Little minimap cosmetic mod.

[Akka]

Ok, this is probably not what some would call a big deal, but I grew tired with the flashy borders of the strategic map. Particularly for the small provinces, where the borders are practically all what you see on the minimap.

So, well, I just did a lil' bit of tweaking, and made two alternative modified files to change the appearance.
The first is the "soft colour" mode : borders will be of the same colour than the faction, only a bit clearer (download here (http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/soft.zip)).
The second is the "same colour" mode : it will be a map à la MTW, with no borders drawn, as they are of the same colour than the main land (download here (http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/same.zip)).

To install, simply put the text file inside the zip into your "data" folder of the game (as always, make a backup of the original file).

For a comparison between how they look like :

Standard map :

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapa2.jpg http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapb2.jpg http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapc2.jpg



Soft colours :

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapa1.jpg http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapb1.jpg http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapc1.jpg


Same colours :

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapa3.jpg http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapb3.jpg http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/mapc3.jpg


Hoping it will be useful to at least some people ^^


Edit : replaced the higher-quality PNG pics with JPG pics. They are a bit blurrier, but they are at least of the correct shade.

[Silver Rusher]

Wow, cool!

Downloading now...

EDIT: Now I return to this page, the maps all seem to be much brighter.

[SpencerH]

I like it. Thanks for the effort.

[Jango Fett]

nice mod

[Lord_Winter]

Really liked the second...

Those borders have bothered on a small and irritating scale...

[King Azzole]

Excellent work Akka, although it didnt bother me till I saw this thread I couldnt go back to the game the same way after seeing the second set of pics. Looks very "natural" and its a nice effect!

[Basileus]

makes it look alot better, will give it a go :)

[Colovion]

Sweet, I love the last one. Downloading now!

[Medieval Assassin]

I think I love you.

[Ellesthyan]

The second is really nifty, kudos!

[Akka]

Thanks for the appreciation, guys :)
It's good to see that others have benefitted from this too. Now I feel useful ^^

EDIT: Now I return to this page, the maps all seem to be much brighter.
Yes, as I said in the edit, I replaced the first one, which were in PNG and horribly dark, with JPG ones, which have a much more accurate brightness (Numidia looked black in the PNG ones).

I've also altered a bit the formatting of the post, so to have an easier direct comparison between the three types ^^

[Akka]

Excellent work Akka, although it didnt bother me till I saw this thread I couldnt go back to the game the same way after seeing the second set of pics. Looks very "natural" and its a nice effect!
Well, I was bothered right from the start of my second campaign with the borders, for a very simple (and somehow stupid ^^) reason : I was playing the Greek Cities, and Sparta was nearly impossible to see on the map. There was perhaps two pixels of the right colours, and the rest was red, just like the Macedonia's borders. It was like I didn't existed on the map.

As I absolutely love to see maps of my empires, I was very frustrated ^^
And Greece is filled with so many provinces, it just jumped on my eyes when I was looking at the progress of my territories. Too much red in my beige empire !

[Colovion]

I have a suggestion if you have the time.

Dacia seems to be Orange now. Not only on the Minimap but their faction stacks are orange - I was almost pissing myself when I thought the Scythians had invaded.

[Akka]

Yes, noticed that yesterday, but I was too tired to change it, and had forgotten this morning ^^

Corrected, the links now have the correct colour for Dacia. I'll update the pictures later :)