What method do you use to dotmap with a Mac? Technically, I mean, not philosophically, which likely isn't platform-specific....

One problem I have is that the vertical gridlines on the global view (Warlords 2.08) don't show up as they should (just me?), but aside from the fact that I don't have that as a guide to drawing city radii, I just can't find a good way to make a template of a radius and move it around the map... Or maybe I'm not even trying to approach it right, I don't know...

Thanks.

The perspective in Civ4 certainly makes dot maps more of a challenge. My system shows the grid lines as I zoom out, and I can get a "bird's eye view" image that has a more or less rectilinear grid just before the clouds start to show. If this doesn't work for you, you may be able to use camera flying to get a better screen image. Turn on camera flying by setting the option in ~/Documents/Warlords/CivilizationIV.ini.

When you have achieved the non-perspective view, you can then take a screenshot using Command-Shift-3, and open it in a pixel-painting program like Photoshop Elements or Graphic Converter.

I haven't done dot mapping in Civ4, but in Civ3 I would add in cities with the ellipse tool, and city radius markings using a line drawing tool, creating them as a layer that you can move around or duplicate to try out different city layouts.

If you don't have one of the above software packages then, for a rough and ready map, you could probably use Preview, save the image as a PDF, and then use the Oval Annotation tool to draw round city radiuses. After all, the "fat cross" is simply an approximation to a circle.

Ah! Thanks. I rarely get into graphics software, so the use of a layer didn't occur to me, but that makes sense.

Off to try camera flying... Thanks much!

[Later: Wow! Why is that off by default? That gives me a much better image to work with, thanks again...]