cREATING LAKES AND EXTENDING SHORELINES

[Alpha Wolf]

I figured there had to be a way tocreate lakes and extend shorelines, so I started playing around with the tileimp.txt file. I figured no one would ever terraform into a white_mountain so i used it since I'm not sure of all the places I have to add new names. I modified it as follows:
TILEIMP_TERRAFORM_WHITE_MOUNTAIN {
Icon ICON_TILEIMP_FARMS
Tooltip TOOLTIP_TILEIMP_SELECT_WHITE_MOUNTAIN_BUTTON
Statusbar STATUSBAR_TILEIMP_SELECT_WHITE_MOUNTAIN_BUTTON
TerraformTerrain TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH
Level 3
Column 3
Class:Terraform
GLHidden

ConstructionTiles 1
ConstructionTiles 1
ConstructionTiles 1

CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_DEEP
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_KELP
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_REEF
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_RIFT
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHALLOW
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHELF
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_TRENCH
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_VOLCANO

Excludes:ATM
Excludes:Farm
Excludes:LandDetector
Excludes:Mine
Excludes:OceanATM
Excludes:OceanDetector
Excludes:OceanFarm
Excludes:OceanMine
Excludes:OceanRoad
Excludes:Road
Excludes:Structure1
Excludes:Structure2

TerrainEffect {
Terrain TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH

EnableAdvance ADVANCE_EXPLOSIVES
TilesetIndex 1
}
}
And I can now make inland lakes and extend the shore. Best part is that CtP2 is smart enough to modify the tiles surrounding the new beach so that it still looks contiguous. These new tiles can be built on and are treated as if they had always been that way. The only thing I wish is that I could increase the cost somewhat. If someone knows how to change all the constants to make them more consistant with this being a beach, please let me know.

As for now, I'm off to build my canals

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History is written by the victor.

[wheathin]

Cool!

If you modify a 3x3 grid of beaches, do you get that odd looking beach square in the middle - the beach square that is not adjacent to any land (which I think ought to be re-done to resemble a small atoll)?

[Alpha Wolf]

from my playing, you can only extend a shoreline. I tried to stick land out that wasnt connected to land and it wouldnt let me. Dont forget that you can only terraform within your borders.

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History is written by the victor.

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by Alpha Wolf on 12-12-2000 07:26 PM from my playing, you can only extend a shoreline. I tried to stick land out that wasnt connected to land and it wouldnt let me. Dont forget that you can only terraform within your borders. I did create the an island that looked perfect.

[Jerk]

I attempted to make the exact modification you detailed in your post and all I recieved was a pretty looking page fault which ended my game promptly. The crash occurred immediately when I select tile improvements and then hit the terraform button.
[This message has been edited by Jerk (edited December 13, 2000).]

[Jerk]

Ok, after fooling around I managed to make changes to some files allowing the building of beaches or the filling in of beaches to create land. The only problem I have encountered so far is land that has rivers on it. Creating a beach out of a piece of land that has a river on it creates that weird looking 'unconnected' river square in the middle of the beach. If it does complete the river the river will flow thru the shallow water. I haven't really found anything in any of the text files or any slic commands for toggling the river on/off so i wouldnt mess with land that has rivers on it. The modifications are:

In terrain.txt modify the TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH to:
TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH {
TilesetIndex 13
Icon ICON_TERRAIN_BEACH
InternalType: WaterBeach

AddAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE
TransformAdd {
Time 1
Materials 10
}

RemoveAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE
TransformRemove {
Time 1
Materials 10
}

EnvBase {
Score 90
Food 10
Shield 10
Gold 10
Defense 0
Movement 100
Freight 33
DeadFood 0
DeadShield 0
DeadGold 0
}

EnvRiver {
Score 30
Food 5
Shield 5
Gold 5
Movement 100
Freight 33
}

MovementType: Air
MovementType: Sea
MovementType: ShallowWater
}

In tileimp.txt delete the TILEIMP_TERRAFORM_WHITE_MOUNTAIN section and replace it with:
TILEIMP_TERRAFORM_WATER_BEACH {
Icon ICON_TILEIMP_FARMS
Tooltip TOOLTIP_TILEIMP_SELECT_WHITE_MOUNTAIN_BUTTON
Statusbar STATUSBAR_TILEIMP_SELECT_WHITE_MOUNTAIN_BUTTON
TerraformTerrain TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH
Level 3
Column 3
Class:Terraform
GLHidden

ConstructionTiles 1
ConstructionTiles 1
ConstructionTiles 1

CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_DEEP
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_KELP
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_REEF
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_RIFT
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHALLOW
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_SHELF
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_TRENCH
CantBuildOn TERRAIN_WATER_VOLCANO

Excludes:ATM
Excludes:Farm
Excludes:LandDetector
Excludes:Mine
Excludes:OceanATM
Excludes:OceanDetector
Excludes:OceanFarm
Excludes:OceanMine
Excludes:OceanRoad
Excludes:Road
Excludes:Structure1
Excludes:Structure2

TerrainEffect {
Terrain TERRAIN_WATER_BEACH

EnableAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE
TilesetIndex 1
}
}

This will replace the ability to ADD a white mountain and give you the ability to add beach or remove beach and replace it with another allowable tile (depends on what you have researched at the time). You will still be able to remove white mountain terrain and replace it. I made this mod quickly and left it cheap and easy so i could test it quickly. If you want realism I would sugggest changing the terrain.txt water_beach part to be much more expensive and also change the enabling advances something like explosives. I would also change the time it takes as well. I intend to make explosives the allowing advances, making its materials (PW) something like 10000, and time 8 turns. Perhaps even stricter would be appropriate. Building canals isn't an easy task nor is filling in lakes/oceans.

[This message has been edited by Jerk (edited December 13, 2000).]

[Alpha Wolf]

Thank you for the catch. that night I had originally been modifying beaches so that they didnt get river bonuses when it occurred to me how easy it should be to terraform beaches.

I whole heartedly agree that explosives is enabling advance based on the panama canal and the dutch dykes.

To my embarassment, I wanted to increase the cost and time to terraform but could not remember how to modify those.

I think the EnvRiver might be the toggle you are looking for to get rid of rivers. Since I removed it from beach, I havent seen a single river/beach combination tile generated.

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History is written by the victor.

[OmniGod]

So is this as close as we are going to get to canals? It works nicely but just graphically doesn't look just right... need to get access to those tiles next... nice work guys... teamwork is always the way to go oh and the env_river once removed works perfectly.. I teraformed right over a river and it disappeared... very nicely I might add... and the rest of the tiles connected to it... not a prob seen yet...

Omni

[Alpha Wolf]

I've been looking at the 2 extra tiles and wondering if theres a way to modify them so that they look like land but act like water. but then I saw a post somewhere that says those arent editable, not to mention how to get the ends of each tile to line up properly.
For as simple as terraforming beach was, I'm amazed that it wasnt included in the game since so many people asked for it in CtP1.

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History is written by the victor.

[Jerk]

Thanks for the tip about the mysterious water rivers. I must have cut and paste out of the wrong terrain type before using it .

I agree with OmniGod that it's not the ideal way to do canals. A big problem I see is that you can extend your border with fortifications and then continue to fill in or remove ocean which is not realistic. The only thing keeping one from doing it is a lack of PW (a reason to keep it expensive). The ideal senario would have to really be an offical patch creating an additional tileimprovement that would keep the land itself the same but have a slight graphic change and grant movement for sea units.

[Alpha Wolf]

I agree about the new tile improvement. I've jumped the creation of a lake up to 5000, and the creation of land up to 10000 (now that my brain is working and i remembered how). I wasnt exactly sure what Omni meant by it not looking right. If its in the fog, it'll look strange until you get close enough to actually see it, then you cant tell whether it was terraformed or was originally a beach. Unless its a diaginal canal, then it just looks like a chain of lakes.

I dont think its as unrealistic these days to create beach or land. The Japanese built an island just for an airport. Plus the most famous land grab would be the Dutch. If i remember my history, the Panama canal required extensive modifications to lakes to make them deep enough.

I've been playing around with the ShallowWater terrain and movement types to see what I might be able to come up with. i had turned my swamps into shallowwater, but when i discovered a swamp city, it disbands into a sea engineer.......OOOPS.

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History is written by the victor.