[Messer]

Making a request is always easy, compared to the hard work of making a map. I myself have only textured for Il-2, so I don't even know the exact process of making one. So, I'll at the very least make a comprehensive request, hoping that at least some of you talented mappers would tackle this!

[CENTRAL] Balkans Map

NOTE: [central] is in brackets, because the exact borders of the peninsula have always been a matter of dispute; I'm not aiming for a political discussion or a flame war, this is relative!

One of the areas of the European theather we are missing, and one of great importance, is the Balkans. While the airwar over Southeastern Europe never reached the magnitude of that over the Reich or the Eastern Front, the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti were a vital asset for the Axis war effort; and the Balkans always held the threat of another front for the Germans, that would needlessly tie down their forces; just as it happened to the Allies in WWI.

A map of the general area I've posted above can allow us the recreate various importaint (some less known/uknown) scenarios of WWII. Here are some arranged by chronological order:

April 1941:
Full Campaigns (fighter, bomber, reccon etc) for
Germany - Invasion
Yugoslavia - Home Defence

1941-1943
Bulgaria, Romania - Black Sea reccon, convoy escort submarine hunting mini-campaigns
RAF - Special ops/partisan aid mission pack/mini campaign
Germany, Bulgaria - Anti-partisan ops in Serbia mission packs/campaign

1943-late 1944
Full campaigns
Bulgaria, Romania - Home Defence/Bomber Intercept
USAAF - Strategic Bombing/ Long-range Fighter escort
Germany - Bomber Intercept (mini campaign?)

Mini campaigns/mission packs for the RAF (night bombing)

late 1944-early 1945
Full campaigns (fighter, bomber, reccon) for
Bulgaria - Side-switch, anti-Axis operations
Germany - Retreat from the Balkans
Romania - Side-switch, anti-Axis operations
Soviet Union - 3rd Ukranian Front advances into the Balkans

Plus missions, mini campaigns etc. for the RAF and USAAF actions against the Wehrmacht.

Mind you, this is a suggestion list. It only illustrates what can be recreated over this region, I am not claiming it's full.

Furthermore, some of this canpaign suggestion can be expanded into other (adjacent) maps - Hungary, Croatia/Bosnia/Slovenia, MTO, Yasi/Bessarabia etc.

The Romanian AF, the Soviet VVS, the Luftwaffe, the RAF and the USAAF are already fully integrated into Il-2. Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia are a part of the "Forgotten Countries" mod and can easily be added. Also, with patch 4.09 and the excellent mods we have a plethora of planes that were extensively used in these operations - new Avia B.534, IAR-80 modded variants; B-17/B-24, SB-2 (Avia B.71) and FW-189 flyable w/cockpits, WIP D.520, Do-17 and IK-3 ... and much more already flyable ingame.

Finally, when CK many more scenarios from the Balkan Wars and WWI Balkan Fronts can be recreated.


Eh, sorry if I took much out your time! :wink:

[agracier]

It's a good suggestion and a while ago I started to see how such a map would look. I started on a map of about 2/3 the area shown here - upper border was more or less the Danube system and lower border excluded most of Dardanelles.

If you wish to keep it at standard 1 pixel = 50m, then it was already a huge area to cover - 9000 pixels x 8000 pixels.

Making a basic map for this area is not the big work, though maybe in this case there would be a need for very extended work on hand drawing the river system. And on maps larger than 9000 pixels for My_mapc, graphics programs do sometimes struggle along ...

That aside though, it's populating the region that would be most of the work. On another map of somewhat smaller size, and with more water area, I ended up with an actors.static of 5mb if the landscape wasn't to look devoid of any and all human presence. And that was in WWII Persia - arguably even less densely populated than WWII Balkan countries ...

So what it means is lots of time spent in populating, also in creating different looking villages, hamlets and towns and a large actors which slows down loading.

And if one uses a different scale, say 1pixel= 100m, then I've found that the landscape tends to become overly deformed, especially in mountainous areas.

Maybe several smaller maps of the region might be more feasible a project.

[RealDarko]

Unfortunaltey Agracier is right, such a map will be a wonderful addition, even if is only a parcial part of the proposed map, but populating is a summer day in hell, maybe we should be able to use an autopop tool using Romania ( Bessarabia ) towns, but AFAIK autopop is hard as finding a body hair on Cristiano Ronaldo's body, so we are a bit stucked here.

And yes, I will love to see a map of Bulgaria ( specially If it contains the european part of Turkey ) so we can have a small fictional war against Turkey.

[Cracken]

There were two Balkan wars in 1912-13 involving and against Bulgaria.

[agracier]

Here are a few screenshots to give an idea how things are looking on this map. I am not used to making maps of green and verdant countryside, so I plead for a bit of understanding ... ha ha.

Also not too sure what to do about mountains - should they be predominantly grayish or brownish perhaps?

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[RealDarko]

This can be a very interesting one. Can we see a map of the area you created and some pics ad broadlight?

[kapteeni]

To Agracier: You really love early morning raids, do you? Looking good so far.
But please more light!!!

[agracier]

To Agracier: You really love early morning raids, do you? Looking good so far.
But please more light!!!

The last 5 screenshots were all done during the early afternoon ... I wonder if the dark colors some see don't come from different monitor settings ... I know that when i got a new monitor a few months ago, I had to set it to a quite darker setting to get the same colors I had on a previous monitor ...

[agracier]

Here's a shot of the FMB screen showing map area. It is only about 90 x 80 kms, not very large, but easy to make and populate. Maybe a good dogfighting map ...

There is no water worth speaking of so I am at a loss where to put flags or a title. May not be important to flying, but I find it gives a flavor to a game and a sense of period.

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[agracier]

Some shots of High Noon at the Bulgarian Corral ... I know I prefer the Dawn Patrol type of flying - since things look so much nicer in the Dawn's Early Light ... ha ha

Ok seriously - these are afternoon views. City textures are not yet done, so don't worry about cultivated fields appearing amidst the bustle of downtown Sofia ...


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[RealDarko]

Really like it!! Is there any other country in-map apart from Bulgaria?
I'm really intrigued how you can populate a map so fast, this is a part of the world I will love to see using your skills



South of Bulgaria, European Turkey and a bit of Greece

[agracier]

Really like it!! Is there any other country in-map apart from Bulgaria?
I'm really intrigued how you can populate a map so fast, this is a part of the world I will love to see using your skills
South of Bulgaria, European Turkey and a bit of Greece

Well, first let's see how this first one goes - I'm really not used to making green landscapes and I don't have a lot of good textures to draw on for this predominant color. I had to use a number of standard textures and others.

On populating a map - well, ask Kapteeni for a few tips. It's a small area anyway, and besides, for this map I shamelessly plundered the Slovakia map for templates to start from. On se debrouille, n'est-ce pas? ... ha ha.

I think on this map only Bulgarian territory is shown.

[agracier]

Just checked on the above area that is lined - it would come to approximately double the dimensions in both height and width as the Bulgaria map that is being prepared. That means 4 times the surface area, or a bit less since there is some sea ...

Nonetheless this is a size where the work quadruples when it comes to populating. Nothing wrong with that, but to do it without help means a project of a few months, rather than several weeks.

How about showing something a bit less large, with less Turkish territory maybe?

[kapteeni]

Just checked on the above area that is lined - it would come to approximately double the dimensions in both height and width as the Bulgaria map that is being prepared. That means 4 times the surface area, or a bit less since there is some sea ...

Nonetheless this is a size where the work quadruples when it comes to populating. Nothing wrong with that, but to do it without help means a project of a few months, rather than several weeks.

How about showing something a bit less large, with less Turkish territory maybe?

I'm just wondering. Why not make it different scale like 1:3? It would still be a very big map. You need to change the map_h too of course. Otherwise the mountains would be like Himalayas.

[agracier]

How about showing something a bit less large, with less Turkish territory maybe?
I'm just wondering. Why not make it different scale like 1:3? It would still be a very big map. You need to change the map_h too of course. Otherwise the mountains would be like Himalayas.

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Well, I've made a number of basic maps at scales smaller than the usual 1/1 or 1 pixel=50m ... but in all honesty the landscape looked awful, especially the mountains - like a bunch of rumpled up old clothes or whipped cream starting to melt or something like that. I didn't care for it at all. Looked very odd ...

Maybe there are ways of adjusting the map_h to compensate for this, but my attempts to do so have only made things look hideously worse ...

So I've resolved to keep the scale at what - so far - looks best.