Summer trees on a winter map
 

I've begun building my first scenario, dealing with Operation Anaconda, US involvement in Afghanistan.

I need a winter map. I have the map setting on winter, 40x40 and it appears green. I filled map with winter clear hexes but when I put down trees, I get green trees.

What am I doing wrong?

WB

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

Okay, maybe they are fir trees. I'm not sure. I'm now getting a few barren trees, but none with snow attached. Are there trees with snow on them in the game?

WB

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

What were the nations used, and what was the month...?

If you want trees covered with snow you could use two "winter nations", say Russia and Finland, set the season to winter and the month to December...

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

To answer that I have to assume a few things like you set one side to USA and the other to Afganistan and you've set the month to a winter month so try those two nations and set the map to Winter and the month to Febuary and you'll get snow on the map. If you want early winter try November and the trees will be different.( bare, not snow covered ) Try March and the trees AND the snow covering will be different.

However, I just tried US vs Aghan with the editor set to Winter and the month to July and I still see snow on all twelve maps I autogenerated so I'm not entirely sure what's happened until I know what the two nations are you started with and the month. The map code generating code is a lot more complicated in this game. There are a lot of possible combinations of terrain

Also be aware that the "clear" terrain button on page one acts just like the Clear terrain button has always worked in SP.....it will clear you down to ground level with the base terrain for the season you have picked. However, if you are on page two of the editor you can wash over existing terrain and it will follow the hill contours with the basic terrain for that season

Don

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

Thanks, Don. Yes, you have the dates largely correct. I seem to have resolved it. I thik it will work fine now.

I appreciate the insight into just how it works. I discovered page 2 of the map editor as I worked with. Still lots of new surprises to come I'm sure. That is a good thing.

WB

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

Bill, if you want to get a feel for what the random map generator is capable of and see how the maps change over a "year" Try this. It'll take maybe fifteen minutes tops. Run it from the battle generator, it ensures you see correct changes to the maps for the various seasons

Set the map to 40x80 in preferences . This is just a convient size to see the how the MapGen produces a map. If you try this on larger or smaller sized maps the features tend to become wider spaced on really large maps and compressed on really small ones. I knew about this when I started working on the code to build the maps and left it alone becasue in means a wider variety of maps

Set P1 to Germany and P2 to Russia.

Set the month to January. The year does not matter nor does the battle type

Press continue to go to the purchase menu. Once there press "View map"

Once you are in the View map screen press the upper top right button and set the map ID to 119. Once a map appears press the middle top button a few times to generate different versions of that map in January

Now repeat the process for March. ( you can skip Febuary as it gives much the same map as January ). With March I recommend you press the middle top button a couple dozen times. March is a transition month. Sometimes you'll get "winter" sometimes "winter with some thawing" sometimes a "spring with snow patches" map.

Repeat the process with map 119 through April ( spring like maps with some dead winter grass still showing )
May ( full spring with everything green ) through the summer where late august starts to show dry grass from the summer heat with different coloured fields. October gives fall colours on the trees, November gives bare trees and occasional snow patchs

The point to all this is that some of these terrain features ONLY show up in the map editor by season so seeing how the game handles this by itself demonstrates the kind of terrain available. For example, yellowed grass only appears as an option as "Base terrain" in Novemeber - March IF you are set to summer. If you are set to winter you'll get snow but if you are set to summer and the month is April - October your base terrain grass will be green. When building maps you may find it necesary to switch from one month to the other to add variety to your maps

Once you've done that press the lower middle button and play with the actual map generator a bit. Maps can be saved at any point in this process for use later.

One last thing to keep in mind. The maps were built for a variety of locations with two specific nation in mind. When they are generated with two opponents that a widely different than the orginal you sometimes get "odd" things occuring but that is only becasue the map generator is giving you want you asked for . If you had Saudi Arabia vs Iraq set in January as the two opponents in the battle generator and press map 119 your map will be entirly different than the one you saw with Germany vs Russia in January. Try SA vs Iraq in July with Map 119 and it will generally look the same as the German/Russian one but you will see more "dry" areas with bare earth showing if you generate enough maps

Don

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

WB, IMHO the map Generator/Editor designed by CAMO is worth its weight in gold. Its very powereful and easy to use once you get the hang of it. Who would have thought that by clicking one little button you could generate a new map with your preset and detailed preferences just like that.

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

I would have to agree, DD. It is very user friendly. I'm continually impressed by it.

WB

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

Wow! This map generator is something else!

WB

Re: Summer trees on a winter map
 

I know many designers are not friends of any automap generator BUT I have found a really quick way to use the one in SPMBT to make custom maps.

• Set the Terrain, Nations involved and Date.
• Click Edit (to access the Map Editor).
• Press the . key and enter the Number you want to use for the Base Terrain Map". Then press enter (it will generate a map of that area/terrain type.
• Press the , key and enter 500.
• Set ALL the Generator Settings to 0 except for Hill Density, Max Hill Height and Hill Base Size (leave them as is or adjust slighty as needed). Set the Field Settings to 1 (for some reason setting it to 0 makes the whole map fields just about).
• Press the BLUE Right Arrow Button to generate the base Map. Repeat until you get the desired base elevation terrain you would like for the scenario.
• Press the RED Up Arrow Button to go back into the Editor.
• Add in your Water, Trees, Buildings, Roads and other toppings over the base map.

I have found that following these steps will give your map a more manually created look and feel.