Myrddraal's Mapping Essentials

[Muizer]

If you're new to mapping for either Rome:Total War or Medieval 2 Total War

Myrddraal's Mapping Essentials

is a must.

[Uranos]

I guess we all have learned from it

It's really a must!

[deRougemont]

Definitive; thanks for posting the link Muizer.

[Anarchon]

Is it still true that the maximum number of provinces is 200. I wanted to build a map with about 300 to 400. Is this the place to post this query?

[Squid]

In RTW you are capped at 200 provinces, including any used for oceans, which typically mean you have 199 provinces and 1 ocean.

[DarrenTotalWar]

how the hell do i make new land????

[AngryTitusPullo]

What's the RGB color for the sea are in map_regions.tga ? This is for M2TW.

Thanks.

[Aradan]

Maybe ask this on the M2 modding questions forum then? *shrugs*

how the hell do i make new land????

map_heights.tga, you paint some part of it with a shade of grey and voila, you have land.

[SiamWarrior]

- the distance between the centres of any two adjacent regions should not exceed 50 tiles*

*: not doing these things shouldn't cause a crash, but it may cause the AI to mess up.

What exactly happens to the AI ?

I extended my map right up to China with the Trivium Map Editor, it seems to work on the game but after three turns of the game there is a sea of rebels between China and the main factions over in Europe and Africa.

No one seems to want to venture over to China which is really realistic considering it's so far away.

China's feeling all lonely with her 7 provinces and a sea of grey before her up to Babylon.

Siam Warrior

[Aradan]

The AI pathfinding and targetting gets messed up, so China feeling lonely is natural. You may want to add some settlements between China and Middle East/India/wherever, so that you 'guide' the AI by creating a path with those settlements.

[Wolfshadow]

very usefull

[Odoaker]

Nice tutorial!

[Confusicus Maximus]

Sorry if this has been asked (I'm working on a very complicated mod and I just don't have time to read through page after page to see if it was posted later in the thread.) but I just got done reading Myrddraal's post, didn't see a complete list so I was just hoping for a quick list of the dimensions of each map file in relation to each other, ie such and such being twice as large as map_regions. I have followed what was listed and it doesn't work. no error, nothing. it just crashes. Changed the dimensions in the txt to match regions as well. Thanks very much.

[Ramashan]

Its actually the last thing in the tutorial;

Remember the dimensions of the files:
disasters.tga - The same size as map_regions.tga
map_climates.tga - Twice the size of map_regions.tga + one pixel
map_features.tga - The same size as map_regions.tga
map_ground_types.tga - Twice the size of map_regions.tga + one pixel
map_heights.tga - Twice the size as map_regions.tga + one pixel
map_roughness - Twice the size as map_regions.tga.  
map_trade_routes.tga - The same size as map_regions.tga
radar_map1.tga - The same size as map_regions.tga
radar_map2.tga - Twice the size of regions.tga

[Killerbee]

I have had some issues with radar maps, I just always take vanilla size, it works best for me

[Aradan]

Actually the radar images must be the same size as the vanilla ones, and they are auto-stretched by the game. Otherwise you'll have map 'leaks', ie you'll be mouse-overing the empty space on the interface and seeing the names of regions.

[Confusicus Maximus]

Thanks gang, can't believe I missed that, longer I work on this less patience I get, think I need to take a break lol. After I get this to work...

[Confusicus Maximus]

Still CTD, no map.rwm is generated so I would assume its an error with the tga's... But I did follow the instructions at the bottom for resizing the map... I know I'm doing something stupid but I am at a loss

[Aradan]

Are you using -show_err?

What have you changed since the map was loading properly?

[Confusicus Maximus]

Yup I have -show_err on (no error is generated), only thing I have changed is the dimensions in:

desc_terrain.txt

map_climates.tga
map_features.tga
map_ground_types.tga
map_heights.tga
map_regions.tga
map_roughness.tga
map_trade_routes.tga
and the 2 radar map files

The only thing I can think of is the dimensions I used are invalid? I made map_regions 3 times larger, is there a size cap I am unaware of maybe?