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Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:35 am
by xBoroNx
I am currently creating a large europe map which shall be the base then for 1-2 europe scenarios for which i have begun some work too.
The base map is already about 70-80% finished, all seas, swamps and mountains are drawn, rivers about 50% of them and forests about 20%.
Current map dimensions are 300x203, might increase a bit more because i might need to add parts of arabia if i want to make a WW1 scenario. Also i might add a few hexes to the west to include a few Us-East-Coast hexes. 1 hex is roughly 20 km.
Once i have finished the rivers etc. i will upload the blank map, then anyone with similiar gigantomania like me can try to make his own scenarios on the base map and needs to only add railroads, cities and streets.
My first planned project is a world war II scenario for the whole conflict in the european theater, not sure if i start 39, 40 or 41 though.
I could need some consultative aid

.
Currently i have the following issues:
1. Does anybody have a good map which shows the important roads and railroads of WW1 and/or WW2 ?
2. A map showing the most important resources of that time would be very valuable too and which of the cities were in fact important for military production. Since the editor is so nicely flexible i might e.g. try to add a few special resources like oil and iron/steel and maybe as a third special rare materials which were very important e.g. for special motors or as core-anti-tank ammunition or rubber etc.

RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:47 am
by Barthheart
Great Map!!! What did you base it off of? How long did it take you to get this far? How can I get a copy? [8D]
I have some custom terrain tiles if you want them. Ones for bocage and another for canal intensive areas.
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:58 am
by xBoroNx
Making the map was very difficult indeed, i could not find any really satisfying maps online. After googling lots of hours in vain i decided than to scan a europe map from my old atlas from high school and used that as overlay.
I will offer the map for download in 2-3 days when i have finished the missing rivers and forests.
The map in my school atlas is from around 1990, so there are the important roads and railroads in, but i do not know which of them were already built and important in WW2.
Once finished with the geography i have to check if it is possible to use both roads and railroads for strategic transfer or not. Iirc it is not possible, but if it would be possible then i could allow small transfers with trucks and huge ones only with railroad. Supply also mainly via rail and a bit via road if possible.
Edit:
Now i have a new question again [:)].
The scale of the map should allow to keep most movement ranges from vanilla. Europe 1939 e.g. is 80x60 and 1 month turns, so with 7 or 10 day turns here it should scale nicely. Only Airforce range might be needed to be increased, but i am not an airforce expert.
So it would be very useful for me if someone could post a few ranges of WW2 aircraft for the various years.
I remember the huge troubles the germans had during the battle of britain, there fighters had only something like a 200-250 km combat radius iirc and the german bombers maybe 350 km.
But the Us airforce especially had excellent long range fighters and bombers later in the war.
It is enough if it is only roughly correct. I will always aim for gameplay balance and fun rather than uberrealism. This is a wargame, no simulation

.
So something like this would be ideal:
1939 Fighter xyz km, medium bomber xyz, strategic bomber xyz, interceptor xyz etc.
1941 -""-
1943 -""-
1945 -""-
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:46 am
by wmcalpine
xB,
Fantastic mapwork there. I will see what I can find for some aircraft models and combat ranges in the next few days.
Bill
Here is some US fighter data. Range given is combat radius. Year is year of introduction
US Fighters
Single Engine Twin Engine
1939
1940 P40 640km
1941 P40B-F 520km
1941 P39D 480km
1942 P39N 400km P38F/G 680km
1943 P39Q 420km P38J 940km
1943 P47D 510km
1943 P51B/C 1170km
1944 P51D 1170km P38L 940km
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:35 am
by Twotribes
You left out the P-38, as I recall it had a long range also. I mean before 1945 of course.
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:27 am
by tweber
Looks really nice.
I have found the West Point Department of History's military atlases to be a good source for roads and oobs.
Wikipedia has stats (range, firepower, number produced by year) of just about every weapon system in WWII.
For simplicity, I would start in June 1941 since modeling the early war can be quite tough. Starting with Barbarosa is pretty straight forward.
With events and action cards, you could split up regimes (e.g., Germany East, West). It might make for some interesting multiplayer options beyond the 3 player game in the current Europe scenario.
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:52 pm
by Bombur
Do you intend to create real equipment (customized for nations) instead of the generic ones? In such case maybe T_K could help you. He is collecting graphics to create these units. I´m making some stuff too (only for Spanish Civil war)
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:24 pm
by xBoroNx
Maybe. But at least for the first version i plan to stick to generic equipment. Because the main problem i currently have with the idea of nation specific units is that it might spoil the fun. And it is also problematic to find good stats and then there is the issue which units to include and which not. Historically germany had no carriers, so shall they get as maximum only a rather weak carrier of the graf zeppelin type?
Then there is the issue with the new weapons that almost saw action or that the germans might have developed.
For example the russian JS-3 Tanks or for germany panther II, the E-Series etc..
@ Tom
The westpoint site seems quite good, but i could not find a map with roads there. Do you maybe have a direct link to such a map?

RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:06 pm
by tweber
I do not know of historic road maps at the continent level. You can probably get them if you go down to an operational level. However with Western Europe, the road network is pretty good so I would have a road connection between most cities that were within 10 hexes or so of each other.
However, you may want to publish the map without roads since the road network would be different if someone chose to use you map to do a medieval or ancient scenario.
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:34 am
by xBoroNx
Ok, finished the base map. I discovered a small bug with the editor. While i could correctly remove top hexes when i tried to remove bottom hexes it simply added more hexes instead. So as a temporal solution i simply did make the low map part nonpassable. I have version 1.10l, maybe in the new betapatch this bug is already fixed.
In the base map i did draw all mountains, rivers, seas, swamps and forests. Probably i missed a handful, and drawing the forests was the toughest part, i have 3 atlasses at home, and in every atlas the forests were different. Also regarding the rivers i took slight artistic freedom by making the first few riverhexes small rivers. Finally the rivers sometimes might be slightly in the wrong place because of the way AT draws rivers. So especially when the river was exactly in the middle of the hex this was always a tough choice.
Map dimensions are 295x217 (though about 10-15 bottom hexes are no-move terrain) and 1 hex is roughly 25km.

RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:42 am
by xBoroNx
Here's the map. I uploaded it to rapidshare since it is the very first version and i want to get at least rid of the ugly bottom map part before uploading it to the At.org.
Feel free to make any scenario with my basemap or modify it in any way.
Here's the map:
http://rapidshare.com/files/88472212/basiceuropemap.rar.html
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:39 am
by rickier65
ORIGINAL: xBoroNx
Here's the map. I uploaded it to rapidshare since it is the very first version and i want to get at least rid of the ugly bottom map part before uploading it to the At.org.
Feel free to make any scenario with my basemap or modify it in any way.
Here's the map:
http://rapidshare.com/files/88472212/basiceuropemap.rar.html
Thanks for this work and for making it available.
Rick
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:41 am
by Twotribes
Didn't the Suez Canal exsist by WW2? In fact better yet what year was it completed?
EDIT...
To answer my own question the current Canal has existed since 1868.
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:24 am
by Twotribes
How does one import a map to be used by AT?
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:00 am
by dave74
this map is amazing !!!
excellent work, much appreciated
[:)]
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 11:38 am
by BULLDOGINTHEUK
Just downloaded it. Its amazing! (Took ages to load though). Very detailed. Nice work [;)]
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:03 pm
by xBoroNx
Thanks for all the nice comments

RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:15 pm
by Twotribes
ORIGINAL: Twotribes
How does one import a map to be used by AT?
Someone must know.....
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:25 pm
by xBoroNx
Simply download the .rarfile and then open the .pt2 file it contains with at by load scenario and then click on edit.
RE: Large europe map, advice very welcome
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:00 pm
by lion_of_judah
very nice map but where are the cities?