Question about trenches domination 1914 no mans land

TheDog

@Ramon
I am no graphic artist, so I might be waffling below.
As you know how to assemble the reliefTiles, then find the largest area and make that a texture(with the level of transparency) and use that to fill the oval shown.

VictoryFirst

@ramon Changing the reliefTiles is difficult when you do not have the overlay that the game used. You can actually modify individual tiles, but it is not recommended if the change is across multiple tiles. Assuming that this is the case, you'd need to use the baseline image, change the borders there, and then break it using the tile image breaker. Then, you'd need to open the reliefmap by combining it using the tile image reconstructor. Also open the modified baseline map so that you can see what borders you removed and where the new borders are. To remove borders from the reliefmap, you can do the following. In the images you sent, you can see that the color of the territories isn't empty, it has a black-ish (or white/gray-ish in the other) color with a very low opacity. Try selecting this as color and remove the borders using this color. If you use GIMP, you can select the color using CTRL+click when having the pencil tool selected. Do not make it transparent as you did, that will make the territory shade go away completely. You should not be using the eraser at all, only the pencil tool. To draw new borders, you can select the white border color and use it to draw the new borders. If you lower the opacity of the baseline map and put it above the reliefmap, you can see the new borders and you can trace them. Then you can use the heal tool to make the borders and territory colors look more like the rest of the reliefmap, with different shades of colors. This doesn't necessarily make it look nice though. Even if you do your best, you will still probably have spots with a different shade than the rest of the map, but it's better than nothing.

One small tip is to past the reliefmap not once several times in GIMP, so that you have like 10 identical layers. This will increase the opacity of the reliefmap. If you then combine all these layers, you essentially have increased the opacity. This allows you to actually see everything properly. You'd still need the heal tool to make the colors blend into each other better. Then you can lower the opacity of the layer so that it is around the same as the original reliefmap.

Last option is to create your own relief tiles using your own overlay. This might be a lot of work but it would ensure that the map looks nice.

Ramon

@VictoryFirst

Hi Victory thank you for your reply!

Its very unfortunate that i dont have the original overlay that the map used.
I will see what i can do!

Cheers!

VictoryFirst

@Ramon No problem! I ran into the same problem when making changes to my North Africa map. Black_Elk made very cool reliefTiles for our map, but I didn't know how he made them. So when changing some territory borders, the reliefTiles didn't update along with them. I tried several things and what I described above ended up working the best. You can still see that the map is slightly darker at the places where the change happened, but I still tried my best to conceal it.

The best thing actually to do is trying to contact the map maker! However, the map maker for NML is Black_Elk, and when I contacted him for North Africa, he didn't reply. But maybe you have more success!

beelee

@black_elk

you are the only one. Help us BlackElk

Ramon

Hi everyone!

I have another question about Seamine placement,

How seamines should work:

Can be placed on any Sea Zone if there is a friendly warship (requiresUnits:)
It shouldnt need a Factory, yet when i playtest it i get an error:

"no factory in or adjacent to Sea Zone..."

Am i doing something wrong?

~Ramon

Seamine unitattachment:

VictoryFirst

@Ramon I ran into the same problem for the North Africa game. You need to make sure a land territory is adjacent to every sea territory using canal attachments.

<attachment foreach="$SeaZones$" name="canalAttachmentSeaMine@SeaZones@" attachTo="A-B" javaClass="CanalAttachment" type="territory">
	<option name="canalName" value="Sea Mine @SeaZones@"/>
	<option name="landTerritories" value="A-B"/>
	<option name="excludedUnits" value="none"/>
</attachment>

The code above makes sure every sea zone gets canal attached to the territory A-B, which is a territory belonging to a special player that deals with the mines. This way, this player is able to place sea mines in every territory. For your game, you would need to do this for every player in your game. You should attach the canal to a territory that is likely to be owned by that player for the entire game. I believe it doesn't need to be adjacent to a factory. If you make the sea mine a construction and have the relevant properties at the correct settings, I think you can get away with it.

You can create canal attachments to every sea zone and every player using a nested foreach:

<attachment foreach="$SeaZones$^$Territories$" name="canalAttachmentSeaMine@Territories@@SeaZones@" attachTo="@SeaZones@" javaClass="CanalAttachment" type="territory">
	<option name="canalName" value="Sea Mine @Territories@ @SeaZones@"/>
	<option name="landTerritories" value="@Territories@"/>
	<option name="excludedUnits" value="none"/>
</attachment>

You also need one attached to the territories:

<!-- NOTICE THAT THIS ONE SAYS attachTo="@Territories@" -->
<attachment foreach="$SeaZones$^$Territories$" name="canalAttachmentSeaMine@Territories@@SeaZones@" attachTo="@Territories@" javaClass="CanalAttachment" type="territory"> 
	<option name="canalName" value="Sea Mine @Territories@ @SeaZones@"/>
	<option name="landTerritories" value="@Territories@"/>
	<option name="excludedUnits" value="none"/>
</attachment>

and variable lists (this should be below diceSides at the top of the XML):

<variableList>
<variable name="SeaZones">
  <element name="Sea Zone 1"/>
  <element name="Sea Zone 2"/>
  <element name="Sea Zone 3"/>
...
<variable name="Territories">
  <element name="Algiers Convoy UK"/>
  <element name="Algiers Convoy US"/>
  <element name="Atlantic Ocean Convoy"/>
...

SeaZones should be a list containing all sea zones in the game. Territories should contain one territory for every player in the game that acts as the "sea mine base". If this territory is controlled by that player, they should be able to place sea mines in any sea zone. It can be a land-locked territory. You could for example put every player's capital territory in the list Territories, as if the capital is taken you cannot produce units anyway.

Also, you need to specify connections between the territories and every sea zones in the connection list:

<connection t1="A-B" t2="Sea Zone 1"/>
<connection t1="A-B" t2="Sea Zone 2"/>
<connection t1="A-B" t2="Sea Zone 3"/>

Ramon

@VictoryFirst

Hi Victory thanks a lot for your response!

I implemented it in my map and it works perfectly for seamines!

but... my blockades are now connected to each country as well? making one blockade block everything? (see screenshot)

This makes sense because everything is connected, but is there a way i can fix this?

VictoryFirst

@Ramon That is a shame, I didn't know you had blockade sea zones in your game. In that case, there is no easy way to solve this. One solution I see is to implement the sea mines the same way as in North Africa, namely by creating a separate player called "Mines" or "Sea mines" that purchases and places sea mines. You can add a purchase and place phase for this player after every players' purchase/place phase. Then, players would need to leave some money left over when purchasing, and then this special player purchases the sea mines. You can use conditions/triggers to convert the placed sea mine to a sea mine controlled by the actual player.

Honestly, I think there should be better ways to allow units to be placed in any sea zone. Once I ever get some time again, I will see if I add this functionality to the engine.

TheDog

I have not followed this.

In 1941 GCD ,Winter units are placed as Allied units and then cause a movement terrain effect, would that be good enough? Or do you need damage?

Ramon

@VictoryFirst

Hi victory!

I agree with you, its unfortunate but it is what it is!

Thanks a lot for your time!

~Ramon

VictoryFirst

@TheDog This is about being able to place sea mines in any sea zone as a player. My solution was to make a territory adjacent to every sea zone in the game, but that inadvertently made blockade sea zones also adjacent to these territories, allowing you to blockade every player with one blockade zone.