posted 06-26-08 17:50 ET (US)
In my post to 'Randomness of Random Walkers (continued)' I suggested that it might be possible to determine the random number (or at least the relevant part of it) associated with a tile by examining the terrain. I have investigated this further and I offer my findings. Frustratingly, I still await a bump on the other thread (where I would rather post). Since the information is relevant to the merging of tents I am afforded a work-around.
It has been documented elsewhere that the .map and .sav files for Caesar 3 contain a grid of apparently random numbers. Each tile on a map is associated with one of those random numbers. For our purposes, we are only interested in the last three bits of the relevant number, i.e. the remainder after dividing the number by eight. I'll call this the 'seed'.
According to Brugle (who got it from, I believe, Nero Would) a group of four tents arranged in a 2x2 square will merge if the northernmost tent sits on a tile whose seed is 4 or less, and it won't if the seed is 5, 6 or 7. My tests show that this information is correct. It has hitherto been thought that experimentation is the only practical way to determine where tents will/won't merge, the alternative being to examine the binary data, requiring a knowledge of the layout of the game files and an understanding of coordinates/offsets etc. I can now show that there is another way, and it's actually quite easy.
Some players may regard this information as being of the nature of a 'spoiler'. You must make up your own mind and decide your attitude before reading on.
Looking at the games's graphics, most buildable terrain (apart from meadow) is covered with a general overlay made up of composite blocks of texture. There is, however, a set of eight different tiles, each corresponding to a 'seed' in the range 0 to 7. Furthermore, each of those eight has an 'alternative' form which is used (in Central provinces) to add the appearance of tufts of grass and small bushes. This alternative form is associated with the distribution of data in another of the grids embedded in the game files - if a number 32 (or more correctly, a number with the 32 bit set) appears in that grid the alternative form is used on the related tile. Now, if the random number in a tile is less than 16 the appropriate graphic from this set is allowed to show through the overlay.
Confused? If you have it available, load up a save of the career 'Valentia' and select 'replay' to get an empty map. If you don't have Valentia, you can probably still follow the discussion using another Central map.
Move your view over towards the entry point, between the road and the cliffs. On my copy, the sheep are resting but there's not much else to see - yours should be the same. Now, you see in the landscape some distinctive, green, cigar-shaped tufts? The ones that look like big caterpillars? There's one immediately south of the road-end at the entry point, and you'll find several more like it if you look around.
Every one of those is a 3-seed. You can be sure that tents will merge if you place the northern one on one of those. You can also be sure that any building placed with its northern tile on one of those will send out a SE labor seeker first, and you can be sure that if you place an intersection on one of those a random walker hitting it on the sixth tile of his random phase will go NE (if he can), because 6 + 3 = 9, divide by 8 leaves 1, and 1 means NE.
You see inside the first bend of the road a tile that looks like a small crater (or maybe a gopher-hole)? That's a 2 if ever I saw one, and there are a few more of those dotted about. But if you want housing to merge, avoid using tiles like the bush next door to (SW of) the gopher-hole because that's a 5 and it won't work. It will, however, send a walker NW if he should happen to 'ground' in an intersection placed on it (5+1=6).
Well, that's fine so far, but we only have a few of these distinctive tiles poking through the overlay here and there. What if we don't happen to have one handy where we want to evaluate a tile? That overlay is fragile. You can poke holes in it with the delete tool (at no cost). Click around and you'll reveal the tiles underneath. Dragging has strange effects caused by the program rearranging the composite blocks it uses to build the overlay, and you'll uncover some tiles while filling in others. The best way is to drag along a single row of tiles at a time - that way you can uncover everything. The seed value of every tile can thus be determined - except where it underlies meadow. There you will have to resort to the old trial and error techniques.
How do you know which tile type relates to which seed number? I've prepared atest file (20Kb)for you. It's in .map format and it demonstrates all the available terrain textures. With a bit of experience you'll soon be able to spot the tiles which serve your purpose, whatever that may be.
Enjoy.
It has been documented elsewhere that the .map and .sav files for Caesar 3 contain a grid of apparently random numbers. Each tile on a map is associated with one of those random numbers. For our purposes, we are only interested in the last three bits of the relevant number, i.e. the remainder after dividing the number by eight. I'll call this the 'seed'.
According to Brugle (who got it from, I believe, Nero Would) a group of four tents arranged in a 2x2 square will merge if the northernmost tent sits on a tile whose seed is 4 or less, and it won't if the seed is 5, 6 or 7. My tests show that this information is correct. It has hitherto been thought that experimentation is the only practical way to determine where tents will/won't merge, the alternative being to examine the binary data, requiring a knowledge of the layout of the game files and an understanding of coordinates/offsets etc. I can now show that there is another way, and it's actually quite easy.
Some players may regard this information as being of the nature of a 'spoiler'. You must make up your own mind and decide your attitude before reading on.
Looking at the games's graphics, most buildable terrain (apart from meadow) is covered with a general overlay made up of composite blocks of texture. There is, however, a set of eight different tiles, each corresponding to a 'seed' in the range 0 to 7. Furthermore, each of those eight has an 'alternative' form which is used (in Central provinces) to add the appearance of tufts of grass and small bushes. This alternative form is associated with the distribution of data in another of the grids embedded in the game files - if a number 32 (or more correctly, a number with the 32 bit set) appears in that grid the alternative form is used on the related tile. Now, if the random number in a tile is less than 16 the appropriate graphic from this set is allowed to show through the overlay.
Confused? If you have it available, load up a save of the career 'Valentia' and select 'replay' to get an empty map. If you don't have Valentia, you can probably still follow the discussion using another Central map.
Move your view over towards the entry point, between the road and the cliffs. On my copy, the sheep are resting but there's not much else to see - yours should be the same. Now, you see in the landscape some distinctive, green, cigar-shaped tufts? The ones that look like big caterpillars? There's one immediately south of the road-end at the entry point, and you'll find several more like it if you look around.
Every one of those is a 3-seed. You can be sure that tents will merge if you place the northern one on one of those. You can also be sure that any building placed with its northern tile on one of those will send out a SE labor seeker first, and you can be sure that if you place an intersection on one of those a random walker hitting it on the sixth tile of his random phase will go NE (if he can), because 6 + 3 = 9, divide by 8 leaves 1, and 1 means NE.
You see inside the first bend of the road a tile that looks like a small crater (or maybe a gopher-hole)? That's a 2 if ever I saw one, and there are a few more of those dotted about. But if you want housing to merge, avoid using tiles like the bush next door to (SW of) the gopher-hole because that's a 5 and it won't work. It will, however, send a walker NW if he should happen to 'ground' in an intersection placed on it (5+1=6).
Well, that's fine so far, but we only have a few of these distinctive tiles poking through the overlay here and there. What if we don't happen to have one handy where we want to evaluate a tile? That overlay is fragile. You can poke holes in it with the delete tool (at no cost). Click around and you'll reveal the tiles underneath. Dragging has strange effects caused by the program rearranging the composite blocks it uses to build the overlay, and you'll uncover some tiles while filling in others. The best way is to drag along a single row of tiles at a time - that way you can uncover everything. The seed value of every tile can thus be determined - except where it underlies meadow. There you will have to resort to the old trial and error techniques.
How do you know which tile type relates to which seed number? I've prepared a
Enjoy.
[This message has been edited by Trium3 (edited 06-26-2008 @ 06:19 PM).]
When I repeated the experiment I took more care placing the lots. I just waited until the first three became occupied before painting in. No problem, 2*2's every time.
