Map Generator 2.0

[nom]

The latest version of the Map Generator is 3b21 and it can be found here.






Map Generator 2.1 released

Download 2.1 here (HTTT only)
Or 2.0 here (IN)
Or 1.0 here (NA and Vanilla)

Old thread

Features:

Create your own random world to play in.

Contextual placement of everything from countries to religion.

Almost infinite modding possibilities.

Transform your map concept to a working EU3 map with the import map feature.

Set out from historical Europe to discover a new New World




Installation guide:

Remove any old version of the Map Generator.
Remember to back up any modded files.
Run Setup.exe and install the new version anywhere you like.

Quick start guide:

1. Run Map Generator.exe
2. Choose New.. and save your map.
3. Press Build Map
4. Press Create Provinces
5. Press Create Continents
6. Press Create Cultures
7. Press Create Countries
8. Press Load Data
9. Press Create Terrain
10. Press Export Map..
11. Save it in your EU3 mod folder
12. Wait for it to finish exporting the map
13. Run Eu3 launcher
14. Choose your map in the list (the process of creating paths may take as long as 20 minutes)

Quick guide to using real map parts:

1. Click new in the upper left corner and give your map a name.
2. In the upper right corner select 'Europe' or 'Old World' in the dropdown box.
3. Check in the 'Real Map Parts' checkbox in the upper left corner.
4. Follow the listed directions above to make a standard map. Click build map, wait, build provinces, etc...
5. Export to your eu3/mods folder
6. Play!

Detailed instructions

Modding guide

Known bugs:

Some people have complained about problems with non-standard letters, so here is a fix, prepared by Chammadai: http://www.filefront.com/13852700/Provinces.zip

EU3 seems to have some trouble with certain map sizes. (height and width not dividable by 8)

A few port positions are still a bit off.

If you're making small maps, make sure you take a look at this post.

When you are using real map parts you need to have at least 1800 provinces

Build map is rather slow now if you use real map parts. There is a lot of optimization possible but at the moment I prioritized releasing earlier and take the paradox approach of speeding it up later in a patch if people starts complaining.

There are some issues about the boundary between real and random provinces. For example, a river can't cross this boundary.

Source code:

3b18 source

What's new

2.1
Modified the creation of the topology map a bit to make the maps better looking. +some additional changes to make the HandDrawn maps look nicer.

Made a lot of changes to the data set history/missions/decisisons/events to include the new stuff and make them compatible with HTTT.

Modified the Europe data set so the random version of the north african coastline is not there anymore.

Exported the size of the buffer zone in the northern and southern parts of the map to definitions.csv.
Note: The total height of the map, i.e. the height shown in the generator + 2 * the buffer, has to be dividable by 8.

Added a new data set "Columbus' dream" which more or less is a variant of Old World with all of america removed and Eurasia moved to the western edge of the map. This should ideally be generated with a smaller width than a regular map (e.g. 1400-1600 px) and/or with the sealevel set really high.
Note: The width of the map has to be dividable by 8 and you need at least 1800 provinces on a map with real world parts for it to work.

2.0
Added the option to have real map parts
Wrote a new default map script
Rewrote the terrain script
Fixed some bugs with randomization of terrain
Adjusted the population files to decrease province population
Fixed some smaller bugs
Created two new data sets, Europe and Old World
Old World use standard IN decisions, missions and events. Europe uses standard Map Generator decisions, missions and events.

Demo maps:

Conquest of Paradise


Deathmatch


Britain


World

Voyage

More pictures of maps:

[Fintilgin]

Set out from historical Europe to discover a new New World

Haha! Hooooly $@&%.

You are a god amongst men. This is the greatest feature ever. Evening schedule wiped clear, new game started.

It adds SO much character to the game to be able to take a historical England/France/Spain and go tromping off into the total unknown.

[extox]

wow, i never thought this would get updated. Im very impressed

[Ogianres]

I've just created a default Europe map, and every default nation has two national decisions called "allow_title" that has no effect. I haven't looked at any of the files yet because I don't know what to look for. I only bring this up so soon because it doesn't go away when activated and every single nation in the world is activating one or both of them non-stop.

[zefert1]

Hi, I used this to import a BMP map I had made and it worked.

However, there is a white layer over all land provinces; the colors are all right underneath and change according to what view you are in (I can tell by seeing the colors on the ocean edges,) but over top of all that is white; you can still see provincial borders, cities, rivers, but no territory colors; they all being hidden under the white.

Just to make sure it wasn't my computer I ran a completely random map and it turned out fine

I just wondered what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks

Here's a screen shot in-case my above babbling made no sense

[Zeitgeist]

Pangaea!

Very nice work. Someday I'll get around to actually trying it, but I am in awe of your efforts.

[George LeS]

Sounds very impressive.

Now, will you please give instructions for morons like me, how to do this:

Quick guide to using real map parts:
Select a data set that includes real map parts (Europe or Old World)
Select real map parts
Follow the steps in the previous list

I have no idea what this means.

Thanks,

George

[Fintilgin]

I have no idea what this means.

Thanks,

George

How to generate a map with the Old World template.

1.) Click new in the upper left corner and give your map a name.
2.) In the upper right corner select 'Old World' in the dropdown box.
3.) Check in the 'Real Map Parts' checkbox in the upper left corner.
4.) Follow the listed directions above to make a standard map. Click build map, wait, build provinces, etc...
5.) Export to your eu3/mods folder
6.) Play!

[zefert1]

Sounds very impressive.

Now, will you please give instructions for morons like me, how to do this:

Quick guide to using real map parts:
Select a data set that includes real map parts (Europe or Old World)
Select real map parts
Follow the steps in the previous list

I have no idea what this means.

Thanks,

George

real map parts are parts or our world that are real (europe etc.) Allowing you to mix realistic places with fictional ones

if you have the map maker program installed and pulled up, then you can select what data set to use in the far top right area.
.
.
You then select the real map parts check box on the same program; after which you continue to generate a map normally.
.
.
on this image the "data set" I was referring to is number 23



I hope that helps; if it doesn't say so

[Fintilgin]

I've spend the evening messing with this, and the 'Real Map Parts' feature is amazingly awesome.

However, I'm not really satisfied with how the 'Europe' template comes out. Europe tends to sort of 'float' on its own with odd artificial looking coasts. The little snaky line of north africa provinces looks especially weird.

I tried modifying the cut back version of the Whole World Map Basic map into a template, but that... ended poorly.

So I thought I'd go easy on things, and I tried to reduce the Old World template so it would wind up looking a little bit more like this:


With that design Europe will look okay floating on its own, even if no new land touches it. I painted up central Africa as PTI as there was nothing there in the vanilla version.

But every time I try to make my own modded template it works fine in the generator but then crashes the game during world creation.

I'd love to either have a 'Real Map' template shaped like above (preferably based off the basic Whole World map, as it has no PTI and neither do generated maps). Otherwise I'd love some tips on how to make a template from scratch and where I may be screwing things up.

In any case, thanks for the hard work and this amazing program!

[zefert1]

In addition to my first question, how do you change a countries name? I can get it so the name under the army says the countries name I changed it to; but on the blue banner in the top left corner it still says England. Just wondered what file I needed to change.

Lastly, is there anyway to change the flags within the map only; and not for the whole game?

[Nomble]

What does the "Cylindrical map" option mean?

[zefert1]

What does the "Cylindrical map" option mean?

it makes it round as if your map had to compensate for being spherical

[Nomble]

it makes it round as if your map had to compensate for being spherical

Ah, so to make a "planet"-like map, that is the option to enable?

[zefert1]

Ah, so to make a "planet"-like map, that is the option to enable?

yes; it makes your map highly distorted around the edges

[Nomble]

I'm getting a buggy decision.

Game[messagehandler.h:224]: 14 November, 1399 Decision: allow_title in Athens.
Game[messagehandler.h:224]: 14 November, 1399 Decision: allow_title in Hesse.
Game[messagehandler.h:224]: 14 November, 1399 Decision: allow_title in Utrecht.
Game[messagehandler.h:224]: 15 November, 1399 Decision: allow_title in Bosnia.
Game[messagehandler.h:224]: 15 November, 1399 Decision: allow_title in Bourbonnais.

Anyone else getting spammed with this?

[nom]

Hi, I used this to import a BMP map I had made and it worked.

However, there is a white layer over all land provinces; the colors are all right underneath and change according to what view you are in (I can tell by seeing the colors on the ocean edges,) but over top of all that is white; you can still see provincial borders, cities, rivers, but no territory colors; they all being hidden under the white.

Just to make sure it wasn't my computer I ran a completely random map and it turned out fine

I just wondered what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks

Here's a screen shot in-case my above babbling made no sense

What colors did you use in your imported map? For the paradox map in the first post I used (50,50,50) for the water and (150,150,150) for the land. The only reason for a white map I can think of straight away is if you used white for land and the terrain ends up too high for the game or something.

If that wasn't the problem then try checking the colormaps and see if they look normal.

In addition to my first question, how do you change a countries name? I can get it so the name under the army says the countries name I changed it to; but on the blue banner in the top left corner it still says England. Just wondered what file I needed to change.

Lastly, is there anyway to change the flags within the map only; and not for the whole game?

Real countries names are in the localization files: "data set\other\localization\". Random countries are in: "data set\countries\countries.txt"

Adding a flag to "data set\other\gfx\flags\" will cause it to be copied with every map created with that data set. You also need to add gfx to "data set\extend.txt". This is done automatically if you use hand drawn map.

[nom]

it makes it round as if your map had to compensate for being spherical

The more detailed explanation is that the standard map is a sphere with the polar areas cut out projected down onto a plane. This leads to some stretching close to the polar regions.

If you set the relation width to height to 2:1 and set latitude to 90 degrees you get a perfect sphere and you can use it in programs like celestia to see what your new planet would look like from outer space. Incidentally this is exactly how the icon for the generator was created.

A cylindrical map is a cylinder projected down to a plane, which really only means that the right and left edges are the same points.

[nom]

I've spend the evening messing with this, and the 'Real Map Parts' feature is amazingly awesome.

However, I'm not really satisfied with how the 'Europe' template comes out. Europe tends to sort of 'float' on its own with odd artificial looking coasts. The little snaky line of north africa provinces looks especially weird.

I tried modifying the cut back version of the Whole World Map Basic map into a template, but that... ended poorly.

So I thought I'd go easy on things, and I tried to reduce the Old World template so it would wind up looking a little bit more like this:


With that design Europe will look okay floating on its own, even if no new land touches it. I painted up central Africa as PTI as there was nothing there in the vanilla version.

But every time I try to make my own modded template it works fine in the generator but then crashes the game during world creation.

I'd love to either have a 'Real Map' template shaped like above (preferably based off the basic Whole World map, as it has no PTI and neither do generated maps). Otherwise I'd love some tips on how to make a template from scratch and where I may be screwing things up.

In any case, thanks for the hard work and this amazing program!

I was planning to write a guide to creating your own map template but I've been busy earlier. It's really easy to create something like the Old World data set (took me about 30 minutes). A little bit more work with Europe as it required some changes to history files. There might be a problem using a continent with both real and random parts. I need to check how it works.

The guide should be up in two hours or so. I just need to track down this broken decision (and cook me some food) first.

[Fintilgin]

A minor point, but it looks like the Old World script partially regenerates the terrain for the Old World? I noticed the whole North Italian plain becomes hills/mountains in my Old World maps.