Topic: Trees and Terrains

No need to hurry, the problem is already old so it can wait bit longer....

Or maybe somebody else will try it...

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kaputtnik wrote:

Heres the modified init.lua file from king_of_nowhere. This file works with widelands version 7480:

• init.lua

I have shortly tried a game and at first sight it seems that some trees do grow very slow on some terrains.

@king_of_nowhere: Try to open this file with Notepad (shipped with windows) if you want to change some values. Notepad should be able to display it correct.

I tried this file with 7485, and it gives the same error message.

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silly me, i had put the modified init in "world" instead of "world/terrains".

Now it works properly. I will give feedback soon.

EDIT: I made a simple map with all the terrain tipes in a small area, and put some foresters in it to see where the trees would grow. after it was full of trees, i stopped the foresters to see where they would remain.I feel quite satisfied. All the climatic areas are ok.

In winterland there are mostly coniferous trees, with the occasional birch (birch is a common tree in finland, so I made it somewhat adaptable to cold terrains). "snow" is almost treeless, all the other terrains can grow trees well enough. After stopping, I see that trees can survive in some terrains better than in others, but i cannot tell the various winter terrains at glance, so i have no idea which they are.

In summer there are mostly palms, with a surprising amount of rowans (which I made adaptable to hot climates. I have no idea how appropriate that is, since i know nothing about rowans). Trees won't grow in desert, as it is supposed, they will grow with difficulty on hard ground, they grow well enough on other terrains. High mountain meadow is also difficult, again as intended. After long time, haard ground is treeless and high mountian meadow is almost treeless.

In greenland I'm seeing only greenland trees, except one single twine. barren steppe can support some trees with difficulty, in steppe they are difficult to grow but they can, same for mountain meadow, grasslands grow trees easy. again, as intended. I see one or two coniferous trees in mountain meadow, beause it is colder.

In wasteland, there are wasteland trees. I can see a few greenland trees i do not recongize in boundary regions. trees grew quickly with foresters, but once i stopped the foresters, it is the terrain where most trees died. igneous rocks is mostly barren, and after i stopeed the forester it gradually lost tree cover. as intended. ashes are somwhat difficult, but some trees are surviving on them. other terrain types, i cannot recognize at a glance, but i see trees grow better on some.

In greenland and wasteland i see many different types of trees represented, which is good. there are only two types of coniferous trees, and both are present in winter, again good. I am not good at recognizing palms, but i have the impression that only one or two types are represented. Bad. Although someone with better knowledge of palms should check it.

I also cannot guarantee that every single tree is represented. there are many greenland and wasteland trees, and it is possible some of them are not being planted.

Things to work on: - rowan must be made a bit worse on hot climates because it competes with palms too much. - palms should be modified so that more different kinds are planted. - someone with better tree knowledge should check if all tree types are represented. Also, someone with tree knowledge should check my notes to see if my choice in assigning the ideal climates have been correct.

Good things: - now the trees growing in places look like the trees actually belonging to those places. - terrains that are supposed to be barren or mostly barren now are actually barren or mostly barren, and they are not randomly growing trees from another climatic zone.

All things considered, I would implement my numbers in the next build, because I think they do a better job.

They could be refined to take into account the problems I listed.

Also, I arbitrarily made all mountains and beaches completely sterile. I don't know if that is considered good or if I should give trees a small chance to grow there.

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king_of_nowhere wrote:

Also, I arbitrarily made all mountains and beaches completely sterile. I don't know if that is considered good or if I should give trees a small chance to grow there.

I think some sort of trees should grow on mountains and some should grow on beach. f.e. conifers should grow on mountains and palms should grow on beach.

And the main problem exist furthermore: How we should show the growing of trees related to each terrain in the editor?

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DragonAtma wrote:

So my advice is to make every area one temperature cooler (greenland trees grow in summerland mountains, winterland trees grow in greenland mountains, and winterland trees grow somewhat in greenland mountains, but poorly). As for ashlands mountains, I guess they'd be ashland 'trees', but poorly.

Snowy mountaintops are presumed to be above the tree line, so no trees would survive there.

I think some sort of trees should grow on mountains and some should grow on beach. f.e. conifers should grow on mountains and palms should grow on beach.

Temperature is already set like that. desert mountain meadow has intermediate temperature with greenland, and greenland mountain meadow is intermediate with winter. But for rocky moubtains, I set humidity and fertility at 0.001, so too dry and sterile for trees. I suppose putting it to 0.1 would enable some trees to grow there ocasionally - barren steppe is 0.2, and some trees manage to grow. Or I could make it wetter, conifers like cold, wet and barren (like real cold regions) and it should be possible to tweak those values so that they can grow there suboptimally.

And the main problem exist furthermore: How we should show the growing of trees related to each terrain in the editor?

That I have no idea, aside from adding a guide in the game. BUt at least it is fairly intuitive which kid of trees will ggrow in which terrain. You can expect barren steppe to be barren, and in fact trees grow there very hardly. but true, one cannot know which one is the greenland tree specialized for dry ground (i choose beech, which I have no idea what kind of tree it is). Anyway, this problem existed with older version too. At least you won't see a forest of wasteland trees spawn where it should be barren terrain.

I would like to see "greenland" barren steppe as barren. There should be such a "barren" terrain.

Very few trees grow on barren steppe, and unless foresters are actively planting there, the terrain will become barren with time. But I imagine a barren steppe as a terrain where still some sparse trees can grow. I gave it 0.2 for both humidity and fertility, while no grassland tree likes less than 0.4 humidity - wasteland trees are fine with that, but they require very high fertility instead. I could drop it to 0.15, but not less. it is a steppe, not a desert.

Also can you check ashes again? If I understand, they are hard to grow any tree. I think that ashes should be very fertile. Ashes are used as "almost natural" fertilizer. Also around old volcanos there are woods full of different tree types. Because we have some volcanic trees (umbrellas & lianas), we should let them grow like before (before merging the worlds).

I gave ashes the highest fertility, but a low huidity even for wasteland. The point is that while ashes are excellent fertilizer, a terrain made entirely of ashes would be far from ideal. Anyway, I made one kind of wasteland tree that is specialized to grow on ashes, but probably not enough - it likes 0.15 humidity, while ashes has 0.1, and with a pickyness of 0.8 it makes a difference. My idea was that pure ash would not be the best terrain, but the boundary of other terrain with ash would be very fertile.

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