Support more location types as cities?

[GoldJohnKing]

Hi.

I've recently noticed H&M only support "NameVillage", "NameCity", "NameCityCapital", "NameLocal", "Hill", "Airport", "NameMarine" as cities.

However, some of the workshop terrains, such as Napf and those made by IceBreakr, there are many other types of locations, such as:

Name
Flag
Strategic
StrongpointArea
BorderCrossing
VegetationBroadleaf
VegetationFir
VegetationPalm
VegetationVineyard
ViewPoint

Missing those types of locations makes H&M feels much more deserted on workshop terrains. (On Altis and Tanoa, cities (red circles) are much denser than those workshop terrains). I wonder if those types of location can be supported and regarded the same as Hill, which will make H&M feels much better on workshop terrains.

Also, CulturalProperty and HistoricalSite can also be regarded the same as Church.

References:
Location - BI Wiki: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Location

[Vdauphin]

Hello,

I see StrongpointArea interesting for Lingor island at least.
VegetationPalm have huge radius and may overlap with a lot of city. Even if this isn't a problem since 1.21, we don't want such huge area be activated.
ViewPoint is not a location from my point of view, just an interesting spot not related to building around etc

I think each types of locations should be choose carefully by looking how map author use:

• do we have building around
• is there any location already supported just 100m or 200m around

Also, CulturalProperty and HistoricalSite can also be regarded the same as Church.

Don't really understand this but CulturalProperty and HistoricalSite is not supported by https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/nearestTerrainObjects
Churchs are used to center city when a location is in water but it isn't a NameMarine. This avoid spawning stuf in water.
https://github.com/Vdauphin/HeartsAndMinds/blob/master/%3DBTC%3Dco%4030_Hearts_and_Minds.Altis/core/fnc/city/init.sqf#L43

[GoldJohnKing]

Also, CulturalProperty and HistoricalSite can also be regarded the same as Church.

Don't really understand this but CulturalProperty and HistoricalSite is not supported by https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/nearestTerrainObjects
Churchs are used to center city when a location is in water but it isn't a NameMarine. This avoid spawning stuf in water.
https://github.com/Vdauphin/HeartsAndMinds/blob/master/%3DBTC%3Dco%4030_Hearts_and_Minds.Altis/core/fnc/city/init.sqf#L43

Ah, I mixed up those things...

[GoldJohnKing]

I see StrongpointArea interesting for Lingor island at least.

Yes, I see StrongpointArea and BorderCrossing are both widely used in workshop terrains. Both of these represents an important strategic area on a terrain, so I wonder if both of them can be supported.

BorderCrossing mostly represents checkpoint on road which connect two regions/countries. You can see this in many workshop terrains, for example, IceBreakr's Fapovo Island.

VegetationPalm have huge radius and may overlap with a lot of city. Even if this isn't a problem since 1.21, we don't want such huge area be activated.

In many workshop terrains with a large scale, there are many wide areas of forest and vegetations, which are far from the cities and far from roads. These areas are very good places for resistance forces like "Oplitas" to hide, but now they are pretty deserted and unpopulated.

As the max city radius is limited and should not be a problem, I think it would be better to have those vegetation areas (VegetationBroadleaf, VegetationFir, VegetationPalm, VegetationVineyard), too.

ViewPoint is not a location from my point of view, just an interesting spot not related to building around etc

As for ViewPoint, they are mostly high areas with wide range of sights, should be good places where resistance would like to occupy and civilians would like to visit. Should be regarded the same as Hill, because most of them share the same style.

Besides, in many workshop terrains (especially Lingor and Fapovo), many locations that would be regarded as cities in H&M, are much too overlap. I often see two city center within the each city's radius, or even closer.

This could be an issue. Players a area that cities are too close to each other, can always activate too much cities at once and cause H&M spawn too much units, that will cause these areas has much stronger enemy strength, and even worse, the server overload.

I wonder if we could handle this differently: once two cities are in each one's radius, regard them as one city and increase it's radius according to priority.

For example, Airport > NameCityCapital > NameCity, so if an Airport and a NameCityCapital is in each other's range, NameCityCapital should not be regarded as a single city anymore, while the Airport will have a larger radius according to the NameCityCapital's radius.

We can also have a formula on the radius calculation, for example, (city1_radius + city2_radius + activation_radius).

I think this could better prevent the issue above.

[Vdauphin]

StrongpointArea and BorderCrossing really fit the criteria for a location handle by hearts and minds
Same for VegetationFir in fapovo, those vegetation have some building
I still don't like VegetationPalm as they have no buildings around and have big area even if max city radius is limited. It looks like hill but most of the time they cover multiple city
VegetationBroadleaf and VegetationVineyard don't see any use case

As for ViewPoint, they are mostly high areas with wide range of sights, should be good places where resistance would like to occupy and civilians would like to visit. Should be regarded the same as Hill, because most of them share the same style.

I quickly tested lingor and fapovo (thanks to my Shadow Tech PC) but I found only see ViewPoint once in lingor and it looks pointless

I wonder if we could handle this differently: once two cities are in each one's radius, regard them as one city and increase it's radius according to priority.

I really don't want to touch that. I want to keep stuff simple so simpler to debug

From what I saw StrongpointArea, BorderCrossing and VegetationFir fit location in city