new terrain affinitys make problems

[kaputtnik]

This bug is a result from discussion https://wl.widelands.org/forum/topic/1686/

Prior to one world we have different plants (trees) for each world on 12 to 16 terrains types. There was a dependency of tree <-> terrain, which let trees grow differently good on different terrains. With the on world merge, this terrain affinity got lost and now there is a try to get those affinitys back. Saying: The old differences between the worlds (green/desert/winter/blackland) comes again (correct me if i am wrong).

I assume that the main reason for the one world merge was to make maps possible which consists of up to 4 worlds in one map. F.e. in north there could be blackland in south there is desertland. This is a good usecase and those kind of maps are surely interesting. And the currently used terrain affinitys will work...

But there are some circumstances, where the current implementation of the terrain affinitys make problems:

1. For a mapmaker:
 1.a It is not clear, which terrain affect treegrowing in which way. He may place f.e. mushroom trees (from blackland) on desert and while testing the map all the trees will probably dy before they get old
 1.b. He may mix terrains from different worlds in one place nearby and treegrowing isn't as suspected.

2. For a player:
 2.a They do not know where to place foresters to make them a good work. This is very relevant for win condition "Collectors"

3. Other:
 3.a implementing new terraintypes gets very difficult.

As i understand the current implementation tests for the affinitys aren't completed. So some of the circumstances from above gets fixed in future or will get a solution.

At least for the 1.b point i think a solution is very difficult. The mixing of different terrain types from different worlds is surely something what a mapmaker does, because he have his own taste of mapmaking and ca 50 terrains he could choose from. Maybe one solution could be, to regard the decisions a mapmaker makes and give them a higher priority over the normal terrain affintys. f.e if a mapmaker choose umbrella trees for an area of mixed terrains, this trees should grow good on this area, regardless of the normal terrain affinity of the terrain types. But i think this isn't easy to implement :(

Or: making it like ressources: Let the mapmaker place ressources like "conifere" resource, which let coniferes grow good. If no such resource is placed, use normal terrain affinitys

[SirVer (sirver)]

A huge problem in all of these discussions is backwards compatibility: We'd like to be able to still load maps from b18 and earlier and therefore we must take into account how maps should be handled that are not augmented with the "tree resources" or similar approach.

[GunChleoc (gunchleoc)]

Migrated to https://github.com/widelands/widelands/issues/3025