Map Blog 2 - France and Iceland

**juvenus** · May 27, 2010, 01:05 PM

Just outstanding!

**Haakon** · May 28, 2010, 12:48 AM

You guys are the best, I predict mod of the century!

**SeekerAfterTruth** · June 25, 2010, 02:11 AM

according to what u have said in the first post u deliberatly positioned the roads between settlements in certain locations, however, i thought that this was impossible with the MED2TW engine? How did u do this? Or have u not really positioned the roads at all and they just ended fairly well where u wanted them?

**Resurrection** · June 25, 2010, 02:35 AM

Originally Posted by SeekerAfterTruth

according to what u have said in the first post u deliberatly positioned the roads between settlements in certain locations, however, i thought that this was impossible with the MED2TW engine? How did u do this? Or have u not really positioned the roads at all and they just ended fairly well where u wanted them?

Roads are very tricky, yes, but not impossible. They also require quite a lot of space in order to be created by the engine and this space is larger than space required for just passing (usually twice the minimum - two pixels in the image files). That can be used to force the roads to be created where I want them to by placing obstacles where I don't want them to while these obstacles still can be passable by characters.

**\Vazul's Ghost/** · June 25, 2010, 03:43 AM

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Roads are very tricky, yes, but not impossible. They also require quite a lot of space in order to be created by the engine and this space is larger than space required for just passing (usually twice the minimum - two pixels in the image files). That can be used to force the roads to be created where I want them to by placing obstacles where I don't want them to while these obstacles still can be passable by characters.

That is extremely intuitive.

Thats what I like about this team, you guys think outside of the box to get as much as you can from the frustrating limitations of the Med2 engine. Hope to see some more of the map soon!

**Hengest** · September 11, 2010, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by \Vazul's Ghost/

That is extremely intuitive.

Thats what I like about this team, you guys think outside of the box to get as much as you can from the frustrating limitations of the Med2 engine. Hope to see some more of the map soon!

We're starting the process of adding PSFs and all settlements and regions are finally done so yes, I expect some map preview soon. We will probably just show a completely finished area though such as Britain and that will give you an idea of what the rest of the map will come to look like when all the PSFs are added and populated

**dmcraanen** · September 11, 2010, 10:18 AM

This and your first blog look awesome. I have never seen such detail and Im certainly going to conquer Iceland no matter what faction I ll play! Here's to hope that everything goes smoothly while continuing this mod!

**dmcraanen** · September 11, 2010, 06:49 PM

Where exactly will the PSF's for Iceland be? Also - because Island does not have a ''capital'' so to speak, what ''region'' will it belong to?

**dominion** · September 12, 2010, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by dmcraanen

Where exactly will the PSF's for Iceland be? Also - because Island does not have a ''capital'' so to speak, what ''region'' will it belong to?

Denmark would be the most appropiate....no? => ignore that, i'm mixing up with greenland

**sumskilz** · September 14, 2010, 04:59 AM

Originally Posted by dmcraanen

Where exactly will the PSF's for Iceland be? Also - because Island does not have a ''capital'' so to speak, what ''region'' will it belong to?

It will now be its own region.

**Walkman810i** · September 14, 2010, 06:02 AM

Originally Posted by sumskilz

It will now be its own region.

Now that's good news

**napoleonic** · September 14, 2010, 07:55 AM

may I ask what is the reason to include iceland? because most of us will find that such isolated island on the edge of the map would be useless.

**Resurrection** · September 14, 2010, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by napoleonic

may I ask what is the reason to include iceland? because most of us will find that such isolated island on the edge of the map would be useless.

It's a bit complicated but I'll try to explain. The reason was that the map is generated from various real-world data (mainly SRTM-30) in chosen projection (Van der Grinten's) and we wanted various things to be in:

- all of Arabic peninsula
- western coast of Africa
- land-pass from Sweden to Finland (all Baltic sea)

In the chosen projection the Iceland just fitted in the map of this chosen span in it's upper left corner (with very slight adjustment to fit it all).

Interestingly enough with the map of our span we include basically all relevant territory for our factions in our timeframe. So with just the exception of Seljuqs which are missing some of their eastern territory we include not only 30 factions but also their whole "spheres of influence". Iceland* may be on the edge of the map but it will still play significant role in BI campaign offering yet another place you can expect Norse raids and if captured profit from it's resources coming from Reykjavik over Faroes to Thurso or Norwegian coast and beyond.

*Arguably Norse sphere of influence was also Greenland and eastern Canada but those places were so remote that it could be hardly considered as relevant as Iceland.