scenario design help

[bswermeling]

Hello all,
I have been looking at making my own scenario for a while now about a hypothetical conflict in the Baltic. My main question is to ask how one can make a map that has accurate proportions? Do you put a grid over a map and fill it in that way? Any tips would be appreciated on this issue, as I am really lost on it. Also, I was wondering if there are any really important pieces of information to know in general.

[Nicholas Bell]

ORIGINAL: bswermeling
how one can make a map that has accurate proportions? Do you put a grid over a map and fill it in that way?

That is how I do it. Base Map Image (23mb)

I got the map images from the UT Texas Map Collection, and stitched and scaled them in Photoshop. If you look in the North Sea you can see I pasted a map scale from the map to confirm the scaling at 15 km/hex.

I use mkhexgrid to create a hexgrid with numbering that matches the TOAW map and used that as a transparent layer on the base map image, scaled to match the 15km/hex.

Here is where I am at now with this map: Completed Map Image(31mb)

This is all a tremendous amount of work and frankly a better method for you might be to find an East Front scenario with the scale you want and simply modify it's map after requesting permission from the author. You can easily crop it down and then map the changes to borders, cities etc rather than creating the map from scratch.

[josant]

Do you know the odd program?, this is used to make hexmaps, I attached the program so you download it if you do not have it

[josant]

To make a map is easy, follow those steps

1. You must search the map that you want.

2. Measure the escale in pixels, for example with the select utility of the paint or other draw program, and save the map in bmp format ( because odd only loads *.BMP images); in this case 96 pixels ecuals 200 Km

[josant]

The run the ODD program and click on the map scaler button.

[josant]

And click on the import button to load a map (remember that it must be a bmp file)

[josant]

Then click on the Hex button

[josant]

In the bar that appears at the bottom, type how many pixels equals 200km, then select what escale do you want, and click on the draw grid button.

[josant]

This is the result at 50Km/Hex. To save the map, click on the export button.

[josant]

Finally you have to draw all this manually in the toaw map editor, placing rivers, cities, mountains (in this example map there is no mountains), placing the coast lines... Acording to this map.

In some cases, if you select small values for the escale, the Hexgrid appears very small, in this case you can increse the size of the map image(200%, 300%,or another value until it satisfies you.

I prefer to look for the physical map, because the relief appears (you can place mountains, hills), rivers, cities, borders ...

[Lobster]

Josant mentions how many pixels per kilometer. That is what 'Set Scale' does. Find two points where the distance is known. Military maps such as those found in the map collection at the University of Texas have grids that give a distance of 10 kilometers https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

If you use the Soviet or Russian maps at Mapstor the grid lines are 8 kilometers I believe.

ORIGINAL: josant

In the bar that appears at the bottom, type how many pixels equals 200km, then select what escale do you want, and click on the draw grid button.

[lion_of_judah]

How does one open a scenario dump? Having problems, thanks

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: lion_of_judah
How does one open a scenario dump? Having problems, thanks

If it's what I think it is it's probably a text file and notepad
or Notepad++ or the MS product "Write" or any word processing
product that can read text files.

[larryfulkerson]

Notepad++ is free from here:

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

[sPzAbt653]

You must save it as a text file by adding the '.txt' extension to the file name.

[lion_of_judah]

When I click dump scenario, it saves the file as a scenario file. Thank you for helping

[lion_of_judah]

thanks, will try that. Also how do I save the events into a document file for viewing, thanks

[sPzAbt653]

Events are included in the Dump. Copy/Paste them into a separate file if you like, I do [:)]

TOAW Tutorial - Scenario Dump, Unit Colors & Names
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiRaL0s9sgg