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Kol Korran
2012-08-21, 10:23 AM
For the pirate campaign I'm DMing I want to make a sea map showing many of the islands the party might reach. I can draw something on my own, but i found a random generator usually works better- it is less influenced by your conditioning, and it forces you to think creatively.

Plus it is MUCH more neat looking! :smallwink:

I'm slightly a technophobe, but can any of you point me to a useful, SIMPLE TO USE program that i can use to randomly generate this seas and islands map?

Thanks in advance!

(search word: piratewitch)

Inglenook
2012-08-21, 07:22 PM
Donjon (http://donjon.bin.sh/world/) is pretty good for inspiration. Set it to something like 95% water + 0% ice + Mercator; this should make at least a few small landmasses/island chains. You could also add several different saved maps together edge-to-edge to form a larger map.

Logic
2012-08-21, 08:14 PM
Donjon (http://donjon.bin.sh/world/) is pretty good for inspiration. Set it to something like 95% water + 0% ice + Mercator; this should make at least a few small landmasses/island chains. You could also add several different saved maps together edge-to-edge to form a larger map.

THIS PROGRAM IS AWESOME. THANK YOU!

Kol Korran
2012-08-22, 01:08 AM
Donjon (http://donjon.bin.sh/world/) is pretty good for inspiration. Set it to something like 95% water + 0% ice + Mercator; this should make at least a few small landmasses/island chains. You could also add several different saved maps together edge-to-edge to form a larger map.

It's a cool program, but it keeps giving large land masses, not islands... grrr. Any way to change that?

Ironlion45
2012-08-22, 03:59 AM
Dirty DM secret: Civilization. You get more detailed maps with more recent versions of the game, but any one of them has a built in world generator that is even divided into squares (or hex in CV), with terrains and biomes and everything.

It will do the job perfectly.

For a water world map, try an "archipelago" script for it.

Oh also, the game Civilization is also fun for just playing too. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Another one, with much more accessible image output options, which is free, is Dwarf Fortress. It's not the most graphical, but does have the capability to put out full color maps that it generates.

It also has the capability to generate civilizations and simulate world histories for a specified time- something that's pretty cool for someone interested in that.

Kol Korran
2012-08-22, 10:12 AM
Unfortunately, I don't have the game anymore. (Must have been ages since i played computer games... the time, the time). I will try to see if any of my friends might the game still.

Are those maps printable?

TrueMikeBrown
2012-08-22, 10:43 AM
try the Greenfish Relief Map Generator. It make excellent clean looking maps

toapat
2012-08-22, 11:07 AM
Unfortunately, I don't have the game anymore. (Must have been ages since i played computer games... the time, the time). I will try to see if any of my friends might the game still.

Are those maps printable?

Yes, and no. you cant, as far as i know, export world maps from the civ games but you can using a few screenshots, get the world map to splice together.

darkelf
2012-08-22, 11:10 AM
It's a cool program, but it keeps giving large land masses, not islands... grrr. Any way to change that?

not specifically, but a large number of iterations (20000-25000) and relatively high % water (75%) tends to result in more islands. aside from that, just try changing the random seed value a few times.

Anxe
2012-08-22, 01:28 PM
You could also use Campaign Cartographer. It's not free and not random, but it allows you to make fractal based islands and other land masses. A little bit of computer doodling can get your something that looks pretty cool.

I also just found this thing (http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/mapgen2.swf) which is Amazing!

Inglenook
2012-08-22, 03:08 PM
Oh my. That Standford generator is amazing.

@Kol Karran: for Donjon, you could always say what looks like a large landmass is just a zoomed-in view of an island. The Mercator projection doesn't give you a sphere shaped map, so several maps appended together could really be an island chain.

Autolykos
2012-08-23, 11:04 AM
Unfortunately, I don't have the game anymore. There's also FreeCiv (http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page)...

Melayl
2012-08-25, 10:16 AM
You could also try talking to the folks on the Cartographer's Guild (http://www.cartographersguild.com/content.php)boards. They specialize in mapmaking. Some of them might even have pretty much exactly what you're looking for already made.

Kol Korran
2012-08-25, 11:27 AM
Thanks for the suggestions folks. I've been away from but a passing internet connection to actually sit down and try your suggestions, but hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to.

Thanks again!