, because historically it went over the port, whereas in RTW the tile it's placed on is just a hillside.
Actually with the size it had it couldn't possibly have been in the harbour, it simply didn't have the size to be there. Some studies showed that its legts were too short for it to stand there. It was more likely to have stood near the harbour (so that it could tumble into the sea) on some raised position.

[Epistolary Richard]

Interesting. The reason I couldn't put the Colossus on the beach was the square coastline that it would have created, however if I could legitimately place it further back... But, of course, the battlemap model has the Colossus bestriding the harbour, so we'd need a new model.

[Myrddraal]

Thats very crafty, but I think you should use trees or something instead of a fishing village, and place it in mountains or some other impassable area so that you don't notice that you can't go there. You do realise that you can add models for dogs and pigs resources, so use them instead of camels and elephants.

[Epistolary Richard]

Yes, all this was based on your post to eadingas a few months ago, the pigs, dogs, furs have all already gone... :grin: It's probably going to have to be tin and amber for the other two - and I'll have to add other resources of equal values to those provinces to make up the difference. I did try eadingas' idea to use different climate models but it wouldn't accept the wonder models.

And I'll try to put them out of the way as much as possible, but they have to be in the same province, which is fine for the gardens, but a little more tricky for the colossus...

[PROMETHEUS]

Yes, all this was based on your post to eadingas a few months ago, the pigs, dogs, furs have all already gone... :grin: It's probably going to have to be tin and amber for the other two - and I'll have to add other resources of equal values to those provinces to make up the difference. I did try eadingas' idea to use different climate models but it wouldn't accept the wonder models.

And I'll try to put them out of the way as much as possible, but they have to be in the same province, which is fine for the gardens, but a little more tricky for the colossus...

can't be simply substituited the normal wonders we have in game with this one?

[Epistolary Richard]

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're saying, Prom. Can you explain further?

And on a side note, I think I'll be able to save the tin and the amber as I'm going to follow another one of Myrddraal's suggestions for the last two. So hopefully, there shouldn't be any gameplay impact apart from a few impassible tiles tucked away. The Colossus of Rhodes will still be deeply unsatisfactory, however, but unless a friendly modeller is willing to help out it's going to have to be left that way.

[SigniferOne]

ER, why is the Colossus unsatisfactory? I've got an idea that may help. I haven't tested it yet but I will when I get home. However, here's what I'm thinking:

The game divides objects into two categories: pure objects themselves (i.e. something like an army barracks), and settlement plans. Now settlement plans don't have to be whole big cities, they can be small things like -- if you go into the Battle Editor and insert some of those miscellaneous objects like an Egyptian Tomb or something, those are actually settlement plans. I've discovered this difference between these two types of things during making of my Rome mod, and basically the difference is: settlement plans are not defined by how big they are, but whether they have a definition for the ground they are on, what texture that ground has, etc. In other words, they control the whole environment around them. Simple objects, on the other hand, don't.

Now all wonders, by inception, are settlement plans, which means pure objects plus all the other stuff. So what we can try to do is to junk the rest and simply move around the Colossus object itself, together with the walls of the harbor that make the complete circuit, and move the whole thing out partway into the sea. Since we'll be moving the objects themselves, not their settlement plans which define ground and texture and so on, I don't see a problem with that. So those objects like the harbor walls will simply be ambient objects on that map, like you see random ruins around cities which are similarly just ambient objects which do nothing and are not related to the city's settlement plan itself.

Here's another idea I just came up with while editing the post: even if we HAVE to use a settlement plan option for the Colossus, that's still fine: we'll make textures 100% alpha transparent, and presto.

[Epistolary Richard]

The Colossus in its current state is unsatisfactory for a couple of reasons - the first is that it's located in the middle of the island. It should be over the port on the strategic map, however without modelling there's no way to make a combined port/Colossus strategic model. It would also require a combined off map model as well.

The other problem is if you use the battle editor (as I have to do) then you cannot place the Colossus by the sea without creating a huge square coastline. Thanks to your work with the Seven Hills Rome now it can be done properly, but again not without 3ds max.

[PROMETHEUS]

try to contact signifer one , he seems to have overcome every problem in editing battlefields as he likes.....

[Epistolary Richard]

Errr... I believe dsyrow1 and SignifierOne are the same person. Either that, or one of them is seriously stealing the other one's thunder.