Floating Improved Borders

[JJansen]

Based on nothing but my own private delusions (as opposed to, say, a popular mandate), I've enhanced my original Improved Territory Borders by raising them to the highest point possible, given the pixel area of the Territory.pcx file, and adding some shadows underneath. The effect is as if the borders are floating until they hit something at about 300m from the planet's surface, at which point they contour themselves against hills.

I'm happy with the results, as it adds a bit more flavor to my borders. Try as a might, I was unable to raise the borders to rest atop the hill contours, but whatever. Have a look.



And that would be them. Can you tell where no-man's land is? I can!

As you can see, other things drawn on the map (roads, rivers if they were pictured) will appear above certain border tiles. Nothing short of redrawing them AND rewriting the engine will remedy that.

Put them in your directory marked
Civ III>Art>Terrain
and replace the existing Territory.pcx file located there. To delete the existing file is totally up to you.

Enjoy them? Dispise them? Think they're okay? For the love of god, post your thoughts! Let me serve you better by posting anything that may cross your mind, because the internet is nothing if not a place for kneejerk reactionary thought (re: blogging).

 

[Ugurt]

Very Nice but seems a little bold. I mean a thinner version may be better?

 

[JJansen]

Very Nice but seems a little bold. I mean a thinner version may be better?

Thinner could be interesting. Definitely worth a try, i'd say; i'll have a look at the ground-based ones in photoshop.

 

[Pounder]

Good work. Very nice addition.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

nice touch

 

[Corey]

xexe Nice idea and realisation

 

[user37852]

Pretty good. I'm going to use them for a little while, and see how I get on.

Any more variations on these, and your last ones, would be welcome

 

[Hrafnkell]

Interesting idea! It would be hard to lose those regardless of the terrain.

 

[Abaddon]

looks spiffing! d/l,ed straight away!

 

[JJansen]

Interesting idea! It would be hard to lose those regardless of the terrain.

Thanks!

You're more than welcome to and I'd be honored to see you use these in your scenario screenshots. I just wish I could try it too - from what I've seen, it looks pretty educational.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I like them a lot, and I've started using them. In some cases, rivers and roads seem to go on top of them, which looks a little funny, though.

 

[JJansen]

I like them a lot, and I've started using them. In some cases, rivers and roads seem to go on top of them, which looks a little funny, though.

Yeah, like I said, there's very little that can be done about that short of hacking the game engine itself, something I wouldn't even attempt with the source code and a copy of codewarror or whatever.

 

[hIdDeN_eViL]

nice idea
but to echo Ugurt, thinner borders would be better.

 

[JJansen]

nice idea
but to echo Ugurt, thinner borders would be better.

During my design process, I found that this grid size is the only one that works within the engine. The reason is because there is an extra pair of pixels on the corners north and south. Using a two-pixel smaller grid, thus thinning the borders, gives the north/south corners a line of boxes about 50% thicker than standard, and there also exists the problem of getting the boxes to terminate equally. Quite ugly.

I will, however, remove the innermost squares and give that a shot, as through my experimentation that would appear to be the only viable solution for this, in order to maintain the ability to know at a glance what side is in. I'll bodge something up in an hour or so. If it looks good, I'll post it in a new thread.

 

[JJansen]

Thin Variants

Ready to go!

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Thin Variants

Ready to go!

..........Nice