Psst ... New resources for scenario makers

[Harlan]

Locutus,
Reason I don't have America maps? I have a wish list of about 6 scenarios I'd most like to make, if I didn't have a real job and could do nothing but make scenarios all day . All of them take place in the Old World somewhere or another, so my focus in collecting maps has been there. There are so many America maps, esp. US maps, that to add those would double the size of the website if I had them all. I'm not up to that, but if someone has maps of the Americas and wants to send them to me, I'll be glad to add them.

Josef,
Bad news. The style of that map looks very familiar. I'm almost 100% sure that I know of that atlas, and in fact have numerous scans from it already on the website. Take a closer look and let me know if there's something you recognize. I'm bummed out, cos that dashes my hopes that there's a whole other excellent atlas out there I didn't know about.

Marquis,
I'd love some of these maps you mention. The satellite imagery combined with elevation and who knows what else data sounds great. Bring it on! I was able to look at the vegetation map as well, but it seems to me to be not nearly the quality of the other image you posted. The categorization seems way over simplified, for instance Turkey having just a few vegetation zones. Even without humans the situation is much more complicated than that, with pockets of different terrain types here and there. I'm sure there are better maps of this. There are some maps on my website that have more detail, for instance.

But hey, that satellite image is fantastic, probably the best I've seen for this purpose, without annoying things like labels getting in the way, or different perspectives for different maps. Gimme gimme gimme! And a world wide elevation map would be even better to have for scenario making purposes.

I hope that Civ3, like CTP and Civ2, will have a map conversion program either made by the company or by a clever fan, so one can shoot in a map scan and spit out a Civ3 map. The maps you've got could boost the accuracy of that even more.

[BeBMan]

Marquis, I use raytracing software at home, with a "built in" 3d landscape generator, but it can only generate fictional landscapes. I read somewhere that some (unfortunately expensive) software packages can read satellite DEM data to create absolutely exact Earth landscapes and maps, but I cannot recall where I read this, therefore my question...

[XarXo]

HEY!!

Great Job!!!

But...

1) The map of languages of Europe (+1500) is the map of the official languages, not all .

2) Where is the 6th continent? Antarctica doesn't have a special space here!!

Some maps...



Note that the Amery Ice Shelf is in the Prydz Sea, is the small gulf in the right sector. This name doesn't appear coz it is russian (I believe).


I also recommend this site, click the antarctica map (the one that is in the page that appears pressing the link) to see it larger.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Harlan
...I was able to look at the vegetation map as well, but it seems to me to be not nearly the quality of the other image you posted. The categorization seems way over simplified...

Yes, it is a very general categorization. However, I'd originally pulled it together because the vegetation classes are more or less as general as CivII terrain types. It does not go into local detail, either, which would be preferable for smaller areas, such as Turkey. I can search for other data. The one problem to expect with detailed information is availability - Not all places have such data. However, for example, if there is a Turkish GIS agency that allows public access to its data, it would be only a small task to convert that into a useable format.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by BeBro
Marquis, I use raytracing software at home, with a "built in" 3d landscape generator, but it can only generate fictional landscapes. I read somewhere that some (unfortunately expensive) software packages can read satellite DEM data to create absolutely exact Earth landscapes and maps, but I cannot recall where I read this, therefore my question...

Sadly, these software packages typically are not affordable for the home PC. Processing real DEM data requires much RAM and the software to do it. A world image such as the one I have has an elevation point every 2 km or so - a 50mb file. The resulting image is shaded from a single point (the virtual sun), and then colored with a satellite image to give it the "real" color scheme. It's good, but does not work any closer than about 1:12,500,000 - around Greece to the Caspian on your monitor. Zooming closer in would require a more detailed image.

[JosefGiven]

Originally posted by Harlan
Josef,
Bad news. The style of that map looks very familiar. I'm almost 100% sure that I know of that atlas, and in fact have numerous scans from it already on the website. Take a closer look and let me know if there's something you recognize. I'm bummed out, cos that dashes my hopes that there's a whole other excellent atlas out there I didn't know about.

Yeah, you have seen it before, mate.

This Roman Economy Map, 180 AD can be found on page 89 of this mightiest of tomes.

Nevertheless, I'll continue to keep an eye on this thread. Although, as I say, the main maps are two-page spread big muthas that won't fit onto my scanner, each page does have several smaller inset maps with more obscure, quirky information. So if you do ever need an obscure political/resource/whatever map, this book probably has something like it, as you probably know.

Chances are, though, that this thread will slip off page one into the dark, ne'er explored, uncharted regions of page two and even further. If and when that happens, know that I'll always be on stand-by to provide scanned map support at josefgiven@hotmail.com

I hope that Civ3, like CTP and Civ2, will have a map conversion program either made by the company or by a clever fan, so one can shoot in a map scan and spit out a Civ3 map. The maps you've got could boost the accuracy of that even more.

Yeah, me too. Quite how many hours of work a utility like that would save doesn't bear thinking about.

All the best,

Josef

[Harlan]

Phew - close call, I just saved this thread from that dreaded page 2 oblivion!

I do hope I can find a new home for it soon, or else the only people to know of the website will be the few who saw this thread.

XarXo,
I don't have Antarctica maps cos let's face it, there aren't a ton of Antartica-related scenarios. Has there in fact ever been one - I'm curious.

Marquis,
I wouldn't worry too much about the vegetation stuff. Like I said, I already have some decent stuff up. But if you come across better, please let me know.

I still would very much like your satellite and DEM imagery. Could you email me some of that? 50 MB is pretty whopping, but if you were to cut it down to just the Old World, and then save it as a .jpg, I'm sure it would be much smaller. Esp. as it could be broken into pieces - I can deal with about 5 MB max at a time. Elevation data shaded from a single point isn't ideal. What would be much better is that data presented in typical topological map form, with 1000 meters, 2000 meters, etc marked off (or feet - you get my point). I already have a shaded relief map of the Old World that I haven't put up yet, though it would be nice to have one that exactly matched the other map data. Can you also get that or convert it to different projections?

Josef,
You may stand behind your "mightiest of tomes", but I'm quite a fan of the Hammond Atlas of World History. I think that one compares very well with the Times Atlas.

[Waku]

Check this out:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-p

it's worth it! (imho)

[izmircali]

Does anyone know how resources will work exactly? I saw some info that if you only have one resource square of say horses and you decide to trade it, then you won't have that resource. So is it that if you have one square you have unlimited amounts of that you do acquire like 1 horse per turn per horse squares you have and you can stockpile or trade set amounts or certain units require certain amounts?

[BeBMan]

Waku, your link is excellent

izmircali, no offense, but you are probably in the wrong thread? Or simply start a new one...

[CapTVK]

Whoa, these are some impressive sets of maps I've seen here!

Another good source for maps is the National Geographic MAPS edition . This edition comes on 8 CD-Roms! and has some well scanned maps in various shapes and sizes. I'll see if i can find something nice.

Topnotch job, Harlan! :b

[CobraA1]

Originally posted by BeBro
Marquis, I use raytracing software at home, with a "built in" 3d landscape generator, but it can only generate fictional landscapes. I read somewhere that some (unfortunately expensive) software packages can read satellite DEM data to create absolutely exact Earth landscapes and maps, but I cannot recall where I read this, therefore my question...

Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq

Sadly, these software packages typically are not affordable for the home PC. Processing real DEM data requires much RAM and the software to do it. A world image such as the one I have has an elevation point every 2 km or so - a 50mb file. The resulting image is shaded from a single point (the virtual sun), and then colored with a satellite image to give it the "real" color scheme. It's good, but does not work any closer than about 1:12,500,000 - around Greece to the Caspian on your monitor. Zooming closer in would require a more detailed image.

Here's a nice piece of terrain-editing software that can read some forms of DEM. It also supports BMPs and a few other file formats. Best of all, it doesn't cost a dime. It's amazing what you'll find if you look hard enough .

http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/software.html

[Harlan]

Waku,
Neat link, though I knew of it before. I'm not gonna add satellite images from there just yet though, cos I'm hoping Marquis will come through on his.

Iz,
While your question does appear off topic to this thread, I'll make a stab at an answer. In the horse example, if you're keeping the 1 horse resource to yourself, that should enable you to build units needing horses anywhere. If you've got 2, you can trade one away. Anything over that would be gravy. However, they've also said the resources can disappear after they've been used up. Plus new ones can be discovered in territory you already have explored, if you're working that land.

What would be really cool is if resources get used up faster if they're being used faster. For instance, if you're using that one horse to build lots of units it should be used up faster than if you're using it to only build one unit. If that's the case, then you can never have enough strategic resources. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part...

CapTVK,
Man alive! If you could send me maps from the National Geographic stuff, that would be beyond amazing. NG is great at making historical maps that show things like trade, roads, religion, culture, etc... I'd love to have that on my site! Is there any kind of index you could send me so I could see what the maps are of, and maybe there are some serious gaps I could point out that especially need filling.

[Darkknight]

Wow! Great work Harlan

If you give me a grey-scale height map I can turn it into a 3D map for you in blender.

http://www.blender.nl

A freeware 3D modelling software. Most people say it's better then any commercial 3D package you can get.

Plus it's just 2 mb big

[CobraA1]

I tried Blender several times, but I could never get used to the interface .