Proposal: Adopting the Standard Map from the Hanzhishang ("Waning of Han") Mod into ROTK
I have had the honor of engaging in some lengthy exchange of ideas with Master Gigantus on the issue pertaining to the prospect of upgrading ROTK's map. As the discussions on this subject matter is slowly snowballing, I find it more appropriate to move what started off as a random inquiry on a glitch reporting thread to a new thread, since it's a standalone conversion that many players may find interesting.
So Let's cut to the chase: the issue is about the map. In order to have a better explanation of the matters at hand, it's necessary give a brief re-captioning of ROTK's history. That's how it goes:
Unbeknownst to many players, the evolutionary ancestor of ROTK is a Chinese mod called Sanguo ("Three Kingdom") Total War - a RTW based mod first developed in 2006. The team behind it is a veteran Chinese mod developer known as ZhuZi("Pillar") Studio. The mod had millions of players in China but was largely unheard of in the West. Starting from 2011, the Pillar team commenced an ambitious project of converting Sanguo TW to M2TW based platform. The product born of it was christened with a poetic name: Hanzhishang ("the Waning of Han" - it sounds far more elegant and classy in Chinese). The beta testing was wrapped up in Feb 2013 and the first official version was slated to roll out in later summer. It was then and there, ROTK team and Pillar crossed paths. Long story, ROTK title was launched on TWC forum in May 2013. Three months later, the first version of official Hanzhishang - Hanzhishang 1.03 rolled out in China. Apart from its countless novel features and contents, it also recycled and re-adapted some of materials from Sanguo TW. The new map is such a re-adaptation, which is four times the size of Sanguo map but otherwise similar. However, that was only the start. Over years Hanzhichang mushroomed in China into a huge clan of mods/submods, with the map design generally stabilized around the landmark one produced for Hanzhishang 1.04 in 2015. In comparison with the old Sanguo map dated to 2007, the standard map of Hanzhishang 1.04 is not only X4 in size, but also boasts a cornucopia of new features, embellishments, optimizations, wonders, and, of course, regions - it has 188 regions as opposed to Sanguo' 150. It was the product of years of painstaking improvements. In my personal experiences, I had the opportunities of playing both the old RTW-based Sanguo mod, and various versions of Hanzhishang. When I came across ROTK mod on TWC with the rough info that its team had cooperation with the Pillar, I took it for granted that it would be more or less an English version of Hanzhishang.
I was wrong. The illustrious team of ROTK under the leadership of the mighty Gigantus (who is the King of Modding, as far as I am concerned) had carried out some most exalted works of independent modding, which brought about a mod awesomely distinctive in numerous regards. Then there came the shock: when I entered the campaign for the first time, I was hit by an eerie sensation of deja vu - the map evoked a figment of memory that hearkened to my childhood in the time of yore... OK... maybe not that far back, but still quite far: it's almost exactly the same map adopted into Sanguo TW for RTW in 2007 - 11 years ago. Why on earth would ROTK not use the far larger and more detailed Hanzhishang map? I posted the question for Gigantus, who graciously replied that they simply had not seen the Hanzhishang map before, as during their brief and rather bumpy cooperation with the Pillar team (I will get back to that later), the Hanzhishang map was simply not made available to them. With the cooperation essentially going kaput by the end of 2013, the two modding teams went separate ways. All they were able to acquire from the Pillar team was the ancient Sanguo map, which was given some minor adjustments and stay as the campaign map until this day.
Ouch!
What I'd like to say upon such a realization is what I actually replied to Gigantus:
So in short, I laid out reasons as to why Hanzhishang map might be more desirable and inquired about the possibility of its adoption by ROTK.It seems I previously had some misunderstanding: I assumed the authorization you obtained was for Hanzhishang itself. Now it seems you only got the permission for converting to M2TW platform the original RTW based Sanguo Total War. That's a bit of a bummer ...
Had you guys started off with Hanzhishang as the original vanilla materials, the current ROTK mod would be up on a whole new level of play-ability. I can't help but feeling a bit rueful about that drawback concerning the map: in terms of the soldier models, battle systems and campaign triggers, ROTK is progressing well abreast of all the other Hanzhishang variants (even ahead of them in many ways). Yet the single handicap of the stone-age quality map is just too crippling (it's only 1/4 as large with far fewer cities and features, and the overall level of nuance is equally bare-boned in comparison). For anyone who had seen the standard Hanzhishang map, the current ROTK campaign map (based on Sanguo TW map developed in 2007) just feels too vintage to even inspire interest in playing it. (Unless the player has never seen a Hanzhishang map, so he is simply unaware of stark contrast and feels no discomfort.) It's particularly ironical that ROTK is the only China-based M2TW mods currently existing in the world that uses a RTW age map. There are a whole bunch of China-based mods currently popular among the Chinese players on Chinese mod forums... they are developed by totally different teams with totally different concepts, aesthetics units, scenarios, play styles, etc. Yet all of them seem to have developed their respective maps of China on the basis of the original Hanzhishang map... (In other words, that map is now the "grandfather map" for all China based M2TW mods.) I doubt many of them even bother with the issue of authorization, as that grandfather map seems to have become a piece of open resources that every modding teams simply picks up and tinkers with to their hearts' satisfaction. So far ROTK team is the only one that clings onto the avoidance of the Hanzhishang map.
Given that, I kinda wonder:
Does the team have any plan of acquiring the Hanzhishang map and incorporating it into ROTK's future versions? If that's too time consuming, given the hectic work of having to re-enter all the co-ordinates for all the campaign script triggers, could you simply borrow Hanzhishang's (or its variants') existing campaign script along with the map, and give it some less-labour intensive customization? Bear in mind that the vanilla Hanzhishang and its myriad variants all have their own impressively designed campaign scripts that pretty much delivers everything ROTK has on offer, and even above and beyond, such as the character capturing feature that allows the conqueror of a faction to acquire all its historical characters (including the killed, who would be resurrected), or the empire creation feature that allows a player to turn into a new faction (Cao clan becoming Wei, for example) once it meets the condition of declaring its own empire (in a way similar to the re-forging of Arnor in the Third Age mod), or the acquisition of historical elite units upon triggering major historical battles - just to name a few. If the ROTK team can do that it will be building on the shoulder of a giant - introducing the mighty Hanzhishang mods with all its glory to international players who can't read Chinese, retaining its awesome features (the map in particular), while adding unique bonus contents on top.
Master Giganus response was No and Yes (sort of):
I totally understand Master Gigantus reluctance regarding "simply copying and tinkering a bit" - that's what made him great. (Although I am a bit confused by what seems to be a little paradox here, as in the previous paragraph he just admitted that the current ROTK map is exactly the copied and tinkered version of the old Sanguo map. Not sure how the ego was Ok with "copying and tinkering" one map but not the otherAs to the Hanzishang map: I have to admit that I have never seen it. Nor would I consider using it - but that's simply my ego as mapper. In this mod the initial goal was to transfer the RTW map (and UI) as close as possible to the original, including wonders that are not coded anymore as they are in RTW.
Simply copying map files and tinkering a bit with them just isn't my style. I rather create a map from scratch down to proper placement of vegetation and trade resources, sourcing my own terrain files etc.
If Seether still has energy after this stint then we might toss some idea around about what could be an interesting challenge for a new project....)
I also am critically aware of the labors such a re-adaption would require, for it would necessitate the re-assignment of all coordinates in the campaign script and region files - easier said than done.
To my delight, however, Master Gigantus did imply the possibility of doing something with the Hanzhishang map. Later Master Seether also replied to the thread. Although he listed his concerns, he also agreed to have a discussion on the Dev Forum.
That sounds encouraging!
My immense gratitude for the two Masters' open-mindedness and earnestness!
On my part, I think I can further this conversation by relating the ideas of the proposal to other players on the forum and sharing with them some background information that I happen to have access to. I am sure it will help garner some insightful thoughts on the subject matter from other fans of ROTK.
I will upload some pictures of the Hanzhishang map in its actual in-game appearance in my next posting.
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Another nice touch, is the way the M2TW does not tell you, most of the time, what error has just caused it to crash. So, every time you make a change, you can imagine the task of finding what isn't working, and why. Over, and Over, and OVER! 
