Town values mod? (Full Version)

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mikemcmann -> Town values mod? (3/26/2011 12:15:05 AM)

Sorry if it is in here already, but Id be interested to see if there was a mod that shows the value of a village on the map without hovering?

Thanks!



cookie monster -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 12:20:19 AM)

If it's not in Redmarkus' map mod then I dont think there is a mod for that.




Altaris -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 12:28:00 AM)

I'm actually working on a mod that does just this. What I've done is created color-coded dots of different sizes to replace the regular old black dots on the map. They go in this order:

0 - White (Dot is 10 pixels)
1 - Red (Dot is 10 pixels)
2 - Purple (Dot is 15 pixels)
3 - Green (Dot is 20 pixels)
4 - Blue (Dot is 25 pixels)

Works pretty well, though in heavily populated areas it can be a tad distracting. Might be a mod best served to switch out around 1st winter, since that's the only time it really seems to matter. But it works very well for it's purpose of having to avoid all those hovers.



mikemcmann -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 5:21:57 AM)

Very cool!

What if you did the colors in order the way the game does identification?

Maybe a hollow circle for zero pop,
A black dot for one,
A green dot for two,
A yellow/orange dot for three
And a red dot for four

That way it cognitively matches the color codes on the chits as it is...

Not a programmer but, if I can help, I'm happy to! Thanks for working on it!

McMann



Altaris -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 4:34:13 PM)

I mostly chose the colors based on what would be easiest to see irregardless of terrain and weather. I chose blue for pop 4 since its visible against any back-drop very easily. Red for lvl 1 since its hard to see at times, but that doesn't matter as much for pop 1. I didn't leave any black as I wanted to have a way of spotting any that I might've missed (doing all this in Photoshop).

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like in game. Almost done with it, probably finish sometime tomorrow.



[image]local://upfiles/32587/3FFB8E0BBBC14848BF72E4336C004029.jpg[/image]



Redmarkus5 -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 6:18:29 PM)

Unless you add the town names, this will mean players need to use either the population size mod OR the place names mod. Did you do this using layers, and can you save as .pdn?

My personal taste would be to go for something a bit more subtle, as I think that looking at the whole game map with the colored circles on it will become overwhelming after a short time. Here's an example of how I would suggest you approach it.

If you want to do it this way and send me the transparent layer in .pdn format, I can add them to the place names mod. However, the sizes of the circles need to be much smaller than you have them here, as there is limited space for many of the place names already...

[image]local://upfiles/27287/221F3CDE18F34174A686EE7AF149BFFC.jpg[/image]



Captain B -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 6:47:30 PM)

May I make a suggestion...instead of colored dots, I think that plain black symbols would be better.

- For example there are two Population 4 towns that are shown as a solid black circle in a larger circle. (Odessa and Simferpol (x = 96; y = 119). What if we just made all the population 4 towns that same symbol. I would suggest the following key for Populations 0-4:


Hopefully the little snip loaded ok....but simply solid triangle in a circle for population 3, a solid diamond in a circle for population 2, a solid square in a circle for population 1, and the small black dot for all others (population 0) as it exists not.

Don't have a graphics editing program or I would try this myself.

[image]local://upfiles/32700/49FF49B56DCE4980BE4320201EA77C35.jpg[/image]



Altaris -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 6:55:38 PM)

I had started with the town name mod, but ran into the issue you mention with the size of dots. I ultimately decided not to include the town names mod for this reason. I think having visibly different sizes on the dots is important for quickly distinguishing them.

Don't have any layered copies, I just did the dots directly onto the image and saved it that way.

For your mod, have you considered just adding the population out to the right of the name in parentheses?



Altaris -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 6:57:44 PM)

Captain B, your idea is good, if I were starting over, I'd probably do something like that. However, since I'm pretty much finished with the current method, I think I'll stick with that (took several days to do, don't really want to start over from scratch). I wasn't really thinking of a public mod when I did it, just a way to keep track for myself. I can upload it if others are interested, but don't really want to get into a major project.



cookie monster -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 8:22:12 PM)

The only towns which I believe are important ingame are the pop 4 towns.

They can provide shelter during the first winter.

Perhaps on Redmarkus' mapmod they could be a different colour,or the name of the town in another colour. I would have said white but that probably wouldnt work with the winter effect mod.

Who cares what the other towns hold in pop. It's only pop 4 plus towns that are of interest and have a bonus.



Redmarkus5 -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 8:30:20 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

The only towns which I believe are important ingame are the pop 4 towns.

They can provide shelter during the first winter.

Perhaps on Redmarkus' mapmod they could be a different colour,or the name of the town in another colour. I would have said white but that probably wouldnt work with the winter effect mod.

Who cares what the other towns hold in pop. It's only pop 4 plus towns that are of interest and have a bonus.



I did have an early version of the mod with the pop sizes in brackets () but it wasn't popular, so I removed them.

CM - are you sure that only size 4 and above has any effect in the game? I have seen different views on this in the forum. If it is so, then a simple mod to just highlight those towns (I like Capt B's icons) makes the most sense.




Redmarkus5 -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 8:35:20 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Altaris

Don't have any layered copies, I just did the dots directly onto the image and saved it that way.



When I started I did the same thing, but I quickly realised that this approach means that any future changes to the base image by the devs, or any changes to the names or icons themselves by me, would require a complete rework.

What I now do is:

1. Maintain a separate folder for .pdn versions of each map, with different layers for town names, resource icons, shipping lanes, etc. on top of the base image of the vanilla map itself. This way I can edit a single layer or add a new one anytime I want without affecting the base image or the other layers.

2. Save the .pdn files as .tga in the game's art folders when I am done.

3. Zip and upload those .tga files to the WiKi.

This means that future edits require minimal work.



cookie monster -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 9:20:01 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4


quote:

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

The only towns which I believe are important ingame are the pop 4 towns.

They can provide shelter during the first winter.

Perhaps on Redmarkus' mapmod they could be a different colour,or the name of the town in another colour. I would have said white but that probably wouldnt work with the winter effect mod.

Who cares what the other towns hold in pop. It's only pop 4 plus towns that are of interest and have a bonus.



I did have an early version of the mod with the pop sizes in brackets () but it wasn't popular, so I removed them.

CM - are you sure that only size 4 and above has any effect in the game? I have seen different views on this in the forum. If it is so, then a simple mod to just highlight those towns (I like Capt B's icons) makes the most sense.




From the manual

quote:

22.3.5. MITIGATION OF FIRST WINTER RULES IN CITIES
Axis units located in town, city and urban hexes can mitigate the first winter rules regarding
damaged ground elements and morale losses to some extent. Any units in an urban hex will
not suffer damage to their ground elements or morale losses during the logistics phase. In a
city hex, the two units with the highest CV’s will not be impacted. In a town hex, one unit with
the highest CV is eligible to avoid the penalty, but only if die(4) is less than or equal to the
population value of the town.[/quote]

AFAIK it's only pop 4 and above.

If anyone else has some info then I'm all ears![:D]



Altaris -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 9:39:21 PM)

You're reading it wrong CM.

If a unit is in a town, a d4 dice is rolled each turn, if it's equal or lower than the population, that unit is safe.

Basically, it means there's a percentage chance as below that the unit will be safe:

Pop 0: 0% chance
Pop 1: 25% chance
Pop 2: 50% chance
Pop 3: 75% chance
Pop 4: 100% chance

So only Pop 4 is guaranteed to protect the unit, but lower Pop's can as well if they pass the dice roll.

I generally consider Pop 3 to be helpful, though not guaranteed. Pop 2 and Pop 1 are better than nothing, but not to be relied on.



cookie monster -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 9:45:52 PM)

Fair enough



GFelz -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 10:40:34 PM)

Is there not a chance that the population will evacuate causing a pop 4 town to be less? Or is measuring pop a means of determining infrastucture?



typhoon -> RE: Town values mod? (3/26/2011 10:42:00 PM)

This may have been suggested or may be impossible but could not the Font on the town names be a different colour for the size four towns? Great piece of work BTW



Zort -> RE: Town values mod? (3/27/2011 1:33:40 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: GFelz

Is there not a chance that the population will evacuate causing a pop 4 town to be less? Or is measuring pop a means of determining infrastucture?

In another thread the designers said the town size will remain the same for blizzard purposes, it's the capacity of the town not the pop that determines how blizzard effects are determined.



Captain B -> RE: Town values mod? (3/27/2011 3:47:25 AM)

redmarkus. Have spent about an hour and think I have the first two maps (3 and 4) with town size icons. I also think I figured out how to save them as a separate pdn layer. Got some work to do around the house tomorrow (spring time here in Tennessee already). I'm going to move the two files into the map and see what they look like. If all goes well, should have the other 60 tiles down. By the way, you and goranw must have put in yeoman's work. Maybe this will go faster as I become more familiar with the program.

[image]local://upfiles/32700/CAC6AE3B7ED74745A526FF175316CE40.jpg[/image]



mikemcmann -> RE: Town values mod? (3/27/2011 5:13:52 AM)

Yeah, all Non zero towns are useful. Even sitting in a level one town all winter will mitigate 25 percent of the attrition (probabilistacally).

I like the idea of the square/diamond , etc shapes depicting the size. Good idea and detracts less from the map aesthetics.

Of all the mods, I'd think this would be famously popular. I find myself constantly searching for a good cluster of towns to rest and refit a falling back Corp.

Thanks to tech men for working on this!



bcgames -> RE: Town values mod? (3/27/2011 6:25:16 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain B

redmarkus. Have spent about an hour and think I have the first two maps (3 and 4) with town size icons. I also think I figured out how to save them as a separate pdn layer. Got some work to do around the house tomorrow (spring time here in Tennessee already). I'm going to move the two files into the map and see what they look like. If all goes well, should have the other 60 tiles down. By the way, you and goranw must have put in yeoman's work. Maybe this will go faster as I become more familiar with the program.

[image]local://upfiles/32700/CAC6AE3B7ED74745A526FF175316CE40.jpg[/image]

Sweet. Keep at it.



Altaris -> RE: Town values mod? (3/28/2011 12:47:47 AM)

I've uploaded the files I did with the colored, different size dots for population towns. It's 5 separate uploads, just extract the files in each zip to the art folder (usually C:\Matrix Games\Gary Grigsby's War in the East\Dat\Art\Zoom2)

Please note this will overwrite the existing files, so you may want to take a backup before applying.

(Note: Currently, I only have this set up for the hex map, doesn't work on no-hexes setting)

File 1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7B0TM98L
File 2: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QSFNNZAY
File 3: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=219QHJU3
File 4: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1BEVG1XO
File 5: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LIBUBMX3



bcgames -> RE: Town values mod? (3/28/2011 3:36:35 AM)

Superb!

Recommend you move the links for this mod to your first post; that'll make it easier for folks to find.

Nice work. Thanks for sharing your time and effort.



Captain B -> RE: Town values mod? (3/29/2011 2:00:15 AM)

Redmarkus,

Not wanting to cover up too much of your artwork (factory) Here is an attempt to show both in the same grid




[image]local://upfiles/32700/29836FA519404EAC8F0DFA5FBD6A7F80.jpg[/image]



Chromius -> RE: Town values mod? (4/4/2011 7:44:22 AM)

Captain B, looking good I am eagerly waiting the finished compilation of your additions to redmarkus4 map improvements.



Captain B -> RE: Town values mod? (4/5/2011 3:25:23 AM)

Chromius,

I have sent the pdn files on to Mr Redmarkus. Hopefully you will see the whole map here in a little bit, but here is a tease from my current game:

[image]local://upfiles/32700/F9836CE712D449ECAB1E29BF9B6934E3.jpg[/image]



Chromius -> RE: Town values mod? (4/5/2011 9:09:55 AM)

Very nice, looks like a MUST have addon.



Chromius -> RE: Town values mod? (7/7/2011 11:18:51 PM)

Did this version of the map ever get released?? With the town size symbols added??



Zovs -> RE: Town values mod? (1/22/2012 3:18:08 PM)

The links above have been seized by the FBI.

Where do they exist?



joeyeti -> RE: Town values mod? (3/14/2012 11:11:44 AM)

Looks nice!
However for me the black looks still too busy on the map with all the counters around... Would it not look better muted - grey for instance?



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