ExMap Questions

[lodilefty]

Are the terrains/jumplinks hard-coded in ExMap?

If not, how do I add a new terrain? ...new jumplink?

[PhilThib]

Which kind...?

[lodilefty]

Which kind...?

In an AACW mod, I've created a jumplink terrain file called '35Canal.ter', assigned UID=35, and manually updated the Terrains Alias file. [See Erie Canal mod thread]. I had to manually edit 3 rgn files to activate the Erie Canal in my mod.

This works well in early testing, and gives us an opportunity to do more with the canals that already graphically exist in AACW.

I proposed to add it to ExMap....

[Pocus]

There are indeed several effects in the code for that ... for example some scripting commands need to know if the terrain must be considered 'wild', or the weather code want to know the terrain category or the battle code want to know if the jumplinks should be seen as a penalizing crossing for land units.

Why not use one of the 4 crossing already in place, we have major or minor with our without fords. So be enough choice to depict a canal imho.

[lodilefty]

There are indeed several effects in the code for that ... for example some scripting commands need to know if the terrain must be considered 'wild', or the weather code want to know the terrain category or the battle code want to know if the jumplinks should be seen as a penalizing crossing for land units.

Why not use one of the 4 crossing already in place, we have major or minor with our without fords. So be enough choice to depict a canal imho.

We tried the transition links. Unfortunately, they allow 'ocean' type ships to pass, which is ahistorical for the Erie Canal. We only noticed this when the USS Michigan escaped through our canal and out the St. Lawrence river!

For now, it can live as a mod..... It just seemed like a good idea to several of us.

Thank you very much for your prompt reply!

[lodilefty]

I was recently enlightened about "Province Kind Normal/Flavor" where checking the box creates a non-playable region and turns off all adjacencies.

What does "Blocked at Fort Level" do?

What does "Fixed Sprite Position" do?
..and what is the effect of the 4 "Sprite Orientations" that are available?


I'm using ExMap version 2.1
Is there a newer version?

Thanks

[PhilThib]

"Blocked at Fort Level" : this is used for provinces adjacent to river areas, or coastal areas. It means that naval units will not be able to bypass that section of the river or the coast that is adjacent to the said province IF the province in question contains a fort... in other words this is extremely useful to set blocking provinces (narrows, forts overlooking rapids, etc...)


"Fixed Sprite Position": this is used rarely, in very small provinces (e.g. Montreal or Newport in BOA). With this feature, the player can manipulate the sprites inside the province the way he wants, they always return to the same "fixed" position...this is a trick made to avoid some delicate situations in drag & drop handling. No game impact otherwise...

..and what is the effect of the 4 "Sprite Orientations" that are available: this is done mostly for our most recent projects, such as VGN, where the srpite has one version for each of the possible orientations (N/S/E/W) and we want to set in advance the way it looks: example, if the coastline is one the left side of province (e.g. Massachussett), we use a NE or SE orientation for the port, so that the part of the port sprite that 'shows' water is indeed in water, and not the other way round...clear?

Latest ExMap version is 2.3 but not fully stable yet...when fixed, you'll get it. 2.1 is OK

[lodilefty]

Is the naval movement actually totally prevented? Or are they fired upon?

Phil says [edited my post vs reply ]
Fired upon is a sure thing, provided there are guns able to do so. I believe movement is blocked in BOA/WIA. In ACW, I believe there was a special order to "run the gauntlet"...

Pocus lights are required here