MOD: Terrain Editor

[JamieIdle2.0]

I was tinkering with things and figured out how to raise and lower land in addition to creating flat land using a combination of the mechanics seen in the Flatten Terrain Tool and the mechanics from the Quarries. However, I am looking for ideas on how to best implement this. So the question is how would you use a tool that could raise, flatten, and lower land?

Thoughts and Ideas
1. I wont make a cheat mod from this. You will need builders to create hills, flatten land, and dig holes.
2. The mechanics kinda limit you to squares and rectangles so nice cone shaped mountains are likely to be impossible
3. Make it so you can build things on these hills will require modded buildings.
4. I am considering having the tools that flatten and lower land produce small amounts of stone, iron, and coal as a by product of their construction.
5. I am debating on whether you should need stone to build hills or maybe another byproduct of the flattening and lowering tools could be dirt for hill making.

[robber121]

If possible, I would dig canals to connect isolated lakes to the river and canal shortcuts between rivers and streams at narrow land points.

[chillzz]

hmm sounds really interesting!
regarding 3 : I would suggest to not mod buildings so it can be build on hills,  just raise and flatten the land so it can hold a building
regarding 5 : if it's possible, a new product (dirt / gravel) which is excavated from one hill/mountain, or from dug canals.. store it, use it for raising.

[Nilla]

I seldom use any modelling tools. I have loaded that flatten terrain-mod. Sometimes I make room for a trading port or a fisher dock or maybe for a house close to a hill. (I use the better fields mod, and if there are small hills in an area, I build fields  )

I would probably not use another modelling tool much more, but I like the idea, that modelling the terrain costs work and materials. Feels more like real life. The idea of a new resource; dirt, isn't bad. If you want to make a better place for a fishing dock, let your labourers first get the dirt in a pit or at a hill and than fill the river.

[Denis de la Rive]

I like the concept, the idea of having a cost can make it much more realistic and more importantly time, which equals production. This would keep the total levelers form abusing it too much. Forcing choice is good for game play.

Creating a new resources has pros and cons, mostly related to storage and disposal, ex I have 5000 units of dirt but no use for it, it will just clutter up the storage, can dump it like in RL, and you have to consider game flags as well. Stone is on the other hand very useful for everything, so many new builds in various mods now require stone that people who dislike quarries are going to need something like this. If you consider resources need to build, iron and logs can represent the fixings need to support the new structure.

I'm not sure how buildings could work, at least in the version of the game we have, all buildings level before being built, if you mod the to a certain hight then you are locking yourself into those altitudes only, and you will need one fore each level you make. You also have to think of access, making ramps, stairs and road if you produce buildings.

I would like to be able to make terraces for farming, taking to really high hill down to where the people can walk, which can be farmed as better fields has shown, I often have to limit a field's size because of one or two squares that are just too high. If you level them then you destroy the maps character. Several levels of fields like you see in China or Peru could also be nice. It could also add irrigation trenches and similar drainage structures. The really obsessed calling them moats.

Here a couple of shots of hill farming. Hope this helps. 

[Fellow Villager]

that's great-....lookin forward for release!

[assobanana76]

This would solve the problem that blocks my project to build the next city because I own a small hill in the center of the area of cultivation that I can not flatten with terrain mod!
great!

[rkelly17]

Excellent idea, @JamieIdle2.0, excellent idea. I would very much like to dig canals or smooth off some river front on occasion so that TPs can be built. @Paeng has also posted some pictures of "piers" made with the Flatten Terrain Tool for fishing and to have that readily available would be good.

So far my issue with the Flatten Terrain Tool is that you can't load it alongside any of the mods that add flatter valleys to map scripting. Sometimes I can unload the map scripting mod, save the map and then load the Terrain Flattening Tool, but sometimes I can't--instant crash. So, one thing I would like to see is one tool (or a set of tools) that allow both.

An idea for dirt/rock: Digging produces it, fill uses it up. This is like real life. When a railroad or highway cuts through a hill builders use the "excess" dirt and rock to fill a canyon crossing somewhere nearby. So dirt would not be a commodity, but if you don't use it you have piles of fill lying around. Maybe a specialized "dirt only" storage yard. If you want fill without a "cut," you have to dig a hole. That could look something like a quarry. Hey! An idea! If you level a mountain you could use the fill to fill in an old quarry that has run out of stone!

Anyway, hope that this mod can come to fruition in some form.

[sunsstorm]

Guys just release a simple tool like the Flatten Terrain Tool
which is able to raise, lower and flat land. We are all waiting for this
Builders and resourses can be added later

[XSwifTX]

I agree, nothing fancy just being able to raise terrain would be awesome.

[JamieIdle2.0]

Sadly after much testing you can't really make something that raises or lowers terrain by a set amount. The raised and lowered are always the size and shape of the quarry on which I based my attempt. So the Flatten Terrain tool remains the only practical terrain editing option.

[XSwifTX]

Oh the limitations of a game that wasn't originally designed to be modable...  lol

[Bobbi]

  I got really excited when I say the possibility to lower or raise terrain. I would love to be able to dig my own lakes or add canals/rivers. Creating small hills in strategic locations for mines on my plains maps would be great, too. If this is at all possible, I would prefer a simple tool like flatten terrain, not a complicated thing where I need to figure out what to do with the dirt.