Developer Diary 2 – The Map

[King]

Well, since I read in HoI 3 forum back then some comments from devs about "say whatever ya want, we'll make the map as we want", I figured our criticisms didn't count that much in face of fantasy borders, strange outlines and Stalingrad and stuffs hundreds or thousands of km from where they are supposed to be. Hence my reaction about the HoI 3 map.

Wathever, here are some constructive criticismsl:
Good thing you got rid of the "perfectly good map for HoI3". I've rarely seen so much approximation in a map from Paradox, it's one of the main reason I have not and will not buy the game. And I own every game in the EU and affiliated series since EU1. Save Diplomacy. Oh, yeah, it's also true that now I wait for complete versions.
For the rest, I hope for the best. No too bad now, as when first HoI 3 alpha screenshots were out I knew the map will piss me off. Here, it seems ok. I am willing to see more. If you are stepping back and going towards a more ROME approach (now, THIS is a nice game, I like the sprites and map very much. Even the usually discarded geographical map), good! I concurr with Johann here: Rome is a nice paradox game (except for the city view I don't fancy much). Please follow Rome look for sprites as well. Current ones are so... slimmy! Almost Skiny. They need a coat and haversack...

This is not the Hearts of Iron 3 forum.

 

[Sult]

Shouldn't Norway be represented as a vassal under Sweden, or the two united as an own country Sweden-Norway with the Union Badge?

 

[ollobrains]

looks good, noraway-sweden depends on the starting date u play

 

[gianlucad]

Oh now i remember! this reminds me of Empire Total War grassy flatlands map

Looking forward to the next DD.

 

[Dagfinn]

Huh?

looks good, noraway-sweden depends on the starting date u play

What? :wacko:

Norway have never ever in real history been an integral part of history.

From 1814-1905 Norway was an independent nation in personal union with Sweden. In other words the two countries had the same king, nothing more

 

[King]

What? :wacko:

Norway have never ever in real history been an integral part of history.

From 1814-1905 Norway was an independent nation in personal union with Sweden. In other words the two countries had the same king, nothing more

Please read the thingy a the top of the page. It says this is the Victoria 2 forum not the history fourm. Thank you.

 

[SA_Avenger]

btw King, would rock if we could have that lovely looking map still showing in political mode (which I think most of us are using for playing). Anyway to work that out?

 

[podcat]

btw King, would rock if we could have that lovely looking map still showing in political mode (which I think most of us are using for playing). Anyway to work that out?

there is a very high probablity of the political mapmode looking sweet as well.

 

[unmerged(71032)]

there is a very high probablity of the political mapmode looking sweet as well.

It's is getting better and better.

 

[Easy1]

What? :wacko:

Norway have never ever in real history been an integral part of history.

From 1814-1905 Norway was an independent nation in personal union with Sweden. In other words the two countries had the same king, nothing more

And the same foreign policy, merely administered by Stockholm and Sweden. Then you can ask if we really were an independent nation

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

there is a very high probablity of the political mapmode looking sweet as well.

How high is the probability of us seeing it next Wednesday?

 

[HisMajestyBOB]

It looks nice, I guess, but I was hoping for something more like this:

 

[delra]

It looks nice, I guess, but I was hoping for something more like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/EricDerKonig/vicky2.jpg

Oh noes. I see there's a huge Guano crysis throughout the world in 1836!

"- What will we do, we're completely out of Guano, we're doomed"
"- Let's conquer a country which has plenty of Guano!"

This stupid introduction leads to a question: How do you know the resources be the same as in Vicky/Ricky?

 

[RELee]

This stupid introduction leads to a question: How do you know the resources be the same as in Vicky/Ricky?

We don't. We don't even know if or how factories will be portrayed in the new game. We do know that there will be some sort of world market again, but we don't know any details.

We do have two screenshots.

Doesn't seem to have stopped any speculation along the lines of "everything will be the same but different, and I hope it's like this".

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I think the resource model in V1 was fine, no need to tinker with the concept. Maybe some more resources, but thats it I reckon.

 

[unmerged(47160)]

KING - Can you address the question about the political map colors? Or is that info that we'll have to wait for a future update to get?

 

[SirGrotius]

AMAZING. Totally captures the feel I want.

The only critique I'd have is that I prefer less rigid province boundaries, but that may be a function of the whole alpha thing.

Looks promising.

 

[unmerged(47160)]

AMAZING. Totally captures the feel I want.

The only critique I'd have is that I prefer less rigid province boundaries, but that may be a function of the whole alpha thing.

Looks promising.

I like the less ridig borders. It make it feel more realistic. Especially in Europe, the borders aren't straight lines.

 

[OHgamer]

AMAZING. Totally captures the feel I want.

The only critique I'd have is that I prefer less rigid province boundaries, but that may be a function of the whole alpha thing.

Looks promising.

In the end that I think the rigidness of province borders you notice is mainly a function of the map size.

When I shrink down Clio from the original V1 size to the size of HoI3, the borders between provinces simply become more angular, less free flowing, because there simply are not as many pixels in the image to base the borders. Clio for V1 has a size of approx 29500x15000 pixels, the HoI3 map is approx 5200x2700 IIRC, or about 1/9th the size. Borders will simply not be "flowing" to the same degree they would be on a larger base map.

Unfortunately, video cards simply can not handle a map as big as Clio for V1 with the functionalities that the Clausewitz engine expects from the video card for maps and graphics. Going much bigger than HoI3 size basically gives video cards with dedicated 256MB memory seizures, forcing it to borrow from the main system memory, causing massive slowdowns, and even higher dedicated memory video cards struggle with even a marginal increase in size. At this point, it'll be a good while before the dedicated memory on video cards reaches the levels needed to run a map the size of Clio for V1 completely on its own.

But if the price for freeing up system memory that would be used to run the the map and other graphical elements being assigned to the video card memory alone is a bit blockier borders between provinces, in exchange for more memory for the AI to do all its calculations, I think it's a fair exchange, and in the future technology should allow for bigger map projections to be used on computer systems affordable to the mass of computer owners, not just the few that can drop up to several hundred dollars on the newest top-end video cards.

 

[marshman]

that is the best pdox map so far. can't wait.

I wonder if it will be the first pdox game where you can do Political and Terrian in the same map mode.