Custom workshop maps (realistic ones) note to a map creators (feedback)

[Overlord]

Disclaimer: Map creators please dont take it as a personal insult or a slander.

I dont like vanilla maps generated by the game. They are too small so only possibility for me is to subscribe large workshop maps preferably ones based on real life terrain data preferably with nice rollings hills, mountains and rivers.
I have tested at least 10 workshop maps (France, Switzerland, Europe, USA desert, Canadian rockies etc). and every map had the same issue - some cities are placed just badly. To a very steep hills, on very high river banks, too close to a water etc. So thats why I would like to ask map creators to change the terrain when manually placing cities to prevent this. Unfortunately like many other games in this genre steep hills make cities look really bad because of game/asset/buildings limitations. Building close to a water on high river bank means that the building adds some piece of land right into the river thus making the river more narrow.

In my opinion these problems lower the awesome quality of your work you put into your maps and the solution is rather easy in real life city location on your map you just play with the terrain little bit before you place the city down. And if it is a city on the river then the river banks adjustment is needed as well.

Industry placement: - some industries are placed too close to cities - as the city grow it devours the factory inside it. Some production chains are of - you have to use sandbox mode to just add more industry to cover at least the base supply for every type of goods to every city.

Low amount of screenshots (map overview, city placement, industry placement).

Please take this into your consideration when you create your great custom maps for this community.

Thank you for your work.

[Tsubame ⭐]

Technically speaking, most factories are close to large cities, so it makes sense to have them near urban areas. Besides, nothing wrong with having them inside towns per se.

Maps based on real life places require placement of towns in locations that make sense to their real life counterparts - would not make sense to have Mannhattan in New Jersey for the sake of giving it more space and moving it away from water.

Regarding steep hills, I do agree it does not look exactly good from a point of city building/rail modeling perspective, the problem with having lower hills globablly in the map is that it makes building a non-challenge.

[Overlord]

Originally posted by Tsubame ⭐:

Technically speaking, most factories are close to large cities, so it makes sense to have them near urban areas. Besides, nothing wrong with having them inside towns per se.

Maps based on real life places require placement of towns in locations that make sense to their real life counterparts - would not make sense to have Mannhattan in New Jersey for the sake of giving it more space and moving it away from water.

Regarding steep hills, I do agree it does not look exactly good from a point of city building/rail modeling perspective, the problem with having lower hills globablly in the map is that it makes building a non-challenge.

They are in real life, but even the largest cities in this game (without town growing mods) are not that large to hide the large factory in it. In this game I help cities to grow by changing terrain and adding roads but I do not plop buildings like I do in CSL. It just doesnt look good if the factory is inside the city in this game especailly if the residential disctrict devours the factory.

General problem with these real life maps with mountains are they are not (they cant) be 1:1 real life ratio. That means that city in real life literally placed in the valley between 2 mountain ranges and river doesnt have required/needed space in game to grow like it has in real life. At this point I rather just delete the whole city because its just a one road with buildings on the left (basically in the river) and buildings on the right in the very steep hill. Deleting city is the better option then changing the surrounding terrain.

[wellover-50]

This OP is just self centred .
If you don't like something that somebody has spent maybe 100's of hours creating,then don't dole out 'advice' because they didn't make it to your requirements.
Try doing it yourself instead.
your 'disclaimer' dosn't hold any water.

[CashonWheels]

Originally posted by Overlord:

Originally posted by Tsubame ⭐:

Technically speaking, most factories are close to large cities, so it makes sense to have them near urban areas. Besides, nothing wrong with having them inside towns per se.

Maps based on real life places require placement of towns in locations that make sense to their real life counterparts - would not make sense to have Mannhattan in New Jersey for the sake of giving it more space and moving it away from water.

Regarding steep hills, I do agree it does not look exactly good from a point of city building/rail modeling perspective, the problem with having lower hills globablly in the map is that it makes building a non-challenge.

They are in real life, but even the largest cities in this game (without town growing mods) are not that large to hide the large factory in it. In this game I help cities to grow by changing terrain and adding roads but I do not plop buildings like I do in CSL. It just doesnt look good if the factory is inside the city in this game especailly if the residential disctrict devours the factory.

General problem with these real life maps with mountains are they are not (they cant) be 1:1 real life ratio. That means that city in real life literally placed in the valley between 2 mountain ranges and river doesnt have required/needed space in game to grow like it has in real life. At this point I rather just delete the whole city because its just a one road with buildings on the left (basically in the river) and buildings on the right in the very steep hill. Deleting city is the better option then changing the surrounding terrain.

No map is perfect, and due to the quantity of map its hard to find the ideal ones. When I download maps the first thing I do is open map in the editor and start deleting town and modifying to landscape to my liking.

[Overlord]

Originally posted by wellover-50:

This OP is just self centred .
If you don't like something that somebody has spent maybe 100's of hours creating,then don't dole out 'advice' because they didn't make it to your requirements.
Try doing it yourself instead.
your 'disclaimer' dosn't hold any water.

Well I had to count in advance that some sorry ass will come and write this. Thank you for your opinion. it is useless.

[wellover-50]

I think my opinion is far from useless, as a person who has created and published maps on the steam work shop I know that maps take an enormous amount of time to make, the current one I'm using took 200 hours of effort before there was any real content for someone else to play it.
My point still stands that instead of telling people that they don't do it to your satisfaction, then try having a go at it yourself and see how difficult it can be to try and represent the real world in a video game .

[Overlord]

Originally posted by wellover-50:

I think my opinion is far from useless, as a person who has created and published maps on the steam work shop I know that maps take an enormous amount of time to make, the current one I'm using took 200 hours of effort before there was any real content for someone else to play it.
My point still stands that instead of telling people that they don't do it to your satisfaction, then try having a go at it yourself and see how difficult it can be to try and represent the real world in a video game .

Omg you are unbelieveable. I wonder where did you get that I dont appreciate the asset creators work? If you put 200 hours into something it should be something great right? Not something with mediocre quality. You are a typical person who sees constructive feedback and automatically says things like if you are that great/smart you can make your own map bla bla bla. You just read my feedback as some malicious way to hate someones hard work. Well guess what... you are wrong, but you are not the only oversensitive asset/map creator.
So for the last time - I dont create maps because I'm not good at it. Thats why I rely on the map creators and I appreciate their work, but some map creators destroy their great work by doing some of the things I mentioned in the main post and it lowers quality of their work. Like I said if I put so many hours into something I want it to be perfect no? I mentioned few problems which I think lower the overall quality of the custom maps and I presented easy fixes how to avoid that which should result in awesome quality map without any issues. If you dont like it well thats your problem not mine.
If you are person who takes everything personally then you should seek some professional help. If you are not then you can take these ideas and implement them into your map making and create awesome quality 5/5 stars. Suit yourself.

[ServiusTheBear]

There is many limitations to the game and map creating etc. I aint going to say am good at it at all. Your points are valid but for many they my feel what they have done is good. I tend to fix what I think does not look right from my view, but sometimes I leave it and use it as a challenge to work around it. But al always point to the limitations of what can be done to. Not everything is going to be perfect for everyone. Theres that saying your not always going to be able to please everyone.

[Tsubame ⭐]

If a map is not to your liking, just use Sandbox mod and edit things around. Easy and does not take long to do.

Nothing in the world is perfect in the eyes of everyone. Something you like will be disliked by someone else.

[RocketRanger]

@Overlord
Have you tried the map "Lausanne - Sion"?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2923905359

This map has none of the disadvantages you mentioned (no canyons, etc.). Cities are placed where they are in reality. Currently it is ranked on place 2 in the category maps - most popular one year (on place 1 is a map generator).

[Overlord]

Originally posted by RocketRanger:

@Overlord
Have you tried the map "Lausanne - Sion"?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2923905359

This map has none of the disadvantages you mentioned (no canyons, etc.). Cities are placed where they are in reality. Currently it is ranked on place 2 in the category maps - most popular one year (on place 1 is a map generator).

Thanks for the tip. Actually playing this map these days :) really great map although I had to do few changes, because I wanted to have more cities with tools request and also the fuel (so also had to build fuel refinery). I also struggled little bit with the realistic rail imprinted in the terrain at some places I was not able to recreate it as it is in real life so I had to use the rails in few places differently, but thats ok.

[Oldhip]

lol

[power man]

Originally posted by Overlord:

Originally posted by wellover-50:

I think my opinion is far from useless, as a person who has created and published maps on the steam work shop I know that maps take an enormous amount of time to make, the current one I'm using took 200 hours of effort before there was any real content for someone else to play it.
My point still stands that instead of telling people that they don't do it to your satisfaction, then try having a go at it yourself and see how difficult it can be to try and represent the real world in a video game .

Omg you are unbelieveable. I wonder where did you get that I dont appreciate the asset creators work? If you put 200 hours into something it should be something great right? Not something with mediocre quality. You are a typical person who sees constructive feedback and automatically says things like if you are that great/smart you can make your own map bla bla bla. You just read my feedback as some malicious way to hate someones hard work. Well guess what... you are wrong, but you are not the only oversensitive asset/map creator.
So for the last time - I dont create maps because I'm not good at it. Thats why I rely on the map creators and I appreciate their work, but some map creators destroy their great work by doing some of the things I mentioned in the main post and it lowers quality of their work. Like I said if I put so many hours into something I want it to be perfect no? I mentioned few problems which I think lower the overall quality of the custom maps and I presented easy fixes how to avoid that which should result in awesome quality map without any issues. If you dont like it well thats your problem not mine.
If you are person who takes everything personally then you should seek some professional help. If you are not then you can take these ideas and implement them into your map making and create awesome quality 5/5 stars. Suit yourself.

um dude, he was telling the truth though, your entire post just stunk of entitlement even if you said at the end that you didn't mean it

oh and before you say that i didn't read it or misread sh*t, i didn't
it must be soul crushing to see someone criticise your hard work in such a self-centred and entitled way

[Bench[AGHL]]

The OP is a troll -- the first line of the post which starts with the word 'Disclaimer' is his statement of intent which highlights the fact that his goal is to insult any content creator who doesn't wish to comply with his entitled demand.

He let the cat out of the bag in his second reply to wellover-50, turning it into a personal crusade against the person who set him straight; which of course was his idea all along - he started his original post with a "Poisoning the well" fallacy which he'd intended to hide behind if anyone called him out; he went on to do exactly that, using it as an excuse to hurl personal abuse at wellover.