New Map: Pangaea

[AStott]

Brought to you by Kheldar (me) and GauntMan.

No, not as in the Dominions race. Sorry about the name confusion, but I couldn't think what else to call it. This is Pangaea as in the theoretical prehistoric supercontinent. You'll probably see bits and pieces of recognizeable terrain...

This is probably technically still a beta release, but I've played two games on it and a friend has played one, so it seems pretty solid.

It may not be balanced for multi-player.

NOTE: The file size of the attachment is about 3.5 MB.

Any feedback and suggestions are very welcome.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/AStott/Maps/pangaea.jpg

[Foodstamp]

Could call it Rodina. That was the name of the first super continent in world history. Although Rodina looks quite a bit different, and more interesting than Pangaea IMO. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Wauthan]

Hmmm... I just tested the map. While I'm very glad that you shared it I'm afraid that it's not on my personal top ten list. Yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

It's a very beautiful map, and the concept of warfare across a "fused earth" is appealing.

I'm curious why you choose such massive borderlines between the regions. It almost gives the impression of a landscape covered with thick veins, especially since you shade it with red. Your approach works well with the water provinces though.

The map is almost completely free of barriers and chokepoints. Which is logical since the whole concept is a great big continent, but it makes the map feel a bit bland. I would love to see a scenario based on this map where overpowered independant forces are used to "wall off" sections of the map.

[AStott]

Foodstamp: Interesting, I've never heard of Rodinia before. Wikipedia reveals all though, and gives some other possibilities for names. I think I'll definitely be switching sometime in the future. My map really isn't laid out like the "real" Pangaea anyway, so I don't really care too much about that part.

Wauthan: We played around for quite some time on the border lines. A flat line (no shading) doesn't work so well with the map having some areas that are very dark and some that are very light, so we went with the shaded line. The red border was added to help with the contrast, but I just tried taking it off, and it really works just fine without it. I also tried making the land borders just a little narrower and dropping their opacity just a touch, and I think overall it does look better.

You are completely right about the lack of chokepoints. I'm personally a big fan of chokepoints, but I didn't want to just lay down arbitrary ones that didn't match the terrain. We had intended to do a scenario so that we could customize the independants (we'd also thought about customizing the province names). I never thought about using particularly tough independants to create "barriers". That's a very interesting idea, and we'll definitely investigate.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Gandalf Parker]

I recognize that map. That actually IS the map of the real Pangaea which used to exist isnt it? Nicely done.

[Agrajag]

Gandalf Parker said:
I recognize that map. That actually IS the map of the real Pangaea which used to exist isnt it? Nicely done.


A quick search of Google Images turned up this map: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/acolvil/plates/pangaea.jpg
Which doesn't bear much similarity to the one posted here.
Also, the following quote:

My map really isn't laid out like the "real" Pangaea anyway, so I don't really care too much about that part.


Would also lead me to similar conclusions.

[Foodstamp]

Gandalf Parker said:
I recognize that map. That actually IS the map of the real Pangaea which used to exist isnt it? Nicely done.



By geological accounts, I don't think it is an accurate portrayal of the real Pangaea.

Supercontinents had a tendency to be VERY arid. The land shape may be right (been a while since I had geology), but the climate and vegitation, particularly on the eastern part of the continent probably is not.

Pangaea was a harsh place, it killed off a vast amount of marine life and made a significant portion of those species go extinct. It crippled land based organisms and had adverse effects on just about every species of life on the planet.

But lucky for us, Dominions takes place in a universe far far away, so we can sacrifice historic accuracy for fun and gamplay http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[AStott]

Yup, no attempt at historical accuracy here (theoretical or otherwise).

The map was made by taking a high resolution map from NASA's blue marble imagry, grabbing all the continents and slamming them together in some kind of plausible fashion, then doing some PhotoShop "magic" to get rid of the seams.

In retrospect I kind of wish we'd gone with a layout more like the pangaea map linked above, because it might have been a little more interesting than the landmass "blob" that we have here.

Still, I don't think we're going to go back and redo it. It was a pretty fair amount of work...

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I appreciate the work you put into it! Looks very beautiful. I'll be giving it a try later this week.

[Gandalf Parker]

I didnt do an actual comparison to a real Pangaea but I did spot the real-world continents glued together (which is what Pangaea was if anyone is wondering, the world before the continents split). So I mistook it for the real one.

Still a great map. And a good example of what can be done by taking world satellite maps and putting provinces onto them.

[PashaDawg]

Fun map!

[Sleet]

Just downloaded.. will try it out. Always good to try a different sort of map, with no choke points and all, you need different strategies and tactics. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Serenity]

Wow the picture looks just damn beautiful.

Gonna test it asap.

[Sombre]

It's a beautiful map, that's for sure. But the gameplay isn't that great due to lack of chokepoints and clustering of features like deserts and whatnot. It's just a little bit featureless.

Again though, very easy on the eye.

[AStott]

Yeah, I agree, the geography of the map is unfortunate. Still, I'm not sure (given the concept) what I could have done to fix that.

Eh... Oh well... That's why I'm doing my next map all by hand from scratch.

[Morkilus]

I'm looking forward to it!

I don't mind weirdly balanced maps, especially for single-player. I mean, look how many people play Aran, and that's not balanced at all.