map mechanic idea: mountain passes

[paradoxharbinger]

so, was thinking about options to put into mapgen and mulling over the idea of ports and bridges, which have already been seen in some maps, when i thought of a similar mechanic for mountains, with it's own special tactical twists.

the mountain pass would basically be a very small province, or chain thereof, which could be used to cross a mountain range without actually entering the mountains. the twist is that the army in the pass may not enter the mountains to either side, but an army in the adjacent mountain territories could descend upon an army sitting in the pass. i believe it's possible to mod one-way movements between provinces (there was a discussion about it somewheres i think). the army coming through the pass would never know an enemy was in wait, owing to the fact that from the pass, the neighboring mountains are not neighbors at all, greatly increasing the need for scouts, while those waiting to ambush could see them all the while.

well let me know what you think of the idea, i think its pretty sweet myself, but thats just me.

[Foodstamp]

I am pretty sure you cannot mod one way neighbors on maps unless it has been changed since the beginning of the year.

[paradoxharbinger]

guess youre right, though that means there's a bug in the map editor because it's possible to make what look like one way links. oh well

[Foodstamp]

If it looks like you can do it, test it with a small map. Something else you may do to test it is going into the .map file and deleting the neighbors on a province. Both methods would test the theory pretty fast.

I remember the thread where people were talking about it, I believe it got added to the mod makers wish list by DomFan or someone.

[Arralen]

paradoxharbinger said:
.. a bug in the map editor because it's possible to make what look like one way links. oh well


Pardon?!
There can't be one-way interconnections on principle: The game stores only one pair of neighbouring provinces numbers anyway and always assumes that you can move both ways. There's e.g.

-- Province neighbours
#neighbour 1 3
#neighbour 1 139
#neighbour 1 254
in the map file, but you should never find:
...
#neighbour 139 1
in the same file.

[paradoxharbinger]

when using the map editor they look one way, but when you try to play on it, there's no link period. you can reproduce it by linking some provinces in the map editor, choose one of them and click 'removed province'. sometimes it will make what look like one way links. i had never actually tested to see whether it worked or not in game until last night.

[llamabeast]

That's a shame. That would have been awesome.

[paradoxharbinger]

yeah, one way links would allow for all sorts of hijinks. i don't know how the links are implemented in the game, but all of the schemes i can think of could easily be modified to enable one-way linking, so that #neighbor x y != #neighbor y x with a new command #enableoneway so that old maps would not suddenly become broken.