war of eight continents Codex Dacanium: Terra (THE END)

[Valixor 122]

(see new post below, this is gonna become a placeholder for something else)

Edited May 24, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

Little spoiler: yes, I know the western part of the new map will look a lot like Europe. But, I'm still improving it to make it its own unique thing.

Anyway, here's the new technique I'm using (together with more careful province adding) to keep the maps from turning into unmitigated spiky messes like the Ravenfield and old world maps did:

Map Sectioning

Provinces, Regions, Super-Regions

There are three layers of map sections: provinces, regions and super-regions, each consisting a part of the latter.

Provinces (red) are exactly what you expect, the base of all AoH maps. In the new known-world map, these represent county-level divisions and roughly 500K to 2M people, except for certain cities which may be more than that, and desolate frontiers which may be way less. In the old map, there was no clear correlation between provinces and population, as it was made before any real consideration for population density was made.

Regions (pink) consist of 5-10 provinces, roughly representing duchy-level divisions, but also designed to be less bordergorey when combined. These represent roughly 2M to 10M, or even 20+M people when including highly populated cities.

Super-regions (white) are the largest map section, consisting of 3-4 regions and 15-35 provinces (avg. 25), roughly representing kingdom-level divisions. These represent 10 to 50M people, sometimes even 100M in extreme cases. In some places (e.g. Rekov), there's very little space to draw provinces, so super-regions there tend towards smaller, 20 provinces, but much denser ones, while in the Far North, the huge land area and sparse population means super-regions may even be 50 provinces, but nearly desolate ones.

To visualize these, I quickly created a test map (might even become an actual playable pre-release map!):

The provinces are more evenly spaced (hopefully) than in the old world map with respect to density, though this test map's density is roughly equal, but slowly decreasing towards the northeast.

The number of planned provinces is also greatly increased, from 1,616 (complete) in the old map to over 5,000, and maybe 7,000 in the new map, thus making it bigger than any vanilla map available, and bigger than most modded maps. In the next post (after the spiky-province one), I'll show the leap in the number of provinces between the old and new maps.

P.S. the new map's provinces are still being pre-drawn, it doesn't exist as an AoH map yet

Edit: mechanics post styling

Edited May 24, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

I wasn't kidding about the unmitigated spiky mess part. Seriously, look:

Oh my god Rulin, what did they do to you? You've got a rather severe case of sharp border-itis there!Caerian Amago didn't invade Ravenfield to eventually defeat the gods, he did it so he wouldn't have to suffer THESE 90-degree borders.

This is the consequence of having only one level of map sections (and serious rushing), AoHers! Unless you're basing things off a real (or game province) map, make some damned map sections, it'll pay off in more beauty later on! Don't learn the hard way like I did!

Edited May 24, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

Okay, I said I would give you the difference in province numbers between the old version and the new version. I haven't finished the super-regions of the new map yet, but I did create one country's provinces in the new map. Guess which one? (2023 ed: T.O.R. Rekov)

Here is the province map of a country in the old, 1600-province map. It has all of 25 provinces in it (26 including the lake), meaning it would take one super-region, and three regions to cover it fully.

Now here's the same country (ofc radically changed) and its province map (same scale) in the new version (not final at all, subject to a lot of changes!). There are five super-regions, 18 regions (some are undersize), and 124 provinces, 5 times as much as in the old version, and this is with several provinces removed. There will likely be more removals to balance the size of the absolutely tiny provinces, because the base map from which this was taken, and on which the ~7,000 provinces will be made, is only 5830x2716! (yeah, there will be a 5x scale map to compensate a bit)

Edited August 28, 2023 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

The test map to describe what map sectioning looks like is now available for download here!

It has 61 provinces (50 land), and one functional scenario (Battle for the Test World). The ToR mod is not required to use it, all civilizations and terrain are vanilla, just follow the instructions in the readme.txt file.

EDIT: Here it is in action:

Edited May 24, 2021 by Valixor

[Chungus dickus 7]

Are you going to do android 

 

 

[Valixor 122]

On 5/25/2021 at 1:49 PM, Chungus dickus said:

Are you going to do android 

 

 

I don't have AoH II on my Android phone, and have no idea how to port AoH mods to Android. The mod will also likely be too large for many phones to handle, both because of the 7000+ provinces in the full map, and the large backgrounds (Suzema/Serfeuer had to cut Nirn from their Elder Scrolls mod because the background overloaded less powerful mobile devices). Also, the full T.O.R. (temporary name) mod will feature a modified .jar to incorporate additional features, so the full version is definitely not coming there. After the release of the full mod, I may port a mini version to Android if I get the opportunity to do so, with an easier-to-run simplified world map.

I hope this answered your question in as much detail as I can give at this extremely early stage of the remake.

TLDR: unlikely, but possible

Also, enjoy this mockup of a super-event:

P.S. Wow, someone really doesn't like AoH II, they dropped 434 dislikes in less than an hour!

Edited May 27, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

Preliminary Map Statistics

The province map on the super-region level is now finished, there are currently 312 super-regions (can and will change before province-making in the AoH map editor). At an average of around 3.5 regions and 22 provinces per super-region (to account for undersize urban areas and oversize wastelands), the provisional map would be split into ~1,100 regions and ~6,900 land provinces, with a total of ~7,550 provinces when including sea provinces (at a 1:10 sea-land ratio). Right on track for now.

Also, if the same super-region density is extended to the rest of the relevant world (those outside the game map), there are ~535 super-regions, ~1,900 regions and ~11,800 land provinces, while sea provinces are extended to 60% density (because of the large, empty oceans outside), ~1,800 sea provinces, for a total of ~13,600 provinces! That would make it the map with the highest province count, beating Project Alpha's (the largest map mod I know of) 13,316 provinces. Making it would be possible, but very time consuming. Making it without falling into the trap of terrible, spiky provinces like Alpha (and my pre-map sectioning maps) fell into... a whole different thing, the time and effort needed would be the biggest project ever undertaken by anyone from the AoH modding community.

The super-region map will be in the post below to keep the clutter down.

[Valixor 122]

THE WORLD OF SIX CONTINENTS: 

A 7,500 province pipedream, in super-regions

Locations and borders of the super-regions are in no way final (there WILL be serious changes made). And yes, the western part looks a lot like Europe, but it's a more geographically interesting map overall, and its history won't be just copied straight off Europe's. The country borders also reflect the situation of just ONE scenario, and are not final either! Really, the only thing (mostly) final about this map is the coastline.

(Continent locations are given in cardinal directions and measured from the center of the map, so center-west would mean a continent relatively close to the center of the map, NOT the center of the world)

CONTINENTS

The continent of Dacanium (west) is now completely remade, with a bunch of new civilizations. Most of the Eastern Lands (center to far-east) countries remain in similar positions where they were in the original map, the Western Republics (south center) in the old map are now in one large peninsula, while the continent itself is more complex, with more islands and more realistic coastlines. The Southern Lands (south center-west) are now more fully covered, and east Draconia (far-southwest) and Terra Australis (far-southeast) is now on the map. The Diamond Nations (east) and Mahaar states (northeast to far-east) have increased in number.

EXTENT

The map now extends from roughly 79°N to 6°S, with latitude-induced distortions partially corrected for. The small lime-green area in the Southern Lands is not yet decided on (maybe a colonial area for the countries around it?), while the gray areas are outside the scope of the province map, and will only have a small amount of provinces (all wasteland except when bordering a major country at the start of a scenario).

[Valixor 122]

THE 13,600 PROVINCE MAP - A REALITY

How feasible would making a 13,600 province map in the AoH II map editor be?

 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRENT RECORD-HOLDER

 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FULL T.O.R. MAP - HUMANLY UNFEASIBLE?

 

TLDR: That's something for a future Hearts of Iron 4 mod based in this world, not here.

P.S. There's apparently an even bigger map, with 18,175 provinces, but I have no information about it other than that (appears to have been deleted)

P.S. too - I lost this whole damn article! So it's WIP.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

MORE, YES, MORE BIOMES!

Progress update: Now doing the terrain, climate and biome maps, and then the background. In the future, there will likely be new biomes added to better reflect the real world, most likely ones:

• Temperate Rainforest (Köppen: Cfa, Cfb, Csa, Csb) - vanilla Jungle renamed to Tropical Rainforest
• Subtropical Hills (Köppen: Cfb, Csb, Cwb, highland)
• Temperate/subtropical Monsoon (Köppen: Cwa, Cwb)
• Tropical Monsoon (Köppen: Am)
• Subpolar Plains (Köppen: Cfc, Csc, Cwc)
• Glacier (Köppen: EF)
• Volcanic Island (Köppen: any) - for small volcanoes in island chains
• Tall Mountains (Köppen: ET, EF) - very tall mountains >5000m, usually impassable

If I get around to seriously modifying the main .jar, there may also be regional-level temperature with real effects on the country. No promises, though (AoH II's internal structure is a dozen tangles of spaghetti code that bugs out frequently and barely works even without them, that's probably why Lukasz abandoned work on the game).

Edited June 2, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

CHANGES TO WAR MECHANICS: THE PLAN

While I'm on tall promises for the mod, if I create a regional temperature mechanic I will most likely also radically change other game mechanics, especially the occupation system. (even before regional temperature)

First thing to do is greatly increase the minimum number of units needed to occupy a province, from 10 to 100 or something around that, so large numbers of 10-troop armies can't take half of the country before the country can react fast enough. Other mods have already done this, so this will certainly happen.

The second goal is to turn it into more of a siege-style occupation, with unfortified areas being quickly occupied while forts and castles require time to occupy, and cause attrition to the attacker, thus making fortifications actually worthwhile to use. I haven't seen any mods that do this, but it shouldn't be the hardest thing to code in IMO.

And the third and final goal is to turn the game from more turn-based towards nearly pure RTS. This will require a lot of coding and may even be impossible, but who knows?

P.S. I'm doing the heightmap to determine climate and terrain. Expect it to be unveiled here in the next one or two weeks.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

HEIGHTMAP OF THE WORLD

As promised, here's the heightmap of the known world. Some changes have been made to the coastlines, with a few new islands and better coasts in certain parts of the world.

Resolution is around 3.1 km per pixel at the equator, and way less towards the poles. Yup, enough resolution to resolve large towns and cities.

Next, the climate, biome and finally the full terrain map.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

CITIES: HOW MANY OF THEM?

Based on my earlier work, cities have been about as much effort to place in the game as a province is to draw in the map editor. In the old, pre-remake version, there were 287 city labels for 1,455 land provinces, or around 20% of the provinces. Extending this city-province ratio to the new world map, there should be around 1,360 cities for 6,900 land provinces. However, I will be aiming for over 2,000 cities, of all in-world cultures and languages, for a >=30% city/province ratio in the new map, to make the world more diverse and full. Most of these will be concentrated in dense areas, as with the old mod, but sparser regions will have more named cities.

Related to this, an increase in the range of growth rates is in the plans too (probably to 200%), for really large cities, and a Large City biome with exaggerated modifiers compared to the regular City biome.

P.S. Next map is gonna be the Köppen climate map (if any climate scientists are watching, I really apologize for what I'm about to spit out, I have no idea about climate stuff). At the current pace, it will likely be complete in around a week.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

Climate map making well underway, complete probably by the end of this week.

[Valixor 122]

CLIMATES OF THE WORLD

Every world has a huge diversity of biomes and climates, from the tropics near the equator, to the ice caps of the polar regions, reflecting their effects in the cultures that inhabit it. The old world map (with 1600 provinces) had only a province map, and later a terrain map based on it, while the biomes were selected arbitrarily based on what color the terrain was under the province.

The new world map has a fully featured climate map, on which its many biomes will be developed:

Here we see the diverse climate zones of the world. The climate zones come from the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, with some definitions near the legend (left).

Altitude variations have been accounted for, so tropical climates change to temperate climates (then to alpine tundra) at high altitudes, and temperate to continental and so on. The effects of prevailing winds and water currents are also clearly visible.

The coastline and climates are now final and the super-regions are pretty much complete. Only the background and province maps remain, the background will certainly be complete within this month, while the province map will take somewhat longer because there's over 7,500 to draw in.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

Here's the background of the old map. Parts of it aren't even painted in (I gave up trying to paint without any reference to go by), and overall the map looks terrible.

The new map's background definitely won't look like this. At least it will be fully painted and somewhat accurate to the climate.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

I've decided to combine all the progress, however incomplete it is, on the old version of the mod before I announced the complete remake, into the truly final version of the T.O.R. mod. Introducing:

T.O.R.: The Definitive Edition

Final 2.0

The final version of the mod has four maps: a 1617 province world map (the one you all know about), with 43 fully featured scenarios, a 1890 province map of Ravenfield (with some WIP scenarios), and the first sectioned maps: a 60 province and a 205 province extended one, both with one functional scenario.

The mod features around 220 civilizations, 287 cities, and spans almost 4,000 years of (rather static) history. It also has new governments, including the unique Imperial government, and two new urban terrains.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rYAY2SdzSD6rx0iL8nqHH9D9g6yB9fKx/view?usp=sharing

I release this Definitive Edition without any guarantee that it will work on your device (though all the parts work on mine). If you get crashes or other bugs with the Definitive Edition, please reply below and I'll help you out however I can, or finally realize I forgot something and make a hotfix.

This will be the final version of the old T.O.R. mod, no more updates will be made to the old version, all focus will now be on the complete remake, War of the Eight Continents, with a much bigger map, more interesting history, hundreds of new civilizations, and eventually completely overhauled game mechanics. What preceded this was just a warmup.

Today, the long march of development really begins...

Edited June 12, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

The province map for the first demo, coming this month, is now complete. I'll unveil more about it soon.

[Valixor 122]

Just made some changes to the gameciv editor (they will appear in the final mod) to make future development less tedious. Of course, didn't come before a few days of trying to figure out the spaghetti code running the game.

The unneeded opening of Wikipedia (why does it even exist in the code) is now disarmed, and civilization color can now be randomized. After this, I'll implement some equally randomized banners.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Valixor

[Valixor 122]

FIRST DEMO: PROVINCE MAP

The background and province map for the first demo of the mod is complete. I used more advanced painting software (and Earthlike colors) to achieve this somewhat realistic look. It's by no way final, there will probably be changes made just to this demo area. And most of the background still isn't complete.

I didn't count the number of land provinces in the province map, but I estimate there are around 500 of them in this area, and the very first scenario made will have around 100 civilizations in the area (and somewhere around 900 in the full map)

The map of the first demo, and all subsequent versions, will have a x5 scale, in addition to the default x1 and x3 scales... because the provinces are so damn small!

The first demo is still expected to release this month, stay tuned for more updates.

[Valixor 122]

RAINBOW OF RANDOM CIV COLORS

IT WORKS! Everything visual about game civilizations can now be randomized! Including the banners!

Civtag making is gonna be so much faster now.

(yeah, it might leak memory all over the place, I have basically zero experience in Java let alone doing garbage collection with it, my coding experience is mostly with C#)

Now, I'm moving on to draw the province map in the map editor, it wil be unveiled in the next post. This time for real, I promise.

[Valixor 122]

Leaving behind the past, and going into the future, T.O.R. Mod receives a new name today:

War of the Eight Continents

A 6,000 Year Story

"T.O.R. Mod" now refers only to the pre-remake version of this mod, my first serious attempt at modding this game, with all its flaws apparent with a second view at it.

With a new name, WEC/WotEC becomes a clean slate, free of the faults that preceded its inception. A new dawn begins for WEC, together with it a whole new story, both for the world, and its people.

[Valixor 122]

FIRST DEMO PROGRESS: PART 1

Began drawing the map in the AoH II map editor today, 82 provinces complete so far. More provinces to be drawn tomorrow.

At the current rate, the first demo is expected to be released in a week's time.

[Valixor 122]

FIRST DEMO PROGRESS: PART 2

All 471 land provinces and 2 lake provinces are now complete. Development is still going well within schedule.

Map with all provinces drawn will be unveiled tomorrow.