Maps for Call To Power II

There are a lot of good maps of parts of the world for Call To Power II in the Apolyton section. It is helpful for your scenario to use these maps. The bmp2ctp2 program from Harlan Thompson allows you to create your own map from an atlas. Keep in mind that it can be very difficult to find the right position of a city later on a map. If you create a map for your own or for others you should mark the cities, rivers before you run the bmp2ctp2 program. Before you begin to create a difficult map, make a test with the bmp2ctp2 program. You can also find the following information somewhere in the Apolyton Forum.

by Tobias Teetz

Run the bmp2ctp2.exe -program

Here is the procedere for the Photoshop program (you can use also PaintShop, CorelDraw, etc.):
Open the Terrain colors from the bmp2ctp2 data folder.

Then click file : New.

Give in the width and the hight for example  width : 50 pixel, hight: 100 pixel (ratio 1:2)

If you have a white testmap, click Image, Mode, Indexed Color, Palette: Custom , load the CTP2Map from the bmp2ctp2-program.

Use the Eyedropper Tool  to take some Terrain colors on your own map.

The program has some mistakes (the color of forest will converted to kelp bed, kelp bed to coral reef, coral reef to grasland).

Paint with the Paintbrush Tool your own map. Save the map as BMP, 8-bit, uncomprimed in the bmp2ctp2 data folder.

Close the Photoshop and start the MS-DOS (Start, Programs, MS-DOS) from Windows.

If you give in the command :

cd..         (Enter)

you will reach the C:\
Find now the folder for the bmp2ctp2.exe and your testmap by commands

cd NameOfTheDataFolder     (Enter)

NameOfTheDataFolder= your aim data folder

(you can check it by the MS-Dos command:

dir  (Enter)

if file-names are to long in the MS-Dos you find different names: shortn~1)

If you reached the bmp2ctp2 data folder with your testmap and the bmp2ctp2.exe program

(you can check it by the MS-Dos command: dir)
type:

bmp2ctp2.exe  - 1 input.bmp  output.txt   (Enter)

(instead of input.bmp you should use the name of your testmap, output.txt is a new created textfile, you can call it also wow.txt if you want).

If everything works perfect, you get the message:

Size: 50x100 (should be .....bytes, is ...... bytes).

The new textfile (output.txt) is now ready for the next working-step. Copy the output.txt in Windows

Open the Call To Power 2 data-folder, ctp2_program, ctp. You see a lot of editors and data folders in there and this is the right place for the output.txt – file, put it in this data folder.

Your map-size has not the right size for the game therefore you must go backwards to the:
Call To Power 2 / ctp2_data/ default / gamedata / const.txt file.

Search the word MAP_SIZE_GIGANTIC in the editor. Change the size for your map:

Instead of :

MAP_SIZE_GIGANTIC    70    140    2

type:

MAP_SIZE_GIGANTIC    50    100    2

(according the message of the bmp2ctp2.exe-program)

And then save the changed const.txt- file. (Keep in mind that these changes could lead to troubles if you want to play a saved game with the normal 70/140 size).

Now comes the last step of work.

Run the Call To Power game. Play a New Game. Map-size should be Gigantic and then start the Editor (or the Cheat-modus in normal game).

Clear the fog of war (click the tape with the eye), clear the map (click the tape with the world left besides the fog of war tape). You see only water now, wait some seconds until all settlers are disappeared.

Then hit the apostrophe key: »'«

You will see now a new chat-window
type in this window the following comand:

/importmap output.txt

(output.txt = the created textfile from the bmp2ctp2 program)

Now you should see the created map. Save your map. Ready!

Make a map for a scenario

You need a scanner, a grafic program (like Photoshop, Photo Paint, Corel Draw) , an atlas and the bmp2ctp2 program from Harlan Thompson.

The map should contain cities and geographic specialities like mountains and so on.

The size depends on your demands, but don´t make a map to large (about 400 pixel in width or height should be the maximum).

Scan the map (e.g. 150dpi, 16,7 million colors) for your scenario, open Terrain Colors from the bmp2ctp2 – program. Click Image, Mode, Indexed Color, Palette, Custom, load the CTP2Map from the bmp2ctp2 program.
Change all colors of the map according the Terrain Colors sample. Work with the Eyedropper Tool, the Magic Wand Tool and the Paintbrush Tool.

Indicate cities by an unusual landscape (e.g. Polar Mtn or Desert Mtn). It is better to indicate big cities by big unusual spots, small cities by small spots.

If you have finished all the painting you should change the mapsize by Image, Imagesize. The proportion should not be conserved and the height should be doubled (because in the bmp2ctp2 program the ratio should be 1:2).

The height should not be over 600 pixels otherwise the map becomes to large for the game.

Save the map as bmp, 8-bit, uncomprimed in the bmp2ctp2 data folder.

Continue the working steps like above.

If you create a new scenario, you should place the settlers in the Cheat-Modus over the indicated landscapes (e.g. Polar Mtn, Desert Mtn) and then build up the cities.

In order to build up the cities in the right sequence and with the correct name, you should look into the data folder: Call To Power 2 / ctp2_data / english / gamedata / civ_str (Apol_civ_str). Give in the correct name of the cities and print the special sequence of cities. This makes city-building much easier.