The EBII Recruitment thread

[Deutschland]

Dummy post. Deutschland here.

[Loofa]

I am willing to help with research, i studied history in Binghamton University (SUNY) and University of Leipzig in Germany. Even though the crux of my studies were late middle-ages Europe and Renaissance Florence; I studied much classical history of the Roman and Hellenistic world. The parts of Roman history i spent the most work on was the Roman "conquest" of Greece up until around the battle of Pydna and after. The different leagues and their antics around that time haha. In terms of the older Hellenistic world that predates when EB starts Herodotus is my most studied historian, his first-hand accounts, although exaggerated, are priceless to me.

[Philadelphos]

As it seems to me there are lots of different mods out there. A few years ago I started playing and collaborating with RTR, but I was soon turned off by that awful map with loads of fantasy regions and cities. this is way I started making a new map.
It took me two years of research and work, but now it is ready and it seems to be stable. It is a complete rework of the original map going from Scotland to India. Everything is of unprecedented accuracy. You have loads of realistic mountain passes, river crossings, islands etc. Some rivers have even become partially navigable. The new rivers and mountain passes give lots of new strategic options that will make up for a completely new game feel. As an example: once you could prevent any invasion into Italy by closing 3 passes over the Alpes, but now your enemies have something like 17 options to reach Cisalpina.
The number of regions is 197 (the maximum) and all are historically correct with exact borders as far as known. In most other cases I used rivers, mountains and forests to define the borders. All the major cities of the ancient world are included and each is in the right location as well as their ports. Many city sites have been highly improved, for instance Alexandria where you can watch the city plant with the Mareotis lake, the harbor and the island of Pharos and the lighthouse obviously in the right place on the island above the harbor. Very soon I'll be showing some screenshots.
Now I need to fill this map with life and therefore I'm looking forward to add a modding comunity that gives me the best control and guarantees for historic accuracy.
I admit that I haven't played Babaorum and thus I don't know which map you use. But if you'd like to improve yours to a completely new level, let me know your proposals on how this collaboration might work.

[Foot]

Hello Philadelphos,

Many thanks for your offer.

Europa Barbarorum II already has a map based on the Mundus Magnus map from Rome Total War. It has been developed and designed in collaboration with the needs of the mod and the gameplay, and it would not be feasible at this late stage for us to migrate to a new map. We ourselves have had numerous historians researching the full the gamut of sources to put together a map that is as historical as it can be. TBH, I don't think you will find any established modding teams and mods that would be willing to move to a new map. The work required to do so is a lot, and it would be almost impossible for an established mod to alter their mod to fit the constrictions of a third-party map after it has been in development for so long.

Foot
P.S. The maximum number of provinces for a map is 199 land provinces and + 1 sea province.

[Philadelphos]

Hello Philadelphos,

We ourselves have had numerous historians researching the full the gamut of sources to put together a map that is as historical as it can be. TBH, I don't think you will find any established modding teams and mods that would be willing to move to a new map. The work required to do so is a lot, and it would be almost impossible for an established mod to alter their mod to fit the constrictions of a third-party map after it has been in development for so long.

Foot
P.S. The maximum number of provinces for a map is 199 land provinces and + 1 sea province.

Thanks for your honest answer. I knew that it would be difficult to adapt and insert my map into an already existing mod. So I'll probably have to start new mod from scratch. To be honest, I have been extremely disappointed by what I have seen on the RTR map and it put me off from trying out other mods. I would like to check the Europa Babaorum II map to see if your researchers came up with something better. Is there a screenshot or a list of your regions or something else?

As regards the maximum number of regions I too beleived that your numbers were right until I reached number 198 and got a CTD. So I convinced myself that the correct number is 197 since two colors are needed for the capitals and the ports. If you got your map working with 199 regions let me know how you did.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Sounds really sweet, even if it is probably not possible to retrofit it into EB 2. Still, it's always good to have as many eyeballs on the map as possible because it's such a big thing that you can't really rely on a single piece of research to get it “right”, so it will be interesting to see if we've missed anything you found.

To expand a bit on Foot's post so you can see why your work is not likely to make it into EB at this stage: the geography and topography of the map are important but most parts of the mod which touch the map have relatively little to do with that.

For instance climate files are of course about the climates of the map, but on another level they are simply a tool to control how the battle field looks. So what specific climate is assigned to what part of the map is really arbitrary and depends on what you want a particular piece of map to look like on the battle field, more than what the climate actually is.

Similarly, location of cities or rather which cities make it to the final cut is more about what factions you have and what view you have on how your mod plays out than which ones are the best attested for a given date -- the map has to cover about 200 years of alternate history. RTR, for instance is (used to be?) strongly focused on the Romans so their map reflected this with a lot of cities/regions for the Mediterranean and the Aegean but far less towards the periphery.

[Novaramo]

Unfortunately, the language barrier prevents me, in order to explain to you what I want. But fortunately, there are utility programs such as "Google Translator"

I'm from Ukraine. I'm studying in my third year at the Dnipropetrovsk National University. Faculty of History, Chair of World History.

I am happy to offer my services. At our university is a great library - the gifts of the Soviet Union.
We consider various historians on the subject of truthfulness.
For example, the same Gaius Julius Caesar was not a very good historian. He described the Gauls is subjective, but not objectively. We are looking at various documents to the truth, etc.

In the history of the Caucasus can I help - I'm half Avar (a ethnos of a living in the Caucasus).

And if my humble person you are interested then please reply to my message.

[Philadelphos]

Sounds really sweet, even if it is probably not possible to retrofit it into EB 2. Still, it's always good to have as many eyeballs on the map as possible because it's such a big thing that you can't really rely on a single piece of research to get it “right”, so it will be interesting to see if we've missed anything you found.

Thanks for your kind answer. One problem is indeed that most mappers focus on one or two preferred regions and pay less attention to the rest. I tried to avoid this, but some of my preferences might still be recognizable (Greece, Italy, Germany). In any case I am creating game maps of Europe for almost 25 years (the first were done on cartoon). I know almost every angle of the old continent. Since I've been working on this map for two years and my standards are very high, you can be assured that the result goes far beyond whatever your mappers may have created in the past.

For now I have posted some first screenshots here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...post2053345252

[Foot]

Thanks for your kind answer. One problem is indeed that most mappers focus on one or two preferred regions and pay less attention to the rest. I tried to avoid this, but some of my preferences might still be recognizable (Greece, Italy, Germany). In any case I am creating game maps of Europe for almost 25 years (the first were done on cartoon). I know almost every angle of the old continent. Since I've been working on this map for two years and my standards are very high, you can be assured that the result goes far beyond whatever your mappers may have created in the past.

For now I have posted some first screenshots here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...post2053345252

That's a beautiful looking map. I see that you've based it on the RTW engine. Converting it to a MTW2 mod would be very difficult as the heights map is all different (we've had trouble with it). Additionally, cuts off a lot of the north that you've included in exchange for extending the map south and including Arabia.

As for number of provinces, there isn't any trick to it. You can have 199 provinces, and one sea province. Settlement and Port squares are black and white, and are not defined in descr_region. Best thing to do is do a colour count of the map and make sure you haven't got a wierd pixel in there that is the wrong colour.

Foot

[Philadelphos]

Thanks for your answer and the hint with the weird pixel. I'll check it.

Well, I checked it, but I can't find any strange pixels. So I guess I have to stick with 197 regions, at least for now.

I understand that there are technical problems and a completely different another extension of my map. So it seems pretty difficult to implement it into EBII. But maybe one day you'll want to consider it for EBIII or for a completely different project. In the meantime I'll keep working on some minor features such as resources or rebel factions.