Making a new campaign map.

[Makanyane]

AlexTheGood, you said you were modding the mod EB, I have checked with them for you they have confirmed:

The max number of regions is 199 provinces + 1 sea region. EB is at the maximum allowed with 199 provinces + 1 sea region.

This is the hard coded limit for the game - you can not add any more provinces to that mod, though you could move existing ones around and rename them.

It will have nothing to do with whether you have gold edition or not.

[the pasta king]

Hey Everybody,

I am running an experiment in resizing with the Mundus Magnus map, following the instructions, especially step 4, at the start of this thread.

Starting from a MM campaign that works, I have prepared a new provincial campaign by resizing all the relevant .tga files and adjusted the descr_strat file accordingly, but when I try to run it I select a faction, click to start the campaign when it CTDs. No error message or map.rwm is generated.

I think this is caused by the map_features, heights and ground_types .tga files not matching up exactly, but I'm not sure. Can anyone help?

[Makanyane]

greetings, the pasta king

the section about re-sizing at the beginning of this tutorial refers to adding a new piece of map by adding to the canvas size of the tga not expanding an existing one by re-sizing its image size. could you clarify which one you are doing please, and also say what the finished size of the map_heights.tga you are trying to achieve is. (I think making Mundus Magnus map too large can give you problem due to size of sea in bottom right corner)

to get a map to load you need the map_heights.tga to be the right size in relation to the map_regions.tga. (eg twice size + 1 pixel on the height and width) and you need the map_regions size written into descr_terrain.txt

you need city positions on map_regions to correspond with land in map_heights.tga and you need ports to correspond with coast.

Map_features can cause crashes it is better just to make yourself a plain black one while you are getting map to load.

Map_ground_types.tga is not that relevant, unless you moved it so much you've got impassible mountains or forest under city locations. You can just make a version of that which has one of the fertile ground type colours all over, if you want to get things loading initially.

[the pasta king]

the section about re-sizing at the beginning of this tutorial refers to adding a new piece of map by adding to the canvas size of the tga not expanding an existing one by re-sizing its image size..... and also say what the finished size of the map_heights.tga you are trying to achieve is.

Hey Makanyane,

I didn't add canvas, I took the existing map_regions and doubled the height and length in photoshop, then increased the size of the other files to match, I have checked the dimensions carefully, they are as dictated in the tutorial. The final map_regions is 768 by 468 pixels, map_heights is 1537 by 937. I have changed the descr_terrain file.

I haven't altered map_heights or ground_types so I am certain all cities are in good positions, not so sure yet about ports (as far as I can tell the map_regions does not exactly overlap map_heights, I am working to change that).

I will try a map_features with no rivers etc. tonight. Is there a maximum size map that the game can handle?

Edit 1: OK, plain black map_features and again, I select a faction, press go and CTD, no error message.

Edit 2:

- the distance between the centres of any two adjacent regions should not exceed 50 tiles*

*: not doing these things shouldn't cause a crash, but it may cause the AI to mess up.

1. Does each pixel correspond to a tile?

2. Has anyone seen evidence that having a separation of more than 50 tiles will cause a CTD when trying to start a campaign?

[Makanyane]

Hey Makanyane,

I didn't add canvas, I took the existing map_regions and doubled the height and length in photoshop, then increased the size of the other files to match, I have checked the dimensions carefully, they are as dictated in the tutorial. The final map_regions is 768 by 468 pixels, map_heights is 1537 by 937. I have changed the descr_terrain file.

I haven't altered map_heights or ground_types so I am certain all cities are in good positions, not so sure yet about ports (as far as I can tell the map_regions does not exactly overlap map_heights, I am working to change that).

I will try a map_features with no rivers etc. tonight. Is there a maximum size map that the game can handle?

Problem one - Yes maximum size for RTW/BI is 510 x 510 map_regions which equals 1021 x 1021 map_heights. Maximum limit is on dimension not area, so your 1537 length is much too long! That will be problem number one.

Problem two - as you haven't mentioned that you spent hours doing it I assume you haven't.. when you re-size map_regions.tga you will have increased the size of the cities and ports as well, they can only be 1 pixel size, so you'd need to edit them back carefully using the surrounding region or sea colour to overwrit e the additional area. (the expansion will have caused problem to map_features as well as rivers can only be 1 pixel wide or CTD, but having black version will fix that for now)

Problem three - if you do, do smaller version but aim at 1021 long map_heights, I think you might find you have problem with the size of the sea in the bottom left corner, too large a sea can CTD the game, to make sure that isn't issue initially you can just put a block of extra land in there in map_heights.tga - it won't need a city on it so don't worry about including it in map_regions, it will just default to nearest regions ownership.

Possible problem four - now you know you can't double the size of the map, if you decide to multiply it up by smaller percentage so it reaches 1021 you need to make sure you are using a resize method that doesn't invent new merged colours around borders between colours. Use nearest neighbour in photoshop or pixel resize in paint shop pro.

Good news one - no having greater than 50 tiles (pixels on map_regions.tga I think) doesn't cause CTD, it might just mess up AI movement a bit.

Good news two - you should find you can now edit your posts here, please try and do that instead of posting multiple times in a row.

Good luck.....

[the pasta king]

Problem two - cities and ports.... they can only be 1 pixel size,

...... Use nearest neighbour in photoshop or pixel resize in paint shop pro.

Good news one - no having greater than 50 tiles (pixels on map_regions.tga I think) doesn't cause CTD, it might just mess up AI movement a bit.

Good luck.....

I did change the size of cities, ports and rivers as it happens, it doesn't take as long as you would expect.

The 50 pixels is good to hear, I have been comparing with Warmap but without much accuracy.

Are you certain about the 510 by 510, I have been looking at the hardcode thread and didn't see any mention of it.

[Makanyane]

Yeah I'm sure on the 510 thing, I think it was actually IceTorque of WarMap fame who discovered that. I did try testing as well, it's mentioned on the Campaign Map not loading - common problems section:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...02&postcount=2
I tested it going only slightly over and it did actually generate a map.rwm but crashed before going to loading screen.

I'll go and put a note in hardcode thread - hadn't realised it wasn't in there.
(In M2TW I think they managed to get over it going in one direction only - but that doesn't really help.... and large M2 maps also seem to have some random CTD problems in game)

If you weren't getting a map.rwm your primary problem was probably the sea size, but fixing that still wouldn't get that sized map to load...