A CM map makers treasure trove

[noob]

I was looking at a website dedicated to the game Close Combat and it's many mods and i found a section that allows you to look at and save screenshots of all the maps in all the various CC mods, here is a link to the map page of the CC5 mod Gold Juno Sword, just click on the map name and then the picture to enlarge: http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/modules.php?name=Downloads&cid=150

The maps are highly detailed top down views of important areas of the operational area with visible elevations and a numerical value for the amount of storeys a building has.

Carpiquet and Airfield

[Aragorn2002]

I've always liked the CC-maps. Very well made. Thanks for the link.

[Broadsword56]

How historically and geographically accurate are they?

[mjkerner]

That's a great resource, noob, thanks!

There doesn't seem to be a map scale, or did I just not look close enough?

[noob]

How historically and geographically accurate are they?

Here is an aerial photo of Buron taken in 1944 and the CC5 map of Buron.

[General Lee Irked]

Impressive! Nice find.

[noob]

That's a great resource, noob, thanks!

There doesn't seem to be a map scale, or did I just not look close enough?

Thanks, there is no map scale as far as i know so any conversion will be an approximation.

The funny thing was that i was going to use my copy of CC5, mod it up and just take screenshots of the maps, however i couldn't get the old duffer to work on my new rig so i was forced to look for any images of the CC5 maps i could find, and hey presto

[noob]

Impressive! Nice find.

Thanks....

[Aragorn2002]

Those maps are pretty accurate. Noticed that before. They could very well serve as an example for maps in CMBN. We could do with a series of historical maps of the most important battlefields.

[Broadsword56]

I'm missing something here -- The CC5 maps are beautiful and, as we can see, highly accurate. But what purpose does the CC5 Buron map serve if you have the aerial photo of the real place? Unless you somehow had a way of directly converting a CC5 digital map into map tiles in the CMBN editor.

[sburke]

I'm missing something here -- The CC5 maps are beautiful and, as we can see, highly accurate. But what purpose does the CC5 Buron map serve if you have the aerial photo of the real place? Unless you somehow had a way of directly converting a CC5 digital map into map tiles in the CMBN editor.

LOL yeah good point. I suspect that perhaps many of their maps do not have a counterpart aerial pic to contrast but then you have to assume the map maker had similar material to draw on. As to how you get map scale then without that no idea. Still it is interesting to see the attention to detail that went into those maps. Nice to appreciate.

[noob]

I'm missing something here -- The CC5 maps are beautiful and, as we can see, highly accurate. But what purpose does the CC5 Buron map serve if you have the aerial photo of the real place? Unless you somehow had a way of directly converting a CC5 digital map into map tiles in the CMBN editor.

Yes you are missing something, in fact things

The CC5 Buron map shows how many storeys the buildings are, it gives an exact colour scheme to match with the various different coloured CM crop variants, and the terrain detail is easier to make out.

Also in mods of operational areas with hillier terrain the CC maps clearly show the different terrain elevations.

As far as i'm concerned these CC maps are a godsend for the operational game i'm working on as now i can make a reasonable approximation of the operational victory locations, plus any fans of the CC series that play CM get the additional buzz of playing a CC map conversion.

[Rake]

How historically and geographically accurate are they?

I've overlaid several CC maps onto aerial photos. While the game maps are relatively accurate, the scale seems to be warped on most... compressed in certain areas and reasonably accurate in others. It seems to me that the mapmakers were trying to get certain areas or features included on a map without exceeding some size restrictions. For similar reasons, I'm not to sure I'd fully rely on CC maps for building heights for historically accurate representations. On the other hand, the game maps are another aid to producing reasonably historic maps for CM.

The only way I know to check scale is by overlaying the CC maps onto GE or some other scale-able map

[Broadsword56]

Yes, it's always a mapper's dilemma: Do I warp the scale to get in the features I want, or to have the straight roads run straight in the game, etc. Or do I commit to an accurate scale but deliberately sacrifice some of the map's appearance, leave some features out, etc.?

[JonS]

Yes, it's always a mapper's dilemma: Do I warp the scale to get in the features I want, or to have the straight roads run straight in the game, etc. Or do I commit to an accurate scale but deliberately sacrifice some of the map's appearance, leave some features out, etc.?

I always thought the the area-impulse system used in games like Storm Over Arnhem and Thunder At Cassino were an interesting way to partially address this dilemma. They didn't require any distortion of the map, but instead a mental distortion of how you viewed a map. Instead of the map being divided into chunks of equal area ("each hex is 1km across"), each SOA or TAC area represents equal times, as in the time it takes to move across each area is approximately equal (I think).

[Frogsfriend]

After some digging around on the Close Combat site I found this, with regards to scale:

http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/modules.php?name=Downloads&op=getit&lid=18

The scale of CC2 maps

An exact statement to the scale of CC2-maps can be found at the site http://www.3dnature.com/artag.html: "A team of 8 artists spread between Atomic Games and

Microsoft produced the map images for the game Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far. ... The maps try to accurately portray segments of actual battle areas in the scale of 5 pixels per meter. Some liberties were taken with textures and colors in the interest of gameplay and clarity, but historical accuracy has been a strong driving force."

I assume you'd need to download the actual map files rather than just using the screenshot though.

[permanent666]

i always prefered the look of cc5 maps over cmbn. i loved to play a h2h campaign of the gjs mod against my brother. we played maybe three years on one single campaign and we never finished it.

i hope there will be the day where cmbn gets an ingame meta campaign

[para]

CC2:ABTF gaming heaven

[Kuderian]

After some digging around on the Close Combat site I found this, with regards to scale:

http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/modules.php?name=Downloads&op=getit&lid=18

The scale of CC2 maps

An exact statement to the scale of CC2-maps can be found at the site http://www.3dnature.com/artag.html: "A team of 8 artists spread between Atomic Games and

Microsoft produced the map images for the game Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far. ... The maps try to accurately portray segments of actual battle areas in the scale of 5 pixels per meter. Some liberties were taken with textures and colors in the interest of gameplay and clarity, but historical accuracy has been a strong driving force."

I assume you'd need to download the actual map files rather than just using the screenshot though.

So we download the maps then divide the pixel height & width by five to get metres?

Are all the CC series maps the same scale?

[noob]

Using that information about CC2 as a benchmark for scaling could be problematic as CC changed it's game engine after CC2 and the maps became a lot bigger.

[mjkerner]

Well, we know that in CMBN a road is one Action Square wide, so if you printout a CC2 map, take a caliper and measure the width of a road on that map, you could come up with a scale (assuming that all CC2 maps are viewed from the same "height"). There's probably an easier way--an average road is what, 30-35 feet wide--then measure on RL aerial photos of the area...whatever, you get the idea.

[noob]

Well, we know that in CMBN a road is one Action Square wide, so if you printout a CC2 map, take a caliper and measure the width of a road on that map, you could come up with a scale (assuming that all CC2 maps are viewed from the same "height"). There's probably an easier way--an average road is what, 30-35 feet wide--then measure on RL aerial photos of the area...whatever, you get the idea.

That's right, making a CM map from the CC images i pointed out is not rocket science

Also most people won't care if a map is not 100% accurate, the main thing is that it's a reasonable approximation.

[Pak40]

I've overlaid several CC maps onto aerial photos. While the game maps are relatively accurate, the scale seems to be warped on most... compressed in certain areas and reasonably accurate in others. It seems to me that the mapmakers were trying to get certain areas or features included on a map without exceeding some size restrictions. For similar reasons, I'm not to sure I'd fully rely on CC maps for building heights for historically accurate representations. On the other hand, the game maps are another aid to producing reasonably historic maps for CM.

The only way I know to check scale is by overlaying the CC maps onto GE or some other scale-able map

This is likely because these old aerial photographs are not rectified in any way. Without getting into too much technical detail, the further away from the center of the photography the more distortion with scale.

[Rake]

This is likely because these old aerial photographs are not rectified in any way. Without getting into too much technical detail, the further away from the center of the photography the more distortion with scale.

While I would never consider myself a grog on the level of many on this site, I completely understand distortion in photography... I am a photographer (not professionally, but a fairly advanced amateur), and have a professional background in surveying, mapping and photogrammetry

The distortion in the CM maps appears to be a design decision of the CC mapmaker. The aerial photos will overlay reasonably well with GoogleEarth or other scale-able maps; the the same cannot be said with the game maps.

[Cpl.Upham]

I dont see how we could make many historical maps with a map maker that cant make a curve of any size and can only make 0 degrees, 45 degree and 90 degree straight roads; or am I missing something?!