Map feedback useful?

[binTravkin]

Would Paradox be listening to any map feedback and implementing?

I'm just looking at the map of Latvia and it's awful.
I don't want to sound like not being thankful for you people making the game, but Latvia is just over there on the other side of the pond and how hard is to check the Google maps and see that, for example Jaunpiebalga is actually south of Ergli, not north and Dvin runs approx. 1 province south of what it's in Hoi3 map, making Riga a much less strategically important point, since it's essentially on the other cost IRL and thus much more defendable from attack coming from south/west.

No offenses, just trying to be helpful.

If you Paradox guys want, can PM me and I will send you a corrected map, at least for the names, if you can't fix the geographical irregularities.

EDIT: I'm native latvian, if my flag doesn't explain it yet.

 

[Baneslave]

Paradox has beta testers to give feedback about the map, and they most likely aren't going to listen to forum posts related to any map issues. Also, any screenshots that aren't given by developers, are from old beta build or from old press build, so we don't even know if the problems are already fixed.

 

[binTravkin]

Well, working in IT, this problem shouldn't have appeared even in alpha due to simple fact there is Google maps, you can check 90% of the map things against.

Anyways, do you know, do they have any beta testers from Latvia?
Or do they accept people in this late stage?
I think there are a couple of people here, most notably Myth, which are from Latvia.
Because the Latvian map needs a serious remake - at least half of the provinces should be renamed and at least one province infra/ic/airport (Riga) should be moved appropriately, otherwise the city is like Stalingrad on the other side of the river (imagine! ).

 

[Windmolen]

There's no way telling what the state of the current map is. Since they won't take in more beta's (game will be out in three weeks, beta is almost over!), you can try and make suggestions here. Paradox has been known to make changes to the map during development. Thing is, development is almost over. The game will be shipped and be in stores in two/three weeks. So it's becoming increasingly unlikely that big changes are going to be made. Perhaps the game is put on dvd as we speak.

I think you'll have to see in the final game what Latvia looks like. And then start modding

 

[Baneslave]

(1) Well, working in IT, this problem shouldn't have appeared even in alpha due to simple fact there is Google maps, you can check 90% of the map things against.

(2) Anyways, do you know, do they have any beta testers from Latvia?
(3) Or do they accept people in this late stage?

(1): First of all, map isn't made for precision, but for gameplay. Also, some people have complained that some province names aren't historically correct, as area was renamed or something, so Google maps isn't perfect solution.
(2): No idea.
(3): AFAIK, no.

 

[Baneslave]

The game will be shipped and be in stores in two/three weeks. So it's becoming increasingly unlikely that big changes are going to be made. Perhaps the game is put on dvd as we speak.

Paradox might make minor changes to map (names etc) in patches, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[binTravkin]

Well the change I'm requesting is like 1-2 textfile changes - I could make them myself if I had the files (don't even need the game as long as the files can be read).
Makes even less understandable why not fix up small things like these (I bet there are loads of them outside of Scandinavia, Western Europe and US) when it just takes like 8-16 man hours of map lookup and text editing for the whole world.
Hope guys @Paradox do this before releasing it.

(1): First of all, map isn't made for precision, but for gameplay. Also, some people have complained that some province names aren't historically correct, as area was renamed or something, so Google maps isn't perfect solution.

Sorry, I think you're wrong here.
HoI3 is a history simulator, there is no sensible reason to alter strategic features of the map to worse. It is also not understandable why correct map, like Google maps was not used as a basis.
You wouldn't even make this argument if Stalingrad would suddenly be on the other side of the river, since that would alter the strategy in the area drastically, same for Riga (though it's smaller).

Google maps is perfect for using while creating draft of the map.
Of course, afterwards, you need to check if the province/city was named like that before, but most of the times you would see it hasn't changed.

 

[Baneslave]

Sorry, I think you're wrong here.
HoI3 is a history simulator, there is no sensible reason to alter strategic features of the map to worse. It is also not understandable why correct map, like Google maps was not used as a basis.

Developers themselves have said that the map is made for gameplay, not for accuracy. Also, HoI series has never been historical simulator, it is game series based on WW2.

Google maps and HoI3 use different projections and Paradox has to work with the engine's limitation, so everything cannot be perfect.

 

[Wulf145]

Sorry, I think you're wrong here.
HoI3 is a history simulator, there is no sensible reason to alter strategic features of the map to worse.

Sorry for OT, but I have seen similar opinions in these forums and would like to know where you got the idea from that HOI 3 (or any of the other HOIs) is a WW2 simulator? I have never heard anyone from PI tout it as such, nor have I ever seen marketing triing to imply it.
AFAIK it is a game about WW2, not a simulator - calling HOI3 a WW2 simulator it is like calling HAWX a flight simulator. HOI3 promises to be a very good & complex WW2 game, but a game nevertheless.

 

[Pal]

As Paradox has said many times now:

The map isn't going to be changed. There are 10,000+ land provinces, all of them generated randomly by a script. Nobody from the Paradox staff is going to work through it, nor will the beta-testers do.

The calculus behind that is that correcting the map is horribly time-consuming but next to irrelevant for gameplay, so it's perfectly suited for leaving it to the community. All map info is stored either in bitmaps or text files, so it's extremely easy to modify it if you have the time required for that. About a month from game release, there will be the first mods with historically correct borders. You just have to wait...

 

[Baneslave]

Pal: I am not sure if you are serious or not. :rofl:

 

[binTravkin]

Must've been a faulty script then, shouldn't have moved places by up to 100km.
It is not irrelevant gameplay wise and cannot be since it directly affects the strategy used, for example if Stalingrad was behind a river when coming from the West, the Battle of Stalingrad would be vastly different (you can think of hundreds of examples here, almost any big city or anything worth to be captured more than the tile next to it works).

Of course, there is no historical simulator and will probably never be, but a game that tries to go more and more into various kind of details of history trying to recreate them, is essentially simulating history. How good, that remains to be seen.

 

[Johan]

It was no script, we designed the map for playability, and assigned names that fitted in our view.

Closing thread #23454 on "Why is my homeprovince not exactly like I want..:"