Guide to the ETW map

[uanime5]

According to a post by CraigTW CA's map modding tool is 3DS Max. Also they didn't try to stop mapping but the map they needed to use is one that's hard to mod.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...45#post9538645

It may be beneficial to ask CraigTW to explain the parts of mapping we don't understand.

[taw]

It may be beneficial to ask CraigTW to explain the parts of mapping we don't understand.

Good luck with that.

What we need is any of these, in order of preference:

• proper modding tools
• their conversion script from some sensible format (3ds max or whatever) and source files for the map (or if they won't give us sources for the real map, at least something simple we can use to create entirely new campaign)
• proper documentation for all formats
• if none of the above, we need someone to make a few small changes to the map (extra settlement, extra region, move border etc.), run build process on all of them, publish end result, and we can figure it out from there

I doubt we'll see much map modding without 1 or 2.
3 or 4 would work only with a huge amount of community effort, and while it might have worked two years ago, these days community seems rather unmotivated due to persistent lack of CA's support.

[alhoon]

Well pathfinding is baked on the map these days. Now, that would REALLY be hard on total convertion mods. Actually changing the place of a settlement would need different pathfinding.
CA needs a better engine. Let's hope the next CA's game would use a "map-mod" friendlier way, of calculating paths instead of saving them on the map.

[uanime5]

I don't think 1 is very likely because if CA uses 3DS Max they're not going to make a program so that modders without 3DS Max can create new maps.

2 could be possible but even if we had a conversion script mapping will be limited to those who new how to use 3DS Max. Though it would be a major boost for mapping.

3 would be very useful, if only to let people know what is required for mapping and how everything works.

4 technically we have that in the form of RTI campaigns which use different versions of the American theatre. Though the Warpath DLC could be used CA put the pathfinding in a strange format so you couldn't compare it to the other Americas theatres or use it in the vanilla ETW.

I also feel that mapping won't be as varied as it was in M2TW simple because it is now so difficult. Most likely any mapping mods will focus more on adding more towns/ports/resources to existing regions and occasionally settlements to regions that don't have settlements. If there's sufficient community support it may become possible to to add pathfinding nodes to unplayable regions so the player can walk on them but making completely new maps is very unlikely.

[taw]

> 2 could be possible but even if we had a conversion script mapping will be limited to those who new how to use 3DS Max. Though it would be a major boost for mapping.

There's a huge difference between 0 and 1 person in modding community being able to do something.

For example currently there seems to be exactly one person with working luac decompiler (me),
and I can do small requests for decompiling from a lot of people.

Even if just a few people have 3DS Max, it would make a huge difference.

> 4 technically we have that in the form of RTI campaigns which use different versions of the American theatre. Though the Warpath DLC could be used CA put the pathfinding in a strange format so you couldn't compare it to the other Americas theatres or use it in the vanilla ETW.

Different campaign are far too different to figure out the format based on them. We need tiny modifications that change only a single small thing to figure things out.

> I also feel that mapping won't be as varied as it was in M2TW simple because it is now so difficult. Most likely any mapping mods will focus more on adding more towns/ports/resources to existing regions and occasionally settlements to regions that don't have settlements. If there's sufficient community support it may become possible to to add pathfinding nodes to unplayable regions so the player can walk on them but making completely new maps is very unlikely.

Even being able to add a few towns and regions would be huge relative to what we have now.

[alhoon]

You know, it doesn't have to happen in a week. Don't dispair map gurus.

One step at a time and it would all be hailed with cheers.
- walking on unplayable regions. That would make possible the use of Fortes map of Africa and S.America. Sure, no settlements there but it would be great.
- Adding settlements to regions that don't have them + walking on unplayable. So, that would make possible to add settlements and resources in Saudi Arabia, Latin America, those islands in the trade theatres etc. Huge one.
- Breaking up regions. Finally France and Spain would be more than 1 region as many, many people have been crying about. If there's a way, I'm sure people would pour there the hours/days/weeks needed to do that.

Any one of the above would be great. All of the above (in a year or even two) would make possible a really cool ETW map with Brazil, SubSaharan Africa, settlements in the trade theatres, Realistic France/Spain, etc. People would work hard to make those happen.

[Primergy]

Interesting, i already thought that they are using 3ds max, atleast for the farmtile templates. Since i own a version i could give a hand if needed, though it won't be of much use as long as we don't understand the pathfinding.

[uanime5]

You know, it doesn't have to happen in a week. Don't dispair map gurus.

One step at a time and it would all be hailed with cheers.
- walking on unplayable regions. That would make possible the use of Fortes map of Africa and S.America. Sure, no settlements there but it would be great.
- Adding settlements to regions that don't have them + walking on unplayable. So, that would make possible to add settlements and resources in Saudi Arabia, Latin America, those islands in the trade theatres etc. Huge one.
- Breaking up regions. Finally France and Spain would be more than 1 region as many, many people have been crying about. If there's a way, I'm sure people would pour there the hours/days/weeks needed to do that.

Any one of the above would be great. All of the above (in a year or even two) would make possible a really cool ETW map with Brazil, SubSaharan Africa, settlements in the trade theatres, Realistic France/Spain, etc. People would work hard to make those happen.

Alhoon here is a more likely modding progression.

1. Figure out how to add towns/ports/resources to existing regions.
2. Figure out how to add settlements to regions without settlements, such as wilderness regions.
3. Figure out how to break up existing regions.
4. Figure out how to add pathfinding nodes to unplayable regions so they can be walked on.

They're listed in this order because I predict that adding pathfinding nodes to make unplayable regions playable will be far more difficult than changing the borders of existing an region to turn it into two or more regions. My reasoning is that CA made the RTI, Americas theatre, and Warpath all with the same theatre but with different regions.

[alhoon]

Yeap. I just noted how each of those steps would be celebrated, not the order.

[T.C.]

According to a post by CraigTW CA's map modding tool is 3DS Max. Also they didn't try to stop mapping but the map they needed to use is one that's hard to mod.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...45#post9538645

It may be beneficial to ask CraigTW to explain the parts of mapping we don't understand.

I've known that the last two years, they wrote about it in the developer blogs before Empire was released

CA needs a better engine. Let's hope the next CA's game would use a "map-mod" friendlier way, of calculating paths instead of saving them on the map.

By "better" you mean more mod-friendly? Not going to happen - if CA want to keep high-quality games on the market then this is the future. The days of modding games without developer support are winding down - advanced technology and simple build methods do not go hand in hand.

For example currently there seems to be exactly one person with working luac decompiler (me),
and I can do small requests for decompiling from a lot of people.

But don't take that as a bad thing. Although I'm just about the only one able to use your decompiled stuff, I have put it to great use. And I'll be writing a proper tutorial on UI editing soon, so there may be more demand soon (I doubt it, but would you put a value on one mod that does things with your files that have never been done before?)

[alhoon]

By "better" you mean more mod-friendly? Not going to happen - if CA want to keep high-quality games on the market then this is the future. The days of modding games without developer support are winding down - advanced technology and simple build methods do not go hand in hand.

Why can't advanced tech and simple build methods go hand in hand? Civ5 did it!

[uanime5]

I was planning to compare the episodic_map pathfinding.esf files to each other to look for similarities in the hope of identifying individual regions when I noticed the 'episode_one' folder. In this folder I found a regions.esf that I thought was for RTI episode 1 but upon checking it I realised that it had additional regions such as Crete and Cyprus. Unfortunately there wasn't a starpos for this regions.esf so I was wondering if anyone had tried making a startpos for it.

As this regions.esf already has all the boundaries and areas calculated it could be used to help us understand how to break up regions.

[PietroMicca]

I was planning to compare the episodic_map pathfinding.esf files to each other to look for similarities in the hope of identifying individual regions when I noticed the 'episode_one' folder. In this folder I found a regions.esf that I thought was for RTI episode 1 but upon checking it I realised that it had additional regions such as Crete and Cyprus. Unfortunately there wasn't a starpos for this regions.esf so I was wondering if anyone had tried making a startpos for it.

As this regions.esf already has all the boundaries and areas calculated it could be used to help us understand how to break up regions.

"Grandi menti all'unisono" (Italian idiom)
"Great minds in unison"

I have had the same idea. I have collect all data about the first episode in an excel file (using esf editor). I thought it would have been very helpful, but it haven't been till now. I hope that comparison will help us, but there's a large difference in between the first and the other episodes. Values are already many in numbers in pathfinding episode 1, but these are numberless in the others. I'm afraid it will take too much time, but it seems the only way.

[uanime5]

Have you tried using winmerge? It highlights the differences between two documents so you can easily see the difference between the ep1, ep2, and ep3 pathfinding.

Also I've finished comparing the episode one regions.esf to the normal one and here is a list of all the extra regions it contains and the ones it's missing.

Extra regions
belize
brandenburg
british_guyana
connecticut
crete
cyprus
dalmatia
delaware_and_new_jersey
denmark_straight
el_hasa
hessen
lahore
louisiana
massachusetts
mecklenburg
miskito_coast
multan
new_hampshire
north_carolina
nunavut
oudh
podolia
puerto_rico
schleswig_holstein
south_carolina
suriname
swiss_confederation
travancore
turkmenistan
tuscany
wallachia
westphalia

Missing regions
atlantic_ocean_se
atlantic_ocean_sw
brazil_coast
carolinas
central_italy
dutch_guyana
east_indies
great_lakes
greenland_sea
impassable
lower_louisiana
new_england
punjab
rhineland
straits_of_mozambique
west_pommerania
wilderness_arabia
wilderness_canada
wilderness_great_plains
wilderness_hudsonsbay
wilderness_khiva
wilderness_mexico
wilderness_tejas

Obviously some regions are the same in both but have different names, while other have been combined or split such as Louisiana and Carolinas respectively. If I can make a startpos that uses this regions.esf I'll upload it.

[PietroMicca]

I have noticed, but I mean difference in values and difference in pathfinding. This is more important I suppose. In fact episode 1 pathfinding contains vertices only inside theatre boundaries. But maybe it will be more useful continuing comparison in both direction (pathfinding-regions).

Anyway your list of differences remember me another thing for my historical research.

[ForteS]

I've noticed something interesting in the episode-one regions.esf , all regions are set to: Global position -1 (sea).
Edit: virginia and delaware_and_new_jersey are set to 0, that is what? Plus aren't those the two regions of episode one campaign?

Edit2: I've converted the regions.esf of the episode_one to xml and there are two more folders being extracted that in the normal regions.esf: slots and area. Also for some reason I can't draw the map of the regions.xml of episode one.

[PietroMicca]

I've noticed something interesting in the episode-one regions.esf , all regions are set to: Global position -1 (sea).
Edit: virginia and delaware_and_new_jersey are set to 0, that is what? Plus aren't those the two regions of episode one campaign?

Edit2: I've converted the regions.esf of the episode_one to xml and there are two more folders being extracted that in the normal regions.esf: slots and area. Also for some reason I can't draw the map of the regions.xml of episode one.

not so interesting there's only one theatre (ID 0) in episode 1. Delaware and Virginia are part of this theatre. More interesting are folders slots and area.

[uanime5]

The 'episodic_map' folder is RTI episode 1, 'episode_one' is a completely different map. Like RTI ep 1 it only has 3 settlements but the third settlement is in Delaware, rather than Pennsylvania. The format of this esf is also different to the other region.esf so I suspect it was an early version of the campaign map.

The slots and areas folders are due to an update by Taw to make it easier to mod specific parts of each region. This will happen in any region.esf file you convert.

Fortes -1 is used for the sea, impassible regions, and wilderness. So any region without a settlement is set to -1.

Anyone I'm going to try to make a startpos for the 'episodic_map' regions.esf using the starpos for 'episode_one'. Adding the extra regions won't be too difficult, the HLCIS entries will be more difficult as they need to correspond to the number of areas and regions (which will be different for a lot of regions), and I hope I don't need to do anything with the region boundaries (unsure how to check them).

UPDATE: the normal regions.esf has more region boundaries than the episode one version, so you can't easily copy one set of files to another campaign. Though this isn't a major problem it means the conversion will take longer.

[TheGeat]

Nice to see someone is still working on understanding the maps. Thanks

[MathiasOfAthens]

Good luck with that.

What we need is any of these, in order of preference:

• proper modding tools
• their conversion script from some sensible format (3ds max or whatever) and source files for the map (or if they won't give us sources for the real map, at least something simple we can use to create entirely new campaign)
• proper documentation for all formats
• if none of the above, we need someone to make a few small changes to the map (extra settlement, extra region, move border etc.), run build process on all of them, publish end result, and we can figure it out from there

I doubt we'll see much map modding without 1 or 2.
3 or 4 would work only with a huge amount of community effort, and while it might have worked two years ago, these days community seems rather unmotivated due to persistent lack of CA's support.

Its more like the actual complicated procedure necessary in modding the map. Its so hard to learn that most people dont even try to learn due to the sheer difficulty. The text and bin files were so much easier to learn in Med2.