Idea for easier map making

[Minor Annoyance]

I've made several maps by drawing a grid over an image and then copying what I see in each square to a tile in civ4 worldbuilder. There were some programs that could take an image file and use the colours to pick tiles, but I could never get them to work. Now it's not as easy to draw hexes but it's doable. What would make it all easier would be if civ5's worldbuilder could create a blank map (not all water, but actually blank) that was transparent, and you could load an image file behind it. Then you could place the tiles on top of the image file to create the map.
Am I the only one that has made maps this way and thinks this idea could be implemented?

 

[Nitram15]

Creating maps will be easier in Civ5 than in Civ 4 was, I think. Hexagon is looks better. I hated civ 4's squares.

 

[Geek113377]

sounds like a great idea, although i'm sure that firaxis will overlook it.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

I've made several maps by drawing a grid over an image and then copying what I see in each square to a tile in civ4 worldbuilder. There were some programs that could take an image file and use the colours to pick tiles, but I could never get them to work. Now it's not as easy to draw hexes but it's doable. What would make it all easier would be if civ5's worldbuilder could create a blank map (not all water, but actually blank) that was transparent, and you could load an image file behind it. Then you could place the tiles on top of the image file to create the map.
Am I the only one that has made maps this way and thinks this idea could be implemented?

I've thought of that before. Well, similar. Place a map behind the WB map, and colour in tiles rather than switching back and forth to make sure it's accurate.

 

[Mango Elephant]

I like this a lot firaxis, DO IT

 

[PieceOfMind]

I like this a lot firaxis, DO IT

Seconded.

Though it doesn't affect me much, I imagine it would be very very useful to anyone who wants to create maps from a reference picture, which is a lot of the time by the sounds of it.

 

[astrognash]

There's a mod here, under the utilities section of Civ4, that is actually for Civ5. It's just a simple browser-based hex painter. I tried it out, by trying to recreate Europe from Rhye's World Map (with enlarged Europe) and found that hexes are both better than squares and worse than squares. I've attached a picture I took of my endeavors. Now, obviously it's not perfect, but I think it illustrates nicely both the pros and cons of hexes for map-building. The biggest problem is attempting to do anything straight vertically. Bumps and curves can also be a hassle, as seen with Spain's eastern coastline, and Africa's western coastline.

All in all, I like them about the same as squares, because even though squares can be more accurate in some things, hexes create an all-around more natural effect.

So, I think putting an image under the map would be a great idea, but could lead to a lot of frustration in trying to recreate unique coastlines and other features, based on the fact that hexes are aligned horizontally, but not vertically.

 

[Ahriman]

@OP
Agreed, this kind of feature should be core in the map editor.

There are some programs people wrote to get outlines placed from pictures in Worldbuilder, but they're not great, and not user-friendly.