Panzer Corps Atlas Mod

[weaslex]

(FOR WORLD AT WAR)

Basically, this is the Panzer Corps mod, but... bigger. about 100k hex grid bigger. The map is almost 3 times larger than the original map and will feature almost every unit in the game. (ie light med heavy tanks, larger variety of ships, air power, infantry, ect.) This will feature Japan, China, and Australia. I only have one screen shot to show right now, but more soon.

Quick Update on the map! =3 Things are progressing slowly, I should have this map up and ready by the end of next month... oh... and I use Hexograph mate. =P

UPDATE!!!! 01.01.2019!!! I've updated the pictures in the topic, you should now see that EUROPE IS NOW LARGER! I Don't know nor do I think I can get it any bigger, but do let me know what you guys/gals think. I'll endeavor to fix or tweek as I receive feedback.

MOD FEATURE LIST

- Around 1500 + units
- Total remake of the entire map at over 100k hexes. A full map by 500 x 256.
- New rework of almost every single unit.
- Complete new bitmap of units, now with Order of Battle skins being used in mass in conjunction with Panzer Corps.

First pic, is that of the world map, you can see a large amount of work that has been done in terms of weather, you may also see some country outlines. I'll add a more comprehensive country map latter, but just know, most of the work this week was put into Africa. I don't have much to show on Africa right now, sorry mates, I want to show it off when I've added more cities, roads, rail, but~ 99.9% of the terrain is done. I'm just tweeking and making minor changes to the terrain now.



Next screenshot we see the various unit's you will be able to use with Poland. We've got two types of 7tp's (the duel machine gun turret and the single 37mm? turret.) We've got a couple of TKS tanks, which were the numerous tanks that Poland had at the time. For the first time ever, we've got a polish truck that actually looks like it came from Poland! Also, in the top left corner, you can see one of the new naval units being added to the game. Most of which were ripped from either Panzer Corps or Order of Battle.



While we're on the topic of military vehicles, lets wander on over to France. Here you can see the French FT-17 light tank, which... was an outdated WW1 era tank but the French had a lot of these in reserve. The tank was so popular, that France had to cut exports so that they could save some of these for themselves. Then we have a Renault and a Hotchiss tank group at the front. Finally if you look at the lower left, you can see more new naval units. I'll have new classes and unique looks to many of the levels of these ships.



Okay, now lets spit fire some of these off. First, we have France, YES, it's larger than previously by about... 30 hexes. Still, with Belgium, Amsterdam, as well as Romania, Poland, Italy, Greece, England, Spain, and Germany are now larger, I think it's safe to say that Europe is now 80 to 120 hexes larger than the base game. Though, if you want, go ahead and count cause... I didn't, just guessing here. I think Yugoslavia could be a weee bit bigger, but, meh, I can't get it 100% perfect, sorry.





Next we have North Africa... now Africa is huge... I MEAN HUGE, and I don't mean, just in real life huge, I mean in game huge. It's about 150 hexes larger than the base game. Take Egypt for example, you have room to maneuver your forces more so than you ever have before, and don't even get me started on Algeria. Also, we see Sicily, which... is a monster of what it was before... I may want to scale that down just a bit in latter versions, for now, it's not a priority. Finally, lets look at Greece, I LIKE IT! I MEAN I REALLY LIKE IT! I'm fully happy with how it turned out, but some of you may not like the large size of it, still, I've always thought that Greece was too small for this game. So... idk, what do you guys think?





Finally, a big treat, I'm finally, for the first time ever, showing off Russia. It's coming together, and I was kinda iffy about showing it off because a large portion of it still isn't finished. (Apparently Russia is a large country, who knew? lol) I think the placement of a number of cities is close, maybe I might move moscow... don't know, but what I love about this map is the Stalin Line. A series of bunkers and trenches that line the border of the country.

[TheBattlefield]

Well...would not it be much easier to take over the "ready to go" campaign world map from SC WW2: WaW? [&:]

[weaslex]

The problem with the already made campaign is that it's 40k in hexagons, the atlas mod is over 100k in hexagons, basically its 60k larger than the original map. Trying to build on the original map would be impossible, I'm not simply rebuilding the map, I'm making the map almost 3 times larger.

In any event, here's some screenys:

German ships, I'm reworking the old naval forces in my previous Panzer Corps mod. This set is ripped direct from Order of Battle.




Japan tanks, since Panzer Corps didn't have many units for Japan, this too was ripped from Order of Battle.

[Kossatx]

I think this map is much better, without the problems of Mercator projection. Scandinavia in the vanilla map is absurdly big [:-]

[SIPRES]

Hi weaslex

Good luck for Map making (I know really well that coastline work is painfull)
did you try map scanner?

Here is a map I work on (20kms/hexes)
Coastlines are 90% completed, I am now working on road networks, hills, forest ect.....

[weaslex]

Quick update, I've got Spain finished, as well as Finland, Sweden, and Norway.





AND WE HAS EUROPE!!! =3

[Pocus]

Sorry to be a buzzkill.

Although I applaud the courage you have to do such a big map, from what I see the scale is slightly less precise than the one in the latest SC, World at War, which would be a pity. Here is a comparison screenshot I did between your map and the official one in WaW, of a country I know pretty well (mine [:)] ). The map distance between Dunkirk and Marseilles is 13 hexs on your map, and is 15 hexs in WaW.



So I would humbly suggest you try instead to use the WaW editor to make a grand world map, it can be much bigger than this current one!

[James Taylor]

Like the way this map represents bigger oceans(better naval dynamics). Agreed it could use some more length, especially for the European theater.

The key is the Pacific islands where there needs to be enough deployment area for multiple combat+HQ units.

[weaslex]

Uhh... I can fix that, and make it larger, the main issue I had with the original map was Poland was too tiny, with France, it shouldn't be too much trouble to expand on it a bit. Give me time, this is still a work in progress. =3

[weaslex]

Still working on the project! Haven't posted in a few days because I wanted to finish the unit's, and I'm ALMOST DONE (with units). =3 Here's a picture of British armor, more to come soon!



okay, this is as big as France is going to get, which, is larger than the original map. So... yep, I will probably enlarge Spain soon, but I need to focus on finishing the map. OH! I'm soon to add weather to the map! XD

[steelwarrior]

Great man, we really need bigger maps - could you make Europe in general 30% bigger?

[weaslex]

UPDATE!!!! 01.01.2019!!! I've updated the pictures in the topic, you should now see that EUROPE IS NOW LARGER! I Don't know nor do I think I can get it any bigger, but do let me know what you guys/gals think. I'll endeavor to fix or tweek as I receive feedback.

MOD FEATURE LIST

- Around 1500 + units
- Total remake of the entire map at over 100k hexes. A full map by 500 x 256.
- New rework of almost every single unit.
- Complete new bitmap of units, now with Order of Battle skins being used in mass in conjunction with Panzer Corps.

First pic, is that of the world map, you can see a large amount of work that has been done in terms of weather, you may also see some country outlines. I'll add a more comprehensive country map latter, but just know, most of the work this week was put into Africa. I don't have much to show on Africa right now, sorry mates, I want to show it off when I've added more cities, roads, rail, but~ 99.9% of the terrain is done. I'm just tweeking and making minor changes to the terrain now.



Next screenshot we see the various unit's you will be able to use with Poland. We've got two types of 7tp's (the duel machine gun turret and the single 37mm? turret.) We've got a couple of TKS tanks, which were the numerous tanks that Poland had at the time. For the first time ever, we've got a polish truck that actually looks like it came from Poland! Also, in the top left corner, you can see one of the new naval units being added to the game. Most of which were ripped from either Panzer Corps or Order of Battle.



While we're on the topic of military vehicles, lets wander on over to France. Here you can see the French FT-17 light tank, which... was an outdated WW1 era tank but the French had a lot of these in reserve. The tank was so popular, that France had to cut exports so that they could save some of these for themselves. Then we have a Renault and a Hotchiss tank group at the front. Finally if you look at the lower left, you can see more new naval units. I'll have new classes and unique looks to many of the levels of these ships.



Okay, now lets spit fire some of these off. First, we have France, YES, it's larger than previously by about... 30 hexes. Still, with Belgium, Amsterdam, as well as Romania, Poland, Italy, Greece, England, Spain, and Germany are now larger, I think it's safe to say that Europe is now 80 to 120 hexes larger than the base game. Though, if you want, go ahead and count cause... I didn't, just guessing here. I think Yugoslavia could be a weee bit bigger, but, meh, I can't get it 100% perfect, sorry.





Next we have North Africa... now Africa is huge... I MEAN HUGE, and I don't mean, just in real life huge, I mean in game huge. It's about 150 hexes larger than the base game. Take Egypt for example, you have room to maneuver your forces more so than you ever have before, and don't even get me started on Algeria. Also, we see Sicily, which... is a monster of what it was before... I may want to scale that down just a bit in latter versions, for now, it's not a priority. Finally, lets look at Greece, I LIKE IT! I MEAN I REALLY LIKE IT! I'm fully happy with how it turned out, but some of you may not like the large size of it, still, I've always thought that Greece was too small for this game. So... idk, what do you guys think?





Finally, a big treat, I'm finally, for the first time ever, showing off Russia. It's coming together, and I was kinda iffy about showing it off because a large portion of it still isn't finished. (Apparently Russia is a large country, who knew? lol) I think the placement of a number of cities is close, maybe I might move moscow... don't know, but what I love about this map is the Stalin Line. A series of bunkers and trenches that line the border of the country.

[nnason]

I can appreciate the vast amount of time and effort put into this mod. It looks great. Is it your intent that this be used for SC3 WaW? I love the scale of SC3 WiE. This looks better than current WaW but not quite to WiE.

Incidentally any playing at this scale? Do you think it effects the outcome/strategies of either side?

Thanks for the work. Looking forward to end results.

[Gamer1745]

Very good to see this work being done! As nnason pointed out it is not on the WiE scale. I would not worry so much about the Americas, not needing to alien them with rest of world. I would use the WiE map as a starting point. I would have many areas in Africa impassable, as they would have been to divisional scale & larger units. Also places like the Himalayas impassable.

I am sure this is a lot of work! When you get something really payable I will show it off on my Youtube channel!

I really would start with the War in Europe map:

This looks so much better for playing a strategic scale game of WW II. Oh, Add More Ports! I know your work is not done, but more than SC currently has!

[weaslex]

1. Is this map for WaW or WiE?

=3 So, quick Q/A this is in fact, for World at War. Yeah... as I was searching for the forums for WaW on google, it gave me this... not brilliant, mind you, but yeah... Sadly, this map won't work for WiE, because the two games apparently, though similar, are (from what I understand) incompatible. BUT~ HUGE BUT! If there is enough demand, I could be persuaded to port this map over to WiE. I don't know how, I'd probably have to make one from scratch. In any event, I'll update the topic to reflect this, sorry if this caused any confusion.

2. Do I think this will effect gameplay?

I do indeed, not only with this allow for more units in the game, (of which I'm unlocking just about everything, from light tanks to Dreadnoughts) there should be more space TO MOVE AROUND IN! Super important here, especially in Europe where space is limited, and this has lead to some stalls in gameplay. This has been reported on Youtube by: A Gamer_1745 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... qgfJg-Z4Xo The problem is the map is so tiny, that units get bogged down in France. So If I can open up the map size a bit, rescale a number of countries, then hopefully, I can avoid the issues that are currently being seen. This wasn't much of an issue in WiE, but that's because Europe was 10 times larger than WaW is. Unfortunately, the map that was presented... well... I love this dev, but the current map isn't brilliant. Aside from Europe, with a larger Russia, it will make it much more difficult for Germany to take Moscow. (though the goal really should be the Caucus, but I digress.) With Africa, since it's a ton larger, this should make it harder to go inland, and will definitely stretch any supply line.

Another thing to point out, this isn't going to be a simple unit reskin, or rescale of the earth. Though many never really knew about this, the original Panzer Corps mod made a number of tweeks to the game play that were not noticed. This was by design, I reduced the speed of naval ships, I released a number of units that weren't originally in the base game (from light tanks to dreadnoughts, see above lol) I made small tweeks to production and research. Though in Panzer Corps Atlas, the changes may actually be more noticeable this time. With the aforementioned small gameplay tweeks, I intend on making some units act like tanks, such as commander units (but in defense only) They will have the same attributes as tanks, but won't be able to attack and should move one grid slower. Why? Because in WW2, traditionally, commanders rode along in command tanks. To me, this makes more sense, though I may be in the minority on this, we'll just have to see how this works out.

I'm toying with production, retooling the turn scale, fixing up research, unlocking a number of units, making units more historical, adding over 1500+ unique units. These all effect gameplay, when I'm done, I have a hope that this will not just be a simple mod, but to make this a far better experience than the original game. Still, a TON of work still needs to go into this, from weather effects to terrain, and since I'm one guy, this will take some time.

3. Could this be done on a WiE scale?

Yes... and no... the max you can make a map is 516 x 256, (my map is 500 x 256) so this kinda limits things a bit, especially if your trying to make the type of map I need to make. It's not impossible, I don't want to poo poo this idea, as it's something I did consider, but~ The main issue is scale, if you have this huge Europe, then everything needs to be made to that scale, with 516 x 256, that limits how that can be achieved. So, you compromise, you make a Europe map as big as you can, and make adjustments according to feedback. I have made France much larger than when I first started, almost doubling the original size actually. It was pointed out that Marselles to Dunkirk was 14 hexes, now it's up to 17 hexes, and no that wasn't done by simply moving two cities around to make it seem larger. Instead, I enlarged both the South, Western, and the Northern sides of France. This forced me to enlarge Spain to make it scale, I had to move England, then enlarge England when I put it back so it would scale too. (phew) This took a few days just to tweek, move, and refit every town, road, rail, river, and I still haven't added that back to England yet. My point? This is a ton of work, but I really hope that said work I put in will be enjoyed and more importantly, will be fun. I can understand why the dev's didn't go down the WiE scale, but at the same time, this could have been done better. AGAIN I LOVE THE DEVS!!! This is a great game, and I have enjoyed my time thoroughly, still, I feel that if more work was put into the map, this game could be one of the best WW2 strategy games in the market. Dare I say, right up there next to Panzer Corps, and all it needs, is a good map that it... In my opinion, didn't get. (or didn't get as large as I had hoped for.)

With that said, again, it's not out of the realm of possibilities, but, if your making a world map, then it helps if things were as close to scale as possible. You don't want a huge Europe next to a tiny Africa, that's when things get kinda weird. Still, I've learned a lot during my time building this mod, if I ever do a second large Earth like map, I may find a way to make it bigger still. I understand the frustrations too, as a gamer, I would love to do all that, but it's not my engine, as such, I need to work within the confines of what I'm given. so... Hope my lengthy post helps. =3

[weaslex]

Quick update on how things are progressing, unfortunately, I've been at work for the past four days, this has slowed progress a bit, the flip side is I've got two days off so you'll start to see more of Russia soon. FOR NOW, this is going to focus on Southern Europe, after the feedback I've been given, I've tweeked cities and boarders to coincide with more realistic standards. Everything SHOULD look up to par now, though I will say that Turkey still needs work, at least Istanbul is where it should be now.



We've also got some minor fixes to France!

[Hairog]

Love the fact that you have given the Pyrenees their due. This is a formidable mountain range and in the stock game they are not much of an impediment.

and a 2 hex Malta and Gibraltar!

This is a great project. Good job.

[terminator]

I am French, there are some typographical errors :
- Lyons -> Lyon
- Calis -> Calais
- Le Harve -> Le Havre
- Aminens -> Amiens
- Dussledorf -> Dusseldorf
- Luxumbourg -> Luxembourg

Good luck for the continuation of your work.

[steelwarrior]

Great work man,regarding the limited size of the map Hubert promised he will make a bigger one possible - check my map thread in the WAW forum - would be willing to do such a large map?
Even now it is already an awesome job you are doing - thanks - would you be interested in maybe using the bleached map - I like the optics of it!
Yep, more unit variety and bigger maps would make it like the best turn based wargame of that scope!

[terminator]

Maybe the FT-17 tank and the Cavalry could be better centered ?




Good luck for the continuation of your work.