It's always exciting working on new projects, and although 1:13 is not new, the new focus of the project (moving to M2TW) has been unexpectedly popular. Some of the old team have decided to stay on board, since leaving ETW. But what has been great is the response in the latest recruiting drive.
Having a new mapmaker on board is a great boost to morale, and having a map will be a massive strong foundation for all the rest of the modding work we have yet to come.
We are already discussing things such as new ground textures -obviously we can't have things like green grass and farmland. We will probably use some textures from vanilla such as desert, snow and perhaps keep some green in some areas such as pine forests and some savanna or jungle at the fringes of the world. We have some ideas to replace tree models with skyrise and destroyed city blocks, so instead of forests you will see a grey and desolate landscape, rather than a medieval one.
The map is the first step in making hard decisions on factions, not just the roster but also their identities and how they should play out in the campaign. On our map for instance, Britain is a set of small mountainous islands at the fringe of Europa, so we will angle them to be naval and use eilte units rather than massed conscripts.
UPDATE:
About the map itself. We wanted to really get into the world of a post-apocalyptic future and so we've taken up some recognisable themes such as climate change and nuclear devastation. As you can see, in our future- the polar ice caps have melted and the sea levels risen to drown out much of the world as we know it. The map is based on actual scientific projections. The circle where the Arctic used to be is something we call 'the Halo'- it's a concrete structure, a pure-water storage facility, all that remains of what was once trapped in the ice sheets. This massively valuable resource of unpolluted water is going to be one of the major fighting grounds for the campaign, which is why we placed it in the centre of our world.
So, I'll leave you with that for now- and be sure to press 'watch this mod' on the right hand side to see our develops with textures, strat models and a preview of the campaign map layout. We will also shortly be revealing our factions roster and unit rosters.
Nice, Great Work. A good idea too I think myself is adding the opportunity is your faction is getting better so you could do some things the destroyed city blocks are becoming more living city's and on some places even trees are gonna grow again.
this sounds so freaking awesome XDD !!!