Campaign map

[ScionTheWorm]

k I hear now it's tension music, but I don't know exactly what you mean by the manly thing. I think it's interresting, do you se a melody or just some proud national trumpets or purely drums? I would like that boom, I can see it happen.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Hm, how did you use Cakewalk sonar? I got really confused just by looking at the demo after opening it. I preferred the interface of the demo of the program called Sibelius, but I just found out it costs like $1000!!! I think it's better if you handle all the music, Scion, in case you don't mind?

[Rodion Romanovich]

this would be battle music when charging, and I'm quite happy with it (for now). if longer it could be variations of the parts included...

http://rapidshare.de/files/3921524/battle01.mp3.html

yeah nile....

Wow, that one was great! I think it's good battle music, I'm of the opinion that the battle music should be kind of "psychadelic" and fast like that, whereas the marching music should IMO be as heavy or heavier, but much heavy in a slower way - with horns and heavy drums, and huge chords all the time rather than single tones etc., and it should have a rythm, but the rythm should be slow.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I made this one in a demo version where you couldn't save or convert to wav/mp3, but where you could take screenshots :). Don't know if it's good for anything and if anyone has time/is in the mood to enter these tunes into a synthesizer (I couldn't personally find any free synthesizer to use), but I think it was a quite cool theme. I'm only using horns and different drum types, I think it's good as marching or battle music.

[ScionTheWorm]

I might take a look at it, it will be a lot of boring work (noteplacing..), but I'm curious about how it sounds... may have a surprise for you later.

I think sonar 3 is the userfirendly littlesister of cubase, and you'll need a sampleset or something to get started (me: some orchestra set with lot of sounds). I'm just placing the notes, though I don't think you're able to save with the demo.

Here's another battletune. Think charging. I'm not sure how well it turned out, even played some acoustic guitars, but anyway, it's mainly an up tempo tampani piece.

http://rapidshare.de/files/3942659/battle02.mp3.html

[Rodion Romanovich]

I might take a look at it, it will be a lot of boring work (noteplacing..), but I'm curious about how it sounds... may have a surprise for you later.

I think sonar 3 is the userfirendly littlesister of cubase, and you'll need a sampleset or something to get started (me: some orchestra set with lot of sounds). I'm just placing the notes, though I don't think you're able to save with the demo.

Here's another battletune. Think charging. I'm not sure how well it turned out, even played some acoustic guitars, but anyway, it's mainly an up tempo tampani piece.

http://rapidshare.de/files/3942659/battle02.mp3.html

Great, that's exactly the style I had in mind for battle music!

[ScionTheWorm]

aaah glad we agree! cheers

[Ranika]

The Irish provinces should be;

Province - City
Muma/Mumainha (Munster) - Cashel (either this or Tuam should be the Irish starting position, though I suggest Cashel; Brian Boru was king of Munster)
Connaght (Connacht) - Tuam
Ulaid/Uladd (Ulster) - Ard Macha (Armagh) or Eahmain Macha (Navan)
Laigina/Laigin/Laighan (Leinster) - Faomhren/Ferns
Dubh Linn/Debh Linn - Dubh Linn (perhaps omit if in a bit of a province crunch; in all truth, Dublin wasn't that important until the Normans made it an administrative center; it more served as a 'back door' for Norse landings than actually provide an important role of its own)
Midhe/Mide (Meath) - Teamhaidh/Teamhair (Tara)

[Rodion Romanovich]

I might take a look at it, it will be a lot of boring work (noteplacing..), but I'm curious about how it sounds... may have a surprise for you later.

Trust me it's worth it! :). It would have been even better if I had been able to save and polish it some more, but it's IMO quite good already in it's current rough shape :).

I think sonar 3 is the userfirendly littlesister of cubase, and you'll need a sampleset or something to get started (me: some orchestra set with lot of sounds). I'm just placing the notes, though I don't think you're able to save with the demo.

So is sonar a program you buy? And how much does it cost? If it's free, do you have a link for downloading? It might be worth buying if it costs less than 50-100$, but if it's more expensive than that I'm not sure, I might not want to compose much else than for this mod in the nearest future.

[ScionTheWorm]

it's quite expensive, and I don't know about any other programs, haven't used that many for this kind of music.

is it really tampani instruments I'm gonna use for these notes?

ps new melody

[Rodion Romanovich]

is it really tampani instruments I'm gonna use for these notes?

Yes, I think it's timpani. If not, I can tell you if it sounded different than for me if/when you have converted the tunes to an mp3.

[Rodion Romanovich]

First in-game shot of campaign map:
The arrow points to the perfect location for my viking invasion fleets to disembark

Known issues:
- provinces, cities, rivers, heights etc. aren't ready yet, so this shot is barely more than a proof that I finally managed to open R:TW with the map without a CTD
- the coastlines look bad in some locations - this is something that I know how to repair - it requires going through the map_heights pixel by pixel and fixing it, but it's easier to do that after I've completed the entire map_heights file.
- purple stains - accidentally chosen illegal RGB values for some pixels in map_ground_types. Solution to this problem is known, and this will be fixed too.
- mini map - not all of the map is displayed on the minimap. Not yet sure how this can be solved, if at all. In any case it doesn't matter much...

[ScionTheWorm]

niiiice!! let's see some scandinavia too please??

[Lief]

I think the problem with the mini-map is that the full map doesn't scale properly into the space allowed. Thus, some has to be cut off. You could always fix it by cutting off some of the Northern reaches of the map.

[Meneldil]

I know why the minimap isn't working. It will be solved soon hopefully

[Rodion Romanovich]

niiiice!! let's see some scandinavia too please??

I can show southern Norway and Sweden in a few days . But the first previews you'll see won't be the final versions, it's really hard to get the mountains and hills to look good etc. I'm quite happy with the current version of the western half of North Africa, and Spain is almost ok (but probably needs some higher terrain in middle Portgual). The rest is still very far from complete. I've however fixed the most important landmarks such as mountain chains in slightly more than half the map_heights file, so a preview that isn't completely wrong will probably be uploaded soon.

[Rodion Romanovich]

OK, some more early previews to keep you all happy :)

The edge of the world or Ultima Thule?


Baltic region - where Rus, Swedish and finnish rebels will compete for land...


View centered around Kaupang, from which many fleets will set sail to Britain...

[ScionTheWorm]

wow looks awesome!! How many provinces will norway/sweden have? Is the faction sweden sveariket (located east I think)?

edit:
I think inner Oslo fjord should be narrower, and maybe the hardanger fjord narrower? And some more woods in east norway.

also, if not too small, some really small islands on the west coast of norway. just for eyecandy.

[Rodion Romanovich]

wow looks awesome!! 1. How many provinces will norway/sweden have? 2. Is the faction sweden sveariket (located east I think)?

edit:
3. I think inner Oslo fjord should be narrower, 4. and maybe the hardanger fjord narrower? 5. And some more woods in east norway.

6. also, if not too small, some really small islands on the west coast of norway. just for eyecandy.

1. probably around 10-15 in total, the province thread has approximately the right amount, but the final province list may differ slightly from the one in that thread.

2. no factions have been placed yet, we're still using SPQR, if that's what you meant... Or if this is what you meant: the Swedish faction will be the Svea rike, representing the Sviar tribes/kingdom/kingdoms mostly, while the gotar territories will probably be mostly rebels.

3 & 4. unfortunately not possible... An alternative way is to make the fiords rivers, but that would remove the unique fiord look from the Norwegian landscape

5. parts of eastern Norway need more forest, yes, will do that. I am a little careful with forests though, compared to the vanilla R:TW map, because the R:TW forests are a little to thick on the campaign map. You still get the forest feeling on the strategy map by this density, and if it works better on the battle map I think it's a better way of doing it. Anyway, this can easily be fixed when everything else has been completed, and I'll probably postpone the forest editing until later. Some battle map tests should probably be run before I can determine whether my forest density is good or if I should be a little braver... Anyway, eastern Norway will get more forest in any case.

6. ok, I'll look at some maps to see where to put them. They were too small to be visible on the satellite image I used, but it might be good eyecandy to add them. I'm also thinking about adding one one-tile island outside where Birka will be, to simulate the Stockholm atoll, but haven't decided about that yet.

[ScionTheWorm]

1. probably around 10-15 in total, the province thread has approximately the right amount, but the final province list may differ slightly from the one in that thread.

Okay nice.. many

2. no factions have been placed yet, we're still using SPQR, if that's what you meant... Or if this is what you meant: the Swedish faction will be the Svea rike, representing the Sviar tribes/kingdom/kingdoms mostly, while the gotar territories will probably be mostly rebels.

I meant the last one

3 & 4. unfortunately not possible... An alternative way is to make the fiords rivers, but that would remove the unique fiord look from the Norwegian landscape

Okay but I would just like southern norway to be a little bit broader, that is on the right of the shore... so that the gap between sweden and norway became a little smaller. just to give it a more round feeling... might be geographically wrong though *looking at another map* oh I am, never mind

5. parts of eastern Norway need more forest, yes, will do that. I am a little careful with forests though, compared to the vanilla R:TW map, because the R:TW forests are a little to thick on the campaign map. You still get the forest feeling on the strategy map by this density, and if it works better on the battle map I think it's a better way of doing it. Anyway, this can easily be fixed when everything else has been completed, and I'll probably postpone the forest editing until later. Some battle map tests should probably be run before I can determine whether my forest density is good or if I should be a little braver... Anyway, eastern Norway will get more forest in any case.

I think northeast of the oslo area should have some more, but it has a backside yes... and if it's not crossable it's hell too, and I hate fighting in forests... but when looking at campaign map it would be appropriate

6. ok, I'll look at some maps to see where to put them. They were too small to be visible on the satellite image I used, but it might be good eyecandy to add them. I'm also thinking about adding one one-tile island outside where Birka will be, to simulate the Stockholm atoll, but haven't decided about that yet.

I think that would look nice

[Rodion Romanovich]

A better map_heights.tga is now ready. However I ran into a new problem:



As you can see on this picture, the shores now have the opposite problem - instead of protruding outside the shore line, the squares are too far in the other direction. I think I have the solution to the problem:

Assume there's a grid a pixels like this (x means land, O means water):

XXX
0XX
00X
00X

In such a grid, the x:s in bold style needs to have a lighter color than 1,1,1, in order to avoid that. Only the x:s in italic style should have the color 1,1,1. There are still some traces of protruding squares when I fix this, but it seems impossible to do any better than that, judging from the R:TW vanilla map_heights file.

Do you want the current version of map_heights right away, Meneldil, or should I fix this problem before I email it to you?

I'll probably continue with the map_climates map now, and then edit some things on map_ground types. I assume adding an island or two but apart from that keep shore lines as they are (only changing pixel color values on some of them) won't screw up your work on map_regions and features much? I'll also add some forest in some locations.

[Meneldil]

Well, send the map, I might have an idea about how to fix that.

I'm currently running into prblm while trying to get the water rivers working. I dunno what's happening, since I already drawn this kind of river a few times.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, I sent it now. I accidentally deleted your PM where your email address was, but I remembered the beginning of the address. The end was .com, right? If so, I sent it to the right place, otherwise...

Anyway, will start work on map_climates now.

Edit: Is your way of fixing the shores different than mine? If it isn't, I could take care of it if you want. If it is, please send the fixed map_heights to me as soon as you're ready. It's best if you do these edits in the .psd file, in the rivers layer, rather than in the exported tga, because it's easier to fix the remaining problems, and the eye-candy, if I still work from the psd file.

Edit: btw do you know if the cmdline for battle map editor is -enable_editor? Using it is probably the fastest way of previewing the battlefields.

[Jarlabanke]

Stockholm is too small to be on that map especially as there are loads of islands in the area that are much larger.
Other than that I must say that Åland is too large and Sweden as a whole lacks wood, especially the Småland area which also should be perhaps be a bit more hilly, though none of the screens show it in detail.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Stockholm is too small to be on that map especially as there are loads of islands in the area that are much larger.
Other than that I must say that Åland is too large and Sweden as a whole lacks wood, especially the Småland area which also should be perhaps be a bit more hilly, though none of the screens show it in detail.

- The city of Stockholm won't be included, it was founded in the 13th century or possibly even later (official 750 years festival only a few years ago). I was talking about adding one one-tile island to simulate the atoll outside modern Stockholm. The only cities in that region, I think, will be Birka and Uppsala.
- Yes, Småland needs more forests. But see above discussion about forests, we'll stick to less than vanilla R:TW in most areas. But some areas, like Småland and eastern Norway, will get more despite that policy.
- Småland is very hilly ATM, but will probably see more hills. Many areas will be remade in detail, this is just the first, rough alpha 0.0.1 version of the map.
- Åland is hard to make any smaller, doesn't work well in-game. Åland is really a group of many small islands, but this is the best abstraction I could think of - I tried using many smaller islands but it didn't look right. Gotland and Öland are also increased in size somewhat compared to reality, I must admit.

[Meneldil]

Here's a first sample of the new rivers :

[Jarlabanke]

I used stockholm because I didn't think you'd understand me if I used the correct name for the island where the old town is; Stadsholmen.I know when the city was, founded, I live <20 mins from it.
Anyhow my point is that hardly any of the islands in Mälaren or in Roslagen are large enough to be visible on the map, even less so if you were to look at a map
on how the area looked back then.

[Jarlabanke]

For some reason the reply above seems a bit screwed. What I meant to say was that I'm very aware of when and how Stockholm was founded, I used the name Stockholm because I didn't think you'd know the actual name of the island on which the old town is located; Stadsholmen.
hte point is that next to none of islands in Mälaren or Roslagen are big enough to by themselves be visble on that map, even more so keeping in mind that they
were significantly smaller back then.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Oh, now I understand what you mean - you were talking about the island INSIDE Mälaren! Well, I agree it's too small, that's why I removed it. I was considering adding one one-tile island outside Mälaren to simulate the atoll outside Mälaren. What do you think of that idea?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Here's a first sample of the new rivers :

Cool! Only one question - can an army stand in the middle of the river (at a crossing), and meet another army there - how does that look on the battle map? Will they fight in water, or will it be ok? And can you take advantage of the crossing, being narrow like normal crossings?

Actually I think it doesn't matter if such rivers aren't possible to cross with land armies only, in fact those really wide rivers perhaps shouldn't be possible to cross without ships. Especially if crossing on foot would lead to any problems. What do you think?