Help with making a map

[halfzware]

I want to make a good 3-4 player blitz map.

I found this satalite image of europe, and I thought it would make a good base (light photoshoping to give it a more conventional dom2 feel).

But I have no idea how to make a map - could someone either walk me through it. Can I expect to make one in less than a couple hours - or is this a major undertaking?

[Saber Cherry]

All you really need to do is make a .map file (text) that gives the map a name and specifies the the image file, and define adjacent provinces (I think there's even a utility that can do that automatically...). The image has to have a pure white pixel for each province center, and be in .tga format. So, technically you can turn that into a map in about 5 minutes... if it does not have any pure (255.255.255) white on it. But it depends on how many provinces you want, and how customized you want it.

Here are some excerpts from Illwinter's Aran .map file:

Code:

---

-- 

-- Map file for Dominions 2

-- 

-- Illwinter Game Design

-- www.illwinter.com

-- 



-- Title and image file

---

Those are comments.
Code:

---

#dom2title Aran

#imagefile aran.tga

#defaultmapzoom 1.0

#domversion 150

#description "The once glorious kingdom of Aran was destroyed by a

magical disaster that turned the kingdom in to a barren waste several

hundred years ago.



107 provinces, 11 of these are under water.



Suitable for 6-10 players."

---

This stuff is necessary. Just copy it and change what you want.

Code:

---

-- Province names/terrains

#landname 1 "Stone Wood Waste"

#terrain 1 66

#terrain 2 128

#terrain 3 1

---

This goes on for each province, defining the name and type of terrain (by province number). Province numbers are autogenerated. So, you ought to load the map and see which province has which number before you assign names and terrain types to all of them. Names are autogenerated if you don't assign them, and I think terrain type is too (but I'm not positive).


Code:

---

-- Province neighbours

#neighbour 1 3

#neighbour 1 4

#neighbour 1 8

#neighbour 1 16

#neighbour 2 4

#neighbour 2 9

#neighbour 3 5

---

This tells which provinces are adjacent. It takes the most work, and MUST be filled out.

Code:

---

#nostart 1

#nostart 8

#nostart 16

---

This defines provinces that will not be used as capitols.


So, there's more stuff... I suggest you read the documentation in the Dominions 2\doc folder to do advanced things like place magic sites, define indy population types, and see which terrain type numbers mean which terrain types. And of course maps always look better if you draw in borders. But you should be able to make a basic map in a couple hours. If the image has pure white on it you can use a program (e.g. Irfanview, which can also convert to tga format) to reduce the brightness (or gamma) which will kill all the pure white pixels, then place your own in Paint.

[Endoperez]

There is Map Maker in DomII main menu. It tries to choose the correct neighbours, but makes mistakes, so you have to check out which province borders which. It might also be easier to set terrains using it.

[halfzware]

man - that sounds like a ton of work

[Endoperez]

I haven't actually done a map, but I always thought it's lots of boring work, but quite simple. Check the map editor.

Time is a cheap commodity, but can be hard to come by. But it goes old fast, so if you get some free time you'd better use it for something that is either useful or fun. It's a hard choice between making a new map that suits your needs, or playing the game.

[Arralen]

Yeah, making a map from scratch is a ton of tedious work.

If you still want to try it and have some more questions, feel free to email me ... .