Regarding the landmass ratio...

[Lentonius]

Hello, while playing TE 5.1, as Bactria, it occured to me that having a larger area to play on really enhanced gameplay, with less crowded regions, and more mountains and strategic points- it really made me love the campaign part of the game more than i had done.

So, even though this landmass ratio is only a ratio, how come people talk of maps not being able to be bigger because of water ratios, i mean, how would this be so, as theoretically you could make the vanilla map 10x the size and there shouldnt be an issue...

The reason for this is because i would like to know if there was the capability of making a larger scale map, mainly to enhance the strategic element to it. If the map was bigger (much bigger) then there would be more valleys, cliffs, rivers etc for gameplay.

Regards
Lentonius

[JuliusCaesar]

I think the landmass ratio says how many continents or landmasses (separated by oceans) a map can have, not how huge it can be.

[Makanyane]

Unfortunately the description of the problem as landmass ratio is slightly misleading - it does relate to the maximum percentage of water you can have but the percentage varies with the size of the map.

these aren't actual figures but as example if you can get a vanilla or smaller map to work with 50/50 land/water, if you want to double dimensions of map you may have to redesign layout to give, say 75% land 25% water. From personal testing I also think if the water areas are divided in two / three then you can get away with larger amount of water.

I haven't yet seen anyone give exact reasons for problem or exact possible ratios / max sea sizes - I did a lot of trial and error testing drove myself completely round the bend, didn't reach any definite conclusions and gave up and settled on a compromise size / layout!

P.s. I agree - large maps rule

[IceTorque]

Lentonius, Yes less crowded regions, going off on campaign, scaling 3D mountain ranges, marching through the wilderness, extending your supply lines, taking the chance of being cut off and destroyed. Now thats an imperial empire simulation.
I'm not sure how this land/water ratio works. all I know is a map of Europe won't load if I go bigger than map_regions 510 x 337. I have had larger working maps but as soon as I add water, no work. :wall:
10x bigger, sounds good in theory, but the game would need a hot key to take you to any problem areas in your empire. Imagine having to scroll around the map for 10 mins every turn, lookin for rebs and unrest. Anyhow, you can have a slightly larger map than 510 x 337, but only an inland one.

Makanyane, Just out of curiosity may I ask what size your map is ? and is your map just Great Brtain or does it have bits of France and/or Norway ? and is it for 1.5 or 1.6 ?

-IceTorque

[Makanyane]

Ice Torque, map_regions size is 258 x 400, it's for 1.6 has little bits of france, ireland and spare landmass in north sea (currently badly drawn viking boats) land joins edges in cornwall, scotland and east anglia (partly for emergence, partly to split seas), this is compromise where I got fed up with testing:
https://img399.imageshack.us/img399/7417/mapregionsjpeg8qa.th.jpg (https://img399.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mapregionsjpeg8qa.jpg)

I'm really curious to know on Arthurian TW, how large that is;
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1180723#post1180723
and if their nice looking dragons (in radar map screen shots) are actually land and quite how they handled that.

[Lentonius]

if a map could be larger, I personally would hope to make it around twice the size of warmap, but i would want to refrain from implementing artwork into the map to increase landmass...

Also, if you can create ground types, theoretically couldnt you create a new one only boats could move on, and make the texture water? This way, you would only need 'water' around the coasts to make the waves look real...

[Lentonius]

Is there any way to change what ground types armies can march across?

Because, with enough editing, you could make the water 'land' but texture it so it looks like water, but if armies can still march across it it kinda ruins this concept.

I mean, you know mountains, and how armies cannot cross them? If you could create a ground type that armies couldnt cross, and textured it water-like, you could have that instead of water. The only problem may be that navies may not be able to cross it either, but , if you left a small perimeter of water along the coast, this could improve gameplay if navies had to stick close to the coast, meaning more battles etc.

[Makanyane]

Lentonius: I had wanted to use groundtypes to solve my err 'artwork' problem, don't know about getting boats to cross other ground types, but did try using impassable terrain. Wanted to use impassable forest ground type with swamp climate - that combination isn't used elsewhere and comes out black on strat map, thought that at least that wouldn't look like land and could possibly be ammended to look like water.

Unfortunately...... very large areas of impassable forest seemed to give similar CTD to original landmass problem - haven't tried with mountains or an 'adapted to impassable' ground type, would be interested if anyone else has - or if you're volunteering to experiment?????

I'd test the thing about impassable forest yourself, or see if anyone else had same result - I'm 90% sure but I could have accidentally cut off bit of region and given it a pathfinding glitch (am also slightly curious if the water ratio CTD is pathfinding related - but can't see how that would help solve it - have tried the impassable deep water and that didn't help me)

Other plan could be assuming you keep FOW on, can you have spare landmass far enough away and with impassable water to stop boats so you don't actually see it, then draw radar map so spare land is not shown (I was also having problem making radar map that aligns properly for vertical map so haven't got there yet either)

[IceTorque]

Makanyane, nice work, the maps huge. :2thumbsup: with your radar maps, just resize and rename one of your map tga's, it should fit perfectly then. If you work out a way to hide the extra landmass, please let me know.

-IceTorque

[Lentonius]

Makanyane, good idea about 'hiding' extra landmass, but the only problem is that it could look a but ugly on the map, and also may affect loading times.

However, i really would appreciate any feedback by CA on the exact issues of the landmass ratio, as it is something really unknown in the community, even expert mappers like Icetorque and BDH still dont know the exact limits, and this really effects mod progress, and ultimetely, creativity.

Because I want to create a large map for strategic gameplay, the limitations of this ratio really show, and there seems no clear way to 'find a loophole' in the limitation.

Even if the 'mountains' plan worked, it would still not look right, the water flows in the map, and a blank blue texture would not look nice, also, you have to assign this 'sea' to a region, also causing problems everywhere. Anywho, i am testing this 'mountain' thing now, cya

Lentonius

[Lentonius]

hmm, the campaign goes back to the main menu, its really fustrating

[Avicenna]

I'm no modding expert, in fact I'm a complete modding noob. But I think Lentonius has a good idea.

Can't you just have, say, the coastline and nearby as 'water', creating a huge impassable area at the ocean? The impassable section will be 'land', with no settlements on it and looking like water, so the human won't land there.

[IceTorque]

Tiberius, thats the problem, how do you make it appear as water. I think Makanyane has the best idea, surround the xtra land with deep ocean so FOW will keep it covered. Though the problem of large areas of impassable terrain causing CTD's would need to be fixed, as I think the AI behaviour could be effected if the xtra land was passable.

-IceTorque

[Makanyane]

Interesting but I'm not sure how relevant finding:

Played with getting rid of boat shaped land on my map again, can get down to dividing sea with 1pixel land border i.e:
https://img244.imageshack.us/img244/1637/1pixline0ov.th.jpg (https://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1pixline0ov.jpg)
1pixel width doesn't show horizontally on radar map with fow off, but unfortunately vertical or zigg-zagged diagonal does show up, point to point pixels on the diagonal brings back CTD. At least I think this proved theory on dividing seas...

Will try playing with ground types now area is smaller to try disguising land.

[Makanyane]

Tried assigning ground types to 1 pixel division, left as water works but gives default land appearance, changed to beach or swamp work, using impassable forest and high mountains gives same old CTD, so no progress there.

Ice Torque: using FOW / deep water doesn't work as I'd hoped forgotten that with FOW on you still see ground type in main strat map if you scroll over it, so appearance there still needs to be sorted. Also outlines of 'region' still show up on radar map - game seems to overlay it - having FOW not reach it only stops it lighting up on radar map with faction ownership (rebel) colour:
https://img355.imageshack.us/img355/7783/1pxradar6hl.th.jpg (https://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1pxradar6hl.jpg)
don't know how clear to view this is but vertical line and rebel island in corner are game generated and not on my radar map - they could possibly be slightly disguised on radar map by fading in dark area to cover them.

If 'spare' land ground type is passable terrain but rebel owned and unreachable by sea do you think that would still effect AI?

Lentonius If you're going back to menu (not desktop) then its not solely the landmass / impassable terrain issue thats causing your initial crash.

[Lentonius]

Makanyane, nice screenies, but I dont think that this would solve the problem.

According to Icetorque, the bigger the map, the less water you can have in proportion to land. For a Europe map, with the mediterranean sea, this is a big problem, as it would be hard to create a european map much bigger than in Vanilla without causing CTDs by this, frankly, silly limitation.

However, with a europe map, I dont think that this would really stop this rule, as even with a 1 pixel line, there will still be pretty much teh same amount of water, do you get what i mean?

Unfortunately, I think it will be very hard to manually configure a larger map to work, it would be very buggy, and not look very good either.

I think the map is the number one priority for CA to offer support, guidance, and hopefully, solutions to with. From the beginning it has been impossible to fully understand how the map works, and the various limitations. Even if CA could not offer a solution, knowledge of the exact limitations would prove invaluable, and would be much thanked by the community.

Also, if CA are making a 1.7 and 1.8 patch, removal of the landmass issue would be a top priority in my opinion.

Regards
Lentonius

[IceTorque]

If 'spare' land ground type is passable terrain but rebel owned and unreachable by sea do you think that would still effect AI?

That will be ok, it's only if the spare land has no region of it's own, then the nearest region to it will aquire the spare land ( as you would already know ). Then the AI will try and send an army to guard it's border. if it can't reach it, then it will just stand on the nearest point.

Lentonius, you really do want a giant map. Lets hope with MTW II we can stretch it a bit more than my tiny WarMap. I'm testing Makanyane's theory on dividing seas, so maybe we'll break the barrier yet. If not, would you like an all land map to play with ?

-IceTorque

[Silver Rusher]

What is the point in this stupid ratio? It does nothing at all useful for the game, whichever way you look at it, but simply stays as a nuisance for modders.

What I don't understand is how the Crusaders mod (with its huge and frankly superb campaign map) manages to survive under the limitations of this ratio. Here is a thread if you want to see what I mean:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61093

Look at the first post, then at the screenshots.

EDIT: Now hang on a minute! Maybe the ratio is affected by patches/BI?

[Lentonius]

well, ideally I would have liked a giant version of the vanilla map, to make a strategic version with,but depending on the circumstances, this could be impossible.

Even so, i still dont think an all-land map would be as rewarding as a bigger vanilla one, because it would bear no resemblance to the original game map.

However, with this landmass ratio, I dont quite understand. Is it the amounts of sea in one 'block' or is it simply the ratio of total land area to total sea area?

Regards
Lentonius

[Makanyane]

However, with this landmass ratio, I dont quite understand. Is it the amounts of sea in one 'block' or is it simply the ratio of total land area to total sea area?
Thats what I was trying to figure out with the 1 pixel division thing - have now reached throwing computer out of window stage again!!!! This morning I've been able to make break in one pixel line so sea is not totally divided and it still loads (aaargghhh). However cutting out 1 pixel line, measuring number of pixels with histogram, and replacing with 4 x larger (in pixels) solid island of land (in map_heights) and I get CTD again.

So its seems not exactly ratio and not strictly about size of completely divided blocks of sea, ??? back to pathfinding issue???????:wall:

Anyway I agree, it would be very, very nice if CA could either explain or preferably fix.. and unfortunately I don't think any of this is likely to get you europe map to the size you want...

[Uranos]

I'm really curious to know on Arthurian TW, how large that is;
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1180723#post1180723
and if their nice looking dragons (in radar map screen shots) are actually land and quite how they handled that.

This is the map_heights:
https://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mapheights7wm.png
as you can notice it's 451x427 ~:)

[IceTorque]

Ok, map_Heights 1021 x 1021 seems to be the limit. I did this by extending WarMap South, 1021 x 675 to 1021 x 1021. Unable to simply scale it up, too much water that way. So now 1/3 of the map is made up of the Saharan and Arabian desert, which is a bit too much sand for my taste....Perhaps the Zulu total war (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=41) mod team will lend me some Zulu's to put down there !!!

-IceTorque

[Lentonius]

Unfortunately, i think we cannot work out this ratio simply. There is one time consuming way to do it, although still there will not be an easy answer, and will feel more like a stupid math investigation. I would appreciate that CA probably wont be able to offer a solution, but any information would be appreciated.

Ok, here is what we would have to do.

Create a map with map heights of 100x100. Test it with 100% land, then 90%, then 80% and so on, until you find a CTD or an error. Then a map of 200x200, we do the same proportion of land until we find a crash. We keep on doing this until say 1000x1000 map is used.

Then, we make a table of the minimum percentage of land required to make it work, and basically try to find the rule. Then we test it, and if it works, hurarh, we have a fairly rough idea of this ratio.

However, if anybody would be willing to help on this task i would be more than happy to contribute.

Regards
Lentonius

[Makanyane]

Uranos: thanks for the link, that answers my question - and its looking great!

Lentonius: started having a more concerted experiment along the lines you suggested and also changing layout. Quickly found out it does seem to have a lot more to do with layout of sea rather than percentage.

For an 801 x 801 map_heights with one continuous sea it CTD's at about 10.5%, ie. this arrangement crashed:
https://img182.imageshack.us/img182/1341/11tallnotworkmapheights9el.jpg (https://imageshack.us) but cutting chunk out of middle of sea and pasting elsewhere (so obviously the same ratio) did work - in fact I've so far pasted that sea in another 3 times as well:
https://img182.imageshack.us/img182/4794/26splitworksmapheights1dj.jpg (https://imageshack.us) and that is working with approx 26% sea.

Not sure if this is getting us any closer to a bigger europe map but if we can pin down more exactly what does / does not cause CTD, maybe we can get a bit further. (And at least it looks like if you want a large map with a lot of lakes you're OK!)

Made a simplified campaign to experiment on, in case anyone else wants something to experiment on I've posted it here:
http://www.filehosting.cc/download.php?id=F3ACBBC5
its for BI 1.6

[Myrddraal]

I wonder if the crash is caused by too large areas of continuous areas of sea. Maybe putting in some islands might work?

Probably not but it's just an idea.

[Lentonius]

wow, this is very interesting, I think i will have a fiddle myself when i get an hour or two.

This is an important discovery IMO, that its the size of seas, not the mass of land that is most important.

Now, it seems that the main issue now is dividing the seas in a Europe map to such an extent that there will be no CTD's with a larger map.

This seems like there are still few options available to make this work, but I have thought of one.

Okay, it works like this;

We put a 'grid' on the map, say, a latitude longtitude one. This would split seas up comforably. You could have a basic one for the land 'grid', say, a line of high fertility, or something like this.

As for the sea, I dont know how the hardodes would affect this, but if you had small 1 pixel grid lines, would armies be able to traverse the grid texture?

If so, is there any way navies could traverse this grid also?

This poses some tough questions, and I would be grateful for some info if anybody knows any easier solutions to this...

Regards
Lentonius

[Lentonius]

Myrddraal- I dont know that your theory would work, as otherwise enlarging a Europe map would work in this way, as islands like Crete would 'block' the continuous sea.

Regards
Lentonius

[Makanyane]

Have just switched to testing on 1021 x 675 map_heights, as I've realised thats a similar area to the 800 x 800 area I was using and WarMap has larger area of continuous sea than I was achieving.

WarMap (at least I think that was what I was looking at - apologies IceTorque if not - versions/mods a little mixed up) has a continuous sea area of 165803 pixels. I added 151875 plain rectangular sea area to an otherwise land 1021 x 675 map_heights and it CTD's.

I'm starting to think really relevant bit could be the 'almost' divisions as I found on my british map (or something else related to shape of sea):

This morning I've been able to make break in one pixel line so sea is not totally divided and it still loads (aaargghhh). However cutting out 1 pixel line, measuring number of pixels with histogram, and replacing with 4 x larger (in pixels) solid island of land (in map_heights) and I get CTD again.
European map has 'almost' divisions already at various points, black sea, africa /spain etc. Unfortunately when I tried other configurations of almost dividing my british map north sea they didn't work - so there's something quite subtle about arrangement.

Lentonius: Unfortunately I suspect grid system could mess up both land and sea movement, but don't understand enough about that to say for sure.

IceTorque: Out of interest, I'm not really going for bigger map, just wetter - but do you know if 1021 is hardcoded limit for dimension of heights, or was that just where you stopped due to water problem?

[IceTorque]

Makanyane, The 1021 x 1021 limit was tested useing an all land map, and I was unable to go even one pixel more. :wall: The largest scale map of Europe with just the North coast of Africa that I have working now is 1021 x 721 up from 1021 x 675 This is a scaled up and not extended version of BI-WarMap II running on the RTW exe.

As this map only extends as far East as vanilla, and is already at max width, to scale the height to it's max and keep things in perspective on this square configuration, vast areas of wasteland would need to be included on the map.
Which I think is good for bragging rights only, and would not be so good for gameplay. After all who wants the AI wandering around the Saharan desert chasing rebels, instead of guarding it's coastal cities and focusing it's attention towards the centre of the map. Also the square map of 1021 x 1021 looks odd and squishy on the radar map.

Anyways, I'm play testing WarMap III now ( 1021 x 721 ) and with only a few more settlements/regions than vanilla, I really do think that any larger would be too large and/or too square. For those that may be interested, I will be releaseing this version in a week or two.

-IceTorque

[IceTorque]

Sorry, double post.

[Makanyane]

thanks IceTorque just trying to understand where limits come from...

Have just got this to load which is sort of your map reversed to avoid my regions block and with a lot of extra black sea's (EDIT:thats got 66824 px continuous sea in corrected regions so effictively 267296 in heights)
https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/2793/blacksea2ev.th.jpg (https://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=blacksea2ev.jpg),
its giving me the same graphical glitch I get if I have smaller regions block on large map; have also tried mirroring it to get back to normal view - including moving army positions in strat - and that crashes!!!!!:furious3: .

this bug is really annoying me now - I will hunt it down and kill it!!!!!!!!

P.S. I don' really want to go beyond 1021 I just want to be able to do it for geographical regions with less land, ie. med. with less eastern land mass or for a britain you can actually sail around!

[IceTorque]

That glitch is just a simple error with one of your tga's. It's nothing to worry about, I get the same thing happening often. A possible cause could be an error with your map_regions tga. If a settlement is not represented as a black dot or is placed over water, the engine will place it in the bottom left corner. You could have more than one settlement missing from the tga or one or more settlements positioned on water. You probaby already know this but in case you don't and to save you a bit of time, only the map_heights and map_regions need to be present for the map to work.

As for getting a map to work with max water tiles, ( Great Britain ) you are way ahead of my knowledge in this area, All I could suggest is to use a map that represents Britain in a more upright position, that would reduce the water to land ratio.

-IceTorque

[Makanyane]

Thanks all for previous help and suggestions, still not getting to any useful conlusions. But have one more non-useful one:

In previous testing I found that larger ratios of sea/land could be achieved by adding relatively small amounts of land to either; divide sea areas, with either solid or 'land bridges' and / or make small geometric adjustments to shape of sea. When the small amount of added land was then made impassable by using map_ground_types.tga to cover that land with impassable forest then the map CTD'd again.

To test out a hunch I've changed experimental map back to all land in map_heights and used same shape areas as for previous rectangular area test
to place impassable forest where sea was. CTD occurs in exactly the same way. ie:
https://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8111/gttall1am.jpg (https://imageshack.us)doesn't work but
https://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9645/gtsplit6bj.jpg (https://imageshack.us)does.

I think this shows that CTD is caused by extent of areas that land units can not walk over, rather that by extent of sea as such. (back to pathfinding again! anyone understand anything about that?)

Still keep arriving back to we need something that looks like sea - but units can walk on it - BUT that you can block off from coming into effect in game...... ARGHHHH...

[Red Spot]

sorry for draggin up an old topic, but I think this may perhaps be related to the topic ..


I made a huge map (4* the size of the vanilla map) and gave it a fair portion of sea but in the center using small strips of land I divided the sea into 4 equal portions, all fine so nearing completion of my map_heights I remove 2 of the 4 strips of land, making the 4 sea's into 2 double size sea's, still all fine, so I remove the last 2 strips of land ...

the game generates a map.rwm file, it load just fine and I can press the turn button as I please, I can however not freely view the center Iland on the map as it causes a CTD, wich is pretty weird as the Iland hasnt changed itself and putting back 2 strips of land doesnt stop the CTD..

could this be related to a sea-problem, as the only change thats more or less still there is the "shape" of the sea, as reconnecting the Iland so I again have 2 sea's and even making sure I have less sea than before doesnt help ..



G

[Makanyane]

I don't think your problem can be sea related, once you have got as far as generating a new map.rwm sea problem is solved. If you can't view region by scrolling over it, it is normally problem with selecting combination of faction creator / sub-faction for rebel occupier / owner in descr_strat versus default region and default rebel in descr_regions.txt. At least in RTW, I haven't yet had problems on that in BI...

[Red Spot]

may sound strange but I was already hoping it wouldnt be able to be the tga's ..

I already noticed, and figured it was because I modded the imp. campaign and not a prov. campaign, that whenever the rebels show themselves within my actual screen I get a ctd, but as they arent around at start (afaik) I figured it had to be a sea related problem, however still makes me wonder why now all of a sudden constantly get a ctd when I scroll over a pretty specific part of my map "near" a settlement, specially if you know my map is actually a mirrored map from a map 1/4 its size (mirrored twice) and it doesnt happen at the other 3 (same) locations ..



G

[Makanyane]

if it is text related as first suggestion, mirroring is irrelevant as each region will have different name and possibly different faction ownership / rebel etc.

however, remembering I have early version of your map on HDD that doesn't look like problem unless you changed much since. You had Latins as rebel for everything and senate for owner of all privinces which should work. When I've done simple map I've normally used romans_julii and Etruscans rebels for each but I doubt that makes difference.



I already noticed, and figured it was because I modded the imp. campaign and not a prov. campaign, that whenever the rebels show themselves within my actual screen I get a ctd I don't think that should be happening regardless of the folder you are working in.

You had slave faction in strat without any army (on version I have) if that is still same I'd give slaves an army or two (which should be sub_faction of a faction on the map) and possibly the really basic family tree / relative line as is done in vanillla RTW.

If that doesn't fix CTD you need exercise in analysis to work out what is different in the area that CTD's when you view it. If it is first or last in file that could mean something..

[Red Spot]

in respect to any files related the current map is the same as you have, but map_heights is very much different (within a similair concept), the biggest difference is that it has lesser landmasses, the remaining landmasses have been altered in size and shape and there's a lot more sea ..
(if you'd take a quick look at both from a distance you might mistake them for one an other .. :P)

I've had some rebels on a 2-settlement testmap I made just to make sure every file was in order as I had it at the time I had that sea-issue, and each and every time I started seeing its banner or shoes, depending from where I came, it gave me a ctd.
removing the rebels allowed me to take the other settlement and become victorius ..:D

I already tried putting back the senate in rome (wich is the settlement on the Iland), but after I've seen the romans and come to the "ctd-spot" it gives me a ctd.


anyway I'm glad to hear it isnt in the tga's (or at least shouldnt) and am not about to spend more time trying to find some issues that only seem to have appeared with switching from modding the imp. campaign to using a prov. campaign
I'll try as you suggest and base my rebels on the vanilla settings, if it doesnt help (in this case I doubt it will help) I'll see if porting things back over to the imp. campaign solves my issues, anyway currently I want to keep focus on making the map


Thanks again for your help Makanyane ..;)


G

[Red Spot]

I think I may have found in this particulair case what has been causing me trouble .. (and it seems that in a way it is sea-related .. afaik)

I cut all the edges slightly but didnt at the time to make sure I "generally" had the edges between sea and land at a low height, wich meant I had a map filled with rough edges.
made de edges height 1 and the ctd hasnt happend since *knock on wood* ..



G