Bill might not (apologies for the editing - I did not want Bil's entire post
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dont dabble in what we will or wont add into our games as far as the terrain goes.
All prior stock art s fair game; it also is fair game to be converted to 24 bit from 8 bit -which I think MAW is.
Scott is correct in that it is the bmp files that I am talking about and not the engine itself; as far as the artwork goes the engine is irrelevant as long as you match up the dimensions.
I don't mean to claim that there is anything like that in the works, I only mean that the graphics conversion would not be an issue.
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I always wanted to see a "vineyard" "beach" and a couple of other terrain types added to the game though I guess for "vineyard" you could use the fields and increase the height of them for that scenario (in the PDT file). Or use Orchard terrrain ... some vineyards are very tall in Europe.
Wouldn't that require an engine change to add those terrain types, as well as locations on the bmp files? I mean, you can change an existing spot on the bmp and call it something else - like I was toying with the idea of changing 'Orchard' over to something like 'light forest' - or maybe 'fields' into 'mud' or some soft of 'soft' terrain -but I don't know - if you can't change the name of the terrain in the pdt (and you can't short of an engine change as far as I am aware) -then it probably is not going to be worth the hassle.
Fwiw, I do a lot of work in the Musket and Pike engine ( MAW is an Early American Wars series title) MP is pretty close to the Napoleonic Battles' series -although sometimes it is more flexible (ability to assign vps in the OOB to specific unit types, can assign fire and melee bonuses [penalties too as you can code these in the negative]), and other times it is less flexible (command range currently does not apply to Army and Wing commanders, plus you only have half of the available weapons' slots in the PDT -because you need to rate weapons against armored and unarmored targets.). But I am getting a little too far from the graphics points that I was trying to make.
I only mentioned MAW because it has a tan to yellowish set of hexes that are an excellent starter color combination for desert terrain -it would probably need the larger hexgrid that I think Bill might have started using some time back but that is fairly easily done -I mean it is all relative and a bit of trial and error. I mean, what with the elevation hexsides now being used in 2d -you might not even find that you need all of the different level's with a big different in color -the elevation hexsides might take care of that visually. (Keep in mind the trial and error part of this - everyone's aesthetics are a little different.).
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And over to Christian's last post:
Imo - the maps would be the big hang up. I don't know who has time to do it -in the past it was one of those things where if there was a project in development then it wouldn't happen, and if there wasn't then you sort of had to ask nicely and hope that you got lucky - and it is by no means automatic. I guess you can ask the support desk -but, I don't actually know of any mod projects underway at the moment - and the maps (if they don't currently exist) -are going to be what stands in the way ... artwork is what it is ... you can put together a units.bmp file and a leaders.bmp file on ones' own.
I am not meaning to suggest that I would be available for any of this work, as I have to focus on project work and by that I mean projects that are intended to be retail products.