Raising the height of the map over time to shift biomes

tobiasisahawk · 2019-10-22 17:40:35

As towns progress up the tech tree, things can get stale. The current approach to fix this is to limit water. This works well in the early stages where there is further technology downstream to alleviate the problem. Eventually, we get to the top of the tech tree. Villages go into maintenance mode. The towns stay the same. Exploration gets stale because we’ve already explored most of the map. If we make it long enough, tarry spots dry up.

Recently, Jason changed the map generation code to use a topological map for determining biomes. Each tile is assigned a height, and that height determines the biome of the tile. If all of the tiles were gradually raised as time went on, swamps would turn to grasslands, grassland to prairies, etc. Over time, the highest biomes (deserts, tundras, jungles) would take over the map.

If you’re reborn into the same town later in the arc, it might look completely different as the biome changed. Now there’s a bear cave in the middle of the berry patch. Towns will have to adapt to their new environments. Exploration gets interesting because there are new things to find. As the biomes shift fresh resources arise. The game gets challenging in the long run because the easy places to live (prairies, grasslands, and swamps) would shrink over the long run and inhospitable places (deserts, jungles, tundras) would grow.

Most of the necessary resources in the low height places can be domesticated; trees, crops, animals, etc. (clay is an exception). The resources in the high height places are not; tarry spots, iron veins, flat rocks, horses, etc. This allows the game to inject more of the non-renewable resources over time, and forces players to cultivate resources that used to just be a convenience. Buildings and roads become crucial to limit exposure to inhospitable climates.

pein · 2019-10-22 18:22:53

I think the engine doesn't support biome changes over time.
I had a similar suggestion as mountain edges AOE style to have diverse natural blocking with some possible caves and interesting layouts.

I think seasons could be worth it like totally block out a biome for a while.

tobiasisahawk · 2019-10-22 19:32:36

I think the engine doesn't support computing a biome based on neighbors. That's why the engine didn't support putting grasslands next to swamps. He changed the map generation to use topographical maps (he talks about it here: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … p?id=7461)

Somewhere he's got a function that says "what biome is at (x,y)". To get the nice ordering he made this work using topographical maps where each location (x,y) has some altitude, then he has bands of altitudes that map to the biomes.

in pseudocode, whatBiomeAtLocation(x,y) is implemented as:
whatBiomeAtAltitude(whatAltitudeAtLocation(x,y)).

To get the biomes to shift over time he could change it to:
whatBiomeAtAltitude(whatAltitudeAtLocation(x,y) + arcTime).

pein · 2019-10-22 21:12:15

the only difference between biomes is color which is mostly mental (still we get green and swamp towns 99% of the time)
temperature, which doesn't really make much difference in terms of hot and cold as they both inhabitable
so we got 4 different good biomes and 3 bad ones, meanwhile some things are still not moveable as iron mines and tarry spots

the rest of the items wouldn't make much of a difference, wild berries maybe feed 2-3 people, rabbit holes just annoying, same for bear caves and sometimes they would block up buildings. other than that would have not much of an effect to have some different color tiles as long as they not hot or cold

people would still live normally, maybe newbies would die accidentally by doing stuff not realizing there is a desert under the bakery

and ever since we got fewer wells, changing spots is not really an option either

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-10-22 17:40:35

Raising the height of the map over time to shift biomes

#2 2019-10-22 18:22:53

Re: Raising the height of the map over time to shift biomes

#3 2019-10-22 19:32:36

Re: Raising the height of the map over time to shift biomes

#4 2019-10-22 21:12:15

Re: Raising the height of the map over time to shift biomes

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