Some of you may remember the picture maps I made for Civ II waaaaay back when. Its been quite a while since I made any of those so I thought it was about time to hunker down & do it again (only for a more modern version of the game). The color scheme used by Conquests is much more agreeable for creating playable picture maps than Civ II was so I've been quite impressed with how these have come out, even with such a limited color palette & restrictions as to what kind of terrain can be beside each other.

These maps take a heck of a long time to create even with the BMP2BIC utility as the right picture must be found and then many portions of it must be individual colored to make it work and then tweaked again in the editor. I place ALL the resources by hand using the auto generate feature only for bonus grasslands & goody huts. I usually dont create player starting locations (note the word "USUALLY") so where players start will be randomly generated.

For those who love lots of resources, be forewarned... the "tradeable" variety are purposely made SCARCE... usually only 5-6 of any one type will exist on the map so if there are more players than that, someone will be deprived. I also tried to make horses readily available but usually placed a good distance away from any iron so if you have one, you probably wont have the other nearby ( I "love" creating reasons for conflict :ar15: :help: )

Hope you enjoy my first 2 offerings... I am always open to suggestions and possibly collaborations. (Doesnt mean I'll do it.. but I'll listen to what u have to say)

As for thanx... well... the BMP2BIC utility is absolutely essential so my profound thanx to the author of that (John). Also to the photographers and artists who create the perfect picture that I can extrapolate on... without your genius my maps would be mediocre at best. And lastly... to Sid & Atari for the gawd awful buggy games (thank god u dont manufacture cars!) which I love all the same.

Len Zigante
(Despicable, aka Sxythots)

lol very nice, i like the guy on the right side of the map since the details are much clearer and u can make out the facial features better.

lol very nice, i like the guy on the right side of the map since the details are much clearer and u can make out the facial features better.

Yep... this was my first conquests map & thus experimental. You can't make out the guy's face on the left since the assaulter's hand is partly hiding his features. Unfortunately in trying to keep the map small for MP games (since huge maps are hideous to play on unless its long term), the detail of the hand was lost and now blends into the face. Not great but for my first picture map, I considered it acceptable.

One interesting thing about this map is that there is a good whack of jungle, forest & hills composing the assaulter's pants. I made sure to adjust the terrain in this area to make it more habitable & then took a further measure of distributing quite a few tradeable resources through out it while limiting them in more habitable areas. I expect this will make the inhospitable terrain more desireable & a point of contention amongst civs. To aid accessability to it, I ensured both x & y wrapping were on so all areas of the map have fairly reasonable access to the 'good ol' bad lands'.

I suspect there will be some vicious battles on this map all for the sake of tradeable resources. :spank:

Wow! That Is Awesome!

A screenshot?

I see :) sorry, very good but small :(