Maps for MWIF

[stretch]

ok yeah sure Hull/Sheffield could use a little more thickening.. and I agree with Steve on the one that needs more attention. But honestly, since the code will prevent the move of a unit across impassable hexsides, if I interpret the map wrong and the game stops me I'll look at the map again and say.. oh ok I understand.

[Froonp]

Notice the pretty lake hexsides.

No Lake hexsides here, only coasts.

[c92nichj]

All good work! I'm happy with all the rivers and coastlines.

[Froonp]

The upper portion of the lake is off the WIF FE map, so they will need to be completed by the artist by hand.

There is one more hexrow above this screenshot who is also on the WiF FE European Maps.

[Froonp]

Tha said, this is a very very beautiful work, and I can't wait to see the whole map to scroll around during hours !!! [:D]

[Rooboy]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The issue of which cities to include does affect game play. While the CSV files can be edited by the players and cities added or removed more or less as the player chooses (where's Berlin?), a standard/default should be established. Unless I miss my guess, whetever MWIF uses as the default will become the defacto standard. New players to the world of WIF are unlikely to edit the map files to make them match a WIF FE official version. My personal preference on this is to definitiely exclude anything that is post-August 1945 since that is the end of the standard global war scenario (the latest end date for any of the 11 scenarios in fact).

G'day Steve.

Does this mean you can also add names of rivers, mountain ranges and other geographical features that aren't the default for the map? Got the atlas out and did the same on my maps of WiF FE before I had them put on backing boards and laminated. Just added to the general atmosphere of the games I played.

[Froonp]

Does this mean you can also add names of rivers, mountain ranges and other geographical features that aren't the default for the map? Got the atlas out and did the same on my maps of WiF FE before I had them put on backing boards and laminated. Just added to the general atmosphere of the games I played.

That would be great too.
I'm sure there would be rapidly lots of customized CSV files for the maps, made by people like you and I.
I hope it will be possible !

Oh, a remark I forgot to make : I find the river names still too big and too bold. But that's really not a big deal, the maps are really beautiful !

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Rooboy

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The issue of which cities to include does affect game play. While the CSV files can be edited by the players and cities added or removed more or less as the player chooses (where's Berlin?), a standard/default should be established. Unless I miss my guess, whetever MWIF uses as the default will become the defacto standard. New players to the world of WIF are unlikely to edit the map files to make them match a WIF FE official version. My personal preference on this is to definitiely exclude anything that is post-August 1945 since that is the end of the standard global war scenario (the latest end date for any of the 11 scenarios in fact).

G'day Steve.

Does this mean you can also add names of rivers, mountain ranges and other geographical features that aren't the default for the map? Got the atlas out and did the same on my maps of WiF FE before I had them put on backing boards and laminated. Just added to the general atmosphere of the games I played.

Yes.

After thinking about this a bit more, I don't think you can remove names from the name file. The unique numbers/IDs for existing names have to be preserved or else the software could very well crash. What I will do instead is check the name and if it is 'None', them simply not display it on the screen. That has the effect of removing the name during play.

Removing or adding a city or port or factory or resource requires changes to another file as well. That is because they are more than mere labels.

New names can simply be appended to the file. The font size and color can be set individually for each name.

Now let me also state very clearly, that I do not see an editor for the maps or units or any other aspect of the game as part of MWIF product 1.

Access to the data through the CSV files provides the ability to modify a lot of things in the program. But the program is not checking that the changes made are valid in any way, shape, or form. Damaging the CSV files will be easy to do. Add an extra comma to any of them and there is a 99% probability that the program won't run at all. So, the capability will exist but with all kinds of signs and warning labels scattered about like you see near high power electric lines.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Rooboy

G'day Steve.

Does this mean you can also add names of rivers, mountain ranges and other geographical features that aren't the default for the map? Got the atlas out and did the same on my maps of WiF FE before I had them put on backing boards and laminated. Just added to the general atmosphere of the games I played.

I forgot to mention, ...

Many, many river names are missnig from the map and I intend to add them. The Rhine for example!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

The upper portion of the lake is off the WIF FE map, so they will need to be completed by the artist by hand.

There is one more hexrow above this screenshot who is also on the WiF FE European Maps.

Part of my correcting the registration was to add 5 rows of pixels to the top of the topmost hexrow. Which means that hexrow is damaged at present. So is the bottommost hexrow (below Suez). We'll get those fixed when the map segments above and below are completed. I think of each map segment as overlapping one hex row and column with the adjoining sections (sound familiar?).

[dhatchen]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Thank you for your offer.

Why don't you send me an email to Steve@PatternDiscovery.us so we can continue this discussion off-line.

...and so we gain another

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

To my eyes the Nantes hex still needs better clarity in the south where the river goes into Bay of Biscay.

The Hull/Sheffield bay could also be more definite all the way to the end of the common hex borders. As shown there is still a small part that can be mistaken for a connection.

Lars

I can't find my notes on this. Is the Nantes hex suppose to be an all sea hexside or not?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Someone asked about the refresh rate and I said I had to work on it. I can't track down that post - or else I would answer it now.

Anyway, status is that I have cleaned up a lot of the code and the screen refreshes faster, but not as fast as I want.

(1) It is fine at all levels of zoom if you jump around by clicking on the global map.
(2) It is always fine at levels 7 and 8 zoom (high detail).
(3) It is fine at all levels of zoom if there are few rivers, lakes, rail lines, and names. It is primarily the first two that slow things down.
(4) It is fine at all levels of zoom if you scroll vertical (up or down).

(5) It is slower going to the right than it is going to the left (3 or 4 times slower?). I will investigate eventually, to find out why. The scrolling code was all written by Chris and I haven't delved into it. For now, however, I am moving on to other things of more importance.

(6) It actually is very good under all circumstances on my machine, running at 2.53 GHz. However, I am being very picky about this because I expect there to be some players with slower machines (1 GHz CPUs).

Aside from #5 I am going to wait and see what the beta testers say. It is very difficult to run timing studies when everything happens so fast. For example, a complete scroll from London to Moscow at the lowest resolution (zoom level 1), with everything on, takes about 8 seconds. My ability to control the stopwatch and detect when Moscow appears is poor, so that is an average of a set of bad measurements. The London to Moscow section of the map has the greatest concentration of map elements so it is the slowest test I could devise.

[lomyrin]

At least in CWiF the Southeast hexside of St Nazaire is all sea. The river emptying into the Bay of Biscay is shown following the two southern hexsides of Nantes to the junction of the St Nazaire and Nantes hexes where the ocean begins.

If this corresponds to the real geography of the area or not I do not know.

Lars

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

At least in CWiF the Southeast hexside of St Nazaire is all sea. The river emptying into the Bay of Biscay is shown following the two southern hexsides of Nantes to the junction of the St Nazaire and Nantes hexes where the ocean begins.

If this corresponds to the real geography of the area or not I do not know.

Lars

I was just looking for a rules clarification, which you provided. Thanks. Now I know to enhance the small river segment rather than remove it.

[Neilster]

I've been away camping for a few days and I've only had time to skim all the posts I've missed. I know they look like the ones in the WiF FE maps but to me the rail-lines look like tape-worms. Does anyone think that a darker colour and perhaps a single line with crossing bars would look better? IMHO the current ones look too biological and not man-made/mechanical enough. The tape-worm "segments" are not uniform in size and appear to suggest a "direction". I don't think it's necessary to suggest two tracks as we are providing a generalised symbol that might actually represent several rail lines side-by-side or running close together. I know this won't be popular but I thought I'd throw it in anyway.

Cheers, Neilster

[Froonp]

Passage from Nantes to 1828 is possible.
Edit : And the southeast hexside of St Nazaire is not all sea
Look (2004 maps) :

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Passage from Nantes to 1828 is possible.
Edit : And the southeast hexside of St Nazaire is not all sea
Look (2004 maps) :

Yes, that is what I got from reading Lars' post.

MWIF displays more of the river on the questionable hexside then the paper map, reducing the likelihood of interpreting it as an all sea hexside. However, I will strengthen the river a bit to make it even clearer.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: amwild
I thought that in the atlantic and mediteranean at least, you could overlay the hex dots and sea-box info over a copy of the Kriegsmarine position chart - you know, the one where you describe a location with two letters followed by two numbers, e.g. Malta is CN34, New York is CA51, etc... I don't know if ther is any similar sort of chart for the pacific or other ocean areas.

Whatever you decide to use as decoration in open sea areas, I would suggest that you have an option to toggle this decoration on or off, and make it clear in the options and help files that this decoration has no game effect.

Actually, my total knowledge concerning Kriegsmarine charts comes from what you wrote in your post. They talk about blissful ignorance, and I am a happy kind of guy.

So, you will have to give me a better understanding of what you envision. Would there be one identifier per sea area? Or more? Would the font size be the same as for the sea area or smaller - if smaller, comparable to the size which other map labels?

Steve,

I have since done some more research, and there are some sites that give more details on the Kriegsmarine charts:

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ ... ture6.html
http://uboat.net/maps/grid.html
http://home.att.net/~rodney.j.martin/gridmap.htm

Unfortunately, even though it is stated that these charts were made for the entire world's seas, I have only ever seen them for the Atlantic - on the net or otherwise. I have copies of the atlantic maps from the sub-sim games "Aces of the Deep" and "Silent Hunter III", though scanning them and sending you an electronic copy would result in a rather large set of files, and might breach copyright.

The Kriegsmarine grid system does not correspond to the sea areas used in WiF. Since you were talking about decoration, I thought that overlaying a version of the grid onto empty sea areas would be an artistic touch relevant to the WWII period.

I thought that if the grid was painted over the map as vector art plus text, its size would be relatively small compared to a bitmap. Of course, if you are having frame rate problems, these charts or any other decoration probably won't help.

[Ballista]

The maps are looking great ! One thing though- would it be possible to "lighten" the rivers a bit so that they stand out a little more- they appear to fade into the background terrain a bit (or is this because of the screenshot process, or just my fading eyes ?).....

- Don