Small map-editing question

tinkthank · #1 January 13th, 2005, 11:10 AM

I am trying to fix up the Ormus map (there are a few neighbors issues), when I also noticed a small terrain issue. So I wanted to go in and fix it up, and see that some terrains have really odd numbers, and have now seen this on other maps too. I don't get it, can someone help me?
For example:

#terrain 25 1537

What the heck? According to the mapedit.pdf, the valid terrain commands are:

1=small, 2=large, 4=sea, 8=rivers, 16=mountain,
32=swamp, 64=waste, 128=forest and 256=farm.

This province happens to be Plains. I could understand a 1, or a 2, or a 9 or a 10 if need be, but what does this number mean? And why?
In fact, I notice that a whole lot of terrain numbers on lots of nice maps have numbers which I dont get at all. Is there a list somewhere I am missing?
Thanks so very much.

Chazar · #2 January 13th, 2005, 11:29 AM

According to Post#309841, 512 = nostart and 1024 = many magic sites, hence
1537 = 1+512+1024 means that this province is "small" and "cannot be a starting province" and "has an increased probability for magic sites".

tinkthank · #3 January 13th, 2005, 12:10 PM

Hey thank you so much, this is most excellent.
Where are these extra terrain switches listed? Perhaps there are more? How did Gandalf find them? They arent in the pdf.
Thanks very much in advance.

Chazar · #4 January 13th, 2005, 03:45 PM

Quote:

tinkthank said:
Where are these extra terrain switches listed? Perhaps there are more? How did Gandalf find them?

Well, of course you can just try the next binary number on its own and just see what happens, but I do not think that the terrain-bitvector contains more than 11 significant bits to combine...

I think that I also recall that the 11th bit (1024) was only introduced later on with a patch - at least the map-editor did not list "many sites" in the beginning...

Edi · #5 January 13th, 2005, 06:45 PM

Quote:

tinkthank said:
Hey thank you so much, this is most excellent.
Where are these extra terrain switches listed? Perhaps there are more? How did Gandalf find them? They arent in the pdf.
Thanks very much in advance.

As I recall, I found those switches when examining the Cradle map file when I was doing the Faerun map. The nonstandard numbers bugged me, so I took a look and deduced them by a process of elimination, after which they soon entered the general mapmaking lore (there were quite a few threads about mapmaking around that time) and Gandalf predictably stored those details away in the voluminous Dominions DB inside his head.

Edi