Ten Mile Maps are possible.....maybe.....

[Hancock the Superb]

How can you speed up the game just while marching? You can only do it to 3 times speed (and you really need about 20 times), and for multiplayer, it doesn't even work!

But I kinda doubt that people would use this as a campaign like I am thinking.

[Davinci]

Hancock , I think that you are looking at this from the wrong perspective, if this works, it's not taking anything away from the game, only adding a new feature into it.

I also agree that a campaign style game would have to come from NSD , modding will only take the game to a certain point.

But, there are a few of us including myself that don't mind moving the armies around a larger map.

I have always felt that this is the part of the Civil War that has not been achieved by this excellent game, the ability to maneuver over large expansions of terrain.

The battle of Gettysburg was a prime example of having the army divided by more than a days march, as both armies sent out couriers in the hopes of concentrating their forces.

As stated above, if this works, I can \ would still make a five mile map, and then convert that one into a ten mile map, this way it would give the community the choice as to which one or both to play on.

davinci

[RDBoles]

Davinci You make it and I will be first in line to try it out for you. I love this game. I play mostly SP only because of time constraints.

[Davinci]

Davinci You make it and I will be first in line to try it out for you. I love this game. I play mostly SP only because of time constraints.

Thanks, RDBoles - I'll keep you informed about any progress.....still in the process of testing this!

davinci

[gunship24]

Wow Davinci this seems great news. By the looks of things there isnt really mush of an fps hit. I dont know who the engine works. If the sprites are only loaded when in view then the fps hit should be negligable as this depends on peoples draw distances. I would love to see a large map, alot of battles were fought over a large area, with many areas being impassable. Would be cool if there was actually an 'impassible' terrain type on the map list, im not sure there is one only ones which slow you down which the AI would still use.

This is difinately a great idea for a 1:1 ratio map. A 'true' regiment in 1:1 would be approx 3.5 times the actual unit frontage on the current maps, so a 10x10mile map would be approx 2.85x2.85miles in 1:1 scale, using the same sprite size and drills spacing, about the same size terrain as what we currently have. You would have to use the trick of regiment become campany, brigade become regiment etc.

[Saddletank]

Populating a 10 mile square map with terrain objects would take a while though

I guess if the player(s) have their terrain and object draw distance set to 1000 yards then the game isn't rendering any more polygons no matter how big the map is, though big maps would encourage players to try and use more troops which is where the thing might struggle.

But rendering issues aside there's clearly an object or texture loading process into memory that has some kind of limits with NSDs current game engine since the 5 mile Antietam map is more unstable or prone to lag/crashes over the 5 mile Gettysburg map (the laggy one has all the fences, the non-laggy one doesn't). Thus, some sort of limitation there.

Like everyone else I think a bigger map is an interesting concept but only if it can be filled with immersive terrain, and I just don't think this iteration of the game engine can do that on a 10 mile map.

But as to having a map big enough to waste 2 hours on trying to find the enemy... our MP group has done that many a time on a 5 mile map

[Davinci]

Would be cool if there was actually an 'impassible' terrain type on the map list, I’m not sure there is one only ones which slow you down which the AI would still use.

One of the other map makers can probably add to this, but it is probably possible to create certain areas that would be impassible .

The first idea that I can think of would be to place a line of boulders along a certain area with a large radius , the same effect as that of the houses.

Once the units tried to enter this radius they would be forced by the games engine along a roundabout route.

I can’t really think of a reason why that wouldn’t work!

davinci

[Saddletank]

Something that would be useful is defining certain watercourses as impassable.

[gunship24]

In the TC2M maps you could create impassible rivers by using transparent lines in the heightmap. This made the engine create no terrain whats so ever and because there was no terrain there was no route for the sprites to go on. These transparent lines would then run all the way along the river edge just below the water line so they were hidden, only breaking at crossings and bridges. Didnt do much testing on it though but seemed to work.

[Davinci]

Like everyone else I think a bigger map is an interesting concept but only if it can be filled with immersive terrain, and I just don't think this iteration of the game engine can do that on a 10 mile map.

This may or may not be true, but the only way of knowing this would be to do it, and then reevaluate the situation.

The first step is getting it to work, if it does work only then would a step two be necessary. The step-two process would be getting it to work better by trying to gain as many fps as possible.

I did load a 20x20 mile map without crashing the game, but the fps were at five , so that is not good!

Something that would be useful is defining certain watercourses as impassable.

These transparent lines would then run all the way along the river edge just below the water line so they were hidden; only breaking at crossings and bridges. Didnt do much testing on it though but seemed to work.

The grayscale color 25 was used to create this hidden road around the rivers, and \ or creeks that were supposed to act as a sort of hidden-barrier.

The problem was that this color 25 was prone to create all types of path errors.

To my knowledge, no modder ever used this grayscale color with much success, and most quit using it at altogether.

But, there’s always the slight possibility that we were using it incorrectly.

davinci