Anthropoid
Grognard fantome
Hey guys. I want to make the biggest possible accurate Earth map using Warlords 1.61. No modding, no cities, no units, just an accurate, maximum possible size and accurate as possible map of Earth. Based on my past work making C3C maps, I reckon this would take me a year to do at max, although the World Builder in Civ4 does seem a bit less "friendly" than the C3C editor/mapmaker.
The thing that irritates me about most C3C world maps is they are way too small. The idea of their being "one tile" space between Washington and Baltimore is preposterous for a "world map." I know why it happens this way: limit to ~500 cities in C3C (or at least earlier unpatched versions of it). Also, I know that, when a map gets truly huge, it slows down the game, but that just means buy a faster/bigger chip and more memory!
Based on the fact that Baltimore-Washington is ~39 miles apart, and Essen-Dusseldorf is ~23 miles apart, and using a 3 tile gap rule, the IDEAL size for maximum accuracy would be 7.5 miles per tile.
Using the figures of 24,900 (Earth circumference) and 9750 miles (distance between 77-degrees north lat, and 64-degrees south lat) we get
1300 tiles north-south axis
3320 tiles east-west axis
Is this utterly impossible? If so, what would be the MAXIMUM possible size map to generate in Civ4 Warlords 1.61.
Also, is there another Warlords patch else mapmaker edition impending that might prompt me to delay starting on this?
ADDIT:
The scenarios that would be facilitated by a truly massive scale map would be:
Age of Discovery
Hundred Years War
Age of Imperialism
American Civil War
Era of Battleships
WWI
WWII
Korean Conflict
Vietnam Era
The Cold War
The Gulf War I and II
War on Terror
I've been a player in the ongoing PBEM "The Cold War" for over a year now, and I think that a very big Earth map in Civ4 Warlords would provide a foundation on which to get some modder going on a similar mod for Civ4.
ADDIT 2: So has anyone played the Genghis Kai's Giant map (90 x 210), or a larger Civ4 map through to the 21st century? If so, what are your system specs and what sort of turn times did you have at the end? Just curious, because that would be a good litmus test of the viability of making even larger maps.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184684&page=11
The ideal 1300 x 3320 size map is probably impossible based on existing technology, and the way the game is set up, i.e., a memory hog because of fancy graphics, etc.. However, MAYBE 650 x 1660 could be made to work by resetting things in the game that eat up lots of processor time? I'm just seeking feedback, and do not mean to impugn the exemplary work of others. Rather, I would like to stand on the shoulders of giants in that, the map I'm talking about making would NOT be very suitable for an epic "all of human history" sort of experience, but would require that most cities be pre-placed, and that settlers not be buildable, and that AI behavior be carefully shaped to insure that it suited the specific scenario. However, all of that are even further elaborations on the foundational work which needs to be done which is a map! The bigger the map, the more suitable it will be for a variety of scenarios, and thus, my raison de posting.
Also, to clarify about the issue of the game being limited to only 24 civs, I do not think that this is an issue. For example, El Justo's TCW mod has a few more than 24, something like 30 I think for the SP version. However, the MP version has only 8 civs. This is done simply by combining Latin America into a single tribe, combining Canada, Australia, NZ, England, etc., into the UK, etc. So, I don't think that being limited to 24 tribes would be an insurmountable impediment to taking the sort of prospective map I'm discussing (i.e., a very LARGE Earth world map, with enough room for say, 8 or 10 communities in Vietnam alone??). Say for example WWII. 24 slots for tribes would allow all the major players to have a slot, and leave a few extra slots for "non-aligned powers" or something like that. This is how the "Kamikaze Contest" map for WWII works: all of Latin America, large portions of Africa, and a few other sundry places are in the "neutral powers" "nation" The have limited numbers of cities and buildings, can only build immobile defensive units, and IIRC, cannot trade techs. Thus, they sit there, and if one of the active players or AIs WANTS to start taking over that territory, they can allocate their resources in that way, but generally because of how the scenario is set up (VP tiles, etc.) this is a losing venture. However, because the territory is THERE it provides for an interesting set of alternatives, and also more realistically presents the geographical factors impinging on a simulation of the WWII era. So in sum, the lack of civ slots would not present a serious difficulty for making good scenarios of the sort I present in the list using the sort of very large map I'm thinking of making. I just need to know how big the map can should be!
Someone in another thread commented that my list of potential scenarios that a truly massive Civ4 map could facilitate was interesting, but questioned whether (for example) a good "Vietnam War Scenario" might best be served using a map that represented mostly only Vietnam. Actually I think that a proper Civ scenario for "Vietnam War" must actually be about the "ERA" and not simply about the strategy and tactics of war in that particular theatre. There are already excellent games that focus on the military aspect of most wars in the last 200 years, which Civ is not in any position to improve on because of the game engine
http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/sat5/ec_Main.Entry17C?SID=45905&SP=10023&CID=119338&PID =832786&PN=1&V1=832786&CUR=124&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE= &CACHE_ID=119338
However, what the modern-war scenarios in games like TOAW III do not cover, which Civ is well suited to cover, is the balance and interplay between warfare, social, technological, political, and cultural factors. But in order to accurately represent such factors, what would be needed (at minimum) is a map that presents a sufficient number of communities in both of the key nations: Vietnam, China, and Russia all had troops on the ground in Vietnam. Thailand, Cambodia were theatres of war, and if memory serves Thailand had a contingent of troops in the FWP nations, which also included: Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and possibly at least one other nation I'm forgetting . . . oh yes! the United States!
So at minimum, a Civ-Style simulation or alternate history scenario for Vietnam must include all (or at least some) of each of these nations. A map like the one used in the C3C "War in the Pacific" scenario might suffice, but I think that properly representing Vietnam might actually require a large scale map in which Vietnam is disproportionately large (and Pacific Ocean small) compared to the rest. However, a whole Earth map that was at the "ideal" scale of 7.5 miles per tile would also serve very nicely (if it wasn't impossible because of game speed issues).
So, there is a purpose behind my interest. A Civ4 map that is the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE size would have applications, and if it existed, some prospective modders who were interested in making one of the above listed scenarios might take it up as a project (probably not me!). The existing "large" Civ4 maps (e.g., Genghis Kai's Giant Map at 90 x 210) are probably well-suited for an epic "all of human history" sort of game, but what I'm targetting is something a bit different. Specifically, a map that is suited for simulating modern global history (in which most cities are pre-built and capacity to build more is dramatically limited), or specfiic segments of that ~500 year period.
The thing that irritates me about most C3C world maps is they are way too small. The idea of their being "one tile" space between Washington and Baltimore is preposterous for a "world map." I know why it happens this way: limit to ~500 cities in C3C (or at least earlier unpatched versions of it). Also, I know that, when a map gets truly huge, it slows down the game, but that just means buy a faster/bigger chip and more memory!
Based on the fact that Baltimore-Washington is ~39 miles apart, and Essen-Dusseldorf is ~23 miles apart, and using a 3 tile gap rule, the IDEAL size for maximum accuracy would be 7.5 miles per tile.
Using the figures of 24,900 (Earth circumference) and 9750 miles (distance between 77-degrees north lat, and 64-degrees south lat) we get
1300 tiles north-south axis
3320 tiles east-west axis
Is this utterly impossible? If so, what would be the MAXIMUM possible size map to generate in Civ4 Warlords 1.61.
Also, is there another Warlords patch else mapmaker edition impending that might prompt me to delay starting on this?
ADDIT:
The scenarios that would be facilitated by a truly massive scale map would be:
Age of Discovery
Hundred Years War
Age of Imperialism
American Civil War
Era of Battleships
WWI
WWII
Korean Conflict
Vietnam Era
The Cold War
The Gulf War I and II
War on Terror
I've been a player in the ongoing PBEM "The Cold War" for over a year now, and I think that a very big Earth map in Civ4 Warlords would provide a foundation on which to get some modder going on a similar mod for Civ4.
ADDIT 2: So has anyone played the Genghis Kai's Giant map (90 x 210), or a larger Civ4 map through to the 21st century? If so, what are your system specs and what sort of turn times did you have at the end? Just curious, because that would be a good litmus test of the viability of making even larger maps.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184684&page=11
The ideal 1300 x 3320 size map is probably impossible based on existing technology, and the way the game is set up, i.e., a memory hog because of fancy graphics, etc.. However, MAYBE 650 x 1660 could be made to work by resetting things in the game that eat up lots of processor time? I'm just seeking feedback, and do not mean to impugn the exemplary work of others. Rather, I would like to stand on the shoulders of giants in that, the map I'm talking about making would NOT be very suitable for an epic "all of human history" sort of experience, but would require that most cities be pre-placed, and that settlers not be buildable, and that AI behavior be carefully shaped to insure that it suited the specific scenario. However, all of that are even further elaborations on the foundational work which needs to be done which is a map! The bigger the map, the more suitable it will be for a variety of scenarios, and thus, my raison de posting.
Also, to clarify about the issue of the game being limited to only 24 civs, I do not think that this is an issue. For example, El Justo's TCW mod has a few more than 24, something like 30 I think for the SP version. However, the MP version has only 8 civs. This is done simply by combining Latin America into a single tribe, combining Canada, Australia, NZ, England, etc., into the UK, etc. So, I don't think that being limited to 24 tribes would be an insurmountable impediment to taking the sort of prospective map I'm discussing (i.e., a very LARGE Earth world map, with enough room for say, 8 or 10 communities in Vietnam alone??). Say for example WWII. 24 slots for tribes would allow all the major players to have a slot, and leave a few extra slots for "non-aligned powers" or something like that. This is how the "Kamikaze Contest" map for WWII works: all of Latin America, large portions of Africa, and a few other sundry places are in the "neutral powers" "nation" The have limited numbers of cities and buildings, can only build immobile defensive units, and IIRC, cannot trade techs. Thus, they sit there, and if one of the active players or AIs WANTS to start taking over that territory, they can allocate their resources in that way, but generally because of how the scenario is set up (VP tiles, etc.) this is a losing venture. However, because the territory is THERE it provides for an interesting set of alternatives, and also more realistically presents the geographical factors impinging on a simulation of the WWII era. So in sum, the lack of civ slots would not present a serious difficulty for making good scenarios of the sort I present in the list using the sort of very large map I'm thinking of making. I just need to know how big the map can should be!
Someone in another thread commented that my list of potential scenarios that a truly massive Civ4 map could facilitate was interesting, but questioned whether (for example) a good "Vietnam War Scenario" might best be served using a map that represented mostly only Vietnam. Actually I think that a proper Civ scenario for "Vietnam War" must actually be about the "ERA" and not simply about the strategy and tactics of war in that particular theatre. There are already excellent games that focus on the military aspect of most wars in the last 200 years, which Civ is not in any position to improve on because of the game engine
http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/sat5/ec_Main.Entry17C?SID=45905&SP=10023&CID=119338&PID =832786&PN=1&V1=832786&CUR=124&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE= &CACHE_ID=119338
However, what the modern-war scenarios in games like TOAW III do not cover, which Civ is well suited to cover, is the balance and interplay between warfare, social, technological, political, and cultural factors. But in order to accurately represent such factors, what would be needed (at minimum) is a map that presents a sufficient number of communities in both of the key nations: Vietnam, China, and Russia all had troops on the ground in Vietnam. Thailand, Cambodia were theatres of war, and if memory serves Thailand had a contingent of troops in the FWP nations, which also included: Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and possibly at least one other nation I'm forgetting . . . oh yes! the United States!
So at minimum, a Civ-Style simulation or alternate history scenario for Vietnam must include all (or at least some) of each of these nations. A map like the one used in the C3C "War in the Pacific" scenario might suffice, but I think that properly representing Vietnam might actually require a large scale map in which Vietnam is disproportionately large (and Pacific Ocean small) compared to the rest. However, a whole Earth map that was at the "ideal" scale of 7.5 miles per tile would also serve very nicely (if it wasn't impossible because of game speed issues).
So, there is a purpose behind my interest. A Civ4 map that is the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE size would have applications, and if it existed, some prospective modders who were interested in making one of the above listed scenarios might take it up as a project (probably not me!). The existing "large" Civ4 maps (e.g., Genghis Kai's Giant Map at 90 x 210) are probably well-suited for an epic "all of human history" sort of game, but what I'm targetting is something a bit different. Specifically, a map that is suited for simulating modern global history (in which most cities are pre-built and capacity to build more is dramatically limited), or specfiic segments of that ~500 year period.
You could of course try to make a map that big - I don't think the map generator would stop you. However, your computer would - if not during the making then during the playing.
)
, i'm curious:
