Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Didnt mean to turn you off. I think your map is great and you should definetly continue.

I also think some players would rather have dull fast-loading maps since its basicaly background and some dont look at that just as some people turn off the music and all the animations. Dull fast maps are easy to do so I dont think you should be swayed that direction. Others can take care of that (like me). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

No problem, I wasn't turned off. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif The problem with internet communication is that you can't see and interpret body language, tone, attitude, etc... Makes for easy misunderstandings. I know you well enough to know there was no ill intent behind that.

On another note, does anyone know how Dom2 calculates province richness? I see in the map editor and docs that you can assign multiple values to a single province. ie:

Province A is assigned "farm"
Province B is assigned "farm" and "rivers"
Province C is assigned "farm" and "forest"
Province D is assigned "farm" and "mountains" etc...

How do these affect cash production of the provinces? Does "A" produce more money than the rest? What does designating it as "rivers" do? I know that the terrain types will affect movement rates and the chance of finding a magic site, but unsure of how it affects money (other than that the designation of "small" vs. "large" will have an effect). If I have a province that looks like this:

http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/province.jpg

It's meant to be a farm province with mountains around it to limit access (the mountains are impassable). Will making it farm + mountains reduce income?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Today's sneak preview:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap.jpg

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Now that I like http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I was hunting around for a graphic where I wanted to give you an idea, and I think I found one. I'll send it to you shortly. It was on the "Waving grain" thing.

Edit; You might want to taper off the rivers on the southwestern edge. They are kind of blunt and doesn't look like they just 'fade' into the woods.

Just a suggestion.

[ February 05, 2004, 21:23: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Wow rivers run deep. Decided to go with water-nation access? The Whirlpool is interesting. What did you have in mind there? Uncrossable chokepoint?

[ February 05, 2004, 21:40: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Very sweet 3D effect on the water!

Best map ever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Farms have higher populations. Most other terrains lower pops. Pop gives income. Large have higher pops. Small lower pops. Rivers have higher income , but can be flooded. Farms have lower res. Mountains and forests higher res.

Farm+mountains=not very high pop. Quite high res. Do not remember specifics. It is a random value based upon terrains and size IIRC.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

If I had to guess, looks like ~140 land provinces (for anyone interested). Also, if you look on the far-right-top edge, that's a pic of the real stonehenge. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Zen: Yeah, saw that (river). Actually, the map doesn't look like this at all. I saved it, then added the 3-D effect and anti-aliasing and made a copy for the web site. I can't do 3-D until Last, but I wanted to post an attention-getter since that may be the Last update before it's finished. Will tweak that bot-left river.

Water nation access: Should I put that to a vote? Connect sea provinces to the inland lakes (via swimming upriver)? Opinions welcome. Dunno what's up with the whirlpool, it just appeared by itself... hehe, J/K. I think the water looks too boring so I pasted that in there while experimenting. I need to add wave/whitecap grafix somehow.

Kris and DS: Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edit:
I have yet to play R'lyeh or Atlantis, so I'm definitely gonna need feedback on that question.

[ February 05, 2004, 22:28: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. And yes!

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Everything that connects within one river. Should work. But you should also note that it does cause Atlantis and R'lyeh to have a more defined advantage the more provinces they have access to from one point. In order to limit that a little you might want to change the size of the river province so they take up a little more space along the river.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

You cant really make a province both water and land. Either it will be water access or it will be land access. The only way to do it AFAIK would be to do a #neighbor link from the sea to the lake. It would be an instantaneus trip.

I always thought the water nations were pretty powerful already.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't know about Atlantis, but I must admit R'lyeh can be pretty powerful, in spite of illithid's drawbacks as discussed in other threads.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's what I had in mind. I made a quick drawing here:

http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap2.jpg

That shows approximately what I'm thinking (if I were to do it), regarding how the #neighbors would be. The other option, of course, is to just let R'lyeh/Atlantis start somewhere in the sea and have to hike overland to gain access to the lakes.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The 3D effect is nice. But, I have two suggestions...

1) Reduce the intensity. Looks like the lakes all have 20-meter cliffs...

2) What would it look like if you removed (or blurred) the cloth-effect from the water? Hmm, maybe I'll try it and tell you=)

...like this:

http://www.geocities.com/saber_mario...ry/webmap2.jpg

(The lake near the skull)

Note that you cannot click on the link, you have to right-click and download to view it, for some reason.

[ February 05, 2004, 23:41: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I know. Didn't spend any time playing around with it. Pic below is probably more like the end result will be. Thanks.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I could get rid of the cloth texture and just replace it with water, like this:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/watermap.jpg


Not sure if that's what ppl would want tho, since I'm sorta following the originals as a guide. Then ppl will complain that the land looks like cloth. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Speaking for myself, I think this is the best-looking example you've shown thus far.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

[quote]Originally posted by Targa:

Quote:

Well, I could get rid of the cloth texture and just replace it with water, like this: http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/watermap.jpg Not sure if that's what ppl would want tho, since I'm sorta following the originals as a guide. Then ppl will complain that the land looks like cloth. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I like it. I think water is supposed to look smooth and ground shouldnt.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

I think it looks good like that, too. What tools / filters did you use to get that effect?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I must be hallucinating...there was a post by GP answering that a little while ago. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Anyways, this map project is officially dead unless I can figure out why Dom2 dislikes it. Ran -dd switch, and got about 500 lines that all kept saying the same thing:
LoadBigMap targa.tga ()
loading map ./maps/targa.tga
tga2rgba32 alphamode 0 tgatype 3202 tgaadr130613288 dstadr138346536 tgalen7680539
w1600 h1200
FindCapitals
155 capitals found
FindNbors (hl155)
gooddist=180341.000000
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 1 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 1 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 1 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
prov 2 and 0 are nbors (not unanimous)
....

Kept going until I had to force Windows to shut the game down. I checked the map about 5 times, and the only pure white are the 1-pixel capital dots. Saved in uncompressed tga. Tried both 24 and 32 bit.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Maybe the game doesn't like your borders. Without a clear defining line it doesn't think the provinces are seperate?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thought about that, but if you look at Aran and Orania, the water province borders aren't even solid and completely enclosing the provinces. I thought (and this is what I've read here in the forums), province borders are merely for human convenience, and all the game looks for are the white dots. I can't even explain why it appears to be trying to find neighbors, since you're supposed to set that manually. "Guess neighbors" doesn't come into play until you select it in the map editor.

EDIT: Saber Cherry's all unit view uses a totally black map with 2 white dots, now that I think about it, so it's not borders.

[ February 06, 2004, 03:46: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Yeah, the game only cares about white dots, and does not understand anything else. Are you trying to load the map with a .map file, or trying to run a map editor?

BTW, the first province should be 1, not 0... can you post your .map file contents?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

There isn't any .map file. I'm just trying to load the .tga into Dom's map editor.

It appears that there's a map editor bug related to the placement of the white dots. I moved a few around and came up with a different error.

Edit: As you can see below from my printout, it finds the 155 capitals w/o a problem. Then it gets caught in an infinite loop while trying to figure out who's neighboring who. So the 155 white dots are there, and being seen. I pasted sections of my map to a new file, and they can be loaded. But not very many. If I had to guess (and I may be way off base here), I'd almost say that there has to be a certain number of pixels both horizontally and vertically between white pixels. If they're....say, within 2 rows horizontally or 2 columns vertically, the game locks up.

[ February 06, 2004, 04:47: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

I thought maybe there was a problem with an array size on its comparisons. Maybe moving the dots so that not so many appear on the same vertical or horizontal line clears the problem up. That or maybe it prefers them on the same grid-line. I suppose a test might be possible of both gridded capital dots and completely ungridded ones.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Unwise: That's not it, thanks for the suggestion though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I already tried that, making the map very dark, but it still wouldn't work. That gave me an idea though...which I'm going to test right now. I suspect Gandalf is closer to the truth...brb, will edit with the results. Meanwhile I'm sending the map to JK to look at.

Edit:
OK, I copied the dots to a pure black map and it still locks up, so it's a problem with the placement of the dots. It's not a problem with the edges (like being too close), as I just erased all capitals within about 100 or more pixels of the edges...

Edit+
Alright, it appears to be a coding bug related to where the dots are. Here's what I did: Took the black map with the dots on it and copied only the top half to a new file. That locked up the game. I copied half of the half to a new file, game loaded it fine, so I figure "Aha! The problem is in that other 1/4 of the map...right?" Went back to Photoshop and selected inverse, to copy the opposite half....and Dom loaded it fine! So it took both halves, but not the whole. Looking at the division between the halves reveals that there are not dots even remotely close to the border.

And just to be thorough, I went thru the pic and deleted any capitals that were on the same horizontal or vertical lines, which doesn't help.

On the brighter side: I can now get away from Photoshop and actually play the game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ February 06, 2004, 16:13: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Being extremely bummed out that the map editor choked on my map, I decided to throw together a small map so I would feel better.

E-mailed to Illwinter, should be appearing there in a day or two. Here's a picture:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/cot.jpg

Desc:

Clash of the Titans
41 provinces, 5 of which are sea.
2 player only. Fixed starting positions. No water races.

I've temporarily put it up for download here:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/cot.zip

If anyone feels like playing it. Enjoy.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Very nice. Thank you. There does seem to be a desire out there for few-player maps.

Do you want to setup something for a nightly randomizing on the .map file such as the Miirunst map has?

Ive got your blanks running on automatic now. Is that of any use? Should the variables be tweaked? I was thinking that making the .sh files into .txt would be you could view them thru the browser. WOuld that help?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AFAIK Miirunst is a map you can d/l from Illwinter. I've seen you mention this randomizing in a diff thread, but have no clue what you're talking about. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif (keep in mind that I've played about a dozen games, all on easy AI and Aran map) Haven't had time for anything else. I don't think I've played once since I started the map.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I can see the .sh files fine. Just had to tell Windows to use Wordpad to open them. I think the way you have it setup is fine the way it is. The only downside is having to load each large pic individually rather than having a thumbnail page, but that's no biggie. Can't do much until JK figures out what's wrong with the map editor. If that turns out to be a huge project for him, then there's no point in starting on other maps.

Although CoT map is working now, the editor choked on it also. I had to remove all the capitals and play around with positioning in order to keep Dom from locking up. Now that I see how time-consuming it is to use the map editor, I'm not even sure I want to do that with large maps. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I may have to pass that burden to a friend of mine.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

I had a similar problem when putzing around with my first map. I solved it thus:

If you're using photoshop, use the color/hue option to slightly darken all the layers except for the one containing your dots (if you don't have a layer just for the dots, make one).

The theory is that there are several white pixels very close to one another that is confusing the routine. By darkening the "eye candy" layers an infintesimal amount, you disqualify these from consideration.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Nice work Targa, please dont get discouraged, your making beautiful maps. Why dont ya play some and take a break from map making for a few days, play some games to remember what your making them for. Id hate to see you give up.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AFAIK Miirunst is a map you can d/l from Illwinter. I've seen you mention this randomizing in a diff thread, but have no clue what you're talking about. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In this directory are two that are nightly randomized..
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion/Dominions2/
The Poke_Eye.map uses the eye.tga for a very.. different.. type of game.
The MiirunstX.map uses the Miirsunst.tga for the same type of extreme play. Both are re-rolled every day.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There is an index image.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/blanks/00_index.jpg
It just isnt in a nice web-page so you can click on one of the images to get to the file. If you look at the index each morning you should get a quick idea if any of the maps seem worthy of grabbing. Every day a new batch.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Ah, I see. Well, I think that's a bit ahead of my current skill level. If you think people will have a use for it (using the CoT map w/randomized .map file) then feel free to do so. Anything I make and post is Dom community property as far as I'm concerned.

Must have missed seeing that index pic. That's perfect, thanks.

[ February 07, 2004, 02:35: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Use the .map file from another map, clear the neighbour commands and other specific stuff. The new map with from your .tga will load up fine in the editor then. Declare neighbours using the editor. Tedious, but should work ok with small maps.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just thought of this myself. Gonna give it a try now.

CoT is on Illwinter now, so I removed it from GP's machine. Find it here:
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html

Edit: Yep, all I had to do was rename aran.map to my map and it loaded up fine. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 08, 2004, 04:02: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Quick update for those following this thread. Map's done. Got it loaded in the editor by using a blank .map file. All neighbors, done. Nostarts, specials, done. All that's left for tomorrow is to set poptypes for various provinces. Not sure how carried away I'll get with that. I'm guessing that unless something unexpected happens, I'll need some beta-tester volunteers by tomorrow night.

Edit: Quick poll:
Again, here's the preview of the map:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap.jpg

I'm considering adding recruits so land-based players can enter the water. IIRC, Shambler Reef only allows you to recruit grunts, so you'd need a water mage as a commander. This kinda stinks, since they can only take 1 grunt for every level of water magic (ugh, what a waste). Alternatively, ppl can forge magic stuff to enable them to enter the water with their troops.

Or, If I add #poptype 57, you can recruit from that province the amphibious Shambler, Atlantan Spearmen, and a Shambler Chief. So which way to go? Or use both? How many sites? 1 by each large lake too much? Thoughts?

[ February 08, 2004, 04:38: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Yea!!

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

you can set the population of a coastal region to those Icthy guys. They have land/water commander/troops. But somehow the game seems to put them around pretty well so play test might show it not to be a concern.

But again I dont think water needs boosted. Its a tactical decision. If I see that water is very strategic on a map I will often design for it. If not water nations then Vanheim, or Marignon that ship theme, or Jotun with Water Cult.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">"Icthy guys"? Don't see anything in the docs as a poptype that looks like that.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You mean that I shouldn't be adding a way for land-based troops to recruit amphibious units? Just let the game decide if it wants to put anything in? If I did that, and someone decided to play as or against R'lyeh or Atlantis, land-based armies would have to forge water-breathing items. You think that's enough?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

How odd. I dont see a number for them either. But they do show up and are an independent race. I would ask Illwinter about that.

As for water-boosting, yes it might take water breathing equip but thats not hard to get in water or air paths. And many natons have ways of entering the water. Water mages, death mages (for undead troops), the water cult theme, the sea-farer nations (marignon, vanheim). There are also quite a few pretender choices that make water an option. If a player feels the water is going to be important then its not hard to build for it without being a water nation.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Yep. I'm getting the gut feeling (early guess) that ppl will vote to let the players deal with it, and not have me add specific recruitment sites. I want to take a sec to thank you (and everyone who has responded) for your constant feedback. Though I may be able to make a map look halfway decent, I'm still limited in my knowledge of gameplay, and I value the opinions of those with more experience.

Edit:
Ugh, looks like I've underestimated castle/temple size and placement. As seen here:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/ca...emple_size.jpg

They've been placed on top of and across the river. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Gah. Once you change the dot placement, Dom2 renumbers all the provinces, since province number is based on location in X/Y axis....which means all the neighbors and stuff will be whacked out. Back to the drawing board. Guess I'll have to calculate pixel dimensions/placement and save it for future map-making reference.

Edit2:
Aha! Thank you Illwinter for making #defaultmapzoom option! Fixed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 08, 2004, 18:44: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Does #defaultmapzoom work now? I tried playing with it a bit before the 2.06 patch, and didn't notice a difference - how does it work?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, logically you might think that #defaultmapzoom means when a player loads the map, it starts at a specific zoom in/out level. Nope. It sets the "relative zoom" of sprites on the map. Saved me alot of work!

Take a look at this sample picture:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/borders.jpg

These are two identical screenshots. As you can see, in the one on the left, the castle/temple combo is slightly larger than the green square. On the right, they're about the size of the smaller blue square. The left one is #defaultmapzoom 1.0, the right, 2.0. The larger the number you use, the "farther away" you appear to be (hence, smaller). So at 2.0 you can have very small provinces and the buildings still fit.

Edit: Just realized that after fixing some minor problems with the .map file I forgot to add that in the release Version! Oops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 09, 2004, 23:37: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ichithids . . . Ichitids . . . something like that. My brain isn't recalling the exact name right now.

They definitely exist though. Little blue and pink fellers! There's a few scattered about in the opening picture for the Feb. Computer Games article on the game, actually.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Icthyids?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It scans from left to right, bottom to top, so if you just move the capital horizontal you have a little wiggle room (and still keep your numbering order)

Too many times I've had to do this myself, its the worst when you make neighboors for 100+ provinces and find one of your capitals is missing.


BTW, really nice maps! I dont have the paitence to place all the little trees and mountains but I wish I did!

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

I thought Id dig up one of the old Posts on map making to try and spur some new growth there.

You can get "blank" maps that have been randomly generated at either my site www.dom2minions.com or from Leifs site at http://home.Online.no/~rmoldskr/Domi...nion_maps.html
His are done by the same generator program but a smoothing/blurring routine was added to make them less ugly. That can be done with the ugly maps at my site also (I just havent gotten it automated as part of the generation process) ask about it if you want to do that

Graphics for the maps have been provided by Illwinter but its kindof a bare collection. There are some great sites to get add-ons including David Gervais tiles that he made for some other games but which will help us out (he has given permission for it)
http://pousse.rapiere.free.fr/tome/index.htm