In this update on our progress with 'Insularis Draco' I wanna highlight the Map in all its detail and splendour. It's where you spend most of your time in-game and so it's worth adapting it to the overall style of the mod, phasing out vanilla elements or retexturing them.
STRAT VEGETATION
The great Makanyane helped us again on the campaign map (apart from porting the glorious battle-map settlement models and Irish units) by allowing us to use the absolutely gorgeous looking campaign map tree models from the legendary defunct mod Princes, Kings and Heroes. I'll provide some screenshots which will demonstrate how the different climates and vegetation types now work. The PKH tree models differ from vanilla in that they provide a forest floor instead of an impenetrable canopy, which makes everything look much more organic and lifelike in summer and positively Breughel-ish in winter!
Dense and sparse Coniferous forests in the Highland Climate in Cumbria:
The Pictish Highlands in Winter:
Deciduous Forest in the English Midlands:
Southern Thuringia in Winter:
Lightly forested areas in the Central Gaul and Alpine climate:
The River Meuse here demarcates the shift from a primarily deciduous to coniferous vegetation:
Winter in the Alpine climate which has areas unaffected by snow:
MARSHES AND FLOODED LANDS
A type of natural environment which is common in North-West Europe are Wetlands, especially at a time of low temperatures and flooding such as the setting of the Mod (look it up: the 'Late Antique Little Ice Age'). In vanilla M2TW, the possibilities of wetlands as a real barrier for marching armies are somewhat unexplored so I wanted to try and make them more challenging. I used the aptly named 'unused1' climate as a basis for the Marshland climate, which dominates certain parts of the map, such as East Anglia, Western Normandy, Connaught, Flanders and Frisia. Then I utilized the 'impassable' terrain tile as a means to making swamps less accessible with whole regions being permanently flooded and inundated. These tiles are now called 'Flooded Lands' and it is very difficult to pass through them if at all.
Again, PKH's beautiful vegetation models provided the exact kind of atmosphere that the mod needed, with reeds, patches of peatland, ferns and moody willow trees to adorn the Marshland climate.
The Fens, between East Anglia and Lincolnshire:
The largely flooded Netherlands which was slowly reclaimed by the Dark Age Frisians:
Devonshire Marshlands on the Battlemap:
COASTLINES
One modder who's recently come to our attention is Werety of Tierra Santa TW and Rise of Quetzal TW. He helped us greatly by smoothing out the coastlines of the two 'Other Eras' campaigns that I was allowed to adapt by their maker Lugh Lamfhada: Ireland Total War: 657 AD and Dawn of a New Era: Total War 550 AD. Thanks to them both for helping us out!
Heartland Dal Riada from the 'Pritain' Campaign set in 550AD
NEW STRAT MODELS
In the screenshots above you might've noticed a bunch of new Campaign Map models like the non-Roman wooden-walled cities or the small hillforts, but many new variations were added to the strat model collection. For example, Roman adopted family members or recruited generals have long had traits such as 'Father was a Frank' or 'Father was an Alan' but now these traits come with specific strat models reflecting their Romanized cultural background. This is a feature unique to the Romans, because it also represents the Roman state's proclivity towards the use of Fœderati in its latter centuries.
A Romano-Briton and a Romano-Gothic general stand behind their Patrician faction leader
A Romano-Alanic veteran of the Catalaunian Fields in the Orléanais
A Romano-Frank speaking an ancestor of Modern French, presumably
Some other retextured strat models:
A Pictish Deuuin or Seer
The huge Visigothic army invading Northern Gaul in the 460s (spoiler!) led by their King Thiudareiks
So here we are at the end of another screenshot-filled article. Thanks for bearing with me and stick around for the next one, coming soon, which is about a huge part of Insularis Draco's immersion: campaign scripts!
Awesome work, it's nice to see your progress!
Oh wow!