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Topic: A Map of the world

NotYetTakenUserName
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Posted at: 2019-10-15, 18:47

Hi there amazing folks,

being new to map creation and as modest as I am. A map of the world it shall be. As we all know, Mother Earth is flat. Thus, it can't be that difficult, can it?

First question: Has anybody tried this before?

Starting with Iceland, British Isles, stopping by at Frisia, continuing with Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea I realized 512x176 is a bit too narrow for the rest of the world to get an appropriate share of space. While I can live with that, two new questions came to my mind.

Is 512 a hard limit? Is resizing of maps possible?

Thanks for proofreading and have a nice cup of Frisian tea.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-10-15, 22:09

several people made maps of specific countries or places (I'm too lazy to surf through all the posted maps, but I remember at least a map of australia and one of the british isles). I'm not aware of any world map.

If you want to endeavor at one, be welcome! But one such map cannot be done just by eye. I suggest you plan it a bit. Take a rendition of the world map (say, between 70 degrees north and 50 south, centered at 10 degrees north; the projection you use to convert the world bidimensionally stretches the poles too much) and convert coordinates to map coordinates.

there are 360 degrees of longitude and (if you take my suggestion on north and south limits) 120 degrees of latitude. You can run 512x176 and have every 2 degrees of real coordinates become 3 degrees of in-game coordinates. For the dolomites map, I made a datasheet to convert coordinates and i took hundreds of points, but you don't have to be that crazy. Just have a rough idea of how big stuff must be and where it must go, so that you won't end up drawing stuff too large and running out of space.

unfortunately, the real countries would get squished real tiny that way Iceland, which you mentioned, would be large 15 steps and only 5 steps high. It would also be one of the deformed places, as it's at the northern edge of the map. It would have to be made narrower) but can't do anything about it, the world is big. I'm sure the game can be modded to accept bigger maps if you want to endeavor at it, but i'd start small.

Good luck!


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einstein13
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Posted at: 2019-10-15, 22:56

Some of the mentioned maps are in my map package:

http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/?page=2

Of course all the maps are taken from Widelands maps section.

And about the real world map: I have tried to create something that will be like the Earth, but at the end I have changed the mind (map: Wideworld, https://www.widelands.org/maps/wideworld/). There were some major problems:

  1. Earth is boring! Yes, there is plenty of different things, but if you make it like 1 piece = 1 degree or something, you will finish with something boring and well known.
  2. Standard situation is when you start the game from Europe for all players. Europe is tiny and it is very hard to balance the game then. So making real game or making real map?
  3. Lack of military expedition is something you should consider to your design. Make it ready for military expedition or for good gameplay today?

So on my map I have solved the situation by:

  1. Making the lands completely different (in size, sometimes shape) than they are in reality.
  2. Europe is quite balanced, but hard to play for one of the players.
  3. Since both Americas are filled with fiords, it is hard to discover port spaces (welcome modern Columbus!).
  4. Widelands world is torus-based shape, not the sphere, so using that you finish with Arctic = Antarctica.

Feel free to see my map and consider making much better one. Or use king_of_nowhere ideas, knowledge and experience to do exact copy of the Earth.


einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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NotYetTakenUserName
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Posted at: 2019-10-16, 02:13

Thanks a lot for your input!

I found a map of UK, looks pretty damned awesome. Of course, I can't compete with that level of details.

Who cares for projections of a sphere onto a plane? The world is flat. Just google it. ;-þ Since I started in Northwest Europe, the rest of our world has to suffer. Sweden is too large compared to Spain. Iceland is way too close to Ireland. Well, that is truly boring. What bothers me more are Faroe Islands. Brits might complain, since the Falklands will be left out as well.

North pole? South pole? I surely consider to include them after finishing West and East pole. The torus is helpful here. I managed Norway. America will surrender too, both of them. Bering street is going to connect Cape of Good Hope to Tierra del Fuego.

Currently, I'm struggling with Balkan Resistance. A nightmare compared to France.

I try my best to keep the map playable. But it should remind you of our precious piece of land we have to live on in the first place. Frisians start from Hanover. Barvarians (pun intended) are planned to be exiled to Africa. Imperium Romanum will find a new home in North America since that is where the current empire resides. Leaving East Asia for the Atlanteans.

Is there a place to upload unfinished maps for review and discussion?


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einstein13
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Posted at: 2019-10-16, 14:52

You can upload the map in a normal way, but with a version numbering next to the name. For example: Earth_0.1. Please also add a note that this map will be expanded in the future (that will not confuse other, not related to this topic players).
Also I know that some time ago there was considering an improvement that will allow map makers upload fixed version of the map, but I can't remember what exactly happened and what can be changed now (@kaputtnik?).

Edited: 2019-10-16, 14:52

einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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einstein13
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Posted at: 2019-10-16, 23:23

I was thinking about the World map problem: the difference between real area of lands and map area of lands. There are some tries of map that saves area, but it costs angles and shapes. Example of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert_azimuthal_equal-area_projection

Consider making a map that is that shape (I like the shape where Africa is in the centre). That can be interesting for a play, since the shapes are known but they are a bit different.

Also the map will be square since the projection is a sphere to circle.


einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-10-17, 17:18

NotYetTakenUserName wrote:

Is there a place to upload unfinished maps for review and discussion?

Not yet, but there is a new feature: Attaching files to forum posts. So you could upload the map here. (If you upload a map at the official map repository, you cannot delete it from there if you wish, unfortunately.)


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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NotYetTakenUserName
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Posted at: 2019-10-17, 18:01

I'm not a bbcode expert. Plus I couldn't find an idiot-proof description on how to do an upload.

Here is a link into the malicious internet

Edited: 2019-10-17, 18:24

It's my opinion, plus I don't share it.

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NotYetTakenUserName
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Posted at: 2019-10-17, 18:39

Hoooray! The map is anything but finished. Western Europe is pretty much done and somewhat playable.

Thanks for the hints on how (not) to squeeze a sphere onto a plane. I will make Russia great again! St. Petersburg and Sevastopol are already there. A squared map would increase the size of Russia even more. Thus, I went for a ratio close to pi:1.


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NotYetTakenUserName
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Posted at: 2019-10-20, 17:15

This one goes to the editor wizards.

I found in file elemental the following: [global] map_w="512" map_h="176"

What happens if I change those values? Is changing map_w="512" to map_w="400" considered harmful?

The answer depends heavily on the format of binary files, doesn't it? Is there a "human readable" description of those formats or do I have to dig into the code? If it is in the code, where to start best?


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