Matrix Games Forums

With the game closing on release, this request might be a bit late, but I will raise it nevertheless.

It has to do with the map and modding.

Would it be possible to have a transparent png-file the size of the overall game area in pixels placed as an extra layer between the movable game marker layers and the map layers (just beneath the hex layer)?

Heh? Why the heck would one want to have that? [&:]

My idea is that if such a file was present, maybe easily available in the main directory folder named "modder's map" or something like it, it would be possible to draw one entire map of the gaming area, replace the transparent file with it, and thus cover all the underlaying map graphics with the new map. This will give a gifted modder a free hand at creating any type of map at his choice. It could be a standard map with slightly different look than that of the original one, or something totally different; maybe a contemporary looking battlemap, a beautiful type of handdrawn map, or even a Middle Earth-looking map if anyone would be so crazy as to want one.

Of course, the modded maps have to include graphics for resources and stuff; that's up to the modder to fix. It could also mean som fuzz with different zoom-levels I'm not aware of. But presumably, one or a few extra, transparent levels wouldn't be too difficult to program, would it?

As I haven't yet seen the game graphics under the hood, I'm of course a bit uncertain here, but it seems to me that the files will be of the same type as in Strategic Command. It's very fun to mess around with those, but sometimes, their repetitive pattern makes them a pain to work with and also makes some efforts impossible.

With a modder's map, each hex can be made graphically different, all to the taste of the creator. Just imagine the modded map that was done for War in the East, which was impossible to do for War in the West because of the changed graphics. What disturbs me the most in the vanilla here, is the mountain ranges, sometimes coming out as a specific feature of the female anathomy, that I think it will be almost impossible to fix within the present system.

Now some will scream: "Graphics is not the game!" No, it's not. But the game will still be there, unaltered in any way. And apart from the creation of the empty png-file, all work done will be made by the modders, and no-one, not interested in modded maps, will have to do anything, just play as intended.

You can create an actual map and import it into the game. That is what I did for Europe. You will have to modify it of course.

I made the map importer for SC3.

Just to be sure that you understood me correctly – I can create one large map-file to replace all the individual tiles? If so, this will be great.

You can create a large map file, import it, and it will generate the tiles for you. You don't have to draw it in. Then you modify the coasts as you please.

Works just like the SC3 importer.

Not sure if I have managed to express myself fully here; English is not my native language. I mean that I would like (in theory) to have the option to draw a totally individual look for every hex in the game. Maybe that's what you mean, but your last sentence seem to say otherwise. Nevertheless, you seem to have made provisions for modding the map, so I simply wait for the game to come out and have a look at the possibilities then. [:)]

You can change the map files all you like.

What a modder can do is change one of the I believe 7 map layers.
Then can take a real map and import it into the editor and use their own custom tile set.

All right. Maybe I can do what I've been pondering about after all, then.

Eagerly waiting for the release.

I made all the map tiles accessible to modders so you can customize the tiles, terrain, resources, logistics how you like. Import a battle, and use your own material.

That's how I made WarPlan in the 1st place. I didn't hand draw Europe. I used Photoshop to make some adjustments and saved my map to a .png. Imported it to the editor and started developing the campaigns.

Interesting.

I'm tempted to flood you with suggestions about a lot of things, but in most cases, when I follow the threads, I find that you have already made things in a way that is very similar to what I should probably have suggested. We seem to be of a fairly common mind when it comes to many things. I too played ETO, in my opinion, and considering when it was released, one of the best games on WWII Europe ever. It had some issues, and the rules lawyers had a field day with it, but the mixture of ground, air and naval war, was very well thought out. It lacked detail in the production system, but in these days computers didn't do that work – players had to learn everything by the rules, so it was probably the simplest go-between. WarPlan seems to have a lot in common with the minds behind ETO.

It was a lot of research to develop it and way more to consider than most realize. Developing a game isn't easy at all.

It has been shown that in most development that you can get 80% complete using only 20% of your time. It takes the other 80% of your time to complete the last 20%.

So it is pretty easy to get something 80% done (and there are a lot of games that many consider only 80% done). The really hard part is getting it across the finish line.