Problems with 0.9 mapset

[Jeremy]

Problems I have encountered with the 0.9 mapset:

1 - east/west roads to not line up with east/west bridges over old-style rivers. ("ocean" that is two or more spaces wide) The entire east/west bridge needs to be a little further north.

2 - new style rivers can not be merged into old style rivers that are 2 spaces wide (the old style river must be 3 water spaces wide to merge with the new-style river, which is too wide for most rivers. This would be a nice feature, as it allows rivers to progressively become more narrow as they go inland.


Questions:
For River features, what does the River with the two little docks do? How much does it cost for units to cross directly across?


What does the River with the stones (a Ford?) do? How much does it cost for units to cross?

[hatchfactory]

An unofficial response as I am just a simple bridge builder.

The things you mention were noticed and I wish everything could be perfect.

Drawing tile-sets is different then just drawing what is in your mind. You have your vision and your inspiration, then you have a set of restrictive rules. A tile-set must be dynamic and work in a number of situations. Most times many compromises must be made.

1 - east/west roads to not line up with east/west bridges over old-style rivers. ("ocean" that is two or more spaces wide) The entire east/west bridge needs to be a little further north.

Staying within the code, Piranha wanted the units to appear to stand on the bridge (it would look silly if they were hovering in mid air) and at the same time on the same horizontal row climb down off the bridge(We're talking tall epic large-body-of-water bridges). I went through a couple of revisions (stairs, no stairs etc) before we found one that both worked and looked good. If the bridge art was moved up the units wouldn't be standing on the bridge as well as being into the next row up requiring much more code. If just the ramps were moved up the bridge would look odd. (many compromises)

2 - new style rivers can not be merged into old style rivers that are 2 spaces wide (the old style river must be 3 water spaces wide to merge with the new-style river, which is too wide for most rivers. This would be a nice feature, as it allows rivers to progressively become more narrow as they go inland.

Again, I agree that it would be nice and wish that it were. But imagine the extra resources involved, the animated water tiles are the already the biggest resource in the game and this request would take at least 2 more animated tiles per corner @ 15 frames sooo ...120 more tiles on top of all the other added water... Art aside, that would be add a significant workload to the amount of coding Snotling would have to do to add all the rules involved.

Considering the effort involved I'd rather see new animated tiles and some of the new features that they will code in.
Your requests are valid from an artistic point of view, and maybe creative solutions could be made but for either of your points there isn't a straight forward easy fix and in the mean time we'll probably just have to get creative on the map builder end.

answers:
They behave just like the ocean docks, taking all but 2 moves so you could possibly cross depending on the terrain in the other side.

The fords are costly compared to a bridge (not sure what the final cost will be) but not draining like docks.

[hatchfactory]

Maybe for a more pleasant looking transition between big(ocean)river and normal river you could go from ocean(3 tiles) with a river out the top and side forking into each other slightly downstream at an angle. (usually as rivers grow they are fed by additional tributaries.)

[SnotlinG]

Hatchfactory has answered already to 99%.
Basically its always a judgement of workeffort vs gain (as in game-improvement) since we have limited time (trying to keep a normal job + family life) we need to constantly prioritize what features to put our time on.

As for the river going out into 2 tile wide version, yes I definitely agree with you, it would be cool
But weighting this against maybe 1-2 weeks of work, it simply isnt worth the time right now

Anyway, costs for Ford is 7. Quite expensive yes, but if you have to cross badly enough...
Moving over a ford with a scout lowers the cost to 5.

[Jeremy]

Cool. Thanks for the replies!