• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

themendios

Major
47 Badges
Oct 9, 2009
717
1
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Magicka
  • Europa Universalis III: Chronicles
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Tyranny: Gold Edition
  • Pillars of Eternity
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Crusader Kings II: Conclave
  • Stellaris
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Crusader Kings II: Reapers Due
  • Tyranny: Archon Edition
  • Tyranny: Archon Edition
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics
  • Tyranny - Tales from the Tiers
  • Tyranny - Bastards Wound
  • Crusader Kings II: Jade Dragon
  • Cities: Skylines - Parklife Pre-Order
  • Cities: Skylines - Parklife
  • Shadowrun Returns
  • Shadowrun: Dragonfall
  • Shadowrun: Hong Kong
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Fury
  • Pride of Nations
  • Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
  • 500k Club
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India
  • Crusader Kings II: The Republic
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Divine Wind
  • Heir to the Throne
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Sengoku
  • Sword of the Stars
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition
Originally this was just one flat map mod but now I have a couple permutations and one more I made for something else:

I run this on a laptop with Intel integrated graphics (eg no graphics card) always muted so that drove my desire to trim as much of the fat as I could:

The core version is:
FlatMap(Pretty) - just a simple mod that flattens all terrain and water can be rendered without draw_water (as a painted terrain and not animated). It also turns all the 10meg loading screen into 1 pixel whites for faster loading. Terrain is still pretty and recognizable just the map itself is flat.
Download: View attachment Flatmap(Pretty).zip

The extended version is:
FlatMap(LowRes) - extended version of the above that removes all terrain overlays and heightmaps as well. Terrain now looks like quite pixelated as what you see is only what came from the complete map overlay. I use realm/demense view almost exclusively so this doesn't bother me but if you use terrain mode it is ugly now.
Download: View attachment FlatMap(LowRes).zip
CK2+ NOTE: zeress made a compatible terrain.txt for CK2+ here - no known side effects from the conflict if you don't get it but it retains the CK2+ modified attrition/supply.

An additional side mod that I packed separately:
TrueMute - remove all songs from the playlist and redirects all sound fx to an empty .wav. I play muted on this laptop and not loading those is about a 200-250meg lower memory footprint and probably saves it processing power as well. I didn't separate sound and music - the music part is simply the interface/sound.fx so if you want one or the other but not both that's all you need to know.
Download: View attachment TrueMute.zip


All of them together:
FlatMap and TrueMute AKA SuperHyper Version: what I use, all of the above (lowres)
Download: View attachment FlatMap and TrueMute.zip

Important!
Any of the map mods should also include tweaking MyDocs\Paradox\CK2\settings.txt:

The specific mapRenderingOptions config you'll want to use for any of the map ones:
Code:
mapRenderingOptions=
{
draw_terrain=yes
draw_water=no
draw_borders=yes
draw_trees=no
draw_rivers=no
draw_postfx=no
draw_sky=no
draw_bloom=no
draw_tooltips=yes
draw_hires_terrain=no
draw_citysprawl=no
}

Side note: some of them have achievements.txt in there, I don't know if it's actually doing anything with that since I've never seen one pop up but just had that so that if it was actually making checks regularly to remove them. Not critical to any of the mods.
 
Last edited:
  • 1
Reactions:
Just a quick screenshot of it in 1024x768 in windowed mode (fullscreen = no) with the mod - note that water is not a black hole and mountains are still clearly mountains and have terrain bonuses:

View attachment 54395

edit: this is the FlatMap(Pretty) not LowRes
 
Last edited:
I wish someone did something like this with every game I've wanted to play but couldn't due to my laptop's lack of awesomeness.

Great idea! I wish I could help, but keep on with it :)
 
I wish someone did something like this with every game I've wanted to play but couldn't due to my laptop's lack of awesomeness.

Great idea! I wish I could help, but keep on with it :)

Oh does it sound like it's in progress? Moved download to top just in case it does.

Anyway it's usable now - I have it on my other (work hehehe) laptop and play it fine with Intel onboard graphics.
 
Last edited:
It looks good.

I sort of miss EU2-generation graphics myself sometimes. It's the real meat of the game engine that interests me, event triggers and such. So I will try it out and if I like it recommend it on my mod discussion threads.
 
Nice! That screenshot doesn't look half bad, and I always play in "independent realms" mode anyway, so it's not like terrain matters too much. I love the 3d map, but I'm going to have to put my desktop away for a little bit, so it'll nice to know that my puny laptop will be able to run it. The poor girl could barely handle Vic 2.
 
Nice! That screenshot doesn't look half bad, and I always play in "independent realms" mode anyway, so it's not like terrain matters too much. I love the 3d map, but I'm going to have to put my desktop away for a little bit, so it'll nice to know that my puny laptop will be able to run it. The poor girl could barely handle Vic 2.

The screenshot IS the "pretty" version, the lowres one is a lot uglier (in terrain mode). But really the only reason I even have terrain enabled is precisely for that reason - it paints the realm views on terrain only so you have to have it. No reason why it should eat up all my processing power if I'm not even looking at it, and the realm views look exactly the same.
 
Very nice work. Thanks a lot.
I think the clean flat map is much more useful. May I dream a handmade style map as that from EU III?
 
So when I use this mod it loads up alright, but the borders disappear and I have to rapidly move my mouse back and forth across the map to even see an borders! I am using it with CK2+, perhaps that is the cause of the problem?
 
So when I use this mod it loads up alright, but the borders disappear and I have to rapidly move my mouse back and forth across the map to even see an borders! I am using it with CK2+, perhaps that is the cause of the problem?

I use it with CK2+ - which one of mine are you using? Only thing I can think of that might conflict is terrain.txt - I don't have that issue but try deleting it from mine (it's only in the lowres one though).

If that solves it I'll post a "compatible" version - I just changed all of the priority to 0 at the bottom just in case it cared that terrain was now 1px by 1px.

EDIT: Also double-check your settings.txt
 
Last edited:
Well, my settings.txt matches yours 100%, yet with both hi and low-res versions of the mod the borders disappear! I deleted the terrain.txt, but it yielded no results. I am completely baffled.

edit: Once Wiz releases 1.13 of CK2+ I'm going to re-install CK2 entirely and report back if this fixes the problem.
 
So how well does this setup run for you on your machine, OP?

It's a significant difference - played up to 6 hour sessions with Intel onboard graphics. I did the same thing on my other laptop which has a graphics card (but like a half of a real one) with the pretty version not having to render water/trees/bumps is a big difference. Of course the only way I can really say for sure is FPS but I think my real laptop can handle it at 60 it just gets hot as hell, the lowered settings + flatmap make it not be venting max fans constantly which is my only metric since it can handle it at max just barely.

Well, my settings.txt matches yours 100%, yet with both hi and low-res versions of the mod the borders disappear! I deleted the terrain.txt, but it yielded no results. I am completely baffled.

edit: Once Wiz releases 1.13 of CK2+ I'm going to re-install CK2 entirely and report back if this fixes the problem.
I am sorry I can't help you more, I honestly have no idea -
On the crappier laptop I run SuperHyper + CK2+ but no mongols DLC/mod or the songs
On the better one I run pretty map and everything DLC and CK2+.

The only similar problem I had was when I had it in windowed and every time I'd zoom in it would flicker up and down, figured out it was because it was too tall for the screen resolution and was triggering a scroll down for a nanosecond every second or so. Not much help but weird problems do exist.
 
Last edited:
Hooray! It turns out the issue had NOTHING to do with your mod (or any mod for that matter) and more so to do with my laptop. I had to update to the most recent drivers; apparently man Nvidia users had the similar issues with stuttering borders.
 
Honest to God, I do not know. Pdox spent so much time pretty-fying the map for me to immediately pounce on the first mod that de-pretty-fies it for the sake of performance. It's not even as if my computer cannot handle it--it can (could; it died, but i'm on my backup laptop that can run CK2+ with all the bells and whistles, albeit with the stamina of an overweight 14-year-old whose entire diet consists of cake and soda). However, I just never bother with the terrain map.


edit: I long for the simple beauty of the original CK map. :C (Thought that may be the nostalgia talking).
 
So all this winds up changing is the terrain viewer, and the rest of the map modes are the same? Wow, why doesn't everyone use this? Who the hell uses the terrain viewer?

The Pretty one doesn't actually change the terrain viewer, it just flattens the map in all map modes.

The LowRes one does the biggest performance gains by basically axing the terrain view as well down to 1px flat overlays.

As to who uses terrain viewer, I don't know - but I do appreciate the effort just weird I had to make a mod to turn the bells and whistles off.