Any Advice On Making Maps?

[Djugashvili]

Well...?

[Hendrik the Great]

First you need a good Atlas that has some detail in it.
The map of the atlas has to be large enough.
Then go to Mercator's CivII Page at http://civ2.sidgames.com
He has a Guide section there in which he also explains how to make decent looking maps.
If that does not help ask here again.

[Djugashvili]

That was useful. Anybody got any more tips?

[Hendrik the Great]

No, really I meant what I said.
But alright:
After you have decided on the atlas map you are going to use decide how big you want your map to be.
Now remember that civ maps are in the horizontal just tile 1, 2, 3, ...and so on.
but in the vertical if you use the same way of creation it will be destorted so you have to dubble its hight. Don't ask, just do.
So if the original is 10cm x 20cm and you want every tile to be 1cm the hight( the y-aisle) has to be 20 tiles high when you set out on the map.

It needs some trying to get it the way you want but that is basicly it.

Then set out and cover everything that's supposed to be land with plains or glaciers so you can see the special recources.
First start out with the coastline. here it is plain counting and cross-checking very often. First go right and then down.
I guess when you go downwards you will go in a strait line so you musy only go down half as what you counted. I.e. if you count 6cm then go down only 3 tiles.

Once all the land and lakes are placed protect the coastline and put in rivers and mountain/hill ranges. Followed by forests, after this the rest.

Make sure the recources are where you want them to be.

Make areas are a not supposed useful as useless as possible with desert, glaciers, hills, mountains and forests..

Don't dispear when it does not work out the first 2 or 3 times. Just keep going.

Wait a minute...(thinking...) you were not being ironic, right? Damn, misunderstanding!

Anyway, I hope now there are absolutly no problems left.

Did the above post make sense? I'm not good at explaining.


[This message has been edited by Hendrik the Great (edited December 26, 1999).]

[Djugashvili]

Yeah, it's great, Hendrik! Spasibo. Your pretty good at this stuff.

And btw, I wasn't trying to sound sarcastic on my last post. Sorry.

------------------
"When You Kill One, It Is A Tragedy. When You Kill 10 Million, It Is A Statistic"
-Comrade Stalin

[Hendrik the Great]

You think I'm good?!?
Yeah, 2 years of trying and trying and internet and guides I found and then again trying and trying and...I think I better shut up now it's getting too late in my timezone. Time to hit the bed.

[Michael Daumen]

One warning about Hendrik's method, it will give you an accurate picture in the strategic window (in the upper right hand corner) but not the game play window. So your playing area might be larger than you realize.

Personally, I like making a grid over the map you are using. Then you have a better handle on the size of map you need in the editor. Then I do a grid-to-grid match up in the big window. This is probable harder than Hendrik's method, but I enjoy looking at the map from the maximum zoom out to get the full effect of terrain and coastline.

Some other notes:

Why does Hendrik recommend filling in the map with glaciers? So you know what areas of the map you haven't gone into to add detail.

And about replacing unused terrain with inhospitable squares, I have heard that the computer only builds cities on grasslands.

[Hendrik the Great]

Michael I have made the map for my 2nd scenario which I am working on the the moment this way. I must say the result looks very good and acurate on both the strategic map window and the map one plays on. I checked that when I zoomed way out. It looked just like the atlas map I used.

But, yes you are right. It is best used for larger maps if one tries to make a small map with this method one might run into some problems in acuracy. However it's relativly easy.

The AI will also build cities on plains and river squares. At least that are the things I noticed when playing.

Cool, I'm a Warlord now...
[This message has been edited by Hendrik the Great (edited December 27, 1999).]

[Allard HS]

And about replacing unused terrain with inhospitable squares, I have heard that the computer only builds cities on grasslands.

True! I filled a map with jungle, swamps, arctic etc. and made it easy to pass, 10 food, 10 trade, 10 shields, but still, the AI wouldn't settle it..