Map Making Q&A
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@rogercooper said in Map Making Q&A:
Here are the definitions I use
ModI find this term confusing.
I'm also not sure about the difference between your "scenario" and "xml". Aren't they 1-1?
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@simon33 said in Map Making Q&A:
@cernel said in Map Making Q&A:
For example, the name of the map given by the map-folder named as the_pact_of_steel is "The Pact of Steel".
Ok, maybe that package only has one xml. What I am mostly concerned with is world_war_ii_global. This has over half a dozen xmls. e.g. Original, second edition, Balanced Mod etc.
So in this scenario I have added/renamed an xml's map name but the bots do not have it. Do the bots automatically update their maps or does it need to be pushed?
Is it clear what I am trying to do?
No, in the bots there is no maps' names in the listing: those are the games' names. By the way, "The Pact of Steel" is the name of the map, and this map actually has two XML, so it has two games the names of which are "Pact of Steel" and "Pact of Steel 2" (and I would say that the latter is a mod of the former).
Anyway, I think you have made clear what you are searching for. I don't know about that, sorry. I guess waiting for @LaFayette to come back?
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@simon33 said in Map Making Q&A:
@rogercooper said in Map Making Q&A:
Here are the definitions I use
ModI find this term confusing.
Ditto.
Add to that the fact that "Mod" stands for moderator too.
Myself, I prefer to use the term "variant" for what I understand as a "mod".
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@cernel I am using the term scenario from wargames. To me every entry on the load game screen is a scenario. To me "TripleA" is the game.
The term "mod" (modification) is somewhat confusing as there is no base game in TripleA but I don't see a better one. In the Civ series, there is a base game and you can download mods that change the game in various ways.
In the in-game downloader uses the term "Download Maps" which makes no sense, as what is being downloaded is more than a map.
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Oh I had forgotten about the Scenarios of Classic 3rd Edition/Iron Blitz, I guess that would make sense too then. I remember those from the Hasbro disc, although I didn't really recall that language in use with tripleA until after v3. I also used Variant quite often, or where OOB would be the default, and then any other similar version would be a variant. Initially I thought of a Mod as specifically a Mod = modification to the map design, like something that if I were to do it physically on the game board that it would require sharpie markers or something hehe. Anyway, it's probably owing to some jumble of language I used and then through repetition sorta establishes itself. I didn't want to derail the conversation, only to mention that when I was referring to our early Variants and such I would just say Mod interchangeably, but where the later meant some tweak to the baseline, hence something like Pact of Steel being also considered a Mod of the revised map. But I agree for a shorthand Mod is not the best, since I often use that to mean moderator, or modder, also module if I've been playing D&D lately. Module is closer to the sense of Mod I have when using it the way roger does. You know like how D&D has campaign modules, and I guess this would be like an A&A campaign module.
I also say scenario I suppose as a shorthand from wargaming too, so it's a bit of a whirl. TripleA I used to think of as the game, but now I think of it as the engine or game system, ever since the default games were removed and cordoned off to live in their own spot requiring a different download.
I think for Simon33's Q specifically, there is a list of maps which I think the bots use, which doesn't really include any newer maps, or at least for stuff that didn't already exist in Nov of 2020, since that was the last time we had a stable release. I remember trying to play a few things I made in the lobby via bots but they wouldn't fire unless it was based on one of those maps. It's been like 5 years or more since I logged into the lobby, and about that long since the 2.6 changes were first floated. I thought for the bots that it was pulling from the directory that roger provided, the one where the map 'skins' used to be housed, but it's not the complete listing like on GIT or 1:1, or when player clicks downloaded maps from the tripleA launch. Instead I think the bots are just still using this listing from the .org
https://triplea-game.org/maps-list/maps/The full repo has many more maps available, but the stuff the bots are using is from that more condensed listing. I'm pretty sure only LaFayette has the power of greyskull on that, but he's been trekking for a while. October 24 came and went, now we're into Spring 25, so hard to know when that gets addressed. I think there was a workaround if both players had the map and a savegame, but I can't remember. I sorta gave up on it and just figured the lobby was going to be a pipe dream for newer maps, and then started playing more towards the solo AI, since that at least could launch locally and such. Not exactly ideal, but sorta the situation I suppose
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@rogercooper said in Map Making Q&A:
@cernel I am using the term scenario from wargames. To me every entry on the load game screen is a scenario. To me "TripleA" is the game.
I'm not strongly against "scenario", but the term "game" (which TripleA already consistently uses) is just better for it. Whenever you change ANYTHING, you have a different game. It can be the scenario, like in V3, or it can be a rules-set change, like going from basic Revised to Revised LHTR (while the scenario remains the same). I would agree that different games within the same map make the most sense when you have different scenario for the same map (like in V3 or for the 1940 and 1942 scenarios of Global), but it is a fact (like it or not) that this is not the only case.
I can even make a variant of Classic in which the "only" difference is that armour defends at 4 (instead of 2): would you call that a different scenario? Guess not, but it is a different game.
The term "mod" (modification) is somewhat confusing as there is no base game in TripleA but I don't see a better one. In the Civ series, there is a base game and you can download mods that change the game in various ways.
Are you SURE that "mod" there stands for "modification"? It can stand for anything starting as "mod", can't it? Likely not "moderator" or "model" but maybe "module".
By the way, Vassal calls "modules" the type of things which TripleA calls "maps".
In the in-game downloader uses the term "Download Maps" which makes no sense, as what is being downloaded is more than a map.
I'm not seeing how "mod" is really better, however. I guess it should be called something like "package". I'm not sure what's a good name for it.
Anyway, the map is the main part of the skin, isn't it? It's like saying that the United States of America need to be renamed "United States of America and Oceania" to be 100% geopolitically correct.
