MapEdit Question on Resizing

[Knighttime]

@Konig15 Just a quick update: I haven't forgotten about this, but I haven't had as much time to spend on it as I hoped. It's also taking me longer than I expected to come up with results that I really like -- I'm too much of a perfectionist to be satisfied with large swaths of the same type of terrain. Here's a glimpse of what I've got so far... still some more work to do, though, before I'm ready to post a final map. Thanks for your patience!

 

[Knighttime]

@Konig15 Well... I may never be truly satisfied with this map, but I feel like it's at least halfway decent, so I'm going to post it and see what you think. (Actually if anyone else reads this thread and wants to offer feedback too, please do so!)

The map size is 180 x 182 for a total of 32,760 tiles.

I ended up using all of the base terrain types. There are a few key things to note:

• "Grassland" should be changed so that mining it produces "Jungle", not Forest (see differentiation of those below).
• "Forest" is used for rugged upland forest (mostly coniferous) so it should probably be renamed to "Pine Forest" and may need a different graphic.
• "Tundra" is used for High Plains. It would benefit from a different graphic (perhaps a lighter or more yellow version of Plains?), but the stats for Tundra are fine.
• "Glacier" is used for extremely high mountain peaks, normally snow-covered. I'd recommend setting this terrain to be Impassable to most military units.
• "Jungle" is used for flat lowland forest (mostly deciduous) so it should probably be renamed to "Broadleaf Forest" or something similar and also needs a different graphic. I'd recommend changing the stats of this in Rules.txt to exactly match those of the Forest terrain, except that irrigating it should change it to Grassland instead of Plains.

Special terrain resources will also need to be edited to align with those changes, with the geographic region of the map, and perhaps with the historical era of the scenario. For a realistic scenario set in pre-modern times, I'd recommend removing the transform or terraform capabilities entirely.

TOTPP adds support for 5 additional terrain types (16 instead of 11) which are not used on this map, so that amount of expansion or flexibility is still available. For example, you might want to create a type that's even more fertile than Grassland, and place it strategically near large cities to support their historic sizes/growth. Note that those TOTPP extra terrain types have to be placed in the game itself, using cheat mode -- the map editor doesn't recognize or support them.

I added a few rivers, but more are probably needed (this is the area of the map that I'm least satisfied with). The ones I added are:
Po, Danube, Kizilirmak, Euphrates, Tigris, and Nile.
I would have liked to add more, but getting the placement of rivers correct is pretty time-consuming and I was just running out of steam to work on that aspect of the map.

I tried to pay attention to the number of tiles using each terrain type, in order to create a balanced map. Here's the final tally (percentages are relative to the total number of land tiles on the map; note that overall 65% of the map is land and 35% is water):

• Plains: 21.5%
• Desert: 21%
• Forest: 15% (coniferous forest)
• Jungle: 11.5% (deciduous forest)
• Hills: 11.5%
• Mountains: 7.5%
• Grassland: 5%
• Tundra: 3.5% (high plains)
• Swamp: 3%
• Glacier: 0.5% (mountain peak)

I hope this map is useful! I hereby grant permission for any designer to use this map for a scenario, with as many edits as you deem necessary. All I ask is that you document the map source somewhere in your Readme or credits.

 

[JPetroski]

Absolutely gorgeous map

 

[tootall_2012]

Beautiful map indeed. Out of curiosity did you use a single source map for reference or was it a composite of maps?

 

[Knighttime]

Thanks, guys! If either of you would ever like me to build a map for one of your projects, please don't hesitate to message me.

Out of curiosity did you use a single source map for reference or was it a composite of maps?

I've developed a process that uses NOAA elevation data as my primary source for making maps, with a number of custom formulas applied on top of the raw data. Then I studied a variety of map images with info on precipitation, natural vegetation, and land usage (just from a Google search) to give myself a general sense for how each map region ought to turn out. Riverbeds are plotted mostly using info from Google Maps.

 

[Konig15]

@Konig15 Well... I may never be truly satisfied with this map, but I feel like it's at least halfway decent, so I'm going to post it and see what you think. (Actually if anyone else reads this thread and wants to offer feedback too, please do so!)

The map size is 180 x 182 for a total of 32,760 tiles.

I ended up using all of the base terrain types. There are a few key things to note:

• "Grassland" should be changed so that mining it produces "Jungle", not Forest (see differentiation of those below).
• "Forest" is used for rugged upland forest (mostly coniferous) so it should probably be renamed to "Pine Forest" and may need a different graphic.
• "Tundra" is used for High Plains. It would benefit from a different graphic (perhaps a lighter or more yellow version of Plains?), but the stats for Tundra are fine.
• "Glacier" is used for extremely high mountain peaks, normally snow-covered. I'd recommend setting this terrain to be Impassable to most military units.
• "Jungle" is used for flat lowland forest (mostly deciduous) so it should probably be renamed to "Broadleaf Forest" or something similar and also needs a different graphic. I'd recommend changing the stats of this in Rules.txt to exactly match those of the Forest terrain, except that irrigating it should change it to Grassland instead of Plains.

Special terrain resources will also need to be edited to align with those changes, with the geographic region of the map, and perhaps with the historical era of the scenario. For a realistic scenario set in pre-modern times, I'd recommend removing the transform or terraform capabilities entirely.

TOTPP adds support for 5 additional terrain types (16 instead of 11) which are not used on this map, so that amount of expansion or flexibility is still available. For example, you might want to create a type that's even more fertile than Grassland, and place it strategically near large cities to support their historic sizes/growth. Note that those TOTPP extra terrain types have to be placed in the game itself, using cheat mode -- the map editor doesn't recognize or support them.

I added a few rivers, but more are probably needed (this is the area of the map that I'm least satisfied with). The ones I added are:
Po, Danube, Kizilirmak, Euphrates, Tigris, and Nile.
I would have liked to add more, but getting the placement of rivers correct is pretty time-consuming and I was just running out of steam to work on that aspect of the map.

I tried to pay attention to the number of tiles using each terrain type, in order to create a balanced map. Here's the final tally (percentages are relative to the total number of land tiles on the map; note that overall 65% of the map is land and 35% is water):

• Plains: 21.5%
• Desert: 21%
• Forest: 15% (coniferous forest)
• Jungle: 11.5% (deciduous forest)
• Hills: 11.5%
• Mountains: 7.5%
• Grassland: 5%
• Tundra: 3.5% (high plains)
• Swamp: 3%
• Glacier: 0.5% (mountain peak)

I hope this map is useful! I hereby grant permission for any designer to use this map for a scenario, with as many edits as you deem necessary. All I ask is that you document the map source somewhere in your Readme or credits.
View attachment 607963

That is a beautiful map indeed, and now my work begins in earnest too. Do you have a terrain graphics file you recommend to go with it? To start out?

 

[Knighttime]

Well, I certainly don't have one I recommend -- I think terrain appearance is pretty subjective, and I want to leave it up to you (or any designer using this map) to determine the "look" you want. Personally, I can't stand the default dark TOT graphics, so I never use them. I'm attaching some files I used while creating the map, just in case they're helpful -- but I certainly wouldn't suggest you use them in a final scenario. This is just the old MGE graphics ported into TOT, with changes copied in from files available here to reflect the two types of forest and the high plains. Also I changed the underlays for forest, hills, and mountains to distinguish them on the minimap preview. That link would have far nicer options for most other terrain types too, but I didn't bother updating them. Resources haven't been updated at all either.

 

[Konig15]

Well I put together a rough cut of your map, it's a 16 terrain map but right now it's only using your standard 9. GOing give the zips to you, screenshots and the terrain files see if they do your vision justice. I think it's a pretty thing, I'd like to learn how to better control the three versions of the terrain that show up

 

[Knighttime]

The 4 .png files in EMed.zip don't seem to be from this map, nor do they use the terrain .bmp files in the .rar, so I'm not quite sure what they're supposed to show. Maybe you attached the wrong images?

As far as the Terrain1 and Terrain2 files you included... there are some nice selections in there, and using strikingly different images for each of the 3 columns certainly gives the map a ton of variety (visually). But I wonder if it will be a bit overwhelming or confusing to the player? since two adjacent tiles that look entirely different may actually be the same terrain. Personally I'd vote for keeping each set of 3 images a little more similar to each other, not because it makes the map prettier but because it will probably make gameplay more straightforward. But the decision is yours.

I don't think there's any way to control which of the three images appear on any given tile; that's determined by the game, either randomly or using some undocumented formula. Note that TOTPP does let you add more entries into Terrain2.bmp, though, and then you can add a section to Rules.txt that defines which terrain types should pull from that file instead of the three images in Terrain1.bmp -- it's not limited to Forest, Hills, and Mountains. So for example, the Broadleaf Forest (previously Jungle) could use a set of 16 forest tiles that merge with each other when appearing as a block on the map, rather than a set of 3 tiles that are picked randomly.

Last thing: remember that the Grassland "shield" image is overlayed on top of a river. Since the one you chose (three trees on a green tile) has no transparency, it covers up the river entirely... so you might want to scale that back and pick an image that's more subtle and open so the river remains visible.

 

[Konig15]

The 4 .png files in EMed.zip don't seem to be from this map, nor do they use the terrain .bmp files in the .rar, so I'm not quite sure what they're supposed to show. Maybe you attached the wrong images?

As far as the Terrain1 and Terrain2 files you included... there are some nice selections in there, and using strikingly different images for each of the 3 columns certainly gives the map a ton of variety (visually). But I wonder if it will be a bit overwhelming or confusing to the player? since two adjacent tiles that look entirely different may actually be the same terrain. Personally I'd vote for keeping each set of 3 images a little more similar to each other, not because it makes the map prettier but because it will probably make gameplay more straightforward. But the decision is yours.

I don't think there's any way to control which of the three images appear on any given tile; that's determined by the game, either randomly or using some undocumented formula. Note that TOTPP does let you add more entries into Terrain2.bmp, though, and then you can add a section to Rules.txt that defines which terrain types should pull from that file instead of the three images in Terrain1.bmp -- it's not limited to Forest, Hills, and Mountains. So for example, the Broadleaf Forest (previously Jungle) could use a set of 16 forest tiles that merge with each other when appearing as a block on the map, rather than a set of 3 tiles that are picked randomly.

Last thing: remember that the Grassland "shield" image is overlayed on top of a river. Since the one you chose (three trees on a green tile) has no transparency, it covers up the river entirely... so you might want to scale that back and pick an image that's more subtle and open so the river remains visible.

Oh, the last part about the shield IS noted, as per the terrains yes, those are the correct tiles, just ignore the ones after the ocean tile, those are in limbo.

Do you have suggestions for resources in this era for each of the suggested vanilla tiles?

I wanted to go for not manmade or mined resources, eventually replacing the fur icon with the beaver from Colonies IV but essentially I couldn't think of anything for mountains. I mean FLOWERS, are rare from the mountains even have a couple of nice ones and that's a sub for silver/gold, but nothing really I can think of for a sub for Iron. And absolutely no idea for resources for mountain peaks
I wanted those gemmy things to be semi-precious stones people could fish out of remote streams in the hills and that cow thing in the dec. Forests to be the declining stock of Aurochs.

Learning how to link the new terrains to terrian 2 is something I have NO idea how to do, and I just found Red October TOT has a whole coniferous forest set!

And also, if I wanted to play with the terrain 2 set, how would that work?

I'm attaching the In Nomine, a Crusader scenario for MGE that needs to be ported to TOT set in 955 where the RR is used to create suburbs that can chance based on suburbs around them, and if I could get similar effects around them with terrain 2, all the better.

Better still would be using the terrain 2 deforming effect to create unique terrian features from say "building" or "restoring" certain features and putting them on the landscape, and covering the adjacent tile with an airfield (which will be a monastery or something.) I don't know if it can be done or how much but it'd be worth a crack.

 

[Knighttime]

I'm not sure why you want to avoid mined natural resources... those are historically pretty important in any era, and really are the primary special resource available in most mountainous regions.

For mountain peaks, there are so few tiles of this terrain type on the map that the number of mountain peak tiles with a special resource is going to be practically zero. If it were me, I'd probably set the Mountain Peak terrain stats to 0,0,0 and forbid mining, name both specials on this terrain to "Glacier" and leave them at 0,0,0 as well, and be done with it. If you can find an especially icy-looking peak for the resource graphics, great -- otherwise just leave those images empty (transparent).

Adding new terrains into Terrain2.bmp is handled with the TOTPP patch named "Terrain overlays". If you run TOTLauncher.exe and scroll to the last page in the left pane, find that patch and click on it, you should see instructions in the right pane. (My Medieval Millennium mod uses this feature, so I know it works. You can check out the files there if that's helpful.)

Sorry that I'm not able to walk you through every step of scenario creation. You're going to have to just experiment with some of these things on your own, taking it slow and following the documentation carefully at every step, and stick with it until you get your desired results.

This post implies that In Nomine was ported to TOT back in 2011, but I can't find it either. Strange. Maybe you should post in that Modified Scenarios Workshop thread and ask gapetit if he still has it or could upload it again.

 

[Konig15]

I'm not sure why you want to avoid mined natural resources... those are historically pretty important in any era, and really are the primary special resource available in most mountainous regions.

For mountain peaks, there are so few tiles of this terrain type on the map that the number of mountain peak tiles with a special resource is going to be practically zero. If it were me, I'd probably set the Mountain Peak terrain stats to 0,0,0 and forbid mining, name both specials on this terrain to "Glacier" and leave them at 0,0,0 as well, and be done with it. If you can find an especially icy-looking peak for the resource graphics, great -- otherwise just leave those images empty (transparent).

Adding new terrains into Terrain2.bmp is handled with the TOTPP patch named "Terrain overlays". If you run TOTLauncher.exe and scroll to the last page in the left pane, find that patch and click on it, you should see instructions in the right pane. (My Medieval Millennium mod uses this feature, so I know it works. You can check out the files there if that's helpful.)

Sorry that I'm not able to walk you through every step of scenario creation. You're going to have to just experiment with some of these things on your own, taking it slow and following the documentation carefully at every step, and stick with it until you get your desired results.

This post implies that In Nomine was ported to TOT back in 2011, but I can't find it either. Strange. Maybe you should post in that Modified Scenarios Workshop thread and ask gapetit if he still has it or could upload it again.

Hey I wanted to try the features in your MM modpack and see your ideas in action, how do you install this mod pack....I'm not seeing installation instructions, and I'm sorry for being dense, I'm just not familiar with modpacks instead of scenarios.

 

[Knighttime]

Hey I wanted to try the features in your MM modpack and see your ideas in action, how do you install this mod pack....I'm not seeing installation instructions, and I'm sorry for being dense, I'm just not familiar with modpacks instead of scenarios.

Glad to hear you'd like to check out MM! Within the MedievalMillennium.zip file that you can download here, there is a plain text file named Readme.txt. (On most Windows computers, you should be able to double-click the .zip file to view its contents without actually unzipping it, and then double-click on the Readme.txt file to view it.) This Readme file contains detailed instructions for installing Medieval Millennium and starting your first game, as well as instructions for uninstalling it afterwards. Please read it very carefully and follow all of the instructions exactly as specified! The installation process is definitely more complex than most scenarios, but it should go smoothly if you stick to the script.

For what it's worth, TOTPP 0.16 includes several new features that support modpacks better. I'm working on an updated release of MM that will take advantage of these and allow me to eliminate much of the installation complexity, making MM much more like a typical scenario in that regard. Unfortunately it's not quite ready for a public release yet.