Map news in next patch

[Johan K]

With the next patch of Dominions 3 it will be possible to change how individual provinces appears when you fight.

You can change the background image (the sky) and/or change the ground color to make pink mountains (see attached screenshot for that). You can also set which ground layout should be used e.g. a province with all fights taking place in the arena or use no ground at all to fight in space.

These changes are made in the map file. I hope it can add some extra immersion to the weirder maps :)

[Tifone]

It will be great for Dom3k I suppose, and others :)

[Aezeal]

ehm no offence, it might be my ignorance, but the map file is the .map file right?

I think this is a great feature and I'm very happy for what this will enable in dominions 3K. Space provinces as you suggested primarily. I have no idea how that thingie with the colors of the ground works but I'm sure it will fit different planets having different colors in addition to getting spaceprovince fights :D . (take note Rdonj since I specifically gave the planets on your map different colors :D)

[rdonj]

Since you're going to be looking for images anyway can't I make you do it? :angel

[Edi]

Hmm, this looks interesting. Looking forward to it! :D

[Gandalf Parker]

Thank you.
An interesting addition. The use of commands which were already in the game?
But added as map #commands. Its always nice to get more options and I cant wait to see what people do with them.

How did the game decide when to use "snow" backgrounds?

Brainstorming (public domain):
Global map for polar/temperate/tropical/temperate/polar
Maps are numbered lower-left to upper-right
On a map of 1500 provinces...
...ImageMagick script
........change the "plains" color of the top 10% of the image to white
........change the "plains" color of 20% of the middle of the image to dark green
........change the "plains" color of the bottom 10% of the image to white

...perl script
.......add magic site to top 10% provinces for boosting cold scale
.......add magic site to mid 20% provinces for boosting hot scale
.......add magic site to bottom 10% provinces for boosting cold scale

...python script
......change battle background of top 10% provinces to add grey
......change battle background of mid 20% provinces to add dark green
......change battle background of bottom 10% provinces to add grey

[Ballbarian]

Thank you JK! :)
Very cool addition!

[Aezeal]

Hey that screen (hadn't looked at it up close yet) is from dom3K.. hahaha my spider indies against a ghostdragon assassin it seems.

Rdonj, I'll find 2-3 backgrounds for the spaceprovinces yes, I just meant setting the commands :D

This is a really great feature for dom 3K, glad the mod was worth the effort for JK.

[Johan K]

ehm no offence, it might be my ignorance, but the map file is the .map file right?


Oh right, my bad.

[Aezeal]

Now I just hope the patch will be released soon :D

(what a weird thing to say, why would I say such a thing :D)

[Aezeal]

...perl script
.......add magic site to top 10% provinces for boosting cold scale
.......add magic site to mid 20% provinces for boosting hot scale
.......add magic site to bottom 10% provinces for boosting cold scale

Well sounds nice but if you are a heat nation and get stuck in the north then there would be a problem.. your gods dominion should be able to create heat or cold everywhere.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well its been requested to be able to create temperature zoned "world sized" maps. Id guess that the map maker was going to then move on to setting reasonable start locations. But until I test it Id say its a possiblity that the game itself takes it into account when assigning home provinces. Otherwise it could happen anyway.

Actually, the SemiRand program has an option for the part you listed. I was trying to suggest a merge of a visual element updating the rgb file, and the new battleground option.

[llamabeast]

That's great, thanks JK!

[Sombre]

It would be far more interesting if we could assign some sort of effect to go with the province ID - like darkness and the other BEs. That way we could fix cave provinces ourselves, have solar brilliance or whatever in provinces on, say, space maps that put them close to the sun.

[Endoperez]

Can we use this together with the battleground editor to save new battlegrounds and then set them to be used in spesific provinces? Ruins, cities, actual stone circle in a province with Druids in it, etc... Lots of cool stuff.

Even if we can't, some of the weirder maps will really benefit from this. Perhaps I should finish that map with three turtles in it.

Oh, and this:
"18th january 2009
* Increased max nbr of effects per magic item."

Did that come with any modding commands? Even *drool* magic items that cast spells? That (and item sprites) would allow for pretty much anything.

[Gandalf Parker]

The usual way to map temperature (cold province, hot province) and other scale effects has been with magic sites. Maybe a magic site with darkness could be a shortcut. Having a darkness command for maps would lead to the desire to have scale settings for maps on both a map-wide (scenario) and single-province capability. Maybe even open up a new bit-command (PLEASE lets not add any more to the one we have)

[Sombre]

There are no magic sites that cast any BEs to my knowledge, so it probably wouldn't be a shortcut.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sorry. I meant that might be a shortcut for Johan. An easy way to provide it.

[Johan K]

Can we use this together with the battleground editor to save new battlegrounds and then set them to be used in spesific provinces? Ruins, cities, actual stone circle in a province with Druids in it, etc... Lots of cool stuff.


That should be possible, but untested so no guarantee.