(04-18-2026, 07:30 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: I really want to try some other maps, but so far no one has made any maps that match the official quality and completion standard. I've also thought about creating a Chinese-themed game map. Do you have any suggestions on this? I'm not quite sure what work is involved in making a map.
Well, quite a bit of work is involved, which is probably a good part of why there aren't a multitude of maps.
The first step is getting the visual map in the game, and I wrote up a guide here. The screenshot is of the result of that process with a Japan/Korea map (but European city locations overlayed on the map, as that hadn't been converted).
If you can get that far, using China where I refer to India as a hypothetical example, you'll have gotten farther than most.
The next part is the most laborious - getting the data, particularly for the cities, although it is also possible to add companies, events, etc. In theory, one can use the official mod tools for this, and that's how I started with my first map, Europe Expanded (the version available on Steam). However, I eventually ran into some challenges, particularly:
- The mod tools are a bit clunky. You can load most elements that are customizeable from the sub-tools, but they aren't necessarily all synced up if you don't do it right.
- For cities, the mod tools focus on years. I tended to think in terms of cities. For example, let's say I want to add a new city to a map. In the mod tools, I have to open all of the city-population files (eleven if I have one per decade from 1900 through 2000, though fewer is an option). But I think in terms of "I have the data for this new city, I just want to add the city's data".
- Demographic data can be incomplete and require interpolation. If I had a 1950 population file but only some cities had data for that year, I'd need to interpolate.
The latter one wasn't much of a concern on my Great Lakes map because it only had two countries, both with regular censuses, and might not be a problem in China. But it was a pain point in Europe, where census frequencies varied heavily by country.
Being a software developer, I eventually build my own database and application to store the data I needed for the map (cities, coordinates, population, company names, etc.), and to copy that into the XML files that the game uses (which is subsequently puts into a database when you start a game). Although two years later, it seems I've forgotten a step in how to get my map working in-game.
If you get as far as creating the map and having it show up in game, like in the Korea/Japan example, let me know and I'll take the time to revisit my map development tools and make them easier to use. It's basically "put a bunch of data in a SQLite database, run a Java program, it generates the XML for GearCity, put the XML in the right folders".
Edit: The other aspect is data research. In my Great Lakes example, I track the actual population of the state (such as Pennsylvania), and the population of cities, and distribute the surplus population (from smaller towns) proportionally to the cities, so the whole state's population is accounted for and is a potential customer.
This isn't too bad in a place like the U.S. where state borders have been stable for a long time, or France which aside from Alsace-Lorraine has also been stable, but can be much more difficult in places like Germany, whose subdivision borders have changed significantly over Gear City's timeline, and even in places that might look stable from the outside, like the United Kingdom, which after about 800 years with no modifications to its Parliamentary subdivisions, started changing their borders every so often to result in more fair Parliamentary districts.
It might be difficult in China, given the major government changes over the course of the 20th century - I don't know if that also resulted in major administrative changes. If there were, it might be necessary to do what I did in the UK, where my administrative divisions are "England", "Scotland", "Wales", and "Northern Ireland", rather than, say, "Yorkshire" or "Sussex".
Or perhaps it would make sense to start the game circa 1950 or 1960, after the government changes; my plan for if I ever get around to a Japan map is likely to have it start post-war.
But those are details to be figured out once a visual map is loaded in-game.