North East UK Map - 2 versions.

[Narra]

I've added the demands for goods to metroplois level cities and removed the unused paper car.

I just want to say a big thank you to all you guys who've downloaded my map and gotten back to me with notes about the errors. Due to your helpful posts with info on finding and fixing these bugs, I feel a whole lot more confident about tackling further projects.

I'm hoping that with these fixes, the map is pretty much stable, playable and fun for the vast majority now, so I'll shortly be starting work on the more difficult version of this map (especially for Universum ) and have another project in mind to get underway.

Narra

[atani]

I'm hoping that with these fixes, the map is pretty much stable, playable and fun for the vast majority now, so I'll shortly be starting work on the more difficult version of this map (especially for Universum ) and have another project in mind to get underway.

The new map looks good. I noticed one remaining issue with the £ symbol. In the "Crossing the Borders" era NetWorth condition you have a minor corruption on this character, likely related to whichever editor you are using when it saves the file out to disk. I would suggest use notepad and then clear up the corrupted character. I have corrected this in the updated installer (above).

Mike

[Narra]

Ive altered the incorrect symbol in the main zip, along with adding a 2nd, more challenging version of the map (hopefully issue free).

[stormfather]

This is a fun scenario (I've played the harder of the two); I'm impressed by how well designed and balanced the different start locations are- the ones that are closer to Darlington and Stockton don't have the money-making capability of those that are farther away (such as the city by Sheffield.)

I downloaded the file from the wiki and it may have been an out of date map.

One major problem that I've noticed is that you don't have the lumber mill annex in the XMLs, causing a crash when a rail line is built through a lumber mill's green circle. Another technical problem that I've noticed is that the pound symbol comes out as gibberish.

I really liked this map, however there were a few issues that I think you could really build on to improve it:

1.) I haven't managed to do the 25 deliveries of passengers in era 1. It seems that Stockton just can't generate enough passengers to get them all delivered in time. Villages seem to generate about one passenger a year. I've tried to grow Stockton to a town to increase the number of passengers but lumber doesn't work (I've fixed it on my game but still haven't managed to get those 25 passengers.) Maybe you could drop the requirement a bit, or make it 15 passengers each way, or perhaps 15 passengers and 10 mail, or something else.

2.) The rivers canyons seem overly steep. I have never worked with DEM before but I know that you can somehow adjust the contrast or brightness or something (perhaps someone with more experience in the matter could be a bit more helpful.) However, those canyons seem rather artificial.

3.) Some of the central hills seem artificial. I opened your map file in photoshop and blurred them down slightly and the landscape seemed far more natural.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this map and hope to see more of your work soon.

[snoopy55]

stormfather - first, I need to really thank you for noting something in this map that I hadn't done in the map under condtruction, the Annexes. I had the annexes in but the 2 new ones. I'm hopping it will work a little better.

Second, the canyons you speak of can only be fixed in one of two ways, lower the landscape, of a little but complicated trick I figured out. You make your rivers and lakes shallow depressions, then lay ice or snow in them. Then comes the hard part, at least for me so far, you color the ice or snow blue. The hard part is finding a blue that goes with the actual water. The major drawback is it doesn't look as good. So it comes down to whether you want canyons with great looking water, or rivers without the realistic water.

[stormfather]

I haven't used DEM for precisely this reason- however I recall that someone smoothed out a DEM based map (Tomasvincente's Spain, I think). Of course, you lose the accurate elevation levels, but the trade off is that you get more natural looking rivers.

One thing I have noticed in my maps is that laying rails over tinted ground removes the tint. If you sink the river into the ground a bit, low enough to call for a bridge, does it remove the tint?

[snoopy55]

I had only gotten bored and messed with putting in a scuzzy lake-like thing on my Mexico map I was playing with. I forgot to remove it when I uploaded the map for others to play with, and was asked about it. There was a little discussion about it, but I haven't heard any more. It should put a bridge just like any other depression. They would just need to be deep enough to help keep the game from filling them in. I've had that happen on regular rivers in maps.

[Narra]

Thanks for the feedback chaps.. sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you on this topic (I've been tied up with r/l issues).

I must admit, the era 1 target for passengers is a bit of a tough challenge. With 3 AI opponents, I suspect it may be almost impossible, given the timescale, so as soon as I can, I'll change the target figure to something do-able (you gave a figure of 15 so I'll try that as a start point.)

The map did give me a few headaches.. trying to get the balance between semi-accurate terrain, and putting features such as rivers and so on in without ending up canyons was a real headache. From my own perspective, using DEM data is an interesting way of generating a "real world" map, but finding the balance between challenging terrain and that "realistic" feel is kind of tough.. I tried to exagerate the terrain so that building became much more of an issue, with bridges and spans needed, but something tells me I overdid it slightly.

I know my main issue was having to reach sea level in order to get the water features to show (it would be much easier if water could just be 'painted' on to any given surface regaurdless of the height in a 'sim city' style method, but hey.. no use wishing hehe)

I'll hopefully get round to polishing up the map in the next few weeks and try and resolve some of the more glaring issues.

Meantime, I'm currently plotting out a new map/ scenario. Not giving the game away too much I hope, but we are talking about a very short historical period (3 years) in which the player will be set a monolithic challenge. I'm having to go very carefully on this one as the subject IS a very contentious one due to historical events and the one thing I want to avoid is offending anyone's sensibilities (my own included). For this reason, although the idea is historically based, the scenario itself will be non-historical and use made up places and people.

All I have to do now is find a few spare hurs in which to get to work..

Once again.. thanks hugely for the input..

Narra

[Dr Frag]

it would be much easier if water could just be 'painted' on to any given surface regaurdless of the height in a 'sim city' style method, but hey.. no use wishing hehe

This is a really annoying problem since the terrain image file has a blue tile in it that should work for this sort of thing but I have experimented with it and no matter what I changed I didn't see any affect on water areas.

[Slappy Da Clown]

Hi Guys

Crashed this map several times in the same place. Got a line from Stockton to Darlington ( goes north from Stockton to Carlisle ). Theres a woodlot outside of Stockton. I can run a track to it but everytime I try to place an annex there CTD.

Any ideas ? ( quit drinking is NOT an option )

[snoopy55]

Slappy - maybe you haven't drank enough? Or maybe you need a good English Brew for this map......

Anyway, do have this same problem with placeing Annexes at any other Lumber Mills on this map? On any other map?

[Narra]

That was a problem with one of the earlier versions.. I'd neglected to put the lumber car in and as a result, once the yard was linked and active, the map would ctd once the first car tried to load up.

If you know you have an early version of the map, or the crash is happening when the first lumber car is being loaded then I'd suggest downloading the latest file and installing it again.

If not, then as Snoopy says, are you getting the issue with any other lumber yards?

PS.. for best results, a good solid real ale is the suggested tipple for this map.. (I find several pints of Tim Taylor's Landlord or Speckled Hen works best )

[Slappy Da Clown]

OK Guys

Just to make sure i crashed it a couple of more times. I ran a track to a different woodlot & CTD. NO, I dont have any problem on other maps. So, I uninstalled & downloaded latest, same result. I am puting this map on with the installer package, BTW. Any other thoughts will be welcome. Im gonna get another beer.

[snoopy55]

Slappy (if you're not to brewed) and Narra, found the problem (Ok, quit patting me on the back)

The problem only shows up in the NE_UKHARD version.

In both maps, you are missing the Lumber Mill Annex in RRT_Depots.
If you put it in, the Scenario XML in NE_UK needs to be changed from RRT_Depots.xml to RRT_Depots_NE_UK.xml.
If not, then you need to change RRT_Depots_NE_UKHARD.xml to RRT_Depots.xml

As my payment Narra, you will donate 2 pints of blood to the nearest hospital (not you Slappy, If you want to donate a pint or two, go to the nearest bar ).

[Slappy Da Clown]

Im not nearly as sober as I might appear.

Since I cant seem to grasp the whole XML coding thing & all, I try to do what I can. So, when I get a map that crashes, I keep crashing it till I pass out or I can isolate the point of the crash. Im hopin its helpin you smart guys. This is a real nice map.

Snoop. PLEASE SPEAK SLOWLY & USE BIG WORDS ( CARTOONS WILL ALSO HELP ) Seriously, I can probably fix up what your talkin about with a little more help. Where would I find the lumber annex stuff ? Where would I put it ? Am I just changin the names of those files ? Or is it possible that the installer could fix that ?