Slitherine

Hello,

I was thinking of making a map, but I wanted to make a Europe map similar to what is in Time of Fury game "Lightning War" its a smaller map of the War with England,Russia, North Africa and Eastern America at the Corps and Army level. I wonder what is the Largest Map that can be made in Order of Battle and also Can one take an image and have the map auto generated or do they have to manually place the terrain?

If anyone has already made a map I would love to work on it or play it. I think Order of Battle would be great for a semi Strategical play.

Largest size: 120 x 120 (the edges are not playable)

PS: with the evolution of technology since the release of the game (april 2015), it would be nice to make the limits greater (150 x 150 for example). Other strategy games have greater limits.
I play with an old laptop without specific video card without any problem currently.

Create a template.jpg and put it in the scenario folder.
The editor will load the template as a background. Hit Ctrl T to turn it on/off.

And yes, a larger max map size would be nice. Should be no problem in multiplayer games (I guess...).
Very large maps may be an issue for the AI, calculating search/movement (this takes time).

Erik2 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 18, 2022 8:24 am Very large maps may be an issue for the AI, calculating search/movement (this takes time).

I don’t think the AI depends directly on the size of the map. You must of course adapt the AI to the size of the map. We’re not going to search and destroy the whole map! If a unit can move by 10 movement points, no matter the size of the map, it will always move by 10 movement points. Local AI should be preferred.
The number of units can play a role, the graphic memory...
I play this game with an old laptop without specific video card without any problem currently. For me, there is still some margin. I reserve my gamer laptop for PanzerCorps 2.
It seems to me that there are games that don’t put predefined limits for the size of the maps, so it depends on the characteristics of the computer.

I was mostly thinking about naval games where there are a myriad of different movement possibilities.
And naval scenarios usually needs big maps to facilitate the fog-of-war and cat & mouse elements, essential for this kind of battle.

slith:

Can one take an image and have the map auto generated or do they have to manually place the terrain?

You must put all the map features in manually.

conboy

Ok so what does the template file need to be all one color, anything specific? I wanted to do a simple map of Europe with part of the USA and Africa for a European campaign. Does the game have certain colors for terrain should I MAKE IT JUST black and white? Or does it just go by the outline so I regular atlas map would work. Thanks alot, If I am able to get this done I plan on releasing for others to enjoy.

Erik2 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 18, 2022 8:24 am Create a template.jpg and put it in the scenario folder.
The editor will load the template as a background. Hit Ctrl T to turn it on/off.

And yes, a larger max map size would be nice. Should be no problem in multiplayer games (I guess...).
Very large maps may be an issue for the AI, calculating search/movement (this takes time).

The template can be any kind of map, in theory.
But some maps work better than others. It should be easy to differntiate various terrain features on the original map, roads, rails, forest, mountains, villages, towns, cities etc.
Remember that maybe 50% of the template will display under the original map. So a blurry template is hard to work with.
The best would be to use a game-map covering teh approx area as it would probably be very 'clean' and easy to read.
I think trying to fit large parts of the world into a 120x120 hex map will make for a very crude map.
I would scetch out the most important terrain features first (ie coastlines) to see if you can still recognize Africa

lt1956_slith wrote: ↑Fri Mar 18, 2022 2:58 am Hello,

I was thinking of making a map, but I wanted to make a Europe map similar to what is in Time of Fury game "Lightning War" its a smaller map of the War with England,Russia, North Africa and Eastern America at the Corps and Army level. I wonder what is the Largest Map that can be made in Order of Battle and also Can one take an image and have the map auto generated or do they have to manually place the terrain?

If anyone has already made a map I would love to work on it or play it. I think Order of Battle would be great for a semi Strategical play.

I think with 120x120 hexes, such a big geographical area would lead to a cramped Europe, so you'd need to model units over entire Armies or even Army Groups. You'll then lose a lot of diversity among forces, and a pretty linear gameplay. A cramped map would also minimize maneuver warfare, leading to a rather static attrition war until a side breaks and the war is basically won.

I think Order of Battle works best on an Operational scale, with individual units in the Regimental/Brigade/Division scale. Personally, I used Battalions (for HQs and Engineers), Regiments (most line units) and Brigades (elite units) in my mod. Lots of variety, and big maps so maneuvering is an option.