Live Mapping: Napoleonic Battles
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
Hi Everyone :)
In tomorrow's Live Mapping Session Ralf will be mapping a rank and file Napoleonic-era battle, based on the Napoleonic Battle Maps style from the Cartographer's Annual Vol 3.
Come along and join in the fun, or watch later :)
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30 minute shout :)
I will definitely do a fantasy battle plan (based on a real battle, probably) as part of a war between the Irisian City States and the Leonder Imperium on Artemisia for the Atlas - with poor old Themisia in the middle. Infantry and cavalry and artillery, of course, but also mage Units and some fantasy sky ships.
That could be quite fun. And would allow me to use these battle annuals as well as the tactical maps annual, which otherwise I would never have thought to use.
And perhaps a Artemisia war - with other States joining in. I might have to draw a revised political map at the end of the war.
The story titled Lord Kallen of Otherwhen has battles based on several battles in Europe centuries ago. Time of the arquebus and the pike.
@Ralf , I thought you should know... this 26-second video is public:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfTSCNnvmDk
Yeah, thanks, that was part of the trouble I had with sound, chat and organizing the video at the start. I've deleted it now.
@Ralf
I found this very instructive. Specifically, when I tried using this style to make a more period looking map of the Little Bighorn I composed the hills like a contour line and I became frustrated when I got a filled polygon rather than being able to get the effect that you got. Never did it occur to me to do what you did and outline the slope region. Genius! This and the Tactical Map sessions were very helpful to me.
As a style however, what I am after is more like the 1930s travel guide, but with the ability to draw a polygon or a path that has the hash lines on it so one is not restricted to the ones provided within the annual. The contour line in the 1930 annual does not appear to print the hash marks. I did figure it out to make a fairly nice looking attempt.
I have questions about scale, but I think I need to watch what you did again and try to frame a coherent question, except to say I don't really understand "map units". You may recall, my work is based on individual sheets usually 11 x 17 inches to produce a combined map that is 22 x 34 inches. I am usually trying to model a specific area (frequently quite large) at 1:100000, 1:50000, or 1:24000 and the hexes may be 1km but could be as small as 1km, but I want the hexes to be 1 inch =100m. My BMP is then sized appropriately (in a separate program because I usually have to sectionally scan map sheets, combine the individual sections of a map sheet, then combine all the separate map sheets).
Thanks for the great sessions!
Kind regards, Mike
@mike robel commented:
The contour line in the 1930 annual does not appear to print the hash marks.
It does Mike, but it actually creates a Symbols Along line to do so (assuming you're meaning CA84 1930s Overland Maps). There are detailed instructions on how to set this up in the PDF Mapping Guide that comes with this Annual issue, which is worth carefully reading and following, to get the best from this style.
I don't really understand "map units"
Map Units are simply what CC3+ recognises as the number to be used for the size-ratio of the area of your map. For an overland map, the default is that CC3+ calls 1 Map Unit 1 Mile (or 1 Kilometre if you opt for metric). This has nothing at all to do with what physical size anything will be in whatever final printouts you choose to do.
You simply draw your map to the correct ground scale and size using only Map Units (so ONLY Miles or Kilometres; forget the "inches" thing; forget the "scale ratio" thing - at this stage they're irrelevant), including any hexes, so the hex has the correct scale-size for the map as you're drawing it. If the hex has to represent an area 100 metres from flat side to flat side, say, you can check that the distance across it is exactly 100 metres using the drop-down menu's "Info - Distance" option.
If you're tracing an imported map image, make sure that's correctly scaled in the same way before you start copying it, so the scale CC3+ is using is exactly the same as that on the map image you're copying.
Once you've finished mapping, you can then export an image of whatever size and resolution you need for your final printout using the drop-down menu's "File - Save As..." option. This is the point you can finally switch to thinking about what inch-size you'd like your hexes to be; just don't worry about it before this point. At all!
Simplest way for this is probably to choose one of the "Rectangular section" graphic image export options, PNG or JPG, say, as the dialogue box allows you to set the size of your export by width and height in either pixels (and you can set the pixels per inch or per centimetre at the same time too) or physical dimensions (again, inches or centimetres). Then just select which area you want to export from your CC3+ map. If you've set your snap grid correctly, you can just use that to help draw the area you want.
If you need the hexes to be a specific physical size on the final print graphic, say 1 inch from flat side to flat side, and there are 20 columns of hexes across either the width or height of the map that fit flat-side to flat-side, it's clear you need one of those dimensions to be 20 inches. The other has to fit the hex width, which is usually around 1.15 times the flat-flat size, thus about 1.15 inches per hex, times however many columns/rows of hexes in the area you need the graphic to be.
Remember, what you're drawing in CC3+ is a map, NOT a hex-board printable for gaming on. Only the final exported graphic - which you can always resize precisely in a separate graphics-manipulation program, if you're happier using that - is where you need to worry about what inch-size what feature is meant to be.
@Wyvern
Thanks. Very Helpful. I have never been able to get the Save as ... to do anything and I always use the Print Function to print the map out. But I will look at all those things again. Most helpful.
Mike