Help with trees

[Cullhwch]

I've tried searching the archives, and so far I've had little luck in determining how to get rid of the annoying sequoias that pop up all over Germany. They grow too densely and units can't navigate around them properly. Does anyone have a link to a file that reduces the trees (especially the trunks) down to a more reasonable size?

[satalexton]

kekeke, YOUR units cant navigate them properly.... the sweboz shall carve you to pieces!!!

[fenix3279]

I think what you're looking for is in the RTW/EB/Data/Vegetation folder.

[Callicles]

What is he looking for in the folder? I also have been curious about reducing their size (because of performance issues, mainly).

[fenix3279]

I was mistaken in my last post. Look at the RTW/EB/Data/descr_vegetation. The directions in there will explain how to alter the number of trees.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

The problem is that there are strangely regions in EB which have the northern fir trees blasted to Sequoia size, whereas in most northern fir tree regions the fir trees are normal sized. If you alter the density of the trees in general, the healthy regions will have more of an open park landscape instead of a wood. But perhaps that's what you have intended...

[Cullhwch]

I just want smaller trees, that's all. I don't mind densely forested maps in general, but when single units get strung out over half the map just due to trunk width (groups of guys will bunch up in areas where 2-3 massive trees grow unrealistically close to one another) I get really annoyed. I suppose that reducing tree density would offset that problem somewhat, but I really just want normal sized evergreens.

[satalexton]

i think that has something to do with the scaling of the tree models, lowering the sizes of the skeletons should make them smaller....and shorter...

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

i think that has something to do with the scaling of the tree models, lowering the sizes of the skeletons should make them smaller....and shorter...
This is exactly what strangely does not work everywhere.

[Laza]

i think that has something to do with the scaling of the tree models, lowering the sizes of the skeletons should make them smaller....and shorter...

Any news about this topic? Perhaps someone is working on getting the last giant trees to a more appropriate size? Changing descr_vegetation doesnt help or do anything at all. At least in custom battles it makes no difference when i scale down the high of a model. Did i miss anything?

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I think the key questions of this problem are:

Why are the trees scaled incorrectly in one tile, but correctly in the very next?

What determines the tree scaling per tile?

Why does terrain resolution seems to be lower in the incorrectly scaled tiles?

Could the scaling error have something to do with "overall scaling", and not just the scaling of the trees?

:shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

[Marcus Ulpius]

Trees are a big problem for me too. I try to find any clearance when fighting on a forested map and position my troops there. It is nigh impossible to control the troops in the forest. Probably that is historically accurate, but I think that in ancient times nearly no one was fighting in thick forests (except ambushes), but an RTW AI is not bothered by that fact at all.

Apart of troop coordination problem (which I can live with), there's a huge path-finding problem. It's not uncommon to see the battle go one and on because 2-3 soldiers got stuck under some tree and can't figure their way out.

[Pobs]

Hi,

i got over this problem by taking the 'vegetation' folder from the 'Rome cassus belli' mod and swapping it into EB's data folder, you need to swap in the descr_vegetation.txt file and also delete the vegetation.db file so it makes a new one. I seem to remember I had a slight problem with one of the long distance sprites only half showing up so I swapped the same files in the main RTW/data folder too and that fixed it... now I have nice, small, well-spaced trees that don't trap anyone....


there is a tutorial on making and adding trees here :


https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=60901


hope that helps.


cheers,


Pobs

edit : sorry I should also have mentioned the 'models_vegetation' folder which also needs to be replaced. Pobs

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

1. Is that save-game compatible?
2. Can anyone confirm that this works?
3. Could you send me the respective folder?

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

PM me with an addie and I can send you the files over, they are working fine here using eb1.1 at the moment and i imagine they are savegame compatible since they basically just swap the models on battlefields so I can't see they will be a problem, I had no problem with my existing campaign game anyway.

disclaimer : I am not a seasoned modder of this game so I accept no responsibility if you wish to use this... it works for me that's all I can say.... before trying it, make a full copy of your setup and keep it safe !!...


cheers,


Pobs

[Olaf Blackeyes]

:laugh4:ALL HAIL GERMANIA!!!!!!
Lolololol thats what makes invading my peoples lands FUN!!!!!!:beam:
(insert SUPER evil laugh here)

[Havok.]

:laugh4:ALL HAIL GERMANIA!!!!!!
Lolololol thats what makes invading my peoples lands FUN!!!!!!:beam:
(insert SUPER evil laugh here)

lmao

[BadKarma033]

Anyone had any success with switching out the vegetation files with the files from older versions of EB? I don't remember having these problems with 1.0

[Cullhwch]

Hey, Pobs's solution works! And yes, this was a problem in earlier EB versions.

[Pobs]

Merry Xmas Cullhwch,

glad it worked for you too ...



cheers,



Pobs

[Laza]

Did u get my PM?

Maybe L4z is interested in small trees for his big mini mod pack, too.

[Pobs]

Hi Laza,

I did get your PM thanks,

on their way to you now :beam:

hope they help...


cheers,


Pobs

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Hi Pobs,

I did as you suggested. I renamed the four respective files and put in the new ones both in EB and RTW. This showed however no change at all. Then I looked up what you wrote and deleted vegetation.db. Now I get CTDs when I want to look at a settlement on the battlemap (to see if it works) which never before happened to me.

Advice?

[Pobs]

Hi Centurio,

first off I would copy back the vegetation.db that I sent you over since that should work with the other files in the zips. If you are getting a ctd when you try to view the trees then you probably have a tree model missing somewhere... see if the problem is common to all tree types ie can you view palm trees for instance?...

another way to overcome a missing model is to copy the folders in the zip into a copy of your original folders so that you are in effect only adding the new trees to the existing ones rather than replacing the old ones and possibly missing a model that is still being called up.. if that fails you are into the rather time consuming job of looking in the decr_vegetation. txt file and checking the models called up are actually in the models_vegetation folder ... but that shouldn't be necessary really since the files are working for at least two of us without a problem...

it is always possible you have a corrupted file in the zips though... if all else fails I can send them again and you can re-install them to see if that helps...


cheers,


Pobs

[PraetorFigus]

thanks for the insight pobs,
I did what you suggested and so far no impassible fat or super tall trees in germany!

also, I did this mid-campaign and so far nothing serious as far as random battle CTD's go.

[Pobs]

Glad its worked for you PF :beam:...


cheers,


Pobs

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Sorry for the delay. I can view the settlement when I use all the files and folders you sent me. However, there is no change at all. Not the slightest. :sad:

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

so with the files I sent you installed you still see the oversized megatrees ??... that is very strange since the calls are now being made to the new models and they dont include the big old tree models, so I can't quite see how they are still appearing in your game, unless the 'view' settlement uses a different set up to the battlefields. Have you tried fighting a battle yet ??... perhaps they are changed in the battlefields but not in the 'view settlement' view, I dont use that so I am not sure... check it 'in-game' and let me know if it works in a battle setting will you ?...


cheers,



Pobs

[^RaGe^]

Is there a way to reduce the amount of trees on the battlefield?

[Pobs]

Hi Rage,

yes look at that link I gave in my first post on this thread, apart from resizing the trees you can also change the 'forest templates' that are used to lay out the trees on the maps...


cheers,



Pobs

[PraetorFigus]

fenix3279 said look in RTW/EB/Data/descr_vegetation and follow the directions there to lower the number of trees

Pobs linked a guide here https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=60901 that can help you change the density in that file,

my pet-peeve was the strange trees and with Pobs advice I got normal looking tree trunks! Hope this helps!

Edit: hehe, Pobs beat me to the post!

[^RaGe^]

Hi Rage,

yes look at that link I gave in my first post on this thread, apart from resizing the trees you can also change the 'forest templates' that are used to lay out the trees on the maps...


cheers,



Pobs
Stupid me, I should've read the previous posts first. :sweatdrop:

By the way, what kind of forests are those in Illyria? The ones in Gaul got reduced in size, but the trees in Illyria are as huge as ever.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Take a look at Bononia or Patavium or Dalminion and you see whether it worked or not.

Sorry, but the problem is not the size of the trees, but their wrong scaling in some tiles.

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

just checked those towns and you are right, it hasn't fixed that area.. I will look at which tree set are used there and try and fix that one too for you...


cheers,


Pobs

[BadKarma033]

I tried to use Pobs' solution with the EB 1.0 files and it worked pretty well at first, there were actually some clearings I could see my Epeirote army and fight in. Unfortunately when I got to a desert region I got hit with CTDs every time.

[Pobs]

Hi BadKarma,

PM me with your email address for the zipped folders to fix the missing palm tree model....


cheers,



Pobs

[^RaGe^]

Can you post a new thread about this on the unofficial mods sub-forum? I'm sure many people would appreciate it. :yes:

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

OK been looking at the remaining problem trees, which appear to be the vegetation type 'alpine dense forest', and affect the trees in the north Italian area you speak of. My first approach has been to spread the trees out rather than swap new models in... I think I have managed this now by editing the descr_vegetation.txt file in the EB/data folder. In this file under the section headed ' vegetation types' go the values marked in red below and change them as I have and you should see the big trees but spread out and varying in size a bit, so that they dont trap troops trying to pass through them... let me know if this solves your problems (you may have to delete the vegetation.db file after making the changes but try it first without). I will also look at trying to work out how to swap some nicer trees in, or at least get the scale of the trees to look better... remember to keep your original file incase you have problems with the changes !!


default trees around Bononia:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/Pobs1/misc/newtxtolddb.jpg


new spacing with the descr_vegetation.txt fix:


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/Pobs1/misc/newspacingandsizerange.jpg




the text change to make this happen :

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/Pobs1/misc/de4scvegchanges.jpg


what I have done is to change the scale of the tree tremplate from 142 m across to 512 metres across as it is for the other forest types, and to change the height values to allow more variety in height .... it may not look like the centre of a dense mature forest anymore, but how many battles were fought in such conditions anyway ?...

It seems to work here so far and is savegame compatible as far as I can test it ...


cheers,


Pobs

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

First of all, thank you very much for your efforts and the work you put into this, Pobs.

I've done some testing with your suggestions tonight and here's what I found out:


Changing the values in descr_vegetation.txt does not affect my trees in Bononia
Deleting descr_vegetation.db produces even bigger trees but with a wider spacing, regardless of the descr_vegetation.txt applied
descr_vegetation.db deleted, both Segestica (a "good-tree-city" with correct trees) and Bononia feature the so created standard-trees
trying to load the battle-map view of Meroe for reference causes CTD
the game does not create a new descr_vegetation.db after deleting it

[antisocialmunky]

We need to just make a tree mod. Its not that hard, we just need to do it.

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

hmmm... well, as I understand a mod-foldered mod like eb, it will look in the eb/data folder first, then if it can't find a file it will go to the rtw/data folder and check there. If that is true perhaps part of the problem lies with the vegetation.db file in your main rtw folder ?... again, as far as my understanding goes, the data is parsed into these database folders at game start-up ( hence the delay I suppose), so to see changes you will need to delete files and restart the game, I assume you were doing that ?...

ASM, couldn't agree more... if you find it easy though, perhaps you could do one for us, it might save a lot of time and experimentation ?... I repeat I am not an experienced modder of this game but a lot of the modders seem to have moved on to EB2 without addressing this problem so it is left to us players to see what we can do... I am more than happy to receive instruction or help from anyone on this...

:)

cheers,


Pobs

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I tried with deleting the .db of the original RTW folder, though it has nothing to do with the EB trees I think. To no avail - you can't do without the .db file of EB and the .db file of RTW is useless to us.

But I have noted the position of known good-tree / bad-tree locations on EBs map and then taken a look at MAP_CLIMATES. It's not so nice but I think clearly visible: white are locations of giant trees, black of normal trees. The white dots are all in the green area, which marks the "alpine" kind of tree methinks. Perhaps it would be possible to just change the alpine colour to the northern europe colour? :huh:

https://img172.imageshack.us/img172/295/mapclimatesfw3.png (https://imageshack.us)

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

yes I take your point on doing away with the 'alpine dense forest' but I am not sure where the vegetation types for the areas are stored. I am not sure that changing the climate map is the best way to go since it is probably used to calculate other things like fertility of the land, frequency of floods, movement rates etc.... but as long as you back up your game files then it might be worth a look...

I have been fiddling around with the values in the descr_vegetation.txt file and am sloooowly beginning to understand how it works... for instance if you dont have a .db file in the EB/data folder I think the game goes to the main RTW/data folder, finds the db file in there and then uses the files from that folder for its info. I say that because after deleting the db file from the EB/data folder I found making changes to the txt file in that folder didn't seem to affect the game, but with a db file in, they did... That previous change to the txt file I suggested ( changing the first value to 512) did spread out the big trees in my set-up, but it also spread out all the other trees that use the default forest layout !!! so I got very open forests for all types of trees, even though I only changed it in the one section for the dense alpine forest ??... strange... I am going to try swapping the df (dense forest) tree models out of the section on 'alpine dense forest' in the txt file and see if the game will use another tree... watch this space for the results :)...

cheers,


Pobs

edit : looks like we aren't the first ones to have problems with adding trees to -mod foldered mods !! look here :

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=66201

and it looks like you are right about changing the climates map to get rid of the alpine tree type..

cheers,

Pobs

[Pobs]

Hi CN,

yep, tried your idea with the climates map and it works to get rid of the last 'giant forests'... I swapped it for the colour of the german forest area and then deleted the map.rwm file and let it make a new one and the trees in the alps are now nice and small.... it seems to be perfectly savegame compatible with my romani game too... so no problems there.


cheers,


Pobs

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Really? Weird... I will try it too. :yes:

[Laza]

And maybe u could offer the new file for download, too! :sweatdrop:

[Pobs]

Laza,

I will email you a copy to try out.

cheers,


Pobs

[Pobs]

Hi Laza,

file e-mailed to you, let me know if it works OK for you.


cheers,


Pobs

[Laza]

Custom battle maps like chaucii woodland arent affected at all. oO Ive tried a few siege battles with the sweboz in their home territory and the edge of every battle map still had lots of giant trees. :(

Thx anyway! ~:cheers: