Proper Campaign Map?

[Matty_P]

i was wondering if there would be any interest for anyone to create a campaign map that is better than the one being released with the vanilla game.

my primary concerns would be for the implementation of poznan, wroclaw, szeczin(already in, but as stettin...same with breslau = wroclaw)...basically. i would much enjoy being able to create a map that has the proper settlements and provinces.

i'm going to try to develope this, it would be my first mod...

assistance would be appreciated.

[AlfonsoVIII]

I will be willing to help. PM me with contact information.

[Silver Guard]

First things first, MORE PROVINCES! The horrific shortage on the vannila map is going to ruin the game for me campain wise, anyone who will create more quickly is worthy of support

[Chuffy]

I'd love to see this, not to sure if I'd be able to help on anything though.

But I agree, things like missing cities, wrong locations and the kicker; HORRIBLE province border shapes (north africa...oh god) really look like they can bring down the feel of a campaign. They did in Rome.

[Lusted]

Nice idea, but please, not too many provinces. I dont want a campaign to be all sieges and no field battles, like in the mundus magna for RTW(if on an otherwise unmodded game), or the RTR map

[Chuffy]

MM had loads of provinces, but they were spaced out nicely, hardly a seigefest there.

[Matty_P]

i agree.

mundus magnus was amazing...well, much better than vanilla's map.

my concern will be to create province borders that are accurate to geographical [both physical and politcal] boundaries. i'll try to create provinces that are representative of the major cultural centers of the time, plus, for fun (it's a fetish of mine) more island settlements.

this will be my first mod, and i'm going to try to do it right. for those of you who are interested in helping me, or have expressed interest, i'll pm you with contact info/for contact info after the game is released and i see how to edit the map. i'll also try to log my methodology so as to create a turtorial.

perhaps this should be organized into a project consisting of various team members to focus on certain regions. i mean, from looking at the campaign map as is, eastern europe from needs revamping (not necessarily in the far east of russia, but in the area of the former soviet republics, poland, and ukraine. also, north africa, the balkans region, greece (a bit), and asia minor and the levantine coast. (who's hoping for an island of tyre? or was it sidon?)

i was hoping to have myself edit the map, someone to alter the scripts, and others to assist in researching the regions geography during the era.

note, however, this is merely pre-conceptualization of how i plan to go about this. i don't want too many people b/c too many cef's spoil the stew.

either way, i think it would be a big load for one person to create such a mod in a timely release, but who knows, we'll see after the game is released.

[Matty_P]

i've made a preliminary province map.

is there a way i can post it here without having a photobucket? or something of the like?

[Lusted]

Upload it to www.imageshack.us

[Lavastein]

mundas magnus map wasnt my fav. i liked the one in rtr (ice torque?), it cut out the useless southern africa and kept it straight forward. However i also dislike too many provinces as well.

[Matty_P]

i've drawn up provinces, on a mpa for reference.

http://img249.imageshack.us/my.php?i...vincessmc6.jpg

this is very vague, i looked at an atlas to see the location of major present-day cities, but those aren't the same as medieval era towns. this was done very quickly in paint and is meant as a rough preliminary version of my intended map. any suggestions would be nice.

(here's the campaign map from M2TW vanilla for comparison. http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?i...e2twmapcp7.jpg please ignore my added borders for the empire of poland... )

my map has, as is, 198 provinces...which is alot... almost double the vanilla map. is it implementable?

[Matty_P]

alright, talkin to myself here... :tooth:

the map i posted above seems good to me. UK i'll leave as is in vanilla, except making ireland a two province island. spain will be modified to incorporate granada, cadez, sevilla, etc. italy looks pretty good, scicily will be two provinces. i feel the agaean sea area needs to have more settlements to reflect the high population of that area, it will be modified.

the levantine coast will be modified in addition to north africa. i'm happy with the northafrica as i represented in the prelim map. not necessarily the borders, but the coast hugging provinces and then the large desert provinces.

france will have it's major cities, ruean(sp?), orleans, lyon, marseille, etc. i'm going to try to add more settlements to the baltic region to make things more interseting for those who will be playing either denmark or poland or russia. it seems unfair to have the mediterranean sea have so much activity and the baltic almost none.

i also feel it necessary to mod the HRE/german territories. i want more provinces to reflect the atmostphere of all those tiny courts, principalities, baronies, fiefs, etc that existed within the empire.

all in all, i think the map should have around 150 settlements. i'll be working on a final 'draft' prelim map for the day of release.

all i need is for someone to check out how map editting will be in M2TW. the Rome map editor seemed pretty concise and I'm hoping someone with more technical experience can help me get a working map editor. i'd like this to be a partnership...me doing the artsy-conceptualization and implementation of the map, someone else providing me with an editor and tech support.

oh god...i'm ranting, aren't i?

[Lusted]

Just one comment about your map.

No americas?

[Matty_P]

nope.

i'm not worrying about them.

[Lusted]

So you're not going to have the America's in your map? Thats useful for those people who might want a more accurate map but still want the America's in the game.

[Chuffy]

So you're not going to have the America's in your map? Thats useful for those people who might want a more accurate map but still want the America's in the game.

It could be argued that having a more accurate map involves removing the America's. :p

[Lusted]

True, but it's one of the features in M2Tw that im most looking forward to, should help make the end game more interesting.

[Chuffy]

True, but it's one of the features in M2Tw that im most looking forward to, should help make the end game more interesting.

How? All it is doing is giving you another faction to beat up. If CA think that somehow spices up the end game then why not have an emerging faction in europe instead?

That is all the america's are, another faction to beat up when you already control half of europe. It is not a new exciting feature.

Also, Matty_P I am no expert on Medieval cartography but I know a bit about the borders of countries at the times, however my knowledge kind of fits in with the 'late' medieval period more. So I'll use what knowledge I have to give a bit of crit on the map.

North Africa looks good, however the two giant Saharan provinces need a bit of work. Mainly the giant one on the left, it kind of conforms to the vanilla map of taking over vast tracks of desert by capturing a city which had no control over the desert. Keep those two cities, but change the borders to end at the southern mountain ranges, before the vast expanse of desert begins. That would also fit how the borders of that area were actually like.

Example.

In Cyrenaica, the coastline south of crete, you might want to reduce the amount of coastal provinces from three down to two.

You really need to sort out North Italy, mainly making the provinces there conform to the shape of the Alps, you have two which straddle too much mountain and make it impossible to recreate the lands the Frence held near the end of the game. Not to mention they kind of mess up the borders of the HRE and Milan.

Normandie (and presumably Basse-Normandie) looks really wonky. I'm sad to say that CA's representation of the area is better.

Wales 'bulges' into England too much, it is too spherical. Also you might want to consider making a south-west province, representing Cornwall/Bristol/Gloucester and making it very rebellious as it was historically.

Spain could use a small Basque/Navarre province in the north. Also giving Portugal three provinces seems very odd, it was not a huge population centre. I'd say reduce it down to two.

I cant offer much in the way of Eastern and Northern Europe, however the many island provinces in the far north seem very uncessary. Also Sweden and Norway seem to have a lot of provinces even though at this time they had very small populations.

I realise that map was just a very quick experiment, but I thought I'd offer a bit of advice for future 'plans'.

[Soulghast]

Is the Medieval map on a larger scale than Rome's?

[Matty_P]

i am unsure about the scale.

also, i meant that in 'not worrying about them' i wasn't going to mod it. the americas will still be in game.

also, who made mundus magnus? i'd like to contact him/her.