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CMRT Map Database


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I don't think I've seen a database of all of the CMRT maps out there--has anyone prepared one?

If not, I think it would be helpful for people thinking about creating scenarios to see if an existing map might suit their needs.

I've taken a stab at creating such a database, with columns describing map size, ground cover, relief, road networks, rivers, damage, etc. I've also included an image of the map so people can take a look for themselves. Here is the draft DB (Excel spreadsheet), which is work in progress:

http://www.vervecom.net/games/CMRT%20Map%20DB%20v0.xlsx

Before I got too far into this, I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions about how to improve it, or whether this type of DB has any utility at all (or if one already exists, tell me to stop!)

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Excellent 76mm. I started to do this for my own reference. I got tired of wading through the numerous maps when picking for QB's (Don't think I should be complaining about too many maps :)). One thing I was doing that I do not see on your sheet is adding a 3D screen shot of the map. The scenario editor top down view is good but a 3D view in my opinion is even more helpful.

If I can find some time I might be able to give you a little help on this.

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I thought about adding some 3D shots, but the top down ones are pretty muddy, and something from lower elevation only shows part of the map. What did you have in mind?

I've also added a column to credit the author, given how much work these maps are.

I did 21 maps today, including several of the master maps, which are a pain since I need to stitch several screenshots together. I'll try to do more tomorrow, and hopefully finish up in a week or two.

Quick battle maps can also be loaded in the editor and used for scenarios, right? If so, counting them I think we'll have several dozen maps to start with.

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I've finished a first draft of this--132 maps altogether, although many of them are not unique (ie, many are submaps or alternates of other maps). I need to clean things up quite a bit before distributing, but hopefully soon...

The further I went, the more I was convinced that eniced73 was correct that a 3D view would be helpful; unfortunately for some reason when I take screenshots in the 3d view, trees don't show up at all, so I can't take these screenies myself! If anyone is interested in helping with 3D screenshots, please ping me.

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I'd be happy to wiki-ise this DB, although:

1) I have no idea how to create a wiki! I could host it on my site if anyone volunteers to set it up. At some point I will try to figure this out on my own, but it could be awhile.

2) generally with databases I've found that it's helpful if a consistent approach is followed, which is obviously easier if a single person does it, although it would also be fairly easy to coordinate with anyone else interested in doing this. I have issues I want to fix before distributing this thing, but I should be able to do all of them fairly quickly other the 3D screenies for the reason described.

In this vein, I'll add that one of the challenges so far has been classifying the maps; I'm trying to classify them by ground cover (open, broken, mixed, woods, swamp, urban), relief (flat, rolling, hills), and buildings (farm, village, town, city). Deciding what is "flat terrain" vs "rolling terrain" vs "hilly terrain", and what is a "farm" vs a "village" vs a "town", has been a pretty subjective process (at least the way I'm doing it). I'll provide notes on my "methodology" (such as it is) with the DB.

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A Google Doc spreadsheet would do nicely.

Good idear, hadn't thought of this, but I could probably figure this out. But before spending much time on it, a couple of basic questions:

1) Do you know if I can attach images within a google doc spreadsheet? Currently each map is on its own tab, with hyperlinks to/from the index and the maps.

2) Is there a limit on the number of tabs? I would hate to spend the time creating a google docs spreadsheet only to find that I can only create 99 tabs, etc.

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1) Yes, you can do this.

2) You are limited to 200 'sheets' ie. tabs. Or wait, it looks like the limit has been removed?

Individual documents may not exceed 1 GB as of 13 January 2010, embedded images must not exceed 2 MB each.[60] Files uploaded, but not converted to Google Docs format, may be up to 10 GB in size.[61]

There are also limits, specific to file type, listed below:

Spreadsheets

All the limits on spreadsheets have been removed in the newer version of Google Sheets. In the older version, there could have been a maximum of 256 columns per sheet and 200 sheets per workbook, with 400,000 cells in all. Uploaded spreadsheet files that are converted to Google Sheets format can not be larger than 20 MB, and need to be under 400,000 cells and 256 columns per sheet.[62]

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OK, here is a link to v1 of the CMRT Database:

http://www.vervecom.net/games/CMRT%20Map%20DB%20v1.xlsx

Note that it is 383MB. It was a fair bit of work, so hopefully it will be useful to someone, and will facilitate the creation of more scenarios.

I tried to put this link in my first post in this thread, but of course I can't edit my post, so I've deleted the old file (v0).

Currently it is in an Excel spreadsheet; the Google docs approach sounds interesting but in this iteration I'd proceeded far enough with Excel that I didn't want to switch in the middle. If I get time I will try to convert this to Google docs (apparently the automatic Google docs converter only works for files up to 1MB!). To make things easier, be sure to use the hyperlinks to navigate within the database!

A word about which maps are included:

a) all base scenario maps;

B) one version of each of 84 QB maps (ie, each QB map has several variants depending on the type of battle, but the map is only included once (usually I selected either the "Probe" or "Meeting Engagement" map);

c) a handful of maps uploaded to the Repository and/or CMMODS; and

d) the Orsha, Radzymin, and "TTR" (?) master maps.

If you know of any other maps which can be included, please point me to them. In the meantime, I think I'll try to create (and upload somewhere) another couple dozen scenario maps using the master maps.

The database includes editor and 3D images for all maps, and of course allows you to filter/search by any of the database parameters, including map size, type of terrain, etc. Notes about the various database columns can be reviewed by clicking on the relevant column header.

I have not yet filled in the Author (Artist?) column, because I don't know were to get this info for the maps included in the game--can someone point me in the right direction here?

Please provide any comments that you have; if they're reasonable and not particularly labor-intensive, I'll try to implement. In particular, let me know if you can think of a better way to reflect the road network info, which is currently pretty weak. Generally, many of the characterizations in the DB are very subjective (what is a village vs a town, what is flat vs rolling?), and I can't say that I spent a lot of time agonizing over how to categorize a map. Please accept these characterizations as nothing more than simple approximations, although if you are absolutely convinced that a map is mischaracterized, it could be a simple error, so please let me know.

Also, while I tried to proof the DB to some degree, I'm sure I missed a lot, so please excuse--and point out--any errors that you see. Finally, I am sure that I did not uncover all of the "Related Maps", so please let me know about any of those that you are aware of.

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Here's a link to an updated database:

www.vervecom.net/games/CMRT Map DB v2.xlsx

Here's the changelog:

CHANGES IN v2:

--Added 18 Maps, including:

--5 QB Maps:

QB Bessarab. Nights with Hills

QB Bessarabian Nights

QB Fat Lipki

QB Panzer Crossroads

QB Panzer Crossroads with Hills

--13 scenario maps:

Counterattack at Wilkowischken

Garden of the Iron Cross

Gates of Warsaw

GD Delaying Action

Hill 621 Redux

Last Sunrise over Antonov

Minsk Express

No One Escapes

One Last Trench

Panzer Marsch!

Panzergeist

Rettet Soldat Reinhart

Trainspotting

--Added map authors where known (assumed that map authors and scenario authors were the same)

--Added “Used” column to indicate whether that map has been used (played as QB, used for making new scenario, used in meta-campaign, etc.).

--Technical changes:

--renumbered QBs to add third digit

--corrected a few typos

--fixed hyperlinks to work with sorted index

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Glad it is useful to someone besides me. I'll update it periodically, once there are batches of 5-10 new maps.

I've also found that it can be useful to look at a bunch of maps at the same time via a file manager or graphics program (rather than one-by-one in the DB), so will try to upload zip files of all of the editor and 3d images in the next week or so.

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