This is version 1.4 of my Huge Accurate Earth map - winner of the Community Choice Prize in the Humankind Map Creation Contest! The goal is to make a map for Humankind that precisely resembles our home planet when it comes to biomes, terrain, coastlines, elevation, natural wonders, resources and much more. The map was not necessarily created with balanced gameplay in mind though it is obviously supposed to be fun. With the help of your feedback, I will try to improve it as much as I can.
Installation
1. Download the .zip file in the release tab at the end of this description
2. Right click on the downloaded .zip folder and then extract it
3. Open the extracted folder and place the file Huge_Accurate_Earth_r1.4.hmap in Documents\Humankind\Maps
Once this is done you should be able to select Huge_Accurate_Earth_r1.4 as a map when you start a new Humankind game.
Starting Points
As of now the maximum number of players is 8. I placed 8 more or less balanced starting points on the continents Africa, Asia and Europe. The other territories (Americas, Oceania and a bit of Antarctica) are basically the New World waiting to be explored.
When you are playing a single player game on my map, you will always start in position 1 in the bottom of Africa. If you want to start in another of the positions that you can see in the image below, change to a multiplayer game and click the join button in the slot that you want to play in. The first slot in the top left is obviously starting position 1, the slot to the right side of that starting point 2 and so on.
If you don't like these Starting Points and want to rearrange them:
(0. Install the mod via the Installations instructions above)
1. Head into the main menu of Humankind and then Extras > Community > Map Editor
2. Click the pencil that is on the right side of Huge_Accurate_Earth_r1.4
3. Once in the Editor you can click the flag symbol that says Starting Points on the centre-left
4. Remove a starting point by holding down the right mouse button on a tile that is next to the starting point you want to remove. Then with the button pressed hover your mouse over the tile where the starting point is
5. Next you can add your own Starting Points. For further information, see 'III. PLACING STARTING POINTS' in the Humankind Map Editor Manual: Humankind.mod.io
6. When you are finished, click the top left button that says 'Save As'. Preferably save it under a different name (e.g. Huge_Accurate_Earth_r1.4_Custom). Now you can exit the Map Editor and when creating a new game you should be able to select your map.
Possible Improvements
A few things that I want to work on in the future:
- Improve the elevation so that every tile is accessible. I tried to fix as much as possible but there might still be mistakes.
- Improve the placement of resources. The placement of resources might not be balanced perfectly in every area. They were placed where they really are, for example oil on the Arabian Peninsula. As previously mentioned, it is meant to be this way, but some areas may still be too unbalanced which I want to improve in future versions.
- Improve territories. Territories loosely resemble present day borders right now with smaller countries combined and larger countries split in pieces. Each territory might be too large / small so I will try to work on that.
- Increase max players to 10 (or to whatever the highest possible number is) and update Starting Points. Right now, the highest number of players on custom maps is 8. In case this is changed I’m glad to update this map.
- Improve the region around the Bering Strait (East Russia and Alaska). That region was stretched a lot when I used the heightmap because it was a Mercator projection. That region doesn’t look as good as the rest but this is not my main focus right now.
Trivia
In case anyone is interested on how I made this map: I used the following heightmap and created a colour palette for it. I cropped out antarctica a lot because it is just way too large. I made Europe a bit bigger to properly display it and for gameplay reasons. Once the coastlines looked satisfying I placed the territories, natural wonders, terrain, natural modifiers and so on. Next step was to place the resources. I tried to gather as much information as possible on where the resources can be found on our planet though it is not entirely perfect. All in all it took me roughly ~30 hours to create this map. The Map Editor needs some improvement but still it is a fantastic tool to use and I had lots of fun creating the beautiful landscapes our planet has to offer.
Credit:
NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. 2009: ETOPO1 1 Arc-Minute Global Relief Model. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Accessed 2021-08-21.
Amante, C. and B.W. Eakins, 2009. ETOPO1 1 Arc-Minute Global Relief Model: Procedures, Data Sources and Analysis. NOAA Technical Memorandum NESDIS NGDC-24. National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA. doi:10.7289/V5C8276M Accessed 2021-08-21.
Download the full sized image here: Ngdc.noaa.gov
Thanks
Thanks to my brother for helping me out with the presentation. Thanks to Amplitude Studios for giving us this great game called Humankind and the Map Editor (the import tool is a lifesaver <3).
Many thanks to XIVIX, rebelegy, Hrodric1632176686 and mumfodav14 for giving feedback to my map! If you want to contribute to my map as well: let me know if there is anything you want changed in this version of the map. I look forward to improving it.
34 comments
I think you can have 10players now on the map. Are you gonna update it?
1
if you name it "Acurate" then you have to understand that referanced earth map(Lambert's Equal-area Azimuthal Projection) is hiper Inacurate.
your map is way to much wider North and South regions and way to shrinked middle(equator line) region.
1
The map has a warning saying : Invalid map, it has to reexported from the map editor. Could you fix it?
PD: I looked on the map editor and there are territory and wonder issues
2
Hey Hrodric, the errors are fixed in version 1.4. Thanks for the feedback :)
1
This map doesn't work, it says there are issues with map such as territory size and world wonders split between multiple territories
2
Hello mumfodav, the validation errors are now fixed in version 1.4. Thank you for pointing it out!
1
I'm excited to play this map but want to edit starting points. Changing my laptop settings to "three finger click = middle mouse button" doesn't do anything. What am I missing here as far as the middle mouse button creating start points?
1
Hi ToploaderXtreme, I recommend using a USB mouse as the game might not recognise your custom laptop settings / buttons.
1
At first, I was very excited for the map. I edit the map a little so It should be more accurate but when I'm going to use the map.
The game said that. The map has a territory with 2 separate landmass. Divided by another territory or ocean.
Is there a way to fix this?
1
Hey hachikarawake, it seems that you changed my map in a way so that the error message you wrote shows up. For example I encountered that error when I put Ireland and Britain in a territory. The game wants every land territory (not ocean) to be traversable by land units without embarking. When validating a map in the Map Editor you can click next to the error messages to see which tiles caused the validation error (they are marked in some color) and change them accordingly
That being said I'm pretty sure that you can play a game on a map with validation errors in it (unless they changed that - I did so a few weeks back)
1
Hi - I subscribed to your MOD and this is awesome!
One problem though - I played until turn 260...then I notice that after loading my game and be at turn 260 - and then about less than 30 seconds, Humankind freezes and crashes out. I tried to set my video game card at "Fastest" and it would still crash for me. Do you have an idea of why this is happening?
1
Hey LordRimaru, I don't really know if your issue can be solved by me or you. Amplitude themselves wrote in an update regarding the Map Creation Contest that "we have noticed a technical issue with the map editor that can affect games played on these [map editor] maps". There wasn't any more info on what the technical issue is but it could be the one you encountered. My guess is that this is something the devs have to work out (improve stability etc.) so unfortunately I can't help you out here.
1
So just starting looking at the mods here and from the looks of things, your map is the best earth map. Only thing is I would like 10 spawn points for a full lobby. as 8 is 2 less then the max. Suggestion is a UK start and a more eastern European start.
1
Thanks a lot for the kind words! Regarding the spawn points: unfortunately the highest number of players on a custom map is 8 right now. The option with 10 players is only available for the standard maps. But once the devs update it - and I'm sure they will - I will make a 10 player version
1
Hi, i have some question on starting points everytime i try new game end up on spot in bottom of the Africa, i tried playing with rearing starting points in different order and every time ending up in bottom africa, could you explain how to set up the point that player spawn in compare to AI.
Ps. the guide you linked above don't really make that clear
1
Hey Nasior, I just looked it up and the players always start in the bottom of africa because thats where the starting point 1 is. You will have to change the Starting Points manually if you want to start in another location. Basically you have to follow the steps I wrote in the description above. In the Map Editor and in the starting point tab (theres a picture of the s.p. tab in the manual), only the bottom line is important (it should be a green button with '8/8' to the right side when you open up my map). Click that green button and then delete every single starting point until it says '0/8' next to the button (it should now be gray). The very first Starting Point you place with the number 1 on it will be the location where your culture starts the game. Place all 8 points on the map until it says '8/8' again (the button should be green then). Remember to save that map you made before leaving the Editor! Then you can select the map with your starting points and then you should start in the starting point that you just set
2
Hi, i have done that few times already everytime regardless of which order the bottom of africa is chosen(done as 1st 4th 7th and 8th), when i remove the africa spawn point and put in let say in australia, then australia is chosen even if says number 8,3,2 besides that is there any way to do it to spawn randomly?
1
Hey Nasior, I just found out that you can change your starting point by changing the game to a multiplayer game. There you can join another slot number which is corresponding to the starting position number.
2
interesting, let me test that :)
Edit: Yes it works like a charm, thanks for your help as didn't want to do same starting point after 3 day long campaign :)
2
At the moment there is no option to like give a random starting point to a culture. You will always start in the same position in custom maps. There is not much any of us can do about it, we can just wait until the devs add random spawns or something
2
No comment were found matching the criteria specified. We suggest you try the comment list with no filter applied, to browse all available. Join now to participate.