Matrix Games Forums

Update:
Version 3 includes scenario and map changes up to 1.00.17.01

I've always liked my war games to look like board games, so I've made a mod for those of us who prefer the more classic style.

I've modified cities, roads and rail, icons, borders, sea-land edge, beaches, well everything. Hills and mountains have been done in a different style which required repainting the tiles on the map to suit. Because of this, the mod will only work with the provided scenario. The scenario is identical in gameplay terms, no terrain tiles have been changed from the original, only the tile graphics have been swapped.

For now I'm just releasing with the Europe 1939 scenario, but it is trivial to port the changes to any of the other base scenarios with a few clicks in the editor.

INSTALLATION:
Extract the contents of the main zip file below to %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\WarPlan\Campaigns
Start a new game on the scenario named 'Europe 1939 - Classic Map'.
I would suggest using PHalen's excellent unit counters from https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=342482, they are shown in some of the screenshots below. The colour scheme works well with this map.

See the second post for alternate versions, just copy over the same files in the scenario folder.

DOWNLOAD:
Version 3
https://www.mediafire.com/file/i28trwfs ... 3.zip/file

SCREENSHOTS:

ALTERNATE ELEVATION 1:
Topographic style where darker brown represents higher elevation.
DOWNLOAD:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/ikahmx9z ... 1.zip/file


ALTERNATE ELEVATION 2:
Topographic style where lighter brown represents higher elevation.
DOWNLOAD:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/fitsjg62 ... 2.zip/file

Excellent work. But, with mountain contours lighter tones generally indicate elevation. But understand the reason for the inversion. Could argue darker is greater 'density' or difficulty travelling through, equivalent to woods/ forrest.
Which gets me thinking, how are you separating the woods/ forrest tiles?

There's a few board games that use a similar approach to elevation, Liberty Roads is one. I think the inverse of this would probably be quite ugly. I had initially used a three tone system of brown, grey and white for the three levels which I thought looked pretty neat too.

I tried using little outcroppings in woods tiles to clarify them but found personally it was a touch too noisy, I think there's some screenshots in my WIP thread of this. Without the outcroppings, woods/forest are separated by how far the tree line enters the hex, once it covers about half the hex it's a forest.

Looks nice but I'd have to un-train my brain in order to stop seeing a flat world dotted with sinkholes! (As mentioned, elevation is usually depicted with a lighter shade.)

That's interesting. It appears that there are two camps on elevation. I've got a copy of Combat Commander here that uses darker colours to represent higher elevation, so it's not an unusual way to depict it.

What colour scheme would you use to represent it that way? Would the base map colour be a darker green or brown and move up from there? Or would it be better to use abstract colours instead that don't follow a gradient? I'm more than happy to make a different version for those inclined.

Perhaps take a look at the command ops AAR's for colour schemes.

I've quickly knocked up another couple of versions.

This is the current version with darker tones representing higher elevation/rougher terrain. Based on a bunch of board games and used in maps like this:

Greyish base map using lighter brown tones for height.

Green base map and lighter tones for higher elevation.

And another that just colour codes the terrain type. The brown is probably too strong here though.

I like your WarPlan_l5Mbjd2fdg.jpg
But everyone is going to have a favourite.
Again excellent job.

Cheers. I'll upload all three in the next day or two. I've reworked the colours of the terrain, and lowered the brightness of the base tiles and the ocean, it was just a little too glarey in play. I've figured out how to replace the AA markers so I'll make some that fit the theme and upload it. Nearly at the point where I can call this done.

An amateurs attempt at Paris, using PHalen's units. Their muted colours work well on this map for me.

v2 out with some minor fixes and new AA guns. Updated main post and added some alternate versions to download.

Great work on the AA guns, I'd never burrowed that deep into the game.
Are you modding this on GIMP or Photoshop?

Using Affinity Designer. Basically a subscription free version of Photoshop/Illustrator.

great map! congratulations!
It really gives a boardgame feeling such as the East Front series Army group North/Center/South GMT games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLQ3qGi_53I
They use the same mountain/hills and soft beige color for clear land terrain.

Do you plan to develop new counter set too?

Thanks.

No plans for a counter set right now, just using PHalens myself.

Fantastic Map Mod, true to retro, have you any plans for releasing a retro map mod for war plan Pacific?

If Alvaro updates the Europe 1939 .scn file, can that just be renamed and copied into the new Classic Map directory?

Thanks

Paul

sic8, I love this map! Is there any chance you might also use it for other scenarios (41-44)?

Or is there a way for us to put this map in other scenarios ourselves?