GameSetup - Geographic Map UI

[elexis]

Historically (somewhat) accurate campaigns might want to use a level selection screen that consists of a geographic map, with the individual levels being buttons of that map.

This could even be useful for all map types as the vast majority of them relate to actual places. Some are only city sized areas (Elephantine Island, Ratumacos), others country sized areas (Corsica vs Sardinia, English Channel, Hellas, Lower Nubia), others continent-sized (Mediterranean, Red Sea).

Campaigns likely should still to the city-scale. But for the other maptypes it should be sufficient to show a button of that city/continent at the center, rather than using a huge button.

As far as I recall, the campaign patch at ​Phab:D11 does not add incompatibilities.

It should be easy to add these map level selection screens. Probably a JSON and PNG file in some new directory.

It could either be the maps specifying longitude/latitude coordinates (WGS84), or each of the geomaps could come with a level subset.

Campaigns could state which geomap(s) they would like to display. Geomaps could specify if they are compatible with the other maptypes / the general match selection screen.

More than one geomap could be used, for instance to allow different zoom levels.

An exemplary use case would be the Roman campaign. One starts as a small city state, conquers the etruscans, then all neighbors for several centuries.

(The possibility to use an existing tiling interface (​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Map_Service) seems attractive, but the possibilities of available data is questionable: Composite phtography like google maps would show streets, cars and modern structures like factories that have no place in most RTS mods using Pyrogenesis. The NASA blue marble has a too small resolution to recognize these structures, which means it could be used for areas larger than cities (ratumacos but not elephantine).)

[Imarok]

Move tickets to Game Setup as UI & Simulation got some sub components.