Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of it!
 

People have been talking about fantasy books in an offtopic thread and while I knew none of the sagas or authors mentioned in there, I had a look around. I've found an encyclopedia called "The Tower of the Hand" which has a nice Google Maps interface to the map of Westeros which is the world where George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" saga takes place, which might make a nice Dominions 3 map.

I have stitched together the images for the different zoom levels and made versions with and without the labels. But since I don't really know the series and fear that rabid fans will kill me if I make some small factual error, I'll rather place them here and hope that somebody might pick those up to create a map. Attached is a zip file of all the stitched images, with and without labels, in PNG format, and some other reference images which can be used to split the map into provinces and name them. Maybe somebody even owns the "A Game of Thrones" board game, because some of the province names used there are buried in my image.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Attaching one of the stitched images (zoom level 3 of 5) as preview pic, too...

Here it is:
Attachment 6413

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Wow, very nice work. I do hope some gifted map maker will pick up the glove.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Yes. Nice work, lch. That would make a good map, and I am inspired by the long scroll style. It would be an excellent project for someone who is eager to try the technical aspects of making a map since this one is pretty much drawn and looks great. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

There will be a new mapmaking manual out with the next patch, so that will perhaps be of some help if there are new up and coming mapmakers who don't have a lot of experience in mapmaking yet.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Ofcourse, this means that someone's going to have to make a whole SoIaF scenario, or else it's not going to be much use just having a map.

Isn't there a map with the eastern lands in it? Bravos, the free cities, etc.?

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Why? I think that the graphic is looking well enough, and it would make a nice Dom3 map. If somebody wanted to do a scenario with it, too, that would be great, but I don't think that it's mandatory. Scenarios and MP tend to disagree, too.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Because there are so many awesome factions in there... The Wildlings, the Others, the Night's Watch, the Northmen, the Ironmen, the Dornish, Daenerys and the East... and boy, it'd sure be completely crazy making the heroes for that.

If someone made a game out of this, I mean, I'd probably never play anything else. lol

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Just because, otherwise, it's just a map. I mean, the whole enthusiasm is that it's the map from ASoIaF. And Renojustin is right, there's a lot of interesting things going on, on that map. I don't particularly like the series, myself, but I have to admit, the setting's very interesting.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

I would just be happy with the map. I don't know anything about the "Song of Ice and Fire" saga, but if you want a "Song of Ice and Fire" scenario, then feel free to make one. lch said as much in the first post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Why have a map of anything specific, if it's just going to be totally random? I don't see the point. Just use the random map creator that comes with the game.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Some people just like it. I enjoy playing on maps of the continental United States or the whole Earth. "Ulm just captured Western China!" It's fun for me.

-Max

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Indeed, why bother with custom maps if we got the random map generator? Silly me, I don't know what came over me anymore. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

I can see the appeal of watching Ulm taking over western China, but that's because it's *western China*. It's not a 1-vision universe, it's a place that exists on it's own.
I can go there, get some take-out, and fly back.

My point is, what-other than content-separates this one from any other map? Sure it's nice that somebody posted a picture of a map that's already been drawn out. It's a time-saver, without a doubt. But somebody made it up in order to tell a story, and you're wanting to cut out the story and keep the map.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Update: Map image added. Can anybody figure out why it won't convert into dominions properly? I know this file is a .bmp, I've tried it as a .tga and it still doesn't register any provinces north of The Neck.

Incidentally, I've been working on a Song of Ice and Fire mod and a map for quite some time now. The mod is progressing well, and I used a different version of the map when I drew the provinces, but I like this one more. I've been having trouble with the map I drew because it is not registering the provinces I marked past a certain point despite the map being within the size parameters. It's possible I exceeded the 1500 province limit because I got a little carried away http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but I'm not sure. I'll try to get around to posting the map later today so you all can take a look and maybe figure out why it isn't converting into dominions properly. But rest assured, I've already put a great deal of time into the mod and the map, and I would love to finish them. I didn't realize there was any sort of demand for a map or mod so I've kind of been strolling along at my own pace.
On that note, I would love to hear some ideas for the community, because I have been trying to decide exactly how to formulate some fairly important aspects of the mod. As anyone who has read the song of ice and fire books knows, magic in the series is a fairly uncertain force and would be difficult to convert appropriately for the various factions. Personally, the aspect of dominions that has always fascinated me is tactical combat and being able to affectively map a battle plan with a large number of troops in a way that they are more effective than your opponents large number of troops. As traditional battles have gone, two large armies face each other on battlefield and charge, and one army eventually breaks and flees. I wanted to make the SoIaF mod more about the proper use of large armies and terrain than about magic and SCs, and I am considering either cutting them out all together, or severely limiting the spells available for mages in the mod. Please let me know your thoughts on this idea, I would like to know the communities views. I imagine that in the end I will end up with two mods, one completely devoid of magic (my preferred one) and one that fully incorporates it, or limits it somewhat, depending on a consensus.
In regards to what I was discussing with terrain, my division of the map I originally created placed a great emphasis on unit mobility and holding key terrain areas. For example, swamps deserts, and forests are divided into very small provinces, an effort to emphasize the difficulty of moving a large army through such an area. This will create an importance to relying on major roads to transport armies quickly, as well as create a need to defend these roads to hinder your opponent from moving his armies into your terrain. This has the added advantage of creating a need and exceptional usefulness for units like skirmishers and outriders who can traverse broken terrain quickly and raid enemy provinces before a larger, slower enemy force can respond. Also, having roads that span 3-5 provinces of broken terrain will create a need for supply lines for larger armies which I intend to incorporate. Fighting to defend your supply lines, employing rear guards and outriders will all be necessary parts of waging war on what will likely be a much larger scale than traditional dominions games.
Lastly, I'm considering departing somewhat from the traditional system of unit recruitment, gold, and resources. For example, gold for each faction will come from areas such as mines, ports, farmlands, lumber yards, and various other trade facilities, rather than based on population in each province. In effect, I will try to set population for provinces to 0, except where villages, towns, and cities are located. Does anyone know if this can be done? Naturally, magic sites will have to be placed in many provinces to provide some supply (representing what can be foraged rather than what must be brought by supply train.) Unit recruitment will obviously take place in castles primarily. To a lesser degree, very limited recruitment will be available (peasant levies and the like) at villages and hamlets. There will be special sites that will allow recruitment of special units from SoIaF naturally, though some may be limited to the original controller.
Obviously there is a great deal more that I could write, and I certainly intend to. I will try and get that map file uploaded sometime tonight, and in the mean time, I would love to hear peoples thoughts and initial reactions to my ideas. And please feel free to provide criticism, advice, and anything you would like me to include or concerns about what I might be overlooking. If any of you actually managed to read all of this congratulations, and sorry I'm so wordy.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

That's a very nice image of Westeros, Atreides. I'm sorry that I could not read your previous post, as it exceeds the limit of text that I am willing to read online. But it would be great to play A song of fire and ice map in Dom3.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Haha, I made a comment at the end thanking anybody who can actually get through all of it. Basically, I've got some ideas on what to put in the mod, but any recommendations of things you'd like to have incorporated are welcome.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

That, uhhmm, might be because you're way over the limit on provinces for Dom3 maps. Your image has close to 2200 provinces. I'm not sure what the limit is exactly, but it is less than that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Have you had a look at the image from the "A Game of Thrones" board game that I included? I think that's a good start to how provinces could be divided. For the scenario version, you could have finer graded provinces, of course - but not as many as you tried to. The Neck and the other woods are a mass of flags in the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Maybe you could ask Johan and Kristoffer to raise the province limit? They've been generously raising other limits lately, which is fantastic, so maybe this one too? I'd certainly support it-I for one wouldn't mind a 2500 province limit (or 25,000 for that matter, but 2500 would probably be plenty for everyone but me and Gandalf).

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

I confess I can't understand how one can find time to play on maps more than a few hundred provinces.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

Placing 2500 individual provinces in a map would take huge amounts of time. I can't see how anyone could finish making a map where thy intend to place 2500 provinces, which i assume one would do if one made the westeroes map playable.

I would probably not play a map of similar proportions, but I imagine there are those who would. But playing might be more rewarding then placing and naming provinces. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

The westeroes map doesn't inherently have 2500 provinces. If you look at the boardgame version it has like 50.

It can have as many provinces as the mapper wants it to have. I think 100 or so would fit well on the map.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

As much as I love huge maps, and do play 1500 maps, I would advise against increasing the size again. The last increase involved far more than we expected. The game crashed over some of the strangest things and we had to increase many arrays that we did not expect to be affected.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

I am definitely a fan of large maps, and thank you Ich for that province count. How did you determine the number approximately? I figured I was over, but fortunately I am OCD enough and love A Song of Ice and Fire enough that I'll just redraw it with fewer provinces http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Probably on the image you posted too. It's much cleaner, maybe add in some of the labels that are on the image I used. Oh well, back to work.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

The Oeridia (sp?) map has 1225 provinces, and is freaking enormous, complex, and lots of fun, but perhaps a bit much.

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

I counted the white pixels, then rounded towards the next largest number.

To get the number of pixels of any color, you could do the following for example:
- install ImageMagick
- run it like 'identify -verbose Westeros.bmp'
- look for the row titled "(255,255,255) #FFFFFF white" in the color histogram, the number in front is the pixel count

(If you're on *nix: 'identify -verbose Westeros.bmp | grep white')

Re: Images of Westeros, somebody make a map out of
 

I agree entirely. I've been playing this map almost exclusively for a few months, but I end up quitting because of the turn times. I believe it has about 1200 provinces, and this appears to be my limit. I put 30 to 40 opponents in it (all eras mod) and it is fun, up to a point. Larger maps would just result in more start variety, but the same time problems after 50 or 60 turns. There just would be more provinces and foes out of reach.

Getting the number of provinces in an image
 

Ok, apparently the solution that I provided to count the number of provinces doesn't work because ImageMagick refuses to generate a histogram for an image as big as Westeros.bmp.

What I used to count the number of pixels was some small Python program. It uses PIL, the Python Imaging Library.

Here's my code:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>from PIL import Image

img = Image.open("Westeros.bmp")
(xdim, ydim) = img.size
# yeah, this is a hackish way to do things
channels = len(img.getbands())
white = tuple([255]*channels)

count = 0
if Image.VERSION &gt;= "1.1.6":
data = img.load()
for y in range(ydim):
for x in range(xdim):
if data[x,y] == white:
count += 1

else:
data = img.getdata()
for y in range(ydim):
for x in range(xdim):
if data[x+y*xdim] == white:
count += 1

print count, "provinces"</pre><hr />
This takes about 30 seconds to complete, because of the for loops which do the pixel checks. There are ways to speed this up. First, you could consider mapping to the luminance:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>from PIL import Image
count = list(Image.open('Westeros.bmp').convert('L').getda ta()).count(255)
print count, "provinces"
</pre><hr />
This takes half as long, but the conversion from the internal PIL format to Python data containers still takes too long. If you want to make full use of the underlying C code that PIL is built on, then you can do the following:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>from PIL import Image
count = Image.open('/home/lch/dominions3/maps/Westeros.bmp').convert('L').histogram().pop()
print count, "provinces"</pre><hr />
This takes less than a second on the Westeros.bmp for me.

The way that I am getting the information that I want here, over histograms, can be done with image editing programs, too. Just look where your image editing program has the Histogram function, and set it to Luminance/Value. Then enter a range of 255-255 (or pick the pure white color) and it should tell you the number of provinces. GIMP seems to have a bug, though: Although it does work correctly with other map images that I have tried, it reports something like 12038 pure white pixels here, which clearly is wrong.

Instructions for GIMP:
- open image
- open Histogram: either through "Colors &gt; Info &gt; Histogram" or "Dialogs &gt; Histogram"
- change channel to "Value"
- enter 255 as left and right limit
- look at "Count" value

Workaround for GIMP:
- open image
- choose "Select &gt; by color" (Shift+O)
- select a pure white pixel
- choose "Edit &gt; Copy" (Ctrl+C)
- choose "Edit &gt; Paste as &gt; New Image"
- do the above, but with 0 and 255 as limits for the range

Re: Getting the number of provinces in an image
 

Thanks Ich, that'll help a lot when I'm redrawing the map. Much appreciated.