Announcing Clio : A new map for Victoria : Revolutions

[OHgamer]

Edit 24 Feb 2009

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With Inferis' announcement that he is developing a Magellan-style map-editing tool for the Victoria maps, I have decided to to put out a call for people interested in collaborating on a new map project for Victoria that I am calling Clio.

Now, we don't have the tools yet to begin modding the map, but half the battle in making a map mod is determining what should be changed, added, and reworked. I have some definite ideas, and have done some preliminary organization figuring out which sea provinces can be merged to free up provinces for land provinces, and am developing lists of what I'd like to see changed in the map, especially refinements in the colonial world, especially Africa, and the addition of some missing islands. But also some reworking in other parts of the world, even a couple changes I'd like to make in Europe.

I'll start posting some of my ideas (and even a couple mock up maps for some regions) in the next few days, but I'd like to see how much interest there would be in forming a modding group to develop ideas on what to improve. In the end the more of the idea work that can be done now, the less time it will take to make a new map once Inferis' development work reaches the use of the public at large.

 

[unmerged(5110)]

Before anybody gets too committed to their map dreams and fantasies, I have two strong caveats that we have to note:

- There is a maximum amount of provinces. Unless the Paradox development team sees fit to change this, we won't be able to have any more provinces than we currently have. We can't edit the .exe file to change the maximum number of provinces because it's a define that is referenced in multiple places. Period. What we can do now, however, is readjust provinces, so if you found that maybe the world has too many sea zones, or maybe Algeria is unneccessarily crowded, then we can move provinces from over there to another place.

- Paradox maps have a maximum 'density'. Paradox maps have regions that are divided by grid-lines. Essentially the map is separated into a bunch of squares (if it's the same as the EU2 map). I believe the EU2 map is divided into 40 "squares", to give you a sense of scale. There is a maximum amount of provinces that can go into each square. So you can't make ultra-high-density-one-pixel-is-one-province maps. Keep this in mind! As a rule of thumb, the province density of Germany is likely to be as dense as you make it.

I'd also like to note that, for gameplay purposes, we probably don't want gazillions of tiny provinces that are difficult to click on.

For more on this density issue, visit Inferis' blurb.

 

[King Tiger]

I think everyone could agree on Dresden and Rembang as they need to be labeled "onmap". I've already played around with megellan but I'll definatly use this vicky tool . Will this be more of A VIP map or vanilla with a new map type of project?

 

[OHgamer]

I think everyone could agree on Dresden and Rembang as they need to be labeled "onmap". I've already played around with megellan but I'll definatly use this vicky tool . Will this be more of A VIP map or vanilla with a new map type of project?

Right now it is not a VIP project (it's my own personal pet project). I'll definitely make it so that base Revolutions will work for it. Depending on the amount of changes it should not be hard to make adopt VIP to this map as well, but it is not currently something that will be included in any future VIP versions (will not be ready for 0.5 in any case since Inferis' editing tool is not ready and it would take several weeks of work after that is developed to have a new map ready) by default, though if once all is said and done the VIP community decide to adopt it, that will be all fine and well. But for now this is separate from VIP.

And definitely the missing names on the current map, missing boundary lines, will be top priority to fix.

 

[tyrel68]

Well, the ONLY problem I have with this and I am using the EU2 map project as a guide, changing the map is going to cause very tricky problems in the AI and events won't it?

ie. bonuses going to wrong provinces and ai focusing it's military in the wrong place.

P.S.
Due to the fact this is just anouther great GFX improvement, I am not against it

The list is getting pretty large
1) New country colours
2) New flags
3) New city icons
4) New loading screens
5) New Interface

and now

6) New map

 

[OHgamer]

Well, the ONLY problem I have with this and I am using the EU2 map project as a guide, changing the map is going to cause very tricky problems in the AI and events won't it?

ie. bonuses going to wrong provinces and ai focusing it's military in the wrong place.

It will definitely require a good deal of AI testing to be sure. I'm not overly familiar with the AI question in EU2 modded maps, but in theory at least as long as you keep track of the new province IDs you assign and insert them where needed, the AI should handle things fine - be it rail construction, seazone patrol (here it would be removing target provinces), amphib invasion targets, where AI should fortify etc.

having done a lot of AI work with VIP and in the beta process I think it will be possible to overcome these issues should they arise, and the benefits of even just fixing the problems with the current map (adding names and fixing borders) would make such a tool as Inferis is making very helpful even if there were no new provinces added. And in the end, no one will know for certain if it will work until it is tried.

 

[Calantyr]

Sounds interesting. There are a few things that I would like to see done.

Resizing 'Port' provinces, for example Gibraltar. It's far too big to represent what it is in reality. I'd like it to be smaller yet still being clickable. The same goes for several other ports around the world.

Same goes for islands, really. I know it is an abstraction to have them big for gameplay perposes, but they really shouldn't be as big as they are. Pet peeve maybe.

And shorelines. They are too rounded. I wan't my craggy coastlines!

Nothing that would require extra provinces, but a lot of time and effort in the graphics department...

 

[Reveilled]

I think California and Alaska need fewer provinces. Maybe 6 each. Making them larger makes immigration in the USA unrealistic.

That's pretty much the extent of my ideas.

 

[OHgamer]

Sounds interesting. There are a few things that I would like to see done.

Resizing 'Port' provinces, for example Gibraltar. It's far too big to represent what it is in reality. I'd like it to be smaller yet still being clickable. The same goes for several other ports around the world.

Same goes for islands, really. I know it is an abstraction to have them big for gameplay perposes, but they really shouldn't be as big as they are. Pet peeve maybe.

And shorelines. They are too rounded. I wan't my craggy coastlines!

Nothing that would require extra provinces, but a lot of time and effort in the graphics department...

I think Gibraltar is about as small as you can go and still be able to contain a soldier sprite and see the province a bit as well. i'm not sure if it is the smalles province on the map, but provinces like Gibraltar and Singapore are about near the limit in terms of pixel size for viable, so would not want to go too much smaller.

 

[OHgamer]

OK step 1 : reducing the number of sea provinces to be able to create more land provinces.

can't create new land provinces out of thin air, they need to be made by merging current sea provinces together to free up province IDs that can be changed into land provinces.

I went through the map a while back and have come up with a list of potential merges. As a result, if my math is correct, this will create 130 free province IDs for use as new land provinces. Now I was fairly conservative in this, and other candidates for sea province mergers can be proposed.

But here is my list (the numbers represent the sea province IDs to be merged) :

I. Atlantic Basin

30+170
37+39
40+41
42+45
46+51
53+54
72+91+90
71+74
57+68
190+191
192+193
48+195
187+639
638+641
640+645
621+1219
1220+1221
1224+1227+1225
1757+1758+1759
1226+1766+2144
1744+1747
654+1233
1231+1764
2150+2158
2186+2481
2479+2478
2472+2473
2667+2791
2476+2666
2787+2789+2790
2777+2778
2660+2779
2471+2661
2775+2776
506+2617
2662+2439
2142+2474
2123+2143
2670+2794
2795+2797

total province IDs gained : 45

 

[OHgamer]

II. Pacific Basin

493+499+500
111+112
109+108+498
502+1122
113+503
1+2
505+114
115+116
3+7
4+5
6+11
121+122
1130+1129
1635+2047
2029+2353
2031+1992
2305+2307
1994+2308
2569+2571
2575+2577
1141+1669
2060+2061+2375
2058+2059
2594+2595
2764+2762
2593+2761+2760
2757+2758+2759
2837+2847
2769+2765
2601+2602
2774+2768
2766+2767
2378+2066
2860+1139
2330+2331+2332

total province IDs gained : 41

 

[OHgamer]

III. Baltic Sea

69+70
371+372

total province IDs gained : 2

IV. Mediterranean Sea

1245+1290
1243+1244

total province IDs gained : 2

V. Indian Ocean Basin

2793+2810
2799+2811
2796+2798
2812+2813+2814
2815+2816+2817+2818
2819+2820+2821
2822+2823+2828
2829+2831
2709+2717
2704+2705
2718+2521
2260+2261
2258+2259
1903+2267
2268+2527
2720+2721+2530
2535+2722+2723
2291+2529+2534
2536+2725
2266+2271
1964+1916+2272
2285+2290
2533+2540
2552+2555
2558+2724
2824+2729
2830+2832
1915+1914
1965+1989
1874+1877
1902+2269

total province IDs gained : 40

Sum total province IDs gained : 130

 

[unmerged(41229)]

Wow! That must have taken a lot of searching through text files. That's some diligent work!

I agree with the above statement. Alaska should have far fewer provinces. It's ridiculous how many immigrants that barren wasteland gets.

California is fine as it is for me.

Other than that, I think the Vicky map is very complete as it is (almost too complete).

 

[OHgamer]

Wow! That must have taken a lot of searching through text files. That's some diligent work!

I agree with the above statement. Alaska should have far fewer provinces. It's ridiculous how many immigrants that barren wasteland gets.

California is fine as it is for me.

Other than that, I think the Vicky map is very complete as it is (almost too complete).

Actually it was easy - load game up, type in cheat showid and start looking at where sea provinces could be feasibly joined together. Probably took no more than an hour or so.

On Alaska I'd def agree some trimming would be helpful, and on California could probably merge the provinces in the east half of the state from 4 to 2 without any real loss, and maybe the 2 northermost coastal provinces north of San Francisco (if i am remembering the setup right). Even one of the West Texas provinces could be removed (the northern panhandle perhaps) since Texas was not a major center of immigration in the USA in the 19th C - it got some, but nothing like New York, Pennsylvania or the Great Lakes region.

any provinces taken from Alaska or California should be recycles into the Great Lakes to help promote more colonization in states like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, IMO. Maybe add one more province to NY as well.

 

[unmerged(5110)]

Does Algeria really need that many provinces? I feel like I'm walking on grid paper.

 

[unmerged(19063)]

Kustrin province could be split to allow an Oder border for Germany.

 

[OHgamer]

Does Algeria really need that many provinces? I feel like I'm walking on grid paper.

Actually Saharan Algeria and Libya could both potentially use a bit of reduction.

 

[OHgamer]

Here is a revision of the list of provinces I'd like to add in that I originally posted a few months back :

Separate Islands

- Reunion (splitting Mauritius, which shouldn't be a 2-island province)
- Macao
- Comoro Islands
- Fernando Po
- Easter Island
- Rarotonga
- Guam (split the Mariana Islands province so that the split into German and US zones post Spanish-American War can be done)
- Pago Pago/Tutuila (so that there can be both German and American Samoa)
- Marquesas
- Cayman Islands
- Galapagos Islands
- Madeira
- Faroe Islands
- St Pierre et Miquelon
- Bahrain
- Penang
- Maldive Islands
- Pitcairn Island
- Barbados
- Channel Islands
- Bornholm
- Heligoland
- Saaremaa & Hiiumaa (as one province)
- Prince Edward Island

I'd also like to split up the Lesser Antillies a bit more, but there may not be enough room to do a decent depiction.

Splitting current regions (only just started thinking on this)

- Split Timor so there is West and East
- Rework Gold Coast state to add in 2 more provinces to represent German Togo and have it be separate from Dahomey (currently the 2 are merged, or at least the province names end up merging them)
- Rework Malaya with at least 2 more provinces
- Split Macedonia (Skopje) into 2 provinces (Skopje and Bitola were my first idea).

 

[King Tiger]

I purpose an alteration of new mexicos provinces so Texas (the nation) can have a more historical border in the west along Rio Grande

I don't think it be to dramatic to take a few provinces away(merge) from argentia either?

maybe some readjustments of northern Iraq, eastern turkey, Caucasas to allow more corrrect borders in the post ww1 timeline?

 

[Calantyr]

Couldn't the same effect in California and Alaska (and South Africa) be more simply done by splitting the place into two or more states?

I'd like to add the Singapore region of Malaysia to that list too. The place gets an unholy ammount of immigrants. No idea why, the state is only about 10 provinces big.