Putting features on the Campaign map (custom tiles)

[PROMETHEUS]

yes , I followed it step by step , but the old piramids are still there and the new ones not......

[Epistolary Richard]

Thanks for taking the time to go through this, guys. Maybe I've not done something or got a setting somewhere or there's an 'r' in the month or something... but wait... what's this?

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Forests? Watchtowers? It's a whole new look for 244, 53!

Yes, after your replies I gave it one last go and it finally worked. Wahoo. I'm sorry, I'm tired, I mean WAHOOOO!

I found out what I was doing wrong as well. You have to laugh otherwise you'd cry.

When I made the custom_tiles_db text file, I called it custom_tiles_db.txt (mad, I know). I noticed the Sons of Mars file was just called custom_tiles_db, so I figured what the hell and I removed the letters .txt from the filename and... it worked.

Just to make sure, I went back and put the .txt back in and it didn't work. I removed it and it was fine.

So, now we've actually got it working let's go back to why I started with it in the first place...

BTW, have you (or anyone) tried playing a battle in a tile _next to_ custom one? Do all the features remain as you look outside the battlefield?

Right, so for this one, as well as the doubty Captain Caspar I enrolled a Brutii general, setting them up in 243, 53 and 244, 54 (the custom map) respectively.

This is the view from 243, 53 to 244, 54. If it was displaying the custom map then it should look like the picture above.

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Nope, not even close.

Just to make sure, I then attacked the Brutii general in the custom map to see whether it was actually working.

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And there it is.

So, it's clear that custom tiles are _not_ viewable from adjacent tiles.

I have another question though, has anyone had any wierd effects at the borders of maps. I know that the map only goes so far, it doesn't save whats in the distance, it only saves the battlefield, the rest is generated from the campaign map, so what I mean it, does the edge of the battlefield fit smootly with the rest of the world, or is it sudden... I think it does it smoothly, but I've only tested with fairly flat maps in flat areas.

For this, I took a northern cousin 243, 152 where it is pretty much as flat as you can get and placed it on 244, 54 (which as you may have noticed has a few hills). The result looked pretty smooth, though you can perhaps make out a hint of the join where the cursor is pointing.

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It looks like it stretches to just beyond the minimap's range.

(I also placed a small kop in each corner just inside the red line on the battle editor. These then fell outside the playable area in the game, but I assume the battle editor uses the larger playable areas used in sieges.)

For a clearer comparison I made a custom tile from 160, 43 - the southern beach of Rhodes. I placed a series of watchtowers to mark the beach (note that this had the effect of adding land on top of the sea to make the right angles on the coast).

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This was then moved to the now infamous 244, 54 with the following result.

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There are a few items of note here. One, it's still a sea! So this is in effect a very odd lake. Two, though it's quite obvious where the join between the tiles are, the adjacent tiles are smoothing down into the sea rather than making cliffs. Three, in the second shot the cavalry are walking on land that was risen from the sea by the creation of the watchtowers (though they were rather reluctant to do so, indeed the game didn't like this map much at all).

I hope you don't mind but I've devised a fitting tribute for your help over the last few days.

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[Myrddraal]

I hope you don't mind but I've devised a fitting tribute for your help over the last few days.

- -

Brilliant... You've got to laugh, or else you'd cry...

And thats good news about getting it to work. I guess we'll just have to make the custom features not too noticable from distance, so that you can't tell that their not there...

[Epistolary Richard]

I think it's just going to be about striking a balance between the changes you make on the campaign map and the changes you make through the battle editor. If you want to put in something big and obvious, eg, a mountain range or a settlement then they have to be done through the campaign map, leaving smaller changes that wouldn't be noticeable from a distance to the battle map.

But perhaps it's possible to fake it, so for example if you want to put a really big tower in the campaign you could place it on the battle map as normal, but alter the heights in the campaign map so that even from adjacent tiles there appears to be "an object" in the distance (though maybe the camp map would automatically smooth it into a hill?).

But hang on, aren't we missing a trick here? AFAIK the vanilla campaign doesn't use custom tiles, so aren't the wonders that appear on the battle map sourced from the campaign map?

[eadingas]

Wonders are hardcoded to use off-map models. If you look closely, what you see on horizon for wonders are the same models that are used for campaign map (same goes for settlements and ports). I don't think we can duplicate that.

We can always cover the features with hills and forests, so they wouldn't be visible anyway :)

[PROMETHEUS]

well I was saving as text too , may be i will try , tough I was actually tring to replace the pyramids with the actual real models , anyone knows how we can substituite them in the way that when playing near , close or above that square u play always with the real pyramid and not the blocky one?

[Myrddraal]

Well you could make a custom tile and use it for all the squares around the wonder. For this purpose its convenient that they don't appear from neighboring tiles...

[PROMETHEUS]

How can this be done?

[Myrddraal]

Hm, are you still having trouble getting it to work?
When you say you saved it as a txt file, I thank that ER meant that he doesn't have the setting on to show the extensions, so he saved it as .txt.txt instead of .txt.

Maybe you might want to send me the files you've got?
PM me if you send them...

[eadingas]

BTW, this is why there are no steep cliffs in vanilla battles :)
http://img189.exs.cx/img189/3327/cliff10ub.jpg
http://img189.exs.cx/img189/3488/cliff21bb.jpg
http://img189.exs.cx/img189/3978/cliff34sj.jpg
http://img189.exs.cx/img189/1669/cliff42pz.jpg
http://img189.exs.cx/img189/2520/cliff54jx.jpg

[Myrddraal]

I know that someone had the same problem when making spartan historical battle. You have to use the cliff features... Which of course aren't big enough

[Epistolary Richard]

Just in case this wasn't commonly known - the background models for strat models is referenced through descr_offmap_models.txt

This is where you can find the references to strat map models that appear on the battle map such as ships, settlements, wonders etc.

[Duke John]

If you wish to use custom tiles in the imperial_campaign then put the custom_tiles directory and custom_tiles_db file in the base directory. And remember to delete the map.rwm file when adding custom tiles.

And could a mod please move this to the Scriptorium? It's valuable information for anyone wishing to use custom tiles.

[eadingas]

I think it was discussed in scriptorium.. when it was fresh news, about a year ago ;)

[Epistolary Richard]

As it is actually a tutorial, DJ's correct in that it should live in the Scriptorium. So moved...

In the base folder? I put them in the imperial_campaign folder in 1.2 and it works for me. Or are you saying you need to put them in the base folder for 1.5?

[Duke John]

With 1.5 it didn't appear to work when placed in the imperial_campaign folder. It did when placed in the base folder.

[Spartan198]

Would it be possible to create custom sandbox battlemaps (like,say,Thermopylae) with the instructions here? I'm only curious...