The Monstrosity - Earth map 500x262 & The Monstrosity - Marathon edition

Volman.me

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This thread will be used for discussion, ideas and suggestions for 2 mods, The monstrosity - Earth map and the The monstrosity - Marathon edition.

The monstrosity map is an Earth map sized 500x262 (https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-monstrosity.30055/).

I call it that way because it takes time to play (currently after 100 turns, 31 civs on a 9900K @ 5GHz takes about 20 seconds for each turn).

Currently I publish the map as a good starting point.

It needs many micro corrections and I hope you people to provide.

Some rivers need adjustments, some resources need more allocation, etc.

The base idea is to have a gigantic map with huge Europe and island countries, no poles and as few as possible tundra tiles.

I want to have as much space as possible so we, the players can have some room to breath and design our civ the way we want.

I attach some pictures of the map
 

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  • america-north.png
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  • europe.png
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It loaded fine in both the editor and the game. Some of the starting positions look like they need to be relocated though.
 
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I selected the starting locations so the distance between the civs can be maximum.

Any recommendations are welcome.
I found two starting positions for Sumeria. I understand about spreading things out, but in the Middle East you did have a bunch of civilizations fighting it out at the start. I will make my changes, and the send you the file with changes. Did you custom add the resources, or just let the editor do that?
 
I will add some resources based on historical locations, and maybe add some additional resources as well to make changes in location map for you to look at.
 
This looks great! Continents well-adjusted for gameplay balance, and I notice that part of the adjustment was giving Africa more space in the south, which let Europe also move south.

It's pretty much what I was envisioning existing someday when I realized 362 tiles was not the limit.

I am a bit curious about the methodology - you mentioned using the tool I wrote, probably the BMP-to-BIQ part of the editor? Or was the map from scratch after creating a blank canvas of the appropriate size? If it was the BMP approach, did you adjust things first and then import it? Regardless, the result looks quite nice, and I'm glad you had the motivation to add rivers, resources, and adjust the terrain too.

Now the only problem is that I need a faster CPU... even if I overclocked my 2011 model to 4 GHz, it's not going to be anywhere near fast enough! Good thing I was already planning to upgrade this fall...
 
This looks great! Continents well-adjusted for gameplay balance, and I notice that part of the adjustment was giving Africa more space in the south, which let Europe also move south.

It's pretty much what I was envisioning existing someday when I realized 362 tiles was not the limit.

I am a bit curious about the methodology - you mentioned using the tool I wrote, probably the BMP-to-BIQ part of the editor? Or was the map from scratch after creating a blank canvas of the appropriate size? If it was the BMP approach, did you adjust things first and then import it? Regardless, the result looks quite nice, and I'm glad you had the motivation to add rivers, resources, and adjust the terrain too.

Now the only problem is that I need a faster CPU... even if I overclocked my 2011 model to 4 GHz, it's not going to be anywhere near fast enough! Good thing I was already planning to upgrade this fall...
You and Flintlock are the Jesus Christ of Civ 3.

When I saw your try of 420x316, my modding senses started tingling.

When I confirmed that your tool is like the gospel Revelation of John for Christians, I started photoshop and google earth.

Started from scratch, piece by piece (using print screen method) start developing the map.

After making a lot of adjustments on photoshop and finally got the result I had in mind, I used your bmp to biq functionality.

And voila. I had something to work on civ 3 editor.

When I fired up that monster map and played a couple of turns, that's it. I had the confirmed result I wanted after 2 weeks of hard work.

That day I did not slept adding resources to the map.

The next day I started play testing. And it works as I always wanted.

I am telling you man, we are going to have epic battles on this map.

Better get that cpu upgrade fast, things are going to get hot.
 
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Volman.me, I am very impressed about your gigantic world map. :thumbsup:

In many parts it is reminding me to Blue Monkey´s project of a Full Earth Map, With Areas "Resized" To Maximize Game Play, that unfortunately was lost in a computer crash.

When having a first look at the grand shape of your map, focusing on game play and not on the very correct dimensions of geography, I have to say that I like the "great proportions" a lot.

Here are some interesting distances about Europe (the most problematic continent in Civ 3 considering gameplay) in your map, compared to distances in other big maps I am using at present. These distances are taken by x-tiles between the European capitals of London and Berlin to Moscow. For Moscow it must be taken into account that it is placed much to far in the east on your map (east of the Caspian Sea) and the comparison must be taken with the fixed coordinates (for London and Berlin one could only discuss about changing the location for about one tile):

Your Monster Map:
London x=243, Berlin x= 271; Moscow x= 325 (fixed from 344)

WW2 Global Gold map with enlarged Europe by Rocoteh and Celku (slightly changed by me): 362 x 306
London x=179, Berlin x=197, Moscow x=225

SOE-Map (only Europe and parts of North Africa and parts of the Atlantic): 254 x190
London x= 72, Berlin x=102, Moscow x=154

So the distances between those capitals are:

Monster Map: London - Moscow: 82 x-tiles, Berlin - Moscow: 54 x-tiles
WW2 Global Map: London - Moscow: 46 x-tiles, Berlin - Moscow: 28 x-tiles
SOE-Map: London - Moscow: 82 x-tiles, Berlin - Moscow: 52 x-tiles

The astonishing fact is, that the monster map for European regions "north of the Alpes" offers nearly the same space as the SOE map (that is limited only to a small part of the world) and therefore the SOE map for this region could be a good help to place cities, landscape and rivers on the Monster Map - and VoIman.me, your map in this region offers nearly twice the place of the current known big worldmaps with an enlarged Europe.

:hatsoff:

South of the Alpes the situation changes. Here the y-tiles for the size of Italy and Greece are of special interest (the SOE map here is not helpful, as it holds quite different dimensions):

Italy Monstermap: y91 - y114 => y23
Greece Monstermap: y107 - y123 => y16

Italy WW2 Global map: y-size = y20
Greece WW2 Global map: y-size = y11

So here the WW2 Global map could be more helpful to place cities, landscape and rivers on the Monster Map.

I have only two complaints about the "grand shape" of the Monster Map:

What in any way should be fixed on your map is to create a sea path to the cities Murmansk and Archangelsk. And it is a pity, that the Dutch don´t have the correct place on the map that they need. Giving them some more tiles between Germany and France would be great, as the Dutch were a great civ in history that should not be replaced by Poland (for Poland there is enough place at the Dutch starting location and I would like to add the Dutch and Poland to a future CCM world map). I am aware that you posted an early version of your wonderful map (with some not fitting starting locations for C3C Vanilla) and I appreciate this, as it allows us to give you some input to your great work.

VoIman.me, I don´t have very much experience in creating maps (the biggest modding work here I did, was cutting out the east coast of the US and adding space including the Caspian Sea up to the east of the SOE map), but these would be my next steps in improving the Monster Map:

1. Create a naval passage north to Scandinavia to reach the harbors of Murmansk and Archangelsk.

2. Set cities as coordinates for forming the landscape and the rivers of your map. Here the WW2 Global map can be helpful and for the region of Northern Europe the SOE map.

3. For placing resources on the map, Wolfshade´s big worldmap can be very helpful. The resources placement of this map is based on the Oxford university atlas with some minor changes made for gameplay purposes (please don´t do the settings of navigable rivers of that map for optical reasons). The number of resources of the RARR 180x180 map done by Kal-El are for a game with only 24 civs, not for 31 civs.

For your general thought about a combination of your world map with the RARR mod, you will receive any support you need by me. The civs of the RARR mod in my eyes are a little bit better suited for a world map (more civs in America) compared to the civs of CCM. On the other side your map could be very interesting as a world map for the CCM mod (and many others), too. For a combination with the RARR mod, the range of the RARR aircraft should be enlarged to the greater range of the CCM aircraft. In general CCM is concepted for games on bigger maps as it is the case for RARR.

VoIman.me, thank you very much for sharing your great work! :)
We live in an exciting time for modding Civ 3.
 
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Volman.me, I am very impressed about your gigantic world map. :thumbsup:

In many parts it is reminding me to Blue Monkey´s project of a Full Earth Map, With Areas "Resized" To Maximize Game Play, that unfortunately was lost in a computer crash.

When having a first look at the grand shape of your map, focusing on game play and not on the very correct dimensions of geography, I have to say that I like the "great proportions" a lot.

Here are some interesting distances about Europe (the most problematic continent in Civ 3 considering gameplay) in your map, compared to distances in other big maps I am using at present. These distances are taken by x-tiles between the European capitals of London and Berlin to Moscow. For Moscow it must be taken into account that it is placed much to far in the east on your map (east of the Caspian Sea) and the comparison must be taken with the fixed coordinates (for London and Berlin one could only discuss about changing the location for about one tile):

Your Monster Map:
London x=243, Berlin x= 271; Moscow x= 325 (fixed from 344)

WW2 Global Gold map with enlarged Europe by Rocoteh and Celku (slightly changed by me): 362 x 306
London x=179, Berlin x=197, Moscow x=225

SOE-Map (only Europe and parts of North Africa and parts of the Atlantic): 254 x190
London x= 72, Berlin x=102, Moscow x=154

So the distances between those capitals are:

Monster Map: London - Moscow: 82 x-tiles, Berlin - Moscow: 54 x-tiles
WW2 Global Map: London - Moscow: 46 x-tiles, Berlin - Moscow: 28 x-tiles
SOE-Map: London - Moscow: 82 x-tiles, Berlin - Moscow: 52 x-tiles

The astonishing fact is, that the monster map for European regions "north of the Alpes" offers nearly the same space as the SOE map (that is limited only to a small part of the world) and therefore for this region could be a good help to place cities, landscape and rivers on the Monster Map - and VoIman.me, your map in this region offers nearly twice the place of the current known big worldmaps with an enlarged Europe.

:hatsoff:

South of the Alpes the situation changes. Here the y-tiles for the size of Italy and Greece are of special interest (the SOE map here is not helpful, as it holds quite different dimensions):

Italy Monstermap: y91 - y114 => y23
Greece Monstermap: y107 - y123 => y16

Italy WW2 Global map: y-size = y20
Greece WW2 Global map: y-size = y11

So here the WW2 Global map could be more helpful to place cities, landscape and rivers on the Monster Map.

I have only two complaints about the "grand shape" of the Monster Map:

What in any way should be fixed on your map is to create a sea path to the cities Murmansk and Archangelsk. And it is a pity, that the Dutch don´t have the correct place on the map that they need. Giving them some more tiles between Germany and France would be great, as the Dutch were a great civ in history that should not be replaced by Poland (for Poland there is enough place at the Dutch starting location and I would like to add the Dutch and Poland to a future CCM world map). I am aware that you posted an early version of your wonderful map (with some not fitting starting locations for C3C Vanilla) and I appreciate this, as it allows us to give you some input to your great work.

VoIman.me, I don´t have very much experience in creating maps (the biggest modding work here I did, was cutting out the east coast of the US and adding space including the Caspian Sea up to the east of the SOE map), but these would be my next steps in improving the Monster Map:

1. Create a naval passage north to Scandinavia to reach the harbors of Murmansk and Archangelsk.

2. Set cities as coordinates for forming the landscape and the rivers of your map. Here the WW2 Global map can be helpful and for the region of Northern Europe the SOE map.

3. For placing resources on the map, Wolfshade´s big worldmap can be very helpful. The resources placement of this map is based on the Oxford university atlas with some minor changes made for gameplay purposes (please don´t do the settings of navigable rivers of that map for optical reasons). The number of resources of the RARR 180x180 map done by Kal-El are for a game with only 24 civs, not for 31 civs.

For your general thought about a combination of your world map with the RARR mod, you will receive any support you need by me. The civs of the RARR mod in my eyes are a little better suited for a world map (more civs in America) compared to the civs of CCM. On the other side your map could be very suited as a world map for the CCM mod (and many others), too. For a combination with the RARR mod, the range of the RARR should be enlarged to the greater range of the CCM aircraft. In general CCM is concepted for games on bigger maps as it is the case for RARR.

VoIman.me, thank you very much for sharing your great work! :)
We live in an exciting time for modding Civ 3.
Fantastic feedback, keep them coming people.

Thank you.

Please provide some input:

1. Where can I find wolfshade big worldmap?

2. Where can I find SOE map.

3. When you say I give more space to Dutch people, you mean move the rivers so they can have some more space? Can you make clear that point on how can I do that?

As far as resources goes, I started spreading bonus and luxury resources and leave the strategic resources for last.

Strategic resources is the most important element on this aspect and must be placed after extensive thought process.

I have already started improvements and at the end of the week I will publish an update.

I haven't forgot that naval passage north to Scandinavia you said. That's a mistake I made and I am testing the whole north map above Europe and Asia to see that has a proper naval canal.
 
1. Where can I find wolfshade big worldmap?

2. Where can I find SOE map.
After posting, I added the link to the Wolfshade map and attached the biq of the old SOE version (please don´t be irritated by the big amount of landmark terrain in that biq, this is for a special concept I called microzones, that is not needed for your map).
3. When you say I give more space to Dutch people, you mean move the rivers so they can have some more space? Can you make clear that point on how can I do that?
Ideal would be to add some more tiles of land terrain especially at the coast between France and Germany (something I did in the WW2 Global map). I am aware, that the distance of the new Dutch coast to the UK can be problematic. It´s only a dream and I don´t know if it can be realized. Unfortunately in Civ 3 the Dutch are always cheated (starting with their unique unit).
 
After posting, I added the link to the Wolfshade map and attached the biq of the old SOE version (please don´t be irritated by the big amount of landmark terrain in that biq, this is for a special concept I called microzones, that is not needed for your map).

Ideal would be to add some more tiles of land terrain especially at the coast between France and Germany (something I did in the WW2 Global map). I am aware, that the distance of the new Dutch coast to the UK can be problematic. It´s only a dream and I don´t know if it can be realized. Unfortunately in Civ 3 the Dutch are always cheated (starting with their unique unit).
This map will be everybody's dream come true.

What I can do is add some tiles following the blue line as I draw it at the attached image.

The red marking represents the Dutch (The Netherlands).

If we add about 2 tiles from the blue line, the Dutch get about 14 more tiles.

What do you say on this recommendation?

On a positive side, France Belguim and some part of Germany also benefit by getting some more tiles.

By adding these tiles, I will move horizontally England 2-3 tiles west.

We have some room to move horizontally.

That's why I made the map 500 tiles.

We have room to stretch horizontally other parts of the world if we feel they need to.
 

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  • dutch.png
    dutch.png
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