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I started making my map a few days ago, I've put a few hours into it so far. I started this map to play with some friends who I recently got the game for, the map is of the town we all used to live in middle school when we became friends.
Here is the main map I have been using as the overlay/for roads. I have been using google maps for mapping the terrain, though I probably could have overlayed google maps on this map and thus made it much easier, but it is what it is. The first image was my progress on the first day of creating this, about 5 days ago. The height is 200 and the width is 152. I know it is super big but the hope is to make this feel like a more tactical fight for the town, as well as spread out fighting over a large are, yet also concentrated on key objectives such as resources, intersections, or favorable defensive terrain. The first session was placing the bodies of water, and roads, and outlining the town borders with mountains, I wasn't sure if I could remove tiles completely, so this was my solution. I also didn't know about the fill feature at first, so each mountain I hand-clicked lol. This is my progress as of today. I have not worked on it consistently since starting, but have put a few hours in so far, maybe close to 10 or 15. I have put a lot of the terrain, and I also expanded the edges a bit to add the turnpike to make a faster route down the side of the map to make it more interesting. The rail and highway will be different from the regular roads so units can move faster along them, making them important routes to fight for. I have also added all the rivers and streams. I have a long ways to go, but it is definitely coming along I think.

This looks very nice. You are ambitious too, that is a big map

Keep us posted.

ernieschwitz wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:58 am This looks very nice. You are ambitious too, that is a big map

Keep us posted.

Thank you! It is definitely quite big, I honestly underestimated the size initially, but I am appreciating the challenge, and I am very excited about the eventual results. Right now, I am simply making a map of the town and the mechanics will most likely be that of the basegame, but eventually, it would be fun to expand the map into the mountain region and also make an actual scenario, likely an invader-defender type scenario with specific unit composition and different win conditions.

Does anyone have any advice on tools to make sprites? I have searched the forum and have a semi-decent idea on how to change sprites around. Here you can see that I have changed the urban and suburban sprites to various default buildings. You can also see I added a new landscape, a forested suburb.

I wanted to be able to put multiple houses next to each other/within forested areas, but I didn't like how it looked when it removed most of the surrounding forest, and wanted some trees among the buildings for some spots of the map. I had a lot of trouble trying to change the suburb sprite while making the borders still blend well and not look like sharp hexes. However, I solved this by instead copying the forest pine sprite, and changing the multi-hex to the image in the fredpine file on pine all around except the center of the hex, then I put the various houses on top as the finishing layer of the sprite.
Now I will just need to change the move and build stats of the forested suburb tile to match the other suburbs.

Back to my original question, I thought I may need/want some different color pre-hexes as well as try my hand at making sprites to create better building variation, but wasn't sure the best way of constructing a fredsheet or even a singular sprite on its own. I don't think I am far enough along to worry about it too much, but I was just curious.

You probably need to talk/write to someone who has experience in the field. I have none really. I would suggest Ormand. He has made the 4seasons graphics, so I expect he will know what there is to know.

Any progress on this?

Hey Ernie and any other interested parties, been a sec since I've been on. I haven't made much progress but that is because my computer with the file containing this project is being repaired. It has also been an ebb and flow, so I shall hopefully be getting a large chunk done once I get it back!

Well, life happens to all of us. Keep us posted