Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Seeing some interesting things there. That line of cliffs in the upper right will be uncrossable? Nice.

You might have to do a few merges in order to free up some ram. I thought my machine was more than enough for anything until I started playing with GIMP

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Targa, if it's going to be a wraparound map, you will need to change some of the map to make it look normal as a wraparaound.

Also, if it's not going to be wraparound, you can't have that big lake just cut off like that, although it doesn't really matter. just making suggestions for improvement.

Edit: or is it an ocean?

[ February 04, 2004, 23:50: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This map is gorgeous! I can hardly wait to see the end result ...

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I spoke with Kristoffer about the possibility of making some cliffs/rifts/and plateau's and he helped me out a bit. Hopefully there'll be more in the next map. You're right about merging layers, which I dislike doing because it limits the tweaking...that said, I should merge a bunch that I think are done, then save the file under a different name so I have the original just in case. Thanks.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's an ocean/sea. As for wrap/non-wrap, the graphics near the edges are on separate layers, so they're easily hidden/removed in order to modify it to be a wraparound. First Version will be non-wrap though. The wrap Version will only wrap horizontally, so the water at the bottom won't matter.

Arryn: Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I'm not fishing for compliments, but as everyone knows, positive feedback is the fuel that keeps the fire burning for those who are working on mods, maps, guides, etc... I imagine that if no one showed any interest, this project would die off rather quickly.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, all of the mountain ranges will be uncrossable (the very long vertical one in the middle has a gap in the center). This is to create choke points and limit access. Do you think this would be a mistake?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A bit of appreciation can't hurt, and can go a long ways towards making tedious tasks more bearable.

I prefer large, wrap-around maps like Orania. But a large non-wrap map would be just fine provided it is suitably interesting. No offense intended towards Tiltowait, but I prefer maps of the style that IW (and now you too) make. However pretty, or unusual, those 3rd-party maps on the IW site may be, they strike me as too amateurish (excepting the world map, of course), not to mention hard on the eyes. BTW, horizontal wrap is fine. We can assume there are 'poles', if we need a justification.

One comment that I have is that it seems you are creating large-sized provinces, as compared to a map like Orania. Do you have a ballpark estimate for the total number of land and sea provinces this map will have?

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

Also, what's everyone's opinion about the spread and combination of mountain/forest/fertile plains/wasteland? Am I not putting in enough "money spots"? I keep finding myself not being happy with the "barren" provinces, and wanting to stick something in them. I'm concerned about the distribution of fertile lands....too much, not enough, wrong places? I can't tell you how many times I've loaded Aran.tga for a comparison. Believe it or not, I have even measured how many pixels wide and high each province is in comparison to those on Aran.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

It appears that you have more barren coastal area than a map like Orania. Most of Orania's coastal provinces have some sort of green (farmland, woods, river mouth). Also, the map appears to lack any frozen land.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

I am in favor of chokepoints. I'd say the distribution should be 1 Fertile Province for every 5 provinces or so.

Also since this is a large map and more than likely going to be used for 17 Nations. You can divide everything by 17 to find a balance of barren, forest, mountain, river, and farmland provinces. I did notice the prevelence of barren land, but maybe it's just because there is not alot of green. Perhaps you could make or IW has a 'waving wheat field' icon you could put in a few provinces.

And yes, it looks terrific. Maybe you could even place a tower icon on the edge of a chokepoint so it's more visual.

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, to be honest I haven't really looked at Orania until just now. That map is quite a bit larger (2400x1800) while mine is 1600x1200. The smallest province on there is 68x86, and the largest is 324x172. Mine has (so far) 64x71 and 206x102. As you can see, I'm pretty close on the small, and smaller on the large. The larger map (Orania) makes the provinces appear smaller. As of now my map has about 100 outlined provinces, and roughly 1/3 of the map yet to do....so 130-140 would be a guess for land. Not sure about water. I've been told to keep the water province number fairly low (if you look at Orania and Aran, the water provinces are very large compared to the land provinces).

OTOH, I am keeping the "province borders" layer separate, so they are very flexible. Multiple Versions is not out of the question.

EDIT
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes and no. It looks more barren because of the way it's drawn, but yes, it still lacks enough fertile land. Aran only has about 14 fertile provinces, and quite a bit of empty ones. Orania seems to have a bunch more fertile around the edges, but many barren ones in the middle. I'll do the math as you suggest...that'll make it alot easier to determine if I have enough or not.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a question you'll have to ask someone with more experience than I have. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 05, 2004, 01:34: Message edited by: Targa ]

Re: Seeking map or need advice on making it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good point about Orania being a much larger map overall. Being a relative noob at Dom, how many players (average) do you estimate your map will accommodate?