New world map

[Torvak]

Ok here (http://ilabws13.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~mai03gex/world2.zip) it is.

This one is fully compatible to the existing world map. So you can just replace that one and use the existing world.map and worldwar.map with it. For bandwith reason and the poor folks with 56k modems i didn't use any filters or dithering effects yet. So while it's a bit ugly that way it's only 2.4MB compressed.

For the eye piercing blue of the oceans you have to thank Leif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Also for the neat graphics in it. I hope you dont mind i used them.

I don't consider this finished yet so any suggestions are welcome.

http://ilabws13.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~mai03gex/Screen01.JPG

[ March 01, 2004, 17:08: Message edited by: Torvak ]

[Wauthan]

Hot damn! You're freaking machine you are. Now please do the Cirlani map http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

And my download speed was 400k/s http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif !

[tinkthank]

Hey nice map. Since I have to leave very soon, I only briefly glanced at it, but it seems great, don't know what you mean by "ugly", although if you were to "dither" it, I wouldnt mind a higher speed DL Version.

If you were ever to work on that map again, could you consider making the water province borders tangible (or is that intentional)? There appears to be very very few very very large water provinces. Otherwise, looks really tasty, thank you.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Torvak:
For the eye piercing blue of the oceans you have to thank Leif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Also for the neat graphics in it. I hope you dont mind i used them.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">*chuckles* Not at all - I got them from a clip-art site myself.

[Torvak]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
If you were ever to work on that map again, could you consider making the water province borders tangible (or is that intentional)? There appears to be very very few very very large water provinces. Otherwise, looks really tasty, thank you. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Water province borders will surely come.

Btw Illwinter, any chance you can add some stuff to the mapstuff.xcf? I'm totally uncreative so i depend on that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Norfleet]

Wow. Now that is what I call totally awesome.

[PDF]

It's MapDay today, very nice ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
Wauthan, beat you, got 542 k/s, the machines at Dresden Uni look in good shape http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Norfleet]

Noticed there are still areas where the terrain graphics don't match up with the actual terrain flags still, such as forest provinces with no trees, trees with no forest, and similar occurrences with mountains.

[Torvak]

Yes i know, this was done intentionally. If you look, many provinces have the forest flag. For instance all the islands between asia and australia are small province, forest, mountain. So the map would be covered with trees if every province that has that flag would get trees.

[ March 01, 2004, 19:27: Message edited by: Torvak ]

[Norfleet]

The downside is that while the map appears less cluttered with excess trees, the incongruity between the terrain flags, and what's depicted on the map, makes it hard to use the map to gauge strategic movements. Wouldn't hurt to put at least one tree to give us a warning.

[ March 01, 2004, 19:38: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Torvak]

Ok tomorrow you get some more trees. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

And that ocean blue has to be darkened.

[ March 01, 2004, 20:13: Message edited by: Torvak ]

[Norfleet]

You may also wish to check out the mountains: Provinces with the mountain flag should almost certainly have actual mountains in them, or at least a sizeable rock, whereas provinces devoid of the mountain flag should not have large mountains running prominently down their center.

[Torvak]

Well i guess i'll change the .map file in some cases.

I just darkened the water a bit, in that process the clip arts in the oceans vanished and it's another 700k less.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Torvak:
Well i guess i'll change the .map file in some cases.

I just darkened the water a bit, in that process the clip arts in the oceans vanished and it's another 700k less. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you want them, I could send you the original files I used, and how to emboss them as I'd done.

[Torvak]

If you want them, I could send you the original files I used, and how to emboss them as I'd done. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No thank you, at least for now. Have to do some other things first, like the dreaded ocean borders.

Btw as the gimp expert, do you know if there is a way to make the border lines thinner? They are seperate on one layer and only one color.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Torvak:
[QUOTE] Btw as the gimp expert, do you know if there is a way to make the border lines thinner? They are seperate on one layer and only one color. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm hardly an expert - but try "select -> choose by colour" followed by "select -> shrink" and then CTRL-i and CTRL-x. You might also want to try and use "select -> feather" instead or together with "select -> shrink" to make the edges of the borders softer.

[Torvak]

Ok new Version is up. Now every territory should show the features coresponding to its flags. Please report any errors.
I added ocean borders. Though now some neighbours don't look quite right, i'd say that's only a minor problem.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Torvak:
Please report any errors.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">.ZIP is missing a .map file ...

EDIT: btw, map looks much better now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ March 02, 2004, 16:54: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Torvak]

I didn't put in the .map file on purpose. Mine are all edited to some point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif so just get them from the Illwinter site if you don't have them by now.

[Saber Cherry]

The map is pretty. It reminds me of elementary-school geography/social studies textbook maps. But it's missing resources...

Putting icons for bars of gold, bars of silver, cows, deer, lumber, wheat, salt... hmm, maybe copper, corn, rice, spices, and silk would be fun! Seals, gems, and maybe paper, too. Civ 2 or MOM might be good icon sources...

If I still had an elementary-school geography book, it might be fun to scan it in=)

[Arryn]

I have replaced the first draft of Torvak's world map on my downloads page with the latest Version. A new thumbnail is shown, and the .RAR file contains the official .map files from IW.

[Torvak]

Now i only need Norfleets stamp of approval http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Norfleet]

And I hereby bestow upon thee the Norfleet Seal of Approval.

This map is totally awesome!

[Pirateiam]

Having trouble starting a game with the world map. I downloaded the latest Version and also updated the latest world.map from Illwinter. When I select the map from the list it just hangs and freezes my computer. I double checked the world.map file and it seems to point to the correct tga file. I also have loaded the tga file and that is not corrupt. I am probably missing somethin obvious any help would be appreciated. thanks.

[ March 03, 2004, 01:48: Message edited by: Pirateiam ]

[Arryn]

Using the files from the .RAR on my web site, I just tested and it works fine for me. I did notice, though, that there was a distinct delay after selecting the map that I had not seen before. On my 2.1GHz AMD system it did take several seconds before it moved on, after selecting the map. With the original IW world map it was less than a second.

[ March 03, 2004, 02:05: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Arryn:
I did notice, though, that there was a distinct delay after selecting the map that I had not seen before.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've seen the same, and I assume that this is simply because the new image-file is a compressed tga while the old was uncompressed.

[Torvak]

Will test it with an uncompressed tga right after breakfast.

[Torvak]

Ok try this. (http://ilabws13.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~mai03gex/world_uncompressed_tga.zip)

Interesting the tga is now 39MB but zip still gets it down to 2.6MB.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Torvak:
Ok try this. (http://ilabws13.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~mai03gex/world_uncompressed_tga.zip)

Interesting the tga is now 39MB but zip still gets it down to 2.6MB. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's really just to be expected, as the map consists of large areas of uniform colour, which compress easily both with zip's compression algorithm and with targa's internal compression.

Incidentally, does anyone know of a more efficent general-purpose compression tool than bzip2?

[Torvak]

I prefer RAR for the better compression than Zip but as we've seen not everyone has that.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Torvak:
I prefer RAR for the better compression than Zip but as we've seen not everyone has that. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">RAR is nice, but I find that it's only slightly more efficent than zip. Using maximal compression on the 11Mb newworld.tga zip compresses it to 7.3 MB, rar to 6.8MB and bzip2 to 5.1MB

Admittedly, image files isn't really what the compression alogrithms are optimized for, but I've seen the same trend in general.

[tinkthank]

You have done a truly excellent job. Thank you!

It pains me to even want to mention the tiniest of requests by such work, but should you ever consider it: Quite a few of the provinces look like they will be forests (because covered in trees) but are flagged plains or farm lands, etc. -- of course it is easy to just hit "i", but I was wondering: is this for balance reasons or is it unintentional?

[Torvak]

Hmm which province do you mean? It should now have the correct graphics for all the provinces if i didn't miss any.

[tinkthank]

Sorry was away for a few days. I hope I downloaded the right map Version? I dont know how computers work, but the .tga has 5497 KB and the world.map has 32 kb.

Here are some examples:
201: Farm Lands
198: Plains
172: Swamps, Farm Lands
235: Forest, Mountains

well a bunch more, is that enough?
Ok do I need to update the .tga or the .map?
thanks a lot

[Torvak]

Blech http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Well it will be fixed tomorrow.

[tinkthank]

sorry -- no rush or anything sir, you are doing a great job.
Would you like me to "proof" it for you? I could just go through all the provinces and hit "i" and see what they say....?

[Torvak]

Fixed. In addition the zip contains an uncompressed tga now. That should speed it up when creating a new game.

[tinkthank]

Torvak, my deepest gratitude. You rock!

If you don't mind, I have tried in what follows to list a fairly comprehensive (if not systematically done) list of inconsistencies still remaining within your most excellent world map. Forgive me if this is annoying, already mentioned, or just plain wrong:

18: Farm lands
14: plains
34: Forest Mountain
47: Forest Mountain
51: Forest Mountain
69: Forest Mountain
84: Forest
235: Forest Mountain
289: Forest (well ok, but looks like mostly plains or waste)
283: Mountain (there is no mountain icon, and one must ask: Scotland: Mountains?? Mountains in Scotland where??)
333: Mountain
248: Forest Mountain
182: Forest Mountain
150: Forest Mountain
260: Forest Mountain
327: Forest Mountain

(All of west-central Africa: it's all labeled "forest", which is fine by me, but on a "farm lands" background -- is that intentional?)

Well I hope this is helpful. Best to you!

EDIT: oh is there also anyway to make your great map list as "World Map" instead of "Map with XXX provinces"? NOt that this is important, but would be kind of like icing on a very nice cake.

[ March 07, 2004, 12:21: Message edited by: tinkthank ]

[iceboy]

It seems to me that the areas of hawaii and polynesia have no seas. Anyone else notice this???

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
EDIT: oh is there also anyway to make your great map list as "World Map" instead of "Map with XXX provinces"? NOt that this is important, but would be kind of like icing on a very nice cake. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's not a part of Torvak's map. The Torvakian world map is simply a .tga that is compatible with all .maps based on Illwinter's original World map. It simply replaces the more bloated and ugly one. Making it say a different name is a function of editting the .map file, and has nothing to do with what Torvak is doing.

[Torvak]

Originally posted by iceboy:
It seems to me that the areas of hawaii and polynesia have no seas. Anyone else notice this??? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right, but this isn't Axis & Allies where every island has a surrounding sea zone.

[Norfleet]

Mmm. Axis and Allies. There's an idea, maybe I should convert THAT map...

[Torvak]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Mmm. Axis and Allies. There's an idea, maybe I should convert THAT map... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have thought about it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[iceboy]

Originally posted by Torvak:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by iceboy:
It seems to me that the areas of hawaii and polynesia have no seas. Anyone else notice this??? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right, but this isn't Axis & Allies where every island has a surrounding sea zone. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">so how can i change this so that they do???

[iceboy]

[ March 10, 2004, 21:12: Message edited by: iceboy ]

[iceboy]

Even better try to convert the europa universalis II or hearts of iron world maps from paradox entertainment!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[iceboy]

Originally posted by Torvak:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by iceboy:
It seems to me that the areas of hawaii and polynesia have no seas. Anyone else notice this??? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right, but this isn't Axis & Allies where every island has a surrounding sea zone. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">hey torvak how would i go about changing this so that these do have sea zones in the word file?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by iceboy:
Even better try to convert the europa universalis II or hearts of iron world maps from paradox entertainment!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think the HOI World Map probably exceeds the maximum number of provinces allowed in Dominions II. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


hey torvak how would i go about changing this so that these do have sea zones in the word file? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You don't. To do this would require adding extra white dots, which would garble the existing province numbers and require reworking the entire .map.

[ March 11, 2004, 23:02: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I think the HOI World Map probably exceeds the maximum number of provinces allowed in Dominions II.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It does, by a factor of over 2:1.

[Torvak]

Originally posted by iceboy:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Torvak:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by iceboy:
It seems to me that the areas of hawaii and polynesia have no seas. Anyone else notice this??? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right, but this isn't Axis & Allies where every island has a surrounding sea zone. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">hey torvak how would i go about changing this so that these do have sea zones in the word file? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As Norfleet pointed out it's not done with just two clicks. The game/editor looks in the .tga for white dots (RGB all 255) starting bottom left corner and going up line for line. Now if you add or remove any dots it screws up everything above it (and to some degree below).

The solution would be to write a program that inserts the info into the .map file and changes all province numbers and connections. Or do it manually.

[Torvak]

Originally posted by tinkthank:

18: Farm lands
14: plains
34: Forest Mountain
47: Forest Mountain
51: Forest Mountain
69: Forest Mountain
84: Forest
235: Forest Mountain
289: Forest (well ok, but looks like mostly plains or waste)
283: Mountain (there is no mountain icon, and one must ask: Scotland: Mountains?? Mountains in Scotland where??)
333: Mountain
248: Forest Mountain
182: Forest Mountain
150: Forest Mountain
260: Forest Mountain
327: Forest Mountain

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fixed

Originally posted by tinkthank:

(All of west-central Africa: it's all labeled "forest", which is fine by me, but on a "farm lands" background -- is that intentional?)
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didn't really put that as farmland background but for some colorization. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Originally posted by tinkthank:

Well I hope this is helpful. Best to you!
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It is.

[Arryn]

Thanks, Torvak! I've updated the copy I'm hosting on my site.

[tinkthank]

Hey thanks tons.
Could someone tell me if it is possible for a non-programmer like myself to change it so that maps read "World Map" or "Nice Map Whatever" instead of "Map with XXX provinces"?

[Torvak]

Open world.map with the wordpad and change the line beginning with #dom2title to whatever you want.

[Saber Cherry]

Edit the .map file with Wordpad or Notepad.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">-- Title and image file
#dom2title A map with 339 provinces.</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...change that line to somethning else=)

[tinkthank]

Thanks. I need to learn these things. Afraid of doing damage.

[Kristoffer O]

We are updated as well. Not mentioned in the news though.