Will we get a better world map?

[elektrycerz]

Hello everyone,

Will we get a revamped map for RtW3? I haven't seen any news on that, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The current one (RtW2) works, but isn't really ideal. Here are some problems that bother me the most:

1. Modern borders: I'm not asking for them to be dynamic, I know that's hard to do - but pre-WW1 borders for 1890/1900 start, and post-WW1 borders for 1920 start would be nice.
2. Rectangular sea zones: it's sometimes hard to tell which province in is which zone. Some provinces are not even in their respective rectangles, for example Morocco and northern Mediterranean provinces.
3. Not very pretty: I know, RtW is absolutely not about graphics. But the zones and their connections look like they were made in MS Paint in five minutes (they probably were) [edit: upon closer inspection, they weren't made in Paint, as the map is a vector, but the point still stands]. For something that we stare at for dozens/hundreds of hours, the map could look a bit better, for example not pixelated [edit: and with tidier connections].

Please don't take this as a rant - I just want to know if there is one more great addition coming to RtW3 that I can look forward to.

This might just be my professional bias talking through me, since I'm a city planner by profession and a cartographer by interest. Maybe I'm the only one who cares about such trivial things.

I'd be glad if you could share your opinion on this subject and tell me if there were any news about the map that I have missed.

[axe99]

On the map, while it'd be nice to have accurate and dynamic borders, it may well be a lot of work, and given limits on dev time, I'm happy if they stay as is.

But one thought - and perhaps a terrible one - what about no political borders at all? Instead just have the flags (or spots for a flag, for regions not occupied by powers) for each region? That way, the regions are covered off, but there are no odd-looking borders to deal with? The borders would still need to be there "under the hood" to make sure coastal batteries and airfields were in the right place, but by not displaying them on the map, there won't be the dissonance of the borders being off?

Could be a silly idea, and I'm not suggesting it is original either.

[elektrycerz]

Jun 19, 2022 16:51:45 GMT -6 axe99 said:

On the map, while it'd be nice to have accurate and dynamic borders, it may well be a lot of work, and given limits on dev time, I'm happy if they stay as is.

But one thought - and perhaps a terrible one - what about no political borders at all? Instead just have the flags (or spots for a flag, for regions not occupied by powers) for each region? That way, the regions are covered off, but there are no odd-looking borders to deal with? The borders would still need to be there "under the hood" to make sure coastal batteries and airfields were in the right place, but by not displaying them on the map, there won't be the dissonance of the borders being off?

Could be a silly idea, and I'm not suggesting it is original either.

It's not silly - what's more, it's already in the game! Check under Preferences -> Map colors -> No borders



About "a lot of work" - I'm not asking to overhaul the province system or something like that. I'm just talking about the visual aspect, specifically the main strategical "Map" - no changes would be made to provinces, airfields, ports, land "hitboxes" etc. - so basically no gameplay/coding changes.

But upon even closer inspection of the map, it appears that the gray rectangles and blue lines are generated "dynamically" - it's hard for me to explain, but when I zoom out to the point where I see black stripes on the sides of the map window, area borders are still generated on the border between the map and the black stripes.

So, as far as I understand, the map is definitely not a raster (duh), and possibly not even a simple vector - the borders and zone connectors might be hard-coded, which would mean that a simple file swap would not work to just replace the map (in fact, I haven't found a "map file" in the game files). If this is true, and would require a lot of work (1+ days) to change, then my argument is invalid, since I was originally hoping that there is a simple solution to the problem.

I'm not entirely sure about all of that, so more feedback would be appreciated - at least to satisfy my curiosity.

[benjamin1992perry]

What they could do is like other games is assign each territory a section of land and when taken over that country's borders expand to include that new territory

[williammiller]

The game map is something we (and specifically myself) would like to have improvements in, yes. However, unfortunately, the series mapping engine is rather limited in its additional growth potential mainly due to its age - due to that and other factors, any really major upgrade would require a near-complete re-write of the core mapping engine or an entirely new engine, which would be quite a large undertaking as you might imagine.

At some point in the future when Fredrik has more time we could certainly explore a mapping system revamp/replacement as a possibility, but right now we need to work with the engine as it stands. We will however look at all your suggestions above and see what is possible for now in the system.

Thanks!

[garrisonchisholm]

Jun 19, 2022 11:51:29 GMT -6 elektrycerz said:

Hello everyone,

Will we get a revamped map for RtW3? I haven't seen any news on that, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The current one (RtW2) works, but isn't really ideal...

1. Modern borders: I'm not asking for them to be dynamic,

(...I have. )

[axe99]

Jun 19, 2022 18:08:37 GMT -6 elektrycerz said:

Jun 19, 2022 16:51:45 GMT -6 axe99 said:

On the map, while it'd be nice to have accurate and dynamic borders, it may well be a lot of work, and given limits on dev time, I'm happy if they stay as is.

But one thought - and perhaps a terrible one - what about no political borders at all? Instead just have the flags (or spots for a flag, for regions not occupied by powers) for each region? That way, the regions are covered off, but there are no odd-looking borders to deal with? The borders would still need to be there "under the hood" to make sure coastal batteries and airfields were in the right place, but by not displaying them on the map, there won't be the dissonance of the borders being off?

Could be a silly idea, and I'm not suggesting it is original either.

It's not silly - what's more, it's already in the game! Check under Preferences -> Map colors -> No borders



About "a lot of work" - I'm not asking to overhaul the province system or something like that. I'm just talking about the visual aspect, specifically the main strategical "Map" - no changes would be made to provinces, airfields, ports, land "hitboxes" etc. - so basically no gameplay/coding changes.

But upon even closer inspection of the map, it appears that the gray rectangles and blue lines are generated "dynamically" - it's hard for me to explain, but when I zoom out to the point where I see black stripes on the sides of the map window, area borders are still generated on the border between the map and the black stripes.

So, as far as I understand, the map is definitely not a raster (duh), and possibly not even a simple vector - the borders and zone connectors might be hard-coded, which would mean that a simple file swap would not work to just replace the map (in fact, I haven't found a "map file" in the game files). If this is true, and would require a lot of work (1+ days) to change, then my argument is invalid, since I was originally hoping that there is a simple solution to the problem.

I'm not entirely sure about all of that, so more feedback would be appreciated - at least to satisfy my curiosity.

Well then it's very silly for me to ask, lol.  Thanks for that   I've been on a RtW2 break while waiting for the expansion (I like to have a good break before expansions/new games), and as it's been a bit longer than expected now, it's been quite the break, so I'm a bit out of touch with the details - although I had never noticed that before.  Will definitely be cranking that with RtW3

[itrefel]

Jun 19, 2022 11:51:29 GMT -6 elektrycerz said:

Maybe I'm the only one who cares about such trivial things.

    Its a relatively trivial thing, but I do find the absence of the island from which I am writing this from the map unreasonably annoying.. it just rreally breaks immersion and makes the whole UK just look wrong.

    I know Anglesey exists - I'm standing on it!