The Map

[Chamboozer]

The map looks great, I just wish they would remove the silly city graphics. You shouldn't be able to see a city from that high up, it breaks the immersion (and gets in the way when modding in smaller provinces).

In one screenshot I saw what looked like frozen ports. If that's a feature then I give two thumbs up to Paradox!

 

[flame7926]

I want the whole map a bit lighter. Its too dark and ominous right now. Maybe lightening up as game goes along, would be cool and I could live with, but would rather have it brighter from beginning.

 

[Arcvalons]

I like how it looks, but I think more provinces is always better. The amount of V2 provinces would be best IMO.

 

[Te. Kenzo]

I totally like the map.

 

[Garak]

I think with keeping the VicII map, he meant the graphics.

Ahh. Well, I prefer the CK2 graphics, myself. I like the more 3D look of the terrain, which EU3 also had up until DW.

 

[Sam L]

LOVE the map.

 

[Palfouri]

I like the map, I just hope the provinces are better drawn than they are in DW. More like MEIOU with natural-looking shapes instead of weird boxes.

 

[Sam L]

Who are the people's faces?

 

[EU3NOOB]

As soon as this game is released, Russia.

And as soon as I get the game I shall invade your Russia. As Germany.

 

[Evie HJ]

Why do you all ask for the DAO map? While it IS good to look at, half its borders make NO SENSE before 1815 or at most late 18th century. For GOOD borders that represent the timeline in discussion, MEIOU would be needed.

In Europe, perhaps. In Africa and North America, MEIOU looks like it was drawn by the expedient of throwing darts with name tags on them at a map. Please Paradox, do not use it there. Even your vanilla EU3 map is far better (and I'm not complimenting your vanilla map).

 

[tvremote84]

Its a nice looking map but I don't understand why we need amazing graphics for a grand strategy game like this. I would much prefer a simple artistic style, like a hand drawn paper look or something. I play dwarf fortress in ASCII, however, so I'm probably in the extreme "don't care about graphics" group. Still, I liked Pdox maps better before they started going crazy with 3d realistic maps.

 

[Sam L]

Its a nice looking map but I don't understand why we need amazing graphics for a grand strategy game like this. I would much prefer a simple artistic style, like a hand drawn paper look or something. Of course I play dwarf fortress in ASCII so I'm probably in the extreme "don't care about graphics" group, but still, I liked Pdox maps better before they started going crazy with 3d realistic maps.

These are simple. How simple do you want them to be? Plus have you seen how advanced the graphics are in other games? I don't feel for one second that Paradox has ever sacrificed substance for aesthetics.

 

[tvremote84]

I just don't think hyper-realistic looking maps add anything to games like CK or EU. Like I said, I'd much prefer something more abstract, like a hand drawn war-map-on-a-table- style. I really don't expect many people to agree with me, but this thread was about sharing opinions and since no one had said anything against the map style I figured I'd throw my opinion out there. I do like the map, it looks pretty, just don't really care for the style, or the direction Pdox is going with maps.

 

[metalinvader665]

The map looks pretty nice right now, but my complaint is that after having played so much Vic 2, CK2, and the MEIOU mod for EU3, going back to having so few provinces in vanilla will be tough (modders will have it changed in a month or two, probably, but still). I'm hoping that we can get a good solid 2,000 or so land provinces (I think MEIOU had about that many) to get that epic grand strategic simulation Paradox is promising.

 

[flame7926]

I just don't think hyper-realistic looking maps add anything to games like CK or EU. Like I said, I'd much prefer something more abstract, like a hand drawn war-map-on-a-table- style. I really don't expect many people to agree with me, but this thread was about sharing opinions and since no one had said anything against the map style I figured I'd throw my opinion out there. I do like the map, it looks pretty, just don't really care for the style, or the direction Pdox is going with maps.

I feel sort of similar, I like the Victoria 2 map better than these too, but my opinion isnt that strong, until they make Victoria 3 with this map. Then I won't buy it.

 

[flame7926]

Why do you all ask for the DAO map? While it IS good to look at, half its borders make NO SENSE before 1815 or at most late 18th century. For GOOD borders that represent the timeline in discussion, MEIOU would be needed.

I really don't like the number of provinces in MEIOU. Some of them are impossible to click on, and there are so many weirdly shaped ones it looks like a kid who didn't know how to use a jigsaw cut up a map of Europe.

 

[Garak]

I understand but the terrain in India for example has had the Himalayas way way too far south into India and this has been reported since eu3 1.0. Also the province layout in India for the BAH / VIJ area has been extremely in error for just as long. Recently there has been a minimum India fix mod (not sure the exact name) that could be used by Paradox to at least make some attempt to fix the most glaring errors.

I also hope that Paradox will make some effort to having the DW mod maps work in EU4. When DW 5.0 came out it killed all the major EU3 mods completely due to the exe map changes. The exe would not even work with extend = map or replace = map and it took almost 1/2 a year before replace worked correctly again while extend = map is long dead. The WWM map for DW is still not yet beta and the MM (free) for DW is in beta. It has taken that long for the mod community to try to adjust. Yes other mods like MEIOU and Terra Nova that existed for HTT recovered more quickly but it took them many many many months of pure pain to adapt to DW.

On top of this the simple fact of turning the province.bmp so north is at the top when saved killed all the user created map utilities and we had to go and fix them.

And the joy of having to completely redo the map positions world wide by hand was not fun. Same for having to redraw the river.bmp by hand was not fun simply because someone decided to make the rivers.bmp 3 times larger but left the max river width still 1 pixel wide made resizing the file impossible.

So yes add new features but do so in a way that the existing mods can adapt.

Otherwise as loyal as I am to Paradox I will simply wait a few years and buy EU4 at 75% off and in the mean time keep playing my personal DW mod which I spent almost a month updating from HTT to DW just a few months ago due to the hassle of the HTT to DW map changes.

Sorry to sound so negative. I love that Paradox is still supporting the EU game. I have been buying and playing since EU1. I even understood and appreciated the tech changes to the map from EU2 to EU3. But the map changes from HTT to DW were minor game wise but massive pain mod wise.

You do understand this is a completely different game, right? I mean, I really don't want to come off as patronizing, but the way you're talking about it, and the past games, for that matter, really sounds like you're not making any distinction between expansions and fully seperate sequels. As far as EUIV is concerned, there are no existing mods. Of course they'll have to change. They may be dealing with features that won't even exist in the new game, entire mechanics which are handled completely differently, etc. I really don't understand why you would think that any mod of any kind could simply be ported to a whole new game without significant work. And that's assuming that doing so was even worthwhile, which it might very well not be, given the different/new mechanics.

 

[17blue17]

You do understand this is a completely different game, right? I mean, I really don't want to come off as patronizing, but the way you're talking about it, and the past games, for that matter, really sounds like you're not making any distinction between expansions and fully seperate sequels. As far as EUIV is concerned, there are no existing mods. Of course they'll have to change. They may be dealing with features that won't even exist in the new game, entire mechanics which are handled completely differently, etc. I really don't understand why you would think that any mod of any kind could simply be ported to a whole new game without significant work. And that's assuming that doing so was even worthwhile, which it might very well not be, given the different/new mechanics.

The world map is a world map is a world map. A number of people have spent years working on their custom maps. There should be no reason they can not continue to work. The victoria II map and the DW map work much the same way so why can't EU4??????? Why do we have to flush down the drain all the time and effort people have spent??????

I don't mind a new game with new features but why have the map be non compatible?????? There are threads already in the EU3 mod forums such as MEIOU asking if MEIOU will be ported to EU4. People have no idea how many 1000's and 1000's of donated hours have been involved creating the maps and then I come here and see that people apparently just don't care......

Well I suspect the sales of the game over the years has been helped by the availability of the mods. Yes you can make new ones - just expect a delay of six months to a year - and if that slows down EU4 game sales and impacts on Paradox's interest in future patches well I guess then that is what is to be.

 

[17blue17]

(modders will have it changed in a month or two, probably, but still)

When DW came out it did not even work with custom maps. It took 5 to 6 months before Paradox did a patch to fix that. It then took many many more months for the mods to work again. In fact the WWM is still trying to get their new DW map released. So a month or two may be correct if Paradox makes the map mechanics of the exe compatible with DW maps - other wise your estimate is way way too short.

I like the new game features but if we can have them combined with the same map engine DW has ( the map can be improved shape wise, or climate effects wise ect but keep the basic map building mechanics the same) then yes we could be back up and running fairly quickly.

I want to be clear - yes its ok to make new mods rather than port the old EU3 ones. I am simply asking that if possible the maps people have spent years creating could be ported farily easily.

 

[flame7926]

The world map is a world map is a world map. A number of people have spent years working on their custom maps. There should be no reason they can not continue to work. The victoria II map and the DW map work much the same way so why can't EU4??????? Why do we have to flush down the drain all the time and effort people have spent??????

I don't mind a new game with new features but why have the map be non compatible?????? There are threads already in the EU3 mod forums such as MEIOU asking if MEIOU will be ported to EU4. People have no idea how many 1000's and 1000's of donated hours have been involved creating the maps and then I come here and see that people apparently just don't care......

Well I suspect the sales of the game over the years has been helped by the availability of the mods. Yes you can make new ones - just expect a delay of six months to a year - and if that slows down EU4 game sales and impacts on Paradox's interest in future patches well I guess then that is what is to be.

The Game of Thrones map was made, a completely new map, very quickly, they had it done within a few weeks of release, because IIRC a person was a beta tester, and did it. I'm sure some member of the MEIOU team will be a beta tester, and can work on porting the map. And there was a bunch of threads, etc about VIP for Victoria 1 being ported, they started, but never finished. I doubt MEIOU will be as important a mod for EU4, if it exists at all, as it is for EU3. The map can be ported if people want it that bad. A month tops. Paradox was fine when they didn't have mod support for any other sequels, new mods arose, as someone said earlier. The whole set of problems that mods will be needed to fix, and things they can add content to, are going to be completely different, so completely new mods will be needed. Maybe some of the same people will work on big mods, but ports of whole mods aren't reasonable things to happen. Maybe flavor events and decisions, the missions and stuff, but thats pretty much the extent of it.