Weather with Lux Invicta should be pretty amazing. How moddable it is could lead you guys to make "mythological" or strong areas with only one weather and perhaps defensive bonuses, but we'll see.
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Looks a bit too mad for me. Somewhere between the straight borders and that would be best in my opinion.
I don't know... never been a fan of the SWMH-style borders, as historically accurate as they may be. It might be a personal problem more than anything; my sprout of an OCD activates when the borders get all irregular like they do in SWMH; specially in places like the Middle East or Africa (in fact it keeps me away of those regions when playing HIP with SWMH on). The borders of provinces next to deserts should probably be less straight, I'll give you that, but having provinces in strange shapes or as "oases" just for the sake of accuracy... I never liked that. I prefer the abstraction of vanilla's map. But that's just my opinion of course.
Still, upload your work and I'll see if I can integrate some of it in the map re-scaling.
Still, upload your work and I'll see if I can integrate some of it in the map re-scaling.
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In my case it's not accuracy, it's immersion. I just can't buy that there's a huge desert province. It makes more sense that it's an oasis than an arbitrary gap. But I understand if you, or other people, dislike it.
I agree with cutting down on the desert provinces. I just can't buy that all that desert is considered "inhabited". Unless you're going to put tribes there, I don't really want that extra space floating around for no reason, though smoothing things out works fine.
I didn't just change the Y axis, but also the X axis. The resolution in the actual version is 2816x2304, the modified one is 3072x3072. Still, I'd say it does look a bit stretched, but not as much as Europe does in the actual version, but that depends on the eye of the beholder I guess. For comparison:
- Now:
The Nudge interface got in the way...
- With the scale modified:
But as I look at Sahara and Rub-al-Khali, there it isn't considered ugly or problematic, does it? Shouldn't they be also filled with provinces? I just sense one big inconsistency here :/
For instance - the region of Fezzan with traditional ties to Barka/Cyrenaica is separated from it by a desert which is much smaller than Badiyat al-Sham, so actually while on region, which was regulary inhabited by nomadic tribes is turned into a uninhabited wasteland (the Tripolitania-Fezzan-Cyrenaica border area), another which was much more of a wasteland (Badiyat al-Sham) is left as provinces? - an area which was traversed by about a dozen of trade routes is left as barrier, while another which is a millenium long barrier is turned into province-filled area. Any reasoning behind?
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Want to sketch in where you think there should be provinces, and where there should be wasteland?
First, I apologize if you felt it was a rude critique against your work. It's just the personal opinion from a very picky guy with zero knowledge on cartography and very basic geographic knowledge, beyond that of my home country. So again, I apologize if you felt I was rude.
The map is largely unaltered from vanilla; Futuregary added all those "corridor" or "trade route" provinces in the Sahara desert, to simulate the Nomadic Berber tribes, you'd have to ask him for the specifics. The Empty Quarter, and generally speaking Arabia, is eventually getting a province rework with emphasis on the coast, with some new provinces in the Rub al-Khali as well to represent the nomadic peoples and trade routes. Modifying the Badiyat al-Sham into a wasteland, and moving it's province layout, would mean changing a lot of the de Jure and de Facto setup and that's something I think we shouldn't do out of respect for Shaytana's work, but then again, that's just my opinion.
In any case, if you wish to give us some general directions on what the regions you mentioned should look like, you're more than welcome.
Just to be clear, by the way, what I propose for the desert provinces is this:
[/IMG]
And don't pay attention to the provinces themselves, but to the layout, the concept. I also think that uninhabited provinces need to be reduced to the harsher deserts, but even so, for the sake of immersion, I prefer not to have the gaps of land, because they stand out in political mapmode a lot, and they give a strange XIXth Century vibe...
And don't pay attention to the provinces themselves, but to the layout, the concept. I also think that uninhabited provinces need to be reduced to the harsher deserts, but even so, for the sake of immersion, I prefer not to have the gaps of land, because they stand out in political mapmode a lot, and they give a strange XIXth Century vibe...
Before reading I apologize because I'm not sure if it's fair to comment on your work, especially when I am one of major participant of a "concurent"/or rather - as I see it - an alternative map project. My whole active participation here only came after my work has been criticized here, so I was asking what is then the better approach if ours is not that good. Rather than trying to convince you that my approach is better and saying that you're doing something wrong, I wanted to see a reasonable arguments to support a hypothesis that SWMH approach is worse than the one proposed here.
If you want, I can of course draw you a sketch, but before I do so, I'd need to know your approach and preferences at least in regard of gameplay, historicity, esthetics etc. Do you prefer the nomadic-tribal areas to be rather empty or filled with provinces?
This mod is awesome and unique project itself and therefore I would first need to know what are goals of the map for this mod before giving you a sketch, due to specific aspect of Lux.
OTOH, as a map modder myself I know that you sometimes have to sacrifice your own rules and consistency in order to make the gameplay function as it should. So I believe that there are some reasonable principles which guided those words and that I only failed to see those.
So, let's rephrase the question before giving you a sketch of how I think your map might look better:
What is the general approach? Do you think that deserts should be or should not be inhabited in respect to historical reality? Should the map follow esthetic and therefore purely subjectivepreferences over gameplay and historical reality?
My personal preference (and the same goes for SWMH team) is that uninhabited areas - especialy those, which were also barriers for travellers and armies - should be left blank. The other areas, even in the desert - which were at least partialy inhabited and/or were not major barriers of communication - should be filled by provinces which -especialy in sparsely populated areas- may also lead the direstion of expansions and therefore actively influence the gameplay.
I don't think that rework of dejure setup is not that problematic, but if it is due to respect to Shaytana's work, it is understandable. Then I believe you should find a way how to to do similar setup also elswhere?
Lastly, we all know that especially in Africa, Middle east and central Asia the borders always were vague and quite instable and therefore almost all of borderlines we draw there are at least partialy fantasy borders. OTOH there are still some generaly known limits of human population in those areas and it only depends on modder's/mapmaker's approach where the border is drawn - if in the middle of the desert halfway between 2 cores of human population, at certain distance from the last stable settlements, or somewhere where it includes the area inhabited by nomads. My only point is that it looks strange if all 3 above described approaches are used in one map, especialy if 2 of those approeaches are used in 2 areas relatively close to each other.
there are areas in the desert, which were at least seazonaly inhabited by nomadizing bedouin tribes at least for half a year (the seazonal south-north nomadization of some Berber tribes in fact led to creation of the westernmost trans-Saharan route).
That means some of those routes were more than just trade routes and therefore I believe it wouldn't hurt making them regular tribal provinces - in particular these are at least those in Fezzan and between Fezzan and Cyrenaica and Tripolitania in Lybia, then the areas just south of Eastern Alas mountains and west of Jaríd region in curent Tunisia and adjacent areas of eastern Algeria.
Then almost entire route between Dra'a and Takrur/Awdaghust, especially the Adrar region in western part of Sahara (in current Mauritania), then also the area around Hoggar/Ahaggar region in central Sahara.
Elswhere I do believe that in Arabia at least Najd should be also covered with provinces, while Badiyat al-Sham and Rub al-Khali should be empty. then I believe that Kara and Kizil Kum deserts around the Aral sea deserve to be desert provinces and optionaly the Dasht-e-Kevir and Dasht-e-Lut in Iran.
Lastly - the areas north of Timbuktu were one of the least hospitable parts of the Sahara and were the hardest sections of Trans-Saharan caravan routes, so I think the desert might well start much farther to south and instead there might be oases - but these all are concrete points to particular parts. As I said, generaly this approach is IMHO very good.
PS: Sorry to repeat the same ideas in all 3 parts of this post
Frankly I do believe that there should be some diversity. I don't think that all mapmods should look the same. I like and prefer the way we do it in SWMH and there you can see how I imagine the best setup (not perfect, but best which respect both historical and gameplay aspects).
If you want, I can of course draw you a sketch, but before I do so, I'd need to know your approach and preferences at least in regard of gameplay, historicity, esthetics etc. Do you prefer the nomadic-tribal areas to be rather empty or filled with provinces?
This mod is awesome and unique project itself and therefore I would first need to know what are goals of the map for this mod before giving you a sketch, due to specific aspect of Lux.
No problem with that, though frankly I must admit that without that words I wouldn't have reacted. I, however considered it as something little unfair that you, for esthetic reasons criticize a setup which is based on using a feature (provinces only in inhabited areas while uninhabited land is left empty) to represent historical reality, while at the same time you are defending another setup which uses the same feature and only does it - as I personaly see it - totaly inconsistently, randomly and neither historically nor with regards to better gameplay. That's what forced me to react, especially when you refused what Cèsar de Quart had proposed and you said that you prefer the setup which is quite inconsistent. However I do admit that this might be all because of the specifics of Lux Invicta mod, but that's just my guess.
OTOH, as a map modder myself I know that you sometimes have to sacrifice your own rules and consistency in order to make the gameplay function as it should. So I believe that there are some reasonable principles which guided those words and that I only failed to see those.
So, let's rephrase the question before giving you a sketch of how I think your map might look better:
What is the general approach? Do you think that deserts should be or should not be inhabited in respect to historical reality? Should the map follow esthetic and therefore purely subjectivepreferences over gameplay and historical reality?
My personal preference (and the same goes for SWMH team) is that uninhabited areas - especialy those, which were also barriers for travellers and armies - should be left blank. The other areas, even in the desert - which were at least partialy inhabited and/or were not major barriers of communication - should be filled by provinces which -especialy in sparsely populated areas- may also lead the direstion of expansions and therefore actively influence the gameplay.
I don't think that rework of dejure setup is not that problematic, but if it is due to respect to Shaytana's work, it is understandable. Then I believe you should find a way how to to do similar setup also elswhere?
Lastly, we all know that especially in Africa, Middle east and central Asia the borders always were vague and quite instable and therefore almost all of borderlines we draw there are at least partialy fantasy borders. OTOH there are still some generaly known limits of human population in those areas and it only depends on modder's/mapmaker's approach where the border is drawn - if in the middle of the desert halfway between 2 cores of human population, at certain distance from the last stable settlements, or somewhere where it includes the area inhabited by nomads. My only point is that it looks strange if all 3 above described approaches are used in one map, especialy if 2 of those approeaches are used in 2 areas relatively close to each other.
I mostly agree with this setup. OTOH, I would have one little objection (keeping in mind that I largely prefer it over the other shown above) :Just to be clear, by the way, what I propose for the desert provinces is this:
[/IMG]
And don't pay attention to the provinces themselves, but to the layout, the concept. I also think that uninhabited provinces need to be reduced to the harsher deserts, but even so, for the sake of immersion, I prefer not to have the gaps of land, because they stand out in political mapmode a lot, and they give a strange XIXth Century vibe...
there are areas in the desert, which were at least seazonaly inhabited by nomadizing bedouin tribes at least for half a year (the seazonal south-north nomadization of some Berber tribes in fact led to creation of the westernmost trans-Saharan route).
That means some of those routes were more than just trade routes and therefore I believe it wouldn't hurt making them regular tribal provinces - in particular these are at least those in Fezzan and between Fezzan and Cyrenaica and Tripolitania in Lybia, then the areas just south of Eastern Alas mountains and west of Jaríd region in curent Tunisia and adjacent areas of eastern Algeria.
Then almost entire route between Dra'a and Takrur/Awdaghust, especially the Adrar region in western part of Sahara (in current Mauritania), then also the area around Hoggar/Ahaggar region in central Sahara.
Elswhere I do believe that in Arabia at least Najd should be also covered with provinces, while Badiyat al-Sham and Rub al-Khali should be empty. then I believe that Kara and Kizil Kum deserts around the Aral sea deserve to be desert provinces and optionaly the Dasht-e-Kevir and Dasht-e-Lut in Iran.
Lastly - the areas north of Timbuktu were one of the least hospitable parts of the Sahara and were the hardest sections of Trans-Saharan caravan routes, so I think the desert might well start much farther to south and instead there might be oases - but these all are concrete points to particular parts. As I said, generaly this approach is IMHO very good.
PS: Sorry to repeat the same ideas in all 3 parts of this post
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Again, as I said, it's just my personal preference... not the whole team's, so if the other members would want to change it, Who am I to refuse it?
I'm not even the author of this version of the map, the author is Camara, since this is the Umbra Spherae map, with slight modifications by Fututregary (the new West African, Central African including the Sahara ones, and East African provinces); and honestly, if we had known that Paradox was going to add India earlier (the map was already half-way finished when PDX announced RoI) we would have used that map with slight modifications around the Tarim Basin and Tibet to make them playable. For all I know, Shaytana himself (ironically to this discussion) wanted to use the SWMH map once it had expanded east, which is doing very well I might add.
The whole problem with choosing whether to radically change the map or not is what I said before; we have a very specific de jure and de facto setup in place and vanilla's province density in the parts of the map which come from it (Europe, the Middle East and North Africa). Shaytana's original design philosophy was based on adding new interesting realms wherever possible, this means, where the map and province setup allowed for it. He often said that he "WTB" more provinces in the (former) eastern border of the map at Persia. Making those parts you mentioned into deserts would mean eliminating many of those interesting realms, or moving them to (even more) illogical places. Adding more provinces in other areas to compensate for that is out of the question... LI is very script heavy, with an unresolved lag problem on low-spec computers that we're still wanting to fix and I fear that an higher number of provinces would only worsen that. That's why I haven't gone ahead with the Arabian province overhaulyet; I don't know how well the game will handle +15 new provinces.
But to directly answer your question, I think that we should keep vanilla's province setup in the places you mentioned, despite the lack of historical veracity and common sense there. Honestly if we cared to follow historical "common sense" to the letter, I think we would have removed things like Ahriman worshippers and uninterrupted dynastic lines coming from the god-damn Augustus Caesar and Alexander the Great a long time ago.
But again, as I said before, I'm not the whole team, and I'm sure the rest of the members will have their own opinion.
As an added info bit; one of the things on my to-do list is adding a working system to represent nomads and their periodic movements; so I think that having uninhabited provinces that were otherwise inhabited only partially by nomads is a good idea.
Does this mean adding interesting realms into the middle of desert where nobody has ever lived? What was ever interesting in the middle of Syrian desert? I mean east of Palmyra?
EDIT . sorry I meant south of Palmyra actually, and north of Há'il and Tyama in Nejd?
Generaly the point is that it just looks weird to see historicaly inhabited region being left empty, while at the same time not very far from there a totaly deserted area is filled with quite many provinces. If it's a design, furthemore a desin which is not planned to be changed in any way, then ok and just ignore my stupid points.
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I'd like a sketch, even if it's only for my own personal uses or for a submod.
I think the whole point of the map is just to acommodate the amount of awe and crazy that this mod creates
If you ask me, and since this mod is more "atmospheric" than others (if it aims to make you feel like you're a follower of the Sun, of the old Celtic gods or of Alexander-Ammon) it should:
1- Be immersive.
2- Represent reality, but also
3- Allow for some degree of fantasy in the setting, according to the Rule of Cool.
I agree, and I don't think there should be much de jure work reworked, if at all!
Thanks. I took some maps of medieval trade routes, passage ways and historical crossing areas and oasis stations, but it's very rough.
+++
We cal discuss it, no problem
- And anyway, we can always prepare some submod.I'd like that too, but all those extra provinces, nice as they might be, could cause quite some lag... pity.
But then, you'd end up with illogical realms, in the middle of the desert. It's weird to find a couple of provinces on the Desht-i Kavir, a salt plain where nothing can grow and no one lives. I find it odd, but to someone that knows the area, it's probably baffling. A bit like when they make a movie set in Madrid or Seville and the cast of locals consists of South Americans because they shot it in Sacramento or Dallas. It's so distracting it takes you out of the movie completely. It has happened, by the way, several times xD
As I said before, I may not care about common sense, but I do care about immersion.
That's interesting!
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Here you go - I made this map for purpouses of SWMH - it is a compilation of several dozens of various maps and it includes major trade routes, general locations of Berber tribes, Cities and/or oases and names of regions in the Sahara and the Sahel.
Those Zanáta/Sanhája/Tuareg do not represent locations of actual tribes, but are there to show general distribution of the main Berber sub-branches.
I don't really know where to post this, so I'll put it here; now that the map files are much more flexible in their modification, I'm adding back some of the provinces that had to be converted into others due to the modding difficulties of the pre-RoI map files. I'm already done with Europe, North Africa and the Middle East (the number of provinces that had to be restored in these three in total were no more than 10), with Eastern Europe and the Steppes to be done. After this I'm polishing the easternmost border, manly removing that ugly Terra Incognita province that had to be added, again due to the peculiarities of the old map system.
Then, after all this, some regional province overhauls might be in order; Arabia's is probably the first to come since we have a provincial setup already planned for it.
Then, after all this, some regional province overhauls might be in order; Arabia's is probably the first to come since we have a provincial setup already planned for it.
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Are you going to be adding any new duchies?
Guess I'll put the duchy map project I started on hold.
Have you updated LI to the new patch released today?
Guess I'll put the duchy map project I started on hold.
Have you updated LI to the new patch released today?
1 - Not really; most of the old provinces were inside the current duchies, so they'll stay more or less like they are now, only that they'll be composed of more provinces. An example is the only duchy composing k_palmyra... right now it's roughly composed of 2 provinces; with the old provinces restored, it's 4 instead. If you mean the province setup overhaul... that's something I'll do on the distant future, so your duchy map should be valid for a while.
2 - I'm on it... though most of it's major fixes appear to be inside the executable, really.
2 - I'm on it... though most of it's major fixes appear to be inside the executable, really.
Somewhere along the line d_troas got eliminated, remaining only as de jure part of a kingdom (k_byzantium?), without any de jure counties. I haven't looked to check what counties used to be in it, but the land I'd guess is all in d_nikaea now.