New world map and a problem

[Miroslav]

Hello. This is my brand new world map (91 x 120 = 10920 = max FW map size).
The map is asymmetric: some parts of the world are larger than others to allow more cities (in those particular areas), and more space between them (at least 2 tiles). For example: 6 - 8 cities in Italy, 8 cities in the Pyrenees, 6 - 8 in France... and still not cluttered.
Despite asymmetry it still looks realistic (especially compared to original world map).
It has 64 land areas, which is maximum allowed (yes some maps have more, but it screws up AI and trade).
Possibly too many hill and forest tiles and too little grassland and plains (civ2 map editor complains, but that can be solved during scenario building phase).

And now for my problem:
In the begining I erased all resource squares and I can't bring them back. I tried setting resource seed, copying and pasting between MapEdit and Paint, but nothing brings them back. The only thing that works is replacing terrain in Civ2 Map editor manually to some other terrain and back.
Please help me I don't want to waste endless hours doing this manually!!!!!!

[Boco]

If it's not asking too much, can you post a screenie or two?

As for the resource squares, you could beg Merc to edit CivEngineer. I don't think that Gothmog's Dusty's Merc's MapEdit will help, but if I'm wrong, someone should be correcting me soon. Otherwise, the easiest method is hex-editing, but that's still a pretty tedious task.

[Miroslav]

I do not know how po post a screenshot. Do I have to upload it first somewhere?

[Boco]

That's easiest. I use Photobucket.com myself. Can even use Scenario League.

I'd post one myself, but I'm using funny terrainx.gif's at the moment.

[Miroslav]

ok here goes nothing

[Miroslav]

shot of west europe


aha so now it works!

Please ignore silly tribal names. Btw I'm working on yet another age of sail scenario, and this map is a part of it.

[Miroslav]

View of east asia (note that coastal region is proportionaly bigger than inland).


And north and parts of east and central euro:

(look at scandinavia compared to the rest of europe - this is map asymmetry I was talking about, and remember I squeezed all this into max size FW map)

OK. That's it. No more screenshots (it kind of looks like I'm spamming).

[Miroslav]

Oh, and thanks Boco, but no, merc's MapEdit does not help.

[Miroslav]

Slight update:
New zip file which contains my world map and named "world_a.mp" and same map with suggested city placements (marked with glacier) named "world_b.mp".
World_b has some resources left, and is slightly different in caribbean region. Also most city positions in southern hemisphere are omitted.

[Miroslav]

And a screenie (eastern part of north america, mostly USA):

(this is my last screenshot, I promise)

[Mercator]

Here you go...

I'll have to look into adding this to MapEdit or something, because it's rather annoying, I have to agree.

Did you make that map from scratch or did you start off with the standard world.mp and the edit it?

What image editing software do you use? Just Paint?

For future reference, what I did to restore the resources:
- Save map as bitmap in MapEdit
- Open bitmap in Paint Shop Pro
- save palette in PspPalette format (= plain text)
- open palette in Notepad and swap around the normal and hidden colours
- load new palette into image (maintain indexes)
- reload old palette (nearest colour matching)
- save bitmap
- save bitmap as map again in MapEdit.

[Miroslav]

Thank you very much, Mercator.

About the map, well, this is going to be a long story so here goes:
Late this spring I wanted to create ww2 scenario and I needed a map which would represent both europe and the rest of the world. Also I wanted to have a lot of cities and at least 2-3 free spaces around every city, so I decided in advance that standard world map is out of the question (always felt like it was actually corrupting otherwise brilliant 2194 scenario).
So I started experimeting with maps, mostly modifing existing world maps (especially very realistic "mercator's world map" [i guess yours?]), even resizing them, converting them to bitmaps, separating land masses and filling the space between them, and even copying pieces of one map into another.

(BTW I was and still am using game's map editor, your MapEdit and PSP7).

But I was still dissatisfied with the results: maps looked awkward, pieced together like frankensteins, always some part sticiking out and not fitting in with the other, for example if i resized europe into atlantic, then I had to resize africa, but it came too close to south america, so I had to move south america to the left, but then i had to adjust n.amerca, and so ad infinitum...
So I finally decided that I need to create my own map from scratch. I started experimenting with empty map filled with ocean and just drawing one european region/country such as france or british isles, and then extending it into every direction. In the process I was both using various real atlases and also civilization 2 maps as references.
My main guidelines were:
1. Map shape had to be subordinated to city placement, but if map started to look grotesque then I would forget about the city.
2. Space between cities at least 2 tiles.
3. Economically weak regions could be made smaller, and opposite for economically strong regions.
God only knows how many times I started over and over until I was satisfied with overall Europe map shape. Sometimes when I got bored with Europe, I started similiar process from opposite side of the world: from Australia to India (i figured i'll glue them eventually, well that did't go as planned but i gained valuable experience).
From the start I was filling in hills and mountains but when I lost patience i just made outlines of continents with grassland.
Three big problems plagued project from the start:
1. Overall map dimensions: it was just becoming wider and taller with every revision and I just had to decide: shoud I allow it to breach FW limits or not, so I finally decided not to at the expense of slighlty unrealistic coninents placements and shapes.
2. Positioning Americas in relation to Euro-asian landmass and widths of Atlantic and Pacific (Pacific just HAD to be wider than Atlantic). This was a major pain in the a*se and directly related to problem #1, since the wider the Americas, wider the map, and more space I use for width leaves less for height (it was even more then the obvious because it HAD to be speciffic combination of width x height to get close or equal to 10922 tiles).
3. Proportion and shape of North Africa and Middle East and how it aligns and extends into surrounding land. Litteraly every time I opend map edit I would mess with that, sometimes only that. (You can see in my map that Arabian peninsula is still to wide, and that Africa is slightly moved to the left than it is really).
Placing jungles, forests and other terrain was comparatively easy and done in haste without much prior research (that's why there are too few "fertile" tiles).
Finally, i kept getting back to editing map shape, improving coastal regions, and I just had to stop (I was working on this freaking map from late march until late may, every day for at least 2 hours).
So I drew polar regions out of my head, and stopped improving it. Meanwhile I lost interest for ww2 scenario, and I got no good use for this map (or Civ2 for that matter) so gradually I forgot about it.
Until recently, that is, when my interest in both civ2 and history was revived, especially for an Age of Sail type of scenario.
So that's it, I'm now currently gathering material for my first scenario, and I want to build it on my own map.

So thanks again and a small observation(you forgot to check 'flat' world shape off).

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Miroslav
Thank you very much, Mercator.

No problem.

(especially very realistic "mercator's world map" [i guess yours?])

Nope, not mine. And it doesn't use the Mercator map projection either, as far as I can see, so the name's a bit of a mystery.

Interesting story about how you made the map. So far I've always tried to make maps as accurate and realistic as possible. But while that might look nice, it has its problems, especially with a world map. Europe becomes tiny for one. Your map is a good attempt at fixing that.

So thanks again and a small observation(you forgot to check 'flat' world shape off).

Ah, that's because when converting to a bitmap that information is lost. And I didn't do anything to restore any of that. Starting locations and resource seed will also be gone. But they'll be a lot easier to add back by hand than the resources.

[Miroslav]

One final question please:
Is it possible to remove resources from .sav or .scn files, but without altering any other information, especially about land mass numbers ?
You can see here why.

I think that I have chosen good resource seed for a scenario, but I need to hide resoures such silk and maise(corn) in europe or horses in america (replace buffaloes), and I would still like to experiment with different resources during scenario building.

[Mercator]

I think you should be able to do that with MapCopy. Create a new map with resources hidden as you wish and then import only that map's terrain data into the savegame.

Should be: mapcopy map.mp save.sav -bc -f

Not entirely sure if the terrain info there includes the resources though...

And actually, MapCopy can also restore hidden resources. A lot easier than the steps I used. I think it should work like this:

mapcopy map.mp +rs:CLEAR