Vrock_Summoner
2020-01-07, 11:49 PM
Hey all! So following the closure of the Erfworld comic, I've been using a combination of another creator's old fan project and my own homebrew to run an Erfworld game. But the system isn't what I need help with (if it were I'd ask this in the homebrew subforum); it's actually just the sheer size of the overworld that's kicking my butt. Erfworld has a gigantic hex map. There are probably somewhere in the realm of 2,500 city sites split between 300 Sides, with tens of hexes separating each, and a variety of terrain types covering the significant masses of land not tamed by cities or roads.
Now, I don't need to make millions of hexes all at once on one map. That probably isn't possible (at least not without ungodly rendering times), and I don't need the vast majority of that territory until the players get there. I'm fine splitting it up into a bunch of sub-maps, and that's the first thing I tried, using HexTML. However, I've spent half an entire day on one 100-by-100 hex submap, and frankly, I've taken so many shortcuts just to be done already that it's not a very *interesting* map. And it doesn't have good functionality for keeping track of what each thing on the map is, or finding particular hexes like cities. It's clunky and I'm gonna be doing it forever if I keep it up like this.
So... Are there any programs or techniques you guys would recommend I use to generate hex map chunks faster, without being complete chaos? Like, the perfect system would generate semi-random geographies with some sensible extensions (beach hexes adjacent to the start of a bunch of water hexes, forests progressing gradually from light to thick, etc), wouldn't make it too hard to edit things so two map chunks fit together, and would have cities a range of distances apart with the ability to build road networks between them (or better yet already having them). But, like, I don't actually expect that to be a thing that already exists. So instead, I'll just take anything that makes the process more convenient and will keep me from eating a collective year out of my life just making maps over the course of however long this campaign takes.
Now, I don't need to make millions of hexes all at once on one map. That probably isn't possible (at least not without ungodly rendering times), and I don't need the vast majority of that territory until the players get there. I'm fine splitting it up into a bunch of sub-maps, and that's the first thing I tried, using HexTML. However, I've spent half an entire day on one 100-by-100 hex submap, and frankly, I've taken so many shortcuts just to be done already that it's not a very *interesting* map. And it doesn't have good functionality for keeping track of what each thing on the map is, or finding particular hexes like cities. It's clunky and I'm gonna be doing it forever if I keep it up like this.
So... Are there any programs or techniques you guys would recommend I use to generate hex map chunks faster, without being complete chaos? Like, the perfect system would generate semi-random geographies with some sensible extensions (beach hexes adjacent to the start of a bunch of water hexes, forests progressing gradually from light to thick, etc), wouldn't make it too hard to edit things so two map chunks fit together, and would have cities a range of distances apart with the ability to build road networks between them (or better yet already having them). But, like, I don't actually expect that to be a thing that already exists. So instead, I'll just take anything that makes the process more convenient and will keep me from eating a collective year out of my life just making maps over the course of however long this campaign takes.