Physical map problem

[Greek_fire19]

OK, first of all, this is a tiny bit pedantic.

Second of all, I know my criticism is based on Mundus Magnus. I havent seen your new updated maps, but this is a question not about faction setup or city placement or anything, which I imagine is the stuff you'll be changing.
This is about the shape of the map.

I had a few images to illustrate this, but it turns out I'm not allowed to post attachments for some reason, so whatever.

Look at the shape of the map here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49152

note that iberia is way further west than Ireland in the west and that the lake in the very very northeast of the map (ozero balkhash) is a lot further north than the Aral or Caspian seas and that the long thin bit of the lake is pointing north-east.

http://www.geography.uc.edu/~weisner.../eurasia-1.gif

Now look at this map (its not the most authoritative I know, but it was the best I could find to show the area of the map I wanted, If you look in an atlas you'll see the same thing)

You'll note in this map that Ireland is actually further west than Iberia. This implies that the game map has been tilted significantly in a clockwise direction. Thats fine.

HOWEVER, if you look at the lakes and seas in central asia I pointed out earlier, you'll see that they're all roughly in a straight line, demonstrating that in the east the map has been tilted in an ANTICLOCKWISE direction.

Now, you might not think this tilt is very serious, but let me give you an example that surprise you. The Most northern part of the black sea in real life is slightly further north than the most northern part of the caspian sea. Now look at the game map again.

EDIT: and for that matter, that lake in the very northeastern corner of the map? is should be no further north than the black sea either. Its quite a serious tilt.

I understand that the Mundus Magnus map was not an entirely new map and that it simply expanded on the original map, and therefore the strange geography is merely the result of CA trying to squeeze as much land and as little sea as possible into their map, but personally I think it would be nice to have an accurate map in RTW

[Spacemonk]

well you have to keep in mind that in real life the world ain't flat, so you can never ever display a 100% correct map of such a large part of the world. I hope you know what I mean, cause I'm not that good at explaining things :p

[shifty157]

Take the EB map you linked to and add in the latitude and longitude lines. Youll find that everything matches up better.

[Productivity]

I guess it would come down to projection difficulties.

[Greek_fire19]

well...longitude and latitude lines would account for some things, such as iberia being further west than Ireland, but it doesnt account for others.

What I mean is, longitude lines curve but latitude lines are straight.

Take a look at this example http://cybele.bu.edu/research/lcc/eurasia.big.jpg

You can see that spain is indeed further west of Ireland, like I said, but that the four lakes in Eastern Asia, because the tops of them share roughly the same latitude, are in roughly a straight line. In the game map they are wayyy out of that line.

Now I dunno it's possibly the game mappers took north from a single point and let the latitude lines curve in a bow shape from there (i'v never seen that done except for maps of artic regions, but it's possible) but even if they did, the curves are far too dramatic to be accurate. These arent polar regions, so the curve would be gentle, almost unnoticeable.

Look, I'm not saying this is a big deal for me, or that it should be for you. I could happily ignore it and i'm definately not asking you to delay the beta by weeks so you can slave over a new map with correct latitude lines.

I'd just like us to recognise that this is an issue, and one we should perhaps discuss.

(incidently, I'm not a cartographer, so if someone can prove me wrong here and show how it is in fact accurate, then that fine, I'v been proved wrong on these boards before)

[Greek_fire19]

Actually :( my mistake.

I eventually found http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/A...ea_terrain.gif

This map, downloaded it, cut it and rotated it until it fit into the RTW map and...yeah, it's accurate.
I'm not sure I like the map based on this though, I prefer straight latitude lines. Maybe I'll go make my own.

Anyway yeah, sorry :)

[Praetorian Sejanus]

Meh... I also noticed this, but it really is such a minor issue. Nothing with EB's map is glaringly wrong. In fact, as pointed out by someone else, it can all be put down to projection differences...

On that note, how did the Mundus Magnus team get a hold of the EB map?

[Productivity]

It comes down to the projection I say again. It doesn't look that bad to me (a lot of my work/study involves mapping so I do have an idea what I'm talking about), if I find some time I might georegister the mundus magna map and see if it's correct...

[eadingas]

Meh... I also noticed this, but it really is such a minor issue. Nothing with EB's map is glaringly wrong. In fact, as pointed out by someone else, it can all be put down to projection differences...

On that note, how did the Mundus Magnus team get a hold of the EB map?

That's because Mundus Magnus team IS EB :) Or rather was, some time ago.

[Spacemonk]

whoohoo EB rules

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Here's the base outlines of the EB map, which zoomed out still has the same proportions as the MM map, overlaid on top of a globe. If I had centered it, the edges would have needed less "stretching", but I wanted it to match up over the Mediterranean better, so I let the east tilt more to the north. I still am perfectly happy with it and think it does a great job representing the terrain.

[Greek_fire19]

Yeah, I see now that it's perfectly accurate, don't worry. What happened was, I was looking up something in an atlas and I happened to notice that it didn't really look like the EB map, ao I thought hmm, and I compared certain things. It did occur to me that you were using a map that was curved to simulate the curve of the earth, but until I found one myself I didn't think the curve could be so noticeable. But then I did, and you guys were right. Obviously.

But yeah, my mistake. The map is accurate.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Yeah, I see now that it's perfectly accurate, don't worry. What happened was, I was looking up something in an atlas and I happened to notice that it didn't really look like the EB map, ao I thought hmm, and I compared certain things. It did occur to me that you were using a map that was curved to simulate the curve of the earth, but until I found one myself I didn't think the curve could be so noticeable. But then I did, and you guys were right. Obviously.

But yeah, my mistake. The map is accurate.

No problem Greek_fire. I actually was just replying to it because it had been linked to in another thread. I thought it was more appropriate to post that image in this one than in the other one though. Anyway, not trying to hammer your idea down-just adding something (sorta cool) to the thread.

[Simetrical]

Here's the base outlines of the EB map, which zoomed out still has the same proportions as the MM map, overlaid on top of a globe. If I had centered it, the edges would have needed less "stretching", but I wanted it to match up over the Mediterranean better, so I let the east tilt more to the north. I still am perfectly happy with it and think it does a great job representing the terrain.

Surely that's not a good way to gauge its accuracy? After all, in that picture, the distances on the globe are themselves severely distorted. Maybe I'll e-mail some bored math professor about the best map projection for preserving relative distances—I'm pretty sure perfectly consistent distances are impossible, but there are probably better than Mercator or similar projections.

-Simetrical

[caesar44]

So much Africa + Arab peninsula + Eastern "russia" , for what ??? in 280 bce (and even today ) these areas did not include any political entities . maybe the Empire of the sand or the empire of the weeds

[Dux Corvanus]

Surely that's not a good way to gauge its accuracy? After all, in that picture, the distances on the globe are themselves severely distorted. Maybe I'll e-mail some bored math professor about the best map projection for preserving relative distances—I'm pretty sure perfectly consistent distances are impossible, but there are probably better than Mercator or similar projections.

-Simetrical

There's no perfect way to represent a 3D geomorph surface on a 2D flat media. It's the eternal problem for cartographic projections: you either sacrifice distance, area, or aspect. Even the 'square' Mercator map projections we are used to, are severely distorted, specially in the poles -the more distance to Equator, the more distorsion. You can try other projections, but all are centered in some point were distortion is minimal, while the distant locations are distorted. In a map that includes so big an extension as MM, distortion is unavoidable, whatever the projection you use.

I think that MM's Ortographic projection, is, if not perfect, quite similar to the vision we'd had of the area from outer space, from a specific point. Distortion is due to perspective: take on account we're watching a spherical surface.

[hoom]

So much Africa + Arab peninsula + Eastern "russia"

It has seemed to me for some time that there is too much south west Africa & north east Russia in the EB/MM map.
I understand the difficulties of projection & Teleklos' projection comparison is pretty interesting :)

The solution that I would like to suggest is where the map is on an angle relative to the latitude/longitude grid.
This lets those pesky big blank bits be largely removed while still allowing the map to cover the important bits.
Overlaid on Teleklos' image it would look kinda like this: (except not messy & poorly done)

Of course there would be substantial (probably fatal ) difficulties in doing that & I can offer no help other than the idea

[Steppe Merc]

You are taking away a very important part of the steppe. That is unaceptable, hoom.

@Caesar: Don't let Steppe Merc hear this, there were tribal confederations all over the Steppe, and the Saharah wasn't unpopulated. Arabian Peninsula had some really wealthy trading Cities.
And in Africa, if i remember correctly there were even some awefully rich
!kingdoms! (not tiny tribes) on the Southern Edge of Sahara, had something to do with Gold and Salt i think. Though i'm not sure if these were established later.

Too late, I've heard the blasphemy.