Accurate Earth Map in development

[rightfuture]

I have been looking forward to it for years!!!
Thank you for continuing your pursuit.
Please let us all know if you have any needs,
there are a lot of helpful people if you know which threads to post in.

When you get a chance remember to
check out the C2C forums for some useful ideas, code, and help as well.
They are really are looking in very similar directions as you.
And they are very ambitious and active.

Thanks again for caring enough to come back. This mod needs to see the light of day.
I think you will be surprised when people start giving their feedback.
I can't wait to see your map!!!

Merry Christmas Everybody!!!!

 

[kevinman4404]

@RyanTheGreat: this is not my mod (World History Mod), this is my mod's map that I am releasing. Of course, it's not easy to divide it like that, so it has several mechanics (which are coded in XML, python, SDK) that are related to the map. So, not a mod per se, but a living breathing map with BTS 34 civs + colonies all starting at the same time.

I think you are thinking of my mod. Canada will not be in this standalone map, but you can always make a colony or edit it in.

There will be some XML adjustments to account for the size of the map and the higher plot yields. But, it will not be balanced. Accuracy/challenge is my preference.

back in a couple days, off to visit relatives, perform feats of strength etc. A release will follow before the holidays are over (@rightfuture will check out the mod before then too)

 

[rightfuture]

Awesome. I am really looking forward to seeing your map.
I am excited.

I am patient and hopeful that you can make a little progress on your World History Mod as well.
It deserves the light of day.
Let me know if I can do anything to help.

 

[kevinman4404]

Well, this has been my entire life over this vacation, and it still needs a small amount of time (just pure labour at this point, nothing difficult). I will continue working on it until it is done. Some sacrifices of unneccessary things were made but they will be added in the future.

All details on the project (detailed features, up-to-date detailed progress, requirements, up-to-date release date, plans after release) are on the front page. I'm not sure I should support vanilla/warlords/BTS<3.19. It would require a sacrifice in some features. Almost everything, at least for now, would still be there, but I feel like it would be extra work and BTS is so readily available anyways. Any complaints?

Kevin

 

[strijder20]

Almost everyone uses BtS, so I guess there shouldn't be any problems if your mod is only compatible with BtS 3.19.
This looks great, by the way.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Border Reform~ Borders do not go over water, though civs can still improve coastal resources. Now borders are more realistic and the seas are in fact "open."

-border reform (borders only go over land, but one problem: city can't work tiles outside borders and I need help fixing that)

Actually you can add that all naval units can pass culture on sea tiles
So culture stays there, but it's passable for everyone
IMO this is the easiest solution, and probably the most realistic one you can get in Civ IV
Most RFC mods do that, I'm thinking about adopting it in RFCE too
IIRC it's the Dutch UUs special ability that can be expanded to all naval units

 

[rightfuture]

I am excited and hopeful Kevin!
Can't wait to see your results

 

[rightfuture]

Keep it up Kevin. I know a lot of people would love what you have done!
There are many of us still willing to help if you need it.

 

[kevinman4404]

@absinthered: Well, that isn't really the problem I'm concerned with. I'm concerned with trying to stop borders from going over water, but still being able to work water tiles. But you're right, this is an obviously good change and I will include it in the upcoming release

@rightfuture: Thanks. I will be okay with this though, it is just dragging on a tiny bit. I am optimistic about World History Mod, I will need long-term helpers for that, but the map is on track. I am yet to take a deep look at your mod, I just want to get this map thing out first

~~~

I encountered major bugs with the expanded gamefont, fixed these problems in the DLL, and am back on track.

A recent change is to heavily emphasize the importance of farms and pastures, as this is where food actually came from. These now produce much more food. Farms can only be produced on flatlands next to rivers or oases (minus boreal, tundra, snow), and pastures anywhere but desert/snow. This is realistic, and allows civs like Arabia to compete with lush European civs, while still making it impossible to support an empire in the Sahara, arctic, etc. Terrain and resources are about the same, however, resources are now more important as a source of income.

Still need to flesh out exactly what will happen with domestication. The idea is too rough right now. IE I don't know if it should be limited to civs on different continents. What if you stumble upon a hidden resource while exploring by land? You probably shouldn't have to acquire the tech through trade/conquest then...

progress at the front of this thread is always updated- it should be done soon

Kevin

 

[RyanTheGreat]

I think borders should only be over land tiles it would make the minimap look much better IMO. Sea resources should be available to any civs examples are the grand banks, when they were discovers not only did the British but also the Dutch and French and portuges all fished there although no Europeans had settled Newfoundland. Maybe you could limit this to resources in ocean tiles as opposed to coast so let's say the British could have oil platforms in the gulf of Mexico as they do today.

Anyways keep up the great work!

 

[kevinman4404]

That is EXACTLY what I want to do. (There is a small coding hurdle, however, so it will have to wait until I have time to solve it or find someone who can help. The map will be released before that)

Does anyone know where the python mod with a bunch of natural disasters and stuff is? I only vaguely remember what it was. It contains volcano and although I'm not copying it, I do want to look at it. I especially need it to make a popup for the active volcanoes. I can't seem to find it, it's a really old mod comp or something edit: found it
Kevin

 

[kevinman4404]

Done volcano system, almost done floodmod, progress updated. EDIT: done that too. Only trivial work left now

I will be impossibly busy for the next week and a half, but it should be ready not too far away in March

 

[Angst]

What specs is your own PC? Because I want to know if me and a bud can play that awesome map.

 

[kevinman4404]

It's in my signature lol

For me it isn't fast but it's tolerable so if you have same or better you'll be fine

 

[Laskaris]

Allow me to ask, if I may: what is supposed to be accurate about this map? It does not preserve area (Greenland looks to be 1/4th the size of Africa, not 1/14th, Europe is too big, the Pacific is greatly reduced, etc.). Neither does it preserve shapes or directions. It just looks like a freehand drawing map to me, basically.

I am not trying to diss your work or anything. I am just inquiring about the design philosophy behind the map, and what you are trying to express by calling it "accurate".

I did something I call Accurate Earth Map of 132 x 64 size, which accurately preserves area by using a cylindrical equal-area projection. I had no knowledge of your project when I chose the name.

Anyway, best of luck with your work. You have some nice ideas. I am just a bit puzzled by the name of the map, that's all.

 

[allypower]

@Laskaris - There are several points here:

1. Accurate doesn't have to mean what you define accurate is. That is your definition on your map.

2. To quote the Kevin: "This map uses a projectionless interpretation of the world, to give near-perfect proportions." - So it doesn't seem to use any projection yet it does seem to yield the same "feeling" of how large continents are. On top of that I feel that it is consistent with the images on wikipedia. For example, in the game Europe is about between 1/3 to 5/12 of Africa is it ok. Pacific ocean also looks ok.

3a. On your map, Europe is way too small. I say it's about 1/4 of Africa instead of 1/3 and you chopped the top half of greenland off and claim the bottom half is 1/14th of Africa? On the other hand it feels like your Africa plus a few more tiles is just as big as mainland Asia.

On the claim of equal area. In a cylindrical projection, the top looks really distort. So accuracy here only depends on area? I can make two rectangles that are 5x6 = 30 tiles and 5x2 = 10 and call one Africa, the other Europe. They are supposedly proportional in areas right? Accurate? Not really.

3b. Playability - Eh, let's say your map represents equal area, is it playable? Maybe, that's up to each person. But I found that using America is an easy win vs using France. It doesn't even have enough space to put in 5 main European civs (France, England, Rome, German and Greece)

4. To be fair, there is nothing "accurate" about these maps. These are simply Civilization's version of what the earth is and to each person who makes his/her maps, it's up to him/her to decide what "accurate" is.

5. About the title of "Accurate Earth Map" I believe Kevin's project existed before yours but I don't think any one has an exclusive trademark right on such a generic title.

@Kevin - Your map is great. Keep up the good work. I'll check it out when it's done. However one would REALLY REALLY tempted to create a 50 civs scenario on your map (255 x 160? wasn't it) which would probably result in crashing in modern time. I'm using a 192 x 120 and it's taking like 3 mins per turn... Yours have an extra 15,000 tiles, so.... uh. Do you think it's playable?

 

[Laskaris]

Yes, obviously, a map can be accurate (or inaccurate) in several different ways. I didn't claim that there is only one way to define that. Neither did I want to claim a trademark on the term. I merely wanted to inquire what kevinman4404 means with the term, because it is not clear to me, and I am curious.

2. To quote the Kevin: "This map uses a projectionless interpretation of the world, to give near-perfect proportions." -

Yes, and I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, exactly. Hence my question!

So it doesn't seem to use any projection yet it does seem to yield the same "feeling" of how large continents are. On top of that I feel that it is consistent with the images on wikipedia. For example, in the game Europe is about between 1/3 to 5/12 of Africa is it ok. Pacific ocean also looks ok.

Are you taking into consideration that Europe goes all the way to the Urals, so the one third of size it has compared to Africa needs to include all this area? I think Europe is somewhat over-sized in this map. Not that there is anything wrong with that (almost all Civ Earth maps have an over-sized Europe). I'm just saying.

3a. On your map, Europe is way too small. I say it's about 1/4 of Africa instead of 1/3 and you chopped the top half of greenland off and claim the bottom half is 1/14th of Africa? On the other hand it feels like your Africa plus a few more tiles is just as big as mainland Asia.

I used a cylindrical equal-area projection world map as the basis for my map. The Hobo-Dyer projection, an example of which you can see here:

I laid a 132 x 64 square grid over it and that is how I created the Civ map. So it certainly is a very accurate representation of area. Look at how similar my map is to the picture of the Hobo-Dyer projection:

Again, I think you are forgetting that Europe goes all the way to the Urals. You are also mistaken about Greenland. I did not cut off the top half of Greenland. It just so happens that the northern coast of Greenland is very close to the edge of the map in a Hobo-Dyer projection.

The only part of the world cut off in my map is the far south, i.e. most of Antarctica.

On the claim of equal area. In a cylindrical projection, the top looks really distort. So accuracy here only depends on area?

No. I simply chose accurate area as my most important focus. I wanted to ask kevinman4404 what his focus of accuracy was for his map. It doesn't seem to be accurate area.

3b. Playability - Eh, let's say your map represents equal area, is it playable? Maybe, that's up to each person. But I found that using America is an easy win vs using France. It doesn't even have enough space to put in 5 main European civs (France, England, Rome, German and Greece)

True, my map does not allow you to cram five civs into Europe. There are many maps where you can do that already, and my intention was to create a different one. My map has other strengths. I think it is very interesting for a game with more spread out civilizations, like in the setup I included - one civ in Europe, one in the Middle East, three in Africa, and so on. Whether you like that kind of game or not is a matter of personal taste.

Sorry for going off-topic, but I wanted to address what I regard as unfounded criticism of my map. It is a very accurate representation of area. Whether you like it or not is another matter - I am fine with it if you don't.

Now back to the topic, which should be kevinman4404's project, not mine.

 

[kevinman4404]

Hi Laskaris- I don't have a working computer at this moment (moving stuff around), so I'll answer the best I can:

It is accurate in that the landmasses look correct. I actually did base it off of someone else's good freehand drawing/image, which I then modified. It is also accurate in so many other ways, such as terrain, bonuses, in a way that no map before me afaik has done. I think people have tried but I think my placement makes more sense, and feels more historically correct

Like allypower said, it is 100% impossible to make a perfact map. Converting a sphrere into a flat map cannot be done. I and the authour of the original image just made sure everything looked right, and rotated stuff.

Kind of hard to not slightly oversize Europe in civ4. Just the nature of how the map is made. And the size increase is absolutely insignificant- remember I followed a template. This is not a giant Europe map

Regarding your method, I just can't stand a map where the countries are squished and stretched. It bothers me to no end. With mine, countries are the right shape and feel correct. Also playability is important to me for this map. The sacrifices I made to make the map were minimal and shouldn't bother most players

Will check out Greenland but can't change it right now. Mine is big, your arctic IS too small regardless of the projection you used, and needless to say I like my Greenland more

To answer the question from your second post, I based the map on shape and realness, though area is coincidentally pretty decent minus the two obvious flaws we mentioned. That is the result of things being the right shape

Thanks for commenting, don't worry about the name I just picked it off the top of my head

Kevin

 

[Laskaris]

To answer the question from your second post, I based the map on shape and realness, though area is coincidentally pretty decent minus the two obvious flaws we mentioned. That is the result of things being the right shape

Thank you for your clarification. Yes, I can see that you paid attention to the shapes. It is an interesting looking map for sure, very unique.

Regarding your method, I just can't stand a map where the countries are squished and stretched. It bothers me to no end.

Yes, that all comes down to a matter of personal preference. I have no problem if not everyone likes my map.

As for me, I am not bothered by distortions of shape. What I can't stand are distortions of area. That bothers me a lot more. As I said - personal preference!

Will check out Greenland but can't change it right now. Mine is big, your arctic IS too small regardless of the projection you used, and needless to say I like my Greenland more

Whether people like it or not, that is how big the Arctic is in the real world. No more, no less. The Hobo-Dyer map faithfully represents it, and I just took it from there.

It is also accurate in so many other ways, such as terrain, bonuses, in a way that no map before me afaik has done.

I think we have very similar goals when it comes to placement of terrain and resources - I also tried to get that as accurate as possible in my map. I used a biome world map from the NOAA website for terrain, which sadly is not available online anymore. But I still have a copy of it.

I think you mentioned earlier in the thread that you are using resource maps from atlases. Are you still doing that? I started off with that myself, but I wasn't satisfied because maps in atlases don't give you an idea of how much of a resource a country has. So I used projections of what is called URR, "ultimate recoverable reserves", from websites that deal with such stuff. Like this one for oil. Then I distributed the resources accordingly. For example, the study I used estimates the URR of oil in Saudi Arabia as 260 billion barrels, in Russia as 210 billion barrels, in the US as 200 billion barrels, and so forth. I used these proportions in my map: 3 oil in Saudi Arabia, 2 each in Iran, Russia and the US, 1 each in Iraq, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Kazakhstan, China, Venezuela, Mexico, Libya, Nigeria, Indonesia and the North Sea off Norway.

If you are interested, I could share my research on resources with you? I got a lot of data on oil fields, coal production, copper and iron mines, et cetera.

 

[kevinman4404]

I find it impossible to rely strictly on stats. I actually don't rely on atlases or anything for placement, because to me the result ends up being fake (others do this, ie Ghengis Kai's world map, and I don't find it convincing). I take my information from anywhere and everywhere. Actually where I get it from the most is reading up history (in detail)- then I know what things are important to which areas. Also, I cover modern and historical resources equally

Terrain placement is similarly all over the place, but most of it comes from knowledge, the rest from land use/sattelite/climate etc. I don't even really remember, but it definitely made a lot of sense at the time. Also, this is a small mod, not strictly a map. The map is for my crazy mod, which probably explains a lot of things, such as why the countries must be perfect and the placement tailored to history

Regarding sharing your information, if you get the chance you could check over the map when it gets released soon and let me know if anything is a lot different than you expected. I will take any suggestions seriously. (Note: with 85 or so bonuses I have to improvise somewhere and like you I also didn't follow production quantities too closely)

Your projection's arctic might be correct but I can tell you that based on the number of tiles, the uppermost parts of your North American arctic (the islands) are only a fraction of the size of real life, especially if you factor in that much of that is permanent ice shelf. I guess due to extreme distortion

Anyways, it sounds like you put a lot of work into your map. Thanks for the comments

@allypower: thanks for the encouragement, and I'll do a full game in the following weeks and let you know how it runs (for me)! Near the beginning it takes 2-6 seconds for me, with 35 civs, with the occasional turn that is a little longer due to map events