Map Making Q&A
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@cernel I don't think that you can make a distinction between main and modified scenarios in a consistent way. I view world_war_ii_v3 as a mod with 2 scenarios World War II v3 1941 and World War II v3 1942
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This is an interesting question about the names, or what we all mean when using them. My language has changed over time
For me scenario always meant specifically the 1941 or 1942 scenario on the v3 game board, since prior to that two scenarios for one game wasn't really a thing. But then afterwards I guess just a general way to refer to two distinct games meant to be played using the same tripleA map board with all the same files, and not requiring a separate download.
I think I'm like simon33 where I tend to look at that as a map package, so like everything I'm going to get when I click that downloaded 'map.' Or basically, if I have to download something other than a new game xml to get whatever thing to fire up, I'd have considered that pretty much a new map, since it has to live in its own separate downloaded maps folder now. But then I also think of 'maps' as the baselines the tile folders specifically like how roger meant it.
Also, since my idea of what mod meant has changed over time, I used to see v3 as a map mod (modification) of the OOB AA50 map rather than a direct port. This was because it doesn't use an exact board trace, but something merely analogous for that world projection which had the same connections, but different contours. Not invented from whole cloth clearly, but it has a different look than the OOB. I can take a scan of Classic or Revised and use it in tripleA 1:1 there since that was Logan's, but for v3 and G40 not so much, since we changed the contours after getting jammed up about it when AA50 first dropped. Bung's also uses some different countours, like for the handling for Africa in G40 and on the Europe side of the board pretty similar overall when they're put together though, just with some stretch at the bottom. Or I guess if it had used all different unit graphics or a different map.properties, things of that sort I might also have considered that a Mod of whatever standard thing. Example might have been a game that used the same baseline, but with a new relief or like changing the faction colors units tints around (mainly cosmetic) in those folders, all the way to something more like changing phase orders or a low luck default or no tech default, things that are now I think either considered game options or kinda understood to be more standard and straightforward mods. Stuff that is more common or which has since been formalized over time. It's hard to know the initial language used for some stuff though, since it may never have been all that consistent at the outset. Especially conflating map with game, which even the tripleA file structure sorta suggests.
Like it doesn't call them mods or scenarios, it just calls them maps and games. When I launch the tools if it looks for a map it means the baseline map, but then other times the specific tile folders or the map.props all those txt files within the map folder, so to me that's 'the map' as such, like a catch-all. Since the folder called games now lives inside a sub folder of the map folder for basically every map, I think of whatever is in that game folder as a 'game' of that map, where I guess game is synonymous with scenario now. And if it lists in the 'games' lists under that same map name, it's a game scenario of that map. Even if it's using some pre existing map from elsewhere, like if it has to have it's own directory to fire up that's a new map to my way of thinking.
In the past, since the catalogue of available maps wasn't as large, there were probably more mods for a given map, and over time the standard mods might become more popular or familiar than the original map, to the point where they just sorta get folded into each other. Or even where stuff became a standard launch option, more like a game setting than a different game per se. Like I used to think of Revised Low Luck or Revised LHTR as mods of Revised, but now they're essentially game settings of the standard. For convenience I think many standard options that don't actually require a new map tend to merge over time into a single download. Kinda can be confusing though. Especially from the archival standpoint, or like trying to list stuff out when the lists get longer. Over time the need for a way to refer to things more specifically becomes more pronounced, but it's sorta wild west still in some ways. I still just think of them all as games
For example world war II global has 9 games in the game folder there, so there are 9 games for that map. I don't know that I would refer to any of them as scenarios, or mods per se, or at least not in the same sense that AA50 has two standard scenarios. Or that I would consider Global Second Edition as the main Mod of that map, although I think that is basically the default game now. Or to stretch further, like I wouldn't really consider Global a mod or scenario of the separate Europe and Pacific 1940 maps, even though technically it is. It's still it's own singular map, since that's the download, or the map package I guess.
The more go back and forth on it though, the harder it is to pin down, since on the one hand there's the practical stuff like how the file directories are set up currently in the tripleA folders, but then also how things get referred to elsewhere might use other conventions. Sometimes when trying to build out the map stuff specifically for the baseline, I have invented little terms for myself where I'll say stuff like tiles as short for meaning polygons (like all sea zones or territories), but then we also got the tile breaker where it means more like how the screen is stitching tiles together to form an image on the screen, or how most displays actually use 2 maps to provide the visual. We have a baseline map and a map relief now, whereas in the very early days everything was just the baseline and had to be drawn on. Similarly the map.properties used to be hardwired, now they're a separate txt file where user can modify it locally to do many things. Some of the stuff in map props I think could have been considered a map mod early on, because it can change the display quite a bit, like if it were intended to supersede the defaults. Like the baseline, the map.props and centers/polys is sorta core to the map, since a change there will effect all the games associated with that map.
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@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?
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yea new map or xml in this case can only be added to the bots by someone who has the access and knows how to do it.
Currently, there isn't anyone around to do that
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@rogercooper said in Map Making Q&A:
@cernel I don't think that you can make a distinction between main and modified scenarios in a consistent way. I view world_war_ii_v3 as a mod with 2 scenarios World War II v3 1941 and World War II v3 1942
How about Revised and Revised LHTR? Is that two scenarios of the same mod too, or is Revised LHTR a mod of (basic) Revised or what?
Besides, "mod" as in "modification" has to refer to something, I would say. V3 is a mod of what then? Or are you using "mod" as in "module"? As I said, I'm not clear.
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@black_elk said in Map Making Q&A:
This is an interesting question about the names, or what we all mean when using them. My language has changed over time
For me scenario always meant specifically the 1941 or 1942 scenario on the v3 game board, since prior to that two scenarios for one game wasn't really a thing.
Haven't read the rest yet, but this got me perplexed. Not sure about games, but multiple scenarios (if we want to use @RogerCooper terms) for the same map was very much of a thing already, wasn't it? Beside the ploriferation of alternative variants (especially for Classic: Omaha, Utah, Kremlin...), Classic has 3 main variants using the same map: the Second Edition, the Third Edition and Iron Blitz (and one could have the First Edition too), and the Revised map is used by Revised basic as well as Revised LHTR. TripleA wise, there is no structural difference between these cases and the V3 case (or the Global 1940 map). For example, V3 is a map which offers two games: 1941 and 1942, and Revised is also a map which offers two games: Revised (basic) and Revised LHTR.
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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.:face_with_tongue:
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.
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@cernel said in Map Making Q&A:
I guess waiting for @LaFayette to come back?
Is he back yet @LaFayette ?
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