will the (dom3) "map that will never be" be in dom4 ? Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

i remember a huge, stunning map preview pic in the dominions3 forums thread titled "the map that will never be"
Forum.shrapnelgames.com
Any chance that this map comes to Dominions4 ?

"Once you put something on the internet, it's there forever. blah blah blah". So where are the pics of this map?!

Edited by: J.Mad

There is a map album under Kristoffer Shrapnel account with some images : Forum.shrapnelgames.com

From memory there were higher resolution versions of some of them posted durung the thread (plus probably a few others images), but you will have to check all 36 pages of te thread to find them : Forum.shrapnelgames.com

The title should give it away....

It might actually.
For a while I thought that it might be finished together with dom4, but other things were more important.
But it should be doable in the not too far future.
The basics on the map is ready, but I need to detail rivers, coasts and seas. I've only done about 1/5 of those.
And then some fixing of neighbours and stuff, but that is less time consuming.

Great news Kristoffer, thank you !

Edited by: jtrowell

If you're not going to get a chance to finish it soon, do you think you might be able to release the graphics files for us to do "unofficial" versions? The small previews you gave years ago looked really cool.

I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus of hope, it would be really sweet to have a beautiful map like this in the roster. I've even considered paying artist friends of mine to do a bit of cartography... maps for fantasy worlds are just swell. One of the finer things in life is to open a book, and to see a drawing of the world in the first few pages. So swell. Perhaps even more so to be able to play on them.

Thanks Kristoffer !

Is there an image of it somewhere? The link to the old form it seems like the links to the images are not working any longer?

Sounds interesting!

There are titles for those images: Caves, Ctis, The east, Vanheim, Ermor and Arco.

Very pretty!

How do you make the shaded borders, is that a transparency layer you put over everything? Still working on my Dawns-Expanded map but I think I am doing it the 'wrong way'.

WarbossGoregutz wrote: Very pretty!

How do you make the shaded borders, is that a transparency layer you put over everything? Still working on my Dawns-Expanded map but I think I am doing it the 'wrong way'.

Yep. The map is made in quite a lot of layers. Sea, landmass, roughness, shades/hues, forests, mountains, buildings, riverstuff, more stuff, borders, province centers etc.

Have you got an idea yet what the map will be called?

"The Map that seemed like it would never be, but came out after a long wait." TMTSLIWNBBCOALW for short.

It's under the work name Altera. I think it will stick.

Interesting, is there an advantage to all the layers other than just a single "detail" layer? For mine, I have background, landmass, shades/hues, detail et all, and borders. Province centers im just putting the dot in the detail layer...is there some advantage to doing it your way? Perhaps I could save myself some time.

If I use one layer for forests and another for mountains it is easier to have trees overlapping the mountains.
Details can be on the same layer, but I find it easier to have them on different layers if I want to move them around. If one layer is buildings and civilizattion stuff i can work in that layer and not bother about the details of rivers, forests etc.
I find it useful to have shades in one layer just above the landmass and work on that one after I have done details ans stuff. Some shadings I do as transparent shades on the detail level, but hues and forest floor etc I put in the shade level.

If you are ever of a mind to do such a crazy thing, I would just fawn over a video of you doing your thing on a section of the map. Either as a speedpaint or just as you talking about how you do it.

While the images are probably old and possibly outdated, I notice that many of the rivers are inside provinces instead of on their borders.

I guess it is because the map was started before the water/mountain borders were added to the mechanics.

A river might connect lands as well as divide them. A slow river with a lot of population centers with ferries and bridges is less of a border. I have never been very consistant in how I percieve rivers in mapmaking, but with the river border mechanic of dom4 it might become more important.

I think I might work a bit on the map now that the game is about to be released, and I don't feel tha need to fix sprites as strongly as before.
I feel free

Yay! New map New map!

It's gorgeous I've always wanted maps that incorporate the nations onto "canon" provinces. Godspeed to any attempts at finishing it.

I look at things like this and silently weep to myself, wishing I had talent.