Map balancing and editing tool

[spellman]

Color me immensely impressed.

Now to start making really interesting asymmetric, but balanced, maps.

[novice]

Thanks spellman.

New version up today:
Version 1.07

In this version I added a more sophisticated traversal algorithm that calculates an "expansion cost" across the terrain when determining what land "belongs" to what player. The expansion cost for a tile is basically a measure of how attractive it is to found a city on a given square and is used to estimate how attractive it is to expand in a given direction. The aim is that a jungled or food-poor area should be more difficult to expand through than lush grasslands, and a big desert is just as expensive to expand through as a lake of the same size. (Although it would be possible to expand around the desert in most cases.)

Small example with an oasis map. Using version 1.06 algorithm:


Using new algoritm:


Here are some details about the expansion cost algorithm.

The expansion cost for a tile is calculated by considering all tiles in a tile's Big Fat Cross and summing:
- Food potential, multiplied by a food weight (default value: 3)
- Hammer potential, multiplied by a hammer weight (default value: 1)
- If the tile in question is jungled, divide the above two by a jungle penalizer, (default value: 3).

In order to get a small cost for "good" tiles, the final cost is calculated by dividing a base cost (default value: 100) by the above sum. If the sum is 0 the cost is set to the base cost.

Water tiles are given a static cost (default value: 100). The net effect is that food-poor and jungled areas are more expensive to expand through than lush grasslands.

So anyway, try it out.

[novice]

New version, with undocumented changes to the balance checking algorithm and a new routine for finding balanced starting positions:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15215428/MapEdit..._v1.08.zip

[dunnp]

Any chance of also releasing the source for this, novice?

[novice]

Any chance of also releasing the source for this, novice?

There's a chance. Let me think about it.

[Hart]

There's a chance. Let me think about it.

I also would like to see the source, to throw in some support for FFH/EitB maps.

[Sareln]

There's a chance. Let me think about it.

I also would like to see the source, to throw in some support for FFH/EitB maps.

An alternative is for him to set is up to read in an xml / config file that defines terrains and resources and what they're worth.

[Hart]

An alternative is for him to set is up to read in an xml / config file that defines terrains and resources and what they're worth.

Also things like not throwing an exception at the different colour definitions.

[spellman]

How goes mod support for this tool? FFH/EitB and PF are rapidly developing to the point people will want "balanced" maps.

PF will be especially hard since water is colonizable.

[novice]

There's no mod support currently.