Google Earth and RTR map development

[Master Nikolaos]

Hey guys, I figured a lot of you already know about Google Earth and how it provides exellent satellite imaging and topography(at least for the scope of it). I was browsing through the features and happened to look at the heights options. I changed the heights to become more realistic and I got to see pretty much every little slope which you can possibly find on earth. The end result of this experiment was that when I when to places like italy,etc in the program, you could really get a nice view/ feeling for places like the Alps. Words can only describe so much, so take a look at it yourself:
Italy

The Alps

Alps from Marseilles

Mount Vesuvius

More Alps



The resolution gets a bit better than that, but I just wanted to show you a quick example of the images. If it hasn't been brought up before, is there any chance RTR could make use of Google Earth as it is(even though I don't know how far off the map development may be). It could be a boost, you know

[hsimoorb]

A beleive BDH has some sort of masterplan involving secret russian spy sattalite images, cray supercomputers, and endless toil editing .tga files one by one. Have you seen his work yet? I would be fooled if you showed me google earth and BDH's maps wide by side.

[bdh]

A beleive BDH has some sort of masterplan involving secret russian spy sattalite images, cray supercomputers, and endless toil editing .tga files one by one. Have you seen his work yet? I would be fooled if you showed me google earth and BDH's maps wide by side.

originally that was me, but I stepped down(for a long fairly boring list of reasons) and found a more talented replacement: muizer(who gets things done)


Russians? Who told you that

but for your information, RTR is drawing from the same data sources that google earth undoubtedly uses for its height files. you can see the basics of how it is done by clicking on the link in my sig. getting a 'perfect' map (like the one seen in the pictures) can be difficult though

[Master Nikolaos]

Haven't seen much of the latest development of the map, so that's why I'm suggesting the idea of using Google Earth. I've asked for some images of how it's going, but last I checked, I got dismised. Not that I care about the dismisal(since I know RTR wants to keep everything underwraps to avoid the hype), but it would be nice to see the work in progress.

[Dark89]

Ok, i'll show you some highly WIP pics of the map as it is now:

[Master Nikolaos]

Wow, that is indeed a pretty nice job. I like the way its looking so far. The terrain heights look really polished(even if the map is still a WIP).

[vizi]

Looks really nice so far!

[Maximus Lazero]

And thus, I was presented with the ONLY reason why I should get Barbarian Invasion....

[Captian Marcus Cornelius]

I like that projection it realy cuts down on the waste areas of the map especial in Africa although I’m worried about the prevalence of the large size provinces in this map like in Arabia and northern Europe

[Master Nikolaos]

Well, if you think about it, areas like the middle east and northern Europe were still pretty rural during the republican era. Sure there were a lot of tribes and people inhabiting both of the lands mentioned above, but there is really an important factor over "influential" cities, normally located in or immediatly around the mediterranean.

[mdibatti]

Very nice indeed. Sooo happy the map isn't zoomed in....ala SPQR 6.1

[Shaggy1973]

Hello RTR peeople, long time no see

I'm a little disappointed by the map - although it is very polished and well made, the dimensions seem small. Manyof the cities seem less than 3 tiles apart, which i feel will mean terrible siege fest gameplay. What happened to the huge maps that bdh originally put together, which would have meant nice, big distances between cities and plenty of field battles?

[John I Tzimisces]

Hello RTR peeople, long time no see

I'm a little disappointed by the map - although it is very polished and well made, the dimensions seem small. Manyof the cities seem less than 3 tiles apart, which i feel will mean terrible siege fest gameplay. What happened to the huge maps that bdh originally put together, which would have meant nice, big distances between cities and plenty of field battles?

Bear in mind that is greece, which should be a complete, erm, female dog to conquer completely, as it was.

[Aismov]

anyway we could see a side-by-side comparison of the RTR7 regions map and the RTW imperial campaign so we can compare the size? I just guessing but it seems that the map demensions have been made roughly 2X as big as the RTR6 Gold map, maybe even larger.

[Muizer]

anyway we could see a side-by-side comparison of the RTR7 regions map and the RTW imperial campaign so we can compare the size? I just guessing but it seems that the map demensions have been made roughly 2X as big as the RTR6 Gold map, maybe even larger.

Due to hardcode limitations and the real world extent of the map we have to work with a distance between height posts of 8km (little under 5 miles). Believe me, at that resolution it is a challenge to extract terrain features from real world data and accomodate gameplay at the same time. I think we'll succeed though.

[hsimoorb]

originally that was me, but I stepped down(for a long fairly boring list of reasons) and found a more talented replacement: muizer(who gets things done)


Russians? Who told you that

but for your information, RTR is drawing from the same data sources that google earth undoubtedly uses for its height files. you can see the basics of how it is done by clicking on the link in my sig. getting a 'perfect' map (like the one seen in the pictures) can be difficult though

Nooo!!! That's sad, BDH. Sorry to hear that. Probaly posted in the offical announcements and I didn't notice! I hope muizer is as good as you say, because you work REALY impresses.

BTW those WIP pics look pretty good. The map is probaly THE biggest thing I'm looking forward to in 7.0

[Dark89]

Hello RTR peeople, long time no see

I'm a little disappointed by the map - although it is very polished and well made, the dimensions seem small. Manyof the cities seem less than 3 tiles apart, which i feel will mean terrible siege fest gameplay. What happened to the huge maps that bdh originally put together, which would have meant nice, big distances between cities and plenty of field battles?

That map is as big as it gets, making it bigger is impossible due to the hardcode.

[Master Nikolaos]

Shaggy1973 Hello RTR peeople, long time no see

I'm a little disappointed by the map - although it is very polished and well made, the dimensions seem small. Manyof the cities seem less than 3 tiles apart, which i feel will mean terrible siege fest gameplay. What happened to the huge maps that bdh originally put together, which would have meant nice, big distances between cities and plenty of field battles?

You have to realize that the map can only be so big, and that at least you now how more breathing space to fight around in. The cities are also important, specially in such a contested area such as the peloponesian.

[Shaggy1973]

hmmm, you have a fair amount of ocean - maybe it is the water mass limitiation that prevents the size being any bigger.

However, I realise that the map will not be changed at this late stage, perhaps you might consider removing the odd city from the more congested areas of the map? I guess these kinds of things can be ironed out during play testing. I certainly think fewer cities is better for both field battles and limiting income.

[Dark89]

Nope, the map cant be bigger than that. At all. The max size an map can have is 1021x1021. Our map is 700-somethingx1021.