Map Modding Notes

[Cheexsta]

I've poured a stupid amount of time into map modding this weekend and have a few little things to share with you all I'm sure you map modders already know most of this, but this is more for my own reference more than anything Plus, I need to do something while my game takes ages to calculate paths...

Feel free to add to or debate about anything on this list. It's all up for discussion, and I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong.

1. Maximum Map Size
The maximum map size appears to be approximately 2750px * 1500px (vanilla is 1960px * 1228px). The map files can be bigger than this, but if anything (including impassable water) other than PTI is placed above or beyond these lines, then the game will crash either during Calculating Paths or Loading Graphics.

2. Permanent Terra Incognita and impassable water
Black areas in provinces.bmp (ie PTI) must be purple in terrain.bmp. The game will crash at Loading Graphics if you have any other terrain colour in a PTI area.

The black edges around the map are saved in the alpha channel of colormap_rivers.dds.

Make sure no provinces are split by impassable water (or PTI?). Having any will cause a crash during Calculating Paths (I think?).

Make sure no provinces have ports in impassable water.

3. Other Files
In default.map, the total provinces is equal the number of actual provinces you have, plus one (PTI?). Having the wrong number will cause it to crash during Loading Graphics.

In positions.txt, make sure no provinces have ports in impassable water.

Make sure that rivers.bmp, terrain.bmp and heights.bmp are saved as 8-bit indexed. They will not load if they are saved as RGB.

Turn off antialiasing in your chosen image editor. It will save lots of headaches later on.

 

[unmerged(105862)]

What map does the positions.txt use to locate the objects on the actual ingame map ? (Is it provinces ?)

I mean, fe: if i would rescale some of them, which one i should leave alone so i would not have to mess with the positions ... Or it's not that easy at all ?

 

[Cheexsta]

It'd be provinces.bmp, as far as I know. But if you're going to rescale any maps, you really should rescale them all or you will run into troubles (though you can blank out rivers.bmp if you want).

The positions are measured from the bottom left of the map files, so if you're extending the map eastwards or northwards then you won't have any problems with positions.txt. If you're extending the map to the south or the west, you could try just getting the number of pixels you've added to the map files and add that to the appropriate xy values in positions.txt. Or you could just blank the file temporarily and work on it with the positions editor

 

[unmerged(105862)]

Thanks, very helpful. My first map modding ever.