How do you know if a map will be super small?

[Livia]

I'm just starting to play with franchise mode. I am already stressed out with only having 200 slots for animals (OMFG, not nearly enough!), so I am trying to open a bunch of zoos for right now to just drop in the species I had collected (I started with just one zoo, but things got out of hand with the limited space in the trading center).

I opened a tropical map in South America - I thought it was just the sculpted that was tiny, so I closed and opened a flat - it's also tiny. Now I've tossed away CC for no reason. I prefer a huge space so I can decide how to use it (even if I never use 3/4 of it). How do you know ahead what are large vs small maps?

[speerbauch]

Interesting... I never noticed, there were differences in size of the maps. Sorry, no help here, but I'm curious, if someone knows :-)

[grampers62]

The regular maps are one square kilometer. The sculpted maps are the ones that have more limited available space. And of course the diorama maps are tiny but can be expanded by adding terrain up to 1 square kilometer.

[Livia]

Originally posted by grampers62:

The regular maps are one square kilometer. The sculpted maps are the ones that have more limited available space. And of course the diorama maps are tiny but can be expanded by adding terrain up to 1 square kilometer.

Except the tropical South America map was the same size as the sculpted one, just flat, but smaller than the big maps. I just opened an Asia tropical sculpted, and it was a full sized map, so it's not about flat vs sculpted.

[Livia]

I am wondering if it's just the tropical South America map, because everything else I've tried is the large map.

[grampers62]

Yeah, that one SA map is sort of a bad choice because of the terrain making it so limited. I think I only started a zoo on that one and quickly closed it because so much had to be done to use it.

I have found that using the height map option can make some really good terrain setups once the player gets used to making the image to for it. But even that just creates something basic to get started.

[Livia]

So is it JUST the tropical SA map? Or all SA? If anyone knows, that would be nice info to have.

I swear that one map is based on the one timed scenario, but I have no idea why.

[grampers62]

Yeah, just the one sculpted map for sa is really less desirable. The others can be worked with. (in my humble opinion)

[Livia]

Yeah, I just tested a S.A. grassland - normal size.

Odd.

[grampers62]

They did that way back when players were asking for something other than flat maps. there are a few sculpted maps but that one which seems like they wanted to something to simulate the mountains of Brazil just didn't work.

[Livia]

It looks really nice, but it's just too small for what I am currently doing.