Seeking good MP maps.

[Gandalf Parker]

This is part of one of my map-generating scripts. It uses Dom3 to make maps and makes use of some of the features that are not available in the menu of Dom3.
Code:

---

GCOL1=" 50 100 50 250 "

SCOL1=" 20 50 80 220 "

BCOL1="  111 194 21 50 "

SBCOL1=" 36 119 202 29 "

# win ver SBCOL 11 54 121 125

# good colors 36 119 202 29, 111 194 21 104

OTHR=' --mountpart 50 --farmpart 20 --mapnoise 110 '





for x in `seq 1 9`

do

  uptime >>$LOG

  dom3 -T --makemap $MAPNAME_0$x --mapsize 2400 3200 --mapprov $SZ \

    --mapaa \

     $OTHR \

    --mapgcol  $GCOL1   \

    --mapscol  $SCOL1   \

    --mapbcol  36 119 202 29 \

    --mapsbcol 111 194 21 104

---

After MUCH experimentation I find the size (2400x3200) comfortable on the screen. Not too detailed as to make it a huge file, but not too blurry by trying to put too much into a small file. Of course, I am trying to fit 1500 provinces into it so for smaller maps that is highly flexible.

With even more experimentation I find the colors pleasing (to me at least). I feel that the terrains are visible in play mode, but closer in color so that they tend to blend more when going from one terrain to another. The border lines have been tweaked the same way. Visible in the game but not so obvious in large view, a light semi-transparent green for land and a light semi-transparent blue for water. (those border colors mess up the auto-finder in Dom3 map maker so for people trying to generate just a base for a map to do extensive work on, red borders are recommended)

The amount of desert, swamp, and water in the defaults is generally fine (10, 10, 30). But I add --mountpart 50 --farmpart 20 --mapnoise 110. I like more slightly more farms (the default is 15). And much more mapnoise than the default of 15 (instead of just green, the amount of scattered greens. Instead of just brown, lots of little dots of brown. Texture)

The mountain 50 gives me an almost maze-like map with many chokepoints and fewer startpoints. Not much fun for MP play since it generates complaints of unfair positioning (I only use game defaults when generating the random maps on the blitz server) but for solo play I like lots of chokes and more spreadout starts.

But Im really picky about the general look of the map. How many continents, how many oceans, neither so small that someone might be trapped but not so large as to let someone get too big too fast. So I tend to run batches of maps then pick one. The script is easy to modify to change how many, what size, colors, parameters. I make them on my web server and the srpt automatically creates a webdirectory to put the files and the jpg it makes of each map for easy online viewing. For re-occuring requests I also generate a webpage.

Usually I generate 30 at time in batches of 10. That allows for a slight variation such as 10 with standard dom3 colors, 10 with mine, and 10 maps with another generator such as DomMap or Harbringers wraparounds. Ive often been asked to generate a batch for someone to shop when they are starting a new game. It used to take 3 hours to run a batch of big maps but I havent tried it yet since I got the main server back with 3x the memory it had.

[IndyPendant]

Wow, Gandalf! That's a lot of small wraps! And now I finally have some time to look at them.

Thank you very much for this. *runs off to play with the purdy maps*

[Bwaha]

World of Warhammer is the best map I've seen to date. It is really pretty and really cool. So finely crafted it defies a proper description... It has fixed starting locations so the races should be specified before a start. Type DnD in the search mode and you will find it.