What about to make a bit improved design of DH map with some fixed mistakes?

[Nick3210]

Don't you think that 14 years after the release of this Great Game is the right time to fix some of the mistakes of vanilla DH map and improve it a bit?

@Vilochka, everyone can see that you are a big expert in Hoi2 maps design modding. Unfortunately, this high art is not accessible to all mortals. For example, I would really like to improve vanilla DH map a bit, to fix a couple of errors, to add a couple of new provinces, to delete some unnecessary provinces, but I have no skill to do that.

Would you be so kind to make a slightly improved DH map for me?
And perhaps other modders would also like to use a such a bit improved DH map in their Mods.

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A list of some changes that I would like to have in vanilla DH Map:

1. Shanghai!

To add a 'magnifying window' with a mini province 'Japanese District'/'Japanese Zone' to Shanghai province.
(The huge province of Shanghai should belong to China and only a small part of city should be Japanese)

Something about this:

Spoiler

To put Japaneese Zone (wich is сompletely surrounded by Shanghai Province) in the 'magnifying window'. From below, the Japanese zone is limited by the river. Modders should set the seaport on this river and 'connect' the 'Japaneese Zone' to the sea.

2. Kharkov!

During WW2, there were as many as 3 big battles for Kharkov, so this city has the reason to be made not as a huge plain province, but as a smaller urban province, similar to Moscow, Stalingrad, Kiev and others.
To do this, it is needed to divide the current Kharkov province into two provinces - Kharkov and Lozovaya.

Something about this:

Spoiler

New Kharkov province should have visual connection with Poltava. Lozovaya shudn't have visual connection with Sumy.

Soviet General Staff Map of 1941 of this area.
We can see that Lozovaya is key railway hub in this area after we separated Kharkov, so this new Province on the Map should be Lozovaya.

3. To fix the mistake with two Japanese islands (Chichi-Jima and Iwo-Jima) and put them in their real places.

Spoiler

Move the Chichi Jima to its correct place, using the current design of the colored stripe with the island's name.
Move Iwo Jima to Chichi Jima place. (Preferably also in the design of a single colored strip with the name, like Chichi Jima.)
Totally erase vanilla Iwo Jima from the map - there's only ocean and no islands.

Of course, I would like totally to remove the ridiculous window with 3 provinces of Iwo Jima and make Iwo Jima as a normal island with one province, since this Game is global strategy, not a tactical wargame, and even Stalingrad has only one province in this Game.
But if it takes a lot of effort to fix, then I can somehow survive this huge, ridiculous and inappropriately window in the center of the ocean for the little island measuring 8x4 km.

4. Remove to the hell 3 hard-to-click microscopic provinces im Mediterranean by combining them with neighboring ones.
Dubrovnik join to Mostar, Kalymnos join to Ermoupoly, Akko join to Haifa.
And Gaza join to Tel-Aviv, just for my Mod, because it doesn't focus on after-WW2 events.

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If anyone knows other important mistakes that should be fixed or important improvements that should be added to the map, offer your ideas.

 

[Bad4play]

I always felt Australia lacks of strategic depth, any Japanese invasion being too easy considering that this land is the size of whole EUROPE, more province would be welcome there.
Same for turkey, considering the treaty of lausanne treaty the DH map force any modding to include bigger area than historically accurate.
And +1 for the cities. It is always weird to have a city linked to a plan or else which remove any strategic depth to it.
I'm not sure about this one but France, UK, Norway, etc... have some islands in south atlantic. Do you see any interest of representing it ?
About Switzerland, while working on it geography and swiss defence plan I noticed that the provinces doesnt reflect very well the landscape of this area. The North land seems more flat while the south is the mountain fortress we know. Also more provinces would mean a better depiction of passes difficult geography of the alps (should be the same for other moutain ranges I guess).

Even if those are some ideas, I m not a fan of a "too much provinces" map, I like the simplicity of DH map compared to E3 (which is good too but less my taste). So i personnally think changes should be light and balance the underrepresented area with their counterparts. I'm a 0 for map making even after some work on it. However I can bring some improvment on adj.def file or province files. As an exemple there is no practicable land connection between south and north America ! It is mostly small changes but that add up realism to the map.

 

[Victor1234]

I think in general, the E3 map is great and would be my dream map, but the consensus seems to be the DH/HOI2 AI can't handle it, it's simply too many provinces.

So any map change should keep that in mind, priority #1 is to make it possible for the AI to use. I think in general though, the E3 map does do exclaves/islands a lot better than DH does, so I'd be a fan of converting them to E3 style at a minimum.

This means instead of strategic places (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Gibraltar, etc) being blown up/zoomed out and being very awkward (who is to say Guadalcanal should be the big fight in this WW2, again) like on the DH map, every island/exclave becomes a large rectangle text box that is easily selectable but still doesn't take up much space on the map.

Which provinces have land connections, which has certain terrain types, this is possible to fix with mods, but a map mod would be a lot of work to fix big floating Iwo Jima and make it into a 'normal' island again.

 

[Vilochka]

So and so. I haven't written the script files but I'll give you all the information now:
Dubrovnik 343 - became Lozovaya 343
Kalymnos 378 - became Japanese Zone 378
Akko 1013 and Gaza 1009 don't exist in the game.
It is worth correcting the distance file - Lozovaya (343) has coordinates of Dubrovnik, and the Japanese zone (378) has coordinates of Kalymnos
In the Province file, their names are also not corrected. But the position of the forts and beaches in the provinces 1661, 1662 (Chichi-Jima and Iwo-Jima), Japanese zone (378), Lozovaya (343) has been corrected. Therefore, in order not to break the mod, carefully copy the corresponding lines from the Province file.
I want to note that - this is only lightmap 1

 

[Nick3210]

I haven't written the script files but I'll give you all the information now:

Wow! Thanks!! ))
So glad to see Kharkov and Japanese Zone !
Yes, yes, that's clear, then modders must integrate the new fixed map into our mods by editing the Province, adj-defs, Distances and also all possible Scenarios(Countries), Revolt, Events files (and may be others, including AI files) that's now our work, you don't need to do that, you informed us about changes in provinces numbers, that's enough.

But can you please a bit improve the disign of some changes, to make it more nice?

1. New Mostar - nice!

2. Kalymnos - nice!

3. To delete Haifa colored strip from the sea and write it in the province

4. The same with Tel Aviv. Looks it can be fit into the province if to write the name from south-west to nort-heast. If it not fit, other way is to write Tel Aviv just in the sea but without the colored strip (like Middelburg in Holland, in the same style/font)

5. Kharkov and Lozovaya - ideally, nice!!

6. Shanghai - to crop the excess yellow background around the perimeter, making the window smaller.
And it is absolutely necessary to draw a river at the bottom of the Japanese zone, so that the picture better show this area and the modders would have a reasonable place where to put the seaport. Is it somehaw possible? May be using the nearest Sea province (!) to draw the river, so the river will look in this window like a river, but really it will be (clikable) the nearest sea Province?
For example, the Gibraltar window also has two clickable land sections and one clickable sea section. In fact, we need to draw the same - 2 clickable land zones and 1 river zone (so may be it is possible to make the river section like seasone for this purpose??)
Or may be it's possible just to draw a river just by that mechanics like river are drawing on the Map? Then there is a masterpiece option - to draw a large river as a clickable sea, and a small river as a standard non-clickable river on the map. ) But making both rivers just like regular rivers on the map is also normal option.

7. Chichi-Jima - to move the strip with the name so that the name starts directly from this island

8. Iwo Jima - nice! Thanks for normal one-province island! )


Thanks for your great job!! )
I haven't any experience in integrating a new/fixed map into the Mod yet, I'm looking forward to try it out!

 

[Vilochka]

Wow! Thanks!! ))
So glad to see Kharkov and Japanese Zone !
Yes, yes, that's clear, then modders must integrate the new fixed map into our mods by editing the Province, adj-defs, Distances and also all possible Scenarios(Countries), Revolt, Events files (and may be others, including AI files) that's now our work, you don't need to do that, you informed us about changes in provinces numbers, that's enough.

But can you please a bit improve the disign of some changes, to make it more nice?

1. New Mostar - nice!

2. Kalymnos - nice!

3. To delete Haifa colored strip from the sea and write it in the province

4. The same with Tel Aviv. Looks it can be fit into the province if to write the name from south-west to nort-heast. If it not fit, other way is to write Tel Aviv just in the sea but without the colored strip (like Middelburg in Holland, in the same style/font)

5. Kharkov and Lozovaya - ideally, nice!!

6. Shanghai - to crop the excess yellow background around the perimeter, making the window smaller.
And it is absolutely necessary to draw a river at the bottom of the Japanese zone, so that the picture better show this area and the modders would have a reasonable place where to put the seaport. Is it somehaw possible? May be using the nearest Sea province (!) to draw the river, so the river will look in this window like a river, but really it will be (clikable) the nearest sea Province?
For example, the Gibraltar window also has two clickable land sections and one clickable sea section. In fact, we need to draw the same - 2 clickable land zones and 1 river zone (so may be it is possible to make the river section like seasone for this purpose??)
Or may be it's possible just to draw a river just by that mechanics like river are drawing on the Map? Then there is a masterpiece option - to draw a large river as a clickable sea, and a small river as a standard non-clickable river on the map. ) But making both rivers just like regular rivers on the map is also normal option

7. Chichi-Jima - to move the strip with the name so that the name starts directly from this island

8. Iwo Jima - nice! Thanks for normal one-province island! )

Thanks for your great job!! )
I haven't any experience in integrating a new/fixed map into the Mod yet, I'm looking forward to try it out!

Take this!

 

[Vilochka]

I always felt Australia lacks of strategic depth, any Japanese invasion being too easy considering that this land is the size of whole EUROPE, more province would be welcome there.
Same for turkey, considering the treaty of lausanne treaty the DH map force any modding to include bigger area than historically accurate.
And +1 for the cities. It is always weird to have a city linked to a plan or else which remove any strategic depth to it.
I'm not sure about this one but France, UK, Norway, etc... have some islands in south atlantic. Do you see any interest of representing it ?
About Switzerland, while working on it geography and swiss defence plan I noticed that the provinces doesnt reflect very well the landscape of this area. The North land seems more flat while the south is the mountain fortress we know. Also more provinces would mean a better depiction of passes difficult geography of the alps (should be the same for other moutain ranges I guess).

Even if those are some ideas, I m not a fan of a "too much provinces" map, I like the simplicity of DH map compared to E3 (which is good too but less my taste). So i personnally think changes should be light and balance the underrepresented area with their counterparts. I'm a 0 for map making even after some work on it. However I can bring some improvment on adj.def file or province files. As an exemple there is no practicable land connection between south and north America ! It is mostly small changes but that add up realism to the map.

You mean darien gap?

 

[Bad4play]

You mean darien gap?

Yes indeed. Theorically it can be crossed but since no road is built there even in 2025 and all the trade goes by boat or plane I think it makes sense to have it blocked in DH

 

[Vilochka]

Take this!

Install: copy all .tbl files, tiles too. Province: separate copy line for changed provinces 343, 378, 1661, 1662, Kharkov and Shanghai - only placement (x,y) fort, aa, radar, sprite, port. I forgot names of this columns

 

[Vilochka]

About Kalimnos, Mostar - as I know, I don't check placement object in this province

 

[Nick3210]

Take this!

It works !! Bellissimo!! You done it! Even with two rivers! Hurrah!
For the first time, the Shanghai area made correctly!

--------
Since I'm crazy perfectionist, would you be so kind as to move Iwo Jima to a more true place, please?
I found this true place where Iwo Jima should be located. Use navigate by the ocean topography for this:

The rest of the provinces are still in work. It takes quite a lot of edits to integrate all the changes, since it is necessary also to edit all the coordinates of all possible buildings for all changes - airfields, air defense, etc.
But this fixed Map is SO good, I'm so happy, thank you very much for your work !!

 

[Vilochka]

Since I'm crazy perfectionist, would you be so kind as to move Iwo Jima to a more true place, please?
I found this true place where Iwo Jima should be located. Use navigate by the ocean topography for this:

View attachment 1261705

View attachment 1261706

 

[Nick3210]

Take this!

Well, the most important fixes have made!
Can you please make another fixes? 'Appetite comes with eating', as we say.

I would like to fix some another rude logistical errors for the most important sectors of the Soviet front - Moscow, Bryansk-Kursk, Smolensk-Minsk.

First, I prepared corrections for Moscow.
To be honest, in my subconscious I always wondered why the Moskva River on the vanilla DH map flows into the Klyazma in the north, and not into the Oka in the south. Because in my youth, I lived with a view of the Moskva River in the southeast of the city, which flowed further south to Oka river, and this huge section of the Moskva River does not exist on the map at all! Yes, there is a connection to the Klyazma through channels, so this northern part of the river made correctly. But the natural course of the Moskva River goes southern to the Oka, so such section of Moscow river definitely need to be on the map.

It is also necessary to bring the provinces surrounding Moscow in line with the real railway network and separete Serpukhov province in twe provinces.
Also needs some renamings.

1. Add the Moscow river

2. Separate Serpukhov 567 in Naro-Fominsk and Serpukhov. То take one of free Palestine provs for this for example - free Akko 1013.
No connection between new Naro-Fominsk and Tula 584
No connection between new Serpukhov and Kaluga 576

3. Add vizual (and map) connection Dmitrov - Orechovo-Zuevo : 570;571
572;678;Delete (Moscow-Vladimir)

4. Add vizual (and map) connection Volokolamsk - Moscow: 568;572

5. 568;677;Delete (delete visual connection Volokolamsk-Nelidovo using more of Vyazma 574)
Connect Rzvev-Vyazma 558;574

6. rename
569 Tver - Kalinin
570 Zagorsk - Dmitrov
568 Solnechnogorsk - Volokolamsk
554 Kinry - Kashin
635 Bakhmut - Stalino

7. Add rivers

631;644 (Mariupol-RostovOnDon, the 'Miys-Front' )
695;710 (Sochi-Sukhumi, for tactical gameplay reasons)

Big thanks!! )

 

[Vilochka]

In the adj-defs file you need to remove the river connection Akko and Golan/Irbid. Also remove the connection Serpukhov and Tula. Also remove between Moscow and Vladimir. Add the river connection Moscow with Volokolamsk. Sochi - Sukhumi. Rostov-on-Don - Mariupol. I have not provided you with the Province file with the layout of objects in Serpukhov

 

[Nick3210]

Finally, Moscow region has been brought into line with the real railway network. Moscow got the Moskva River! Wonderfull!

Find the eight differences test ))

Was:

Now is:

Well, now I will integrate this changes to the mod and think about next impovements to the west and south-west from Moscow.
Thanks for your great job! )

 

[Altruist]

Find the eight differences test

5 provinces changed names
1 province was split into 2
1 new river border for 4 provinces
2 further provinces changed size and shape

As much as I try I can't condense the changes to only 8 *grin

 

[Nick3210]

As much as I try I can't condense the changes to only 8 *grin

Actually there are even more changes. Two rivers have been added - the Mius River in Donbass (the famous 'Mius-Front') and a tactical river Sochi-Sukhumi on the western passage through the Caucasus.

 

[Nick3210]

Well, now let's fix the important war theater to south of Moscow and bring it in line with the real geography.

First, I would ask to slightly improve the previous fixes:

1. To make the Moskva River more natural, now it unfortunately looks like an artificial straight channel. Nature usually avoids angles and straight lines. Make it please.

2. It is very important to connect the borders of the four provinces at one single point, so that there is no visual illusion of any connection between all of them them. (Naro-Fominsk - Tula also have no connection)

3. Since Vyazma has become bigger, it need to move the name up a bit.

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Bryansk - Kursk war theater fixes :

4. To annex 588 Bryansk to 585 Kozelsk and rename 585 as Kirov.

5. To use 588 to create new true province Bryansk at the expense of a part of 587 Klintsy. To move a bit name of Klintsy.

(This is quite interesting - Google Maps today writes the name Bryansk on the left bank of the river, because the city has grown to the left bank a lot.
But on all WW2 era maps, the town Bryansk is located precisely on the right bank of the river, in its bend.)

6. 602 Zeleznogorsk rename as Lgov. (Center it, taking into account the loss of part of the province)

7. all four provinces 588 Bryansk - 602 Lgov - 605 Konotop - 587 Klintsy must be visually connected at one single point and they must be cross-connected in this point. (588 Bryansk - 605 Konotop and 602 Lgov - 587 Klintsy must be connected)

8. To make visual connection at one single point 585 Kirov - 583 Efremov, 581 Orel - 584 Tula. They also must be cross-connected. To move a bit name of Efremov.

9. To make cross-connection at one single point for 602 Lgov - 603 Belgorod and 606 Sumy - 604 Kursk by adding part of 602 Lgov to 604 Kursk
(by the way, this added to Kursk province additional appendix is Sudzha, so today everyone know that Sumy really have direct connection with Kursk through Sudzha, not like in vanilla DH map where Sumy have no connection with Kursk. Therefore, if anybody is going to make a 21st century scenario, just separate this appendix into separate province Sudzha. For my WW2 mod it's no needed, so it wiil be just bigger Kursk province.)
To move a bit name of Kursk.

10. 603 Belgorod - 633 Kypyansk - to make visual connection

11. 636;646;delete disconnect Kharkov - Ostrogozsk at the map level.

12. To make visual connection 579 Ryazan - 580 Yelets.

Big thanks!! ))

 

[Rodolphe123]

Hello Nick3210 & Vilochka,

I am a big fan of your work, it is good to see people still working this great game.

Do you intent to correct important provinces mistakes on the whole map ?

If it is the case, I would have many suggestions, and I could sent you picture of suggested changes in many countries, with suggested name.

I could consult infos about WW2 era : french departements, UK counties, German Kreis, polish, Italian, japanese, soviet territorial divisions. I suspect you are already expert on Russian and Ukrainian territories ! Sometime, the change could be done for strategic logical purpose.

Per exemple:

- In USSR, many northern provinces are far to big and at the opposite there is many very small provinces in center Siberia. In Caucaus, it is the same problem of big and small provinces ;
- In UK, there should be 1 or 2 additionnals provinces around London ;
- In France, between Paris and Switzerland, there should be 1 or 2 additionnel provinces. It would greatly help the strategic gaming during the 1940 campaign and the liberation campaign ;
- In Italy, there should be 1 or 2 additionnal provinces close to Rome ;
- In Poland, some provinces should be modified around Warsaw ;
- Germany is the worst of all. There should be more provinces around Berlin or a better division of provinces also. In East Prussia, the division of provinces is badly done. In Northern Germany there should be 1 or 2 additionals provinces or a better division. Overall Germany was very poorly done.
- In Japan, there should be 1 or 2 additionnal provinces close to Tokyo and some provinces could be had in the northern part of Tokyo.

A small number of additionnals provinces in some important countries and a better territorial division in those countries would vastly improved the strategic aspect of the game.

I you are interested, let me know and I will send you infos about all of it. If not, thank you anyway for your great work !

 

[Rodolphe123]

Following my previous post, I think also that Australia is poorly done. There should be coastal provinces all around the island and interior provinces inside. I dont think that provinces should be had, only a better division or provinces.