FAQ entry

Keywords: All, map, Open General, Open Suite, scenario,

What should I know about the terrain maps in Open General?

OpenGen, like PG2, uses painted maps as backgrounds to show terrain features. (There is a new feature to use tiled maps, in which case the engine shows the built-in tiles instead of the .jpg / .png background.)

When playing a scenario, OpenGen downloads them as needed (assuming there is a working Internet connection), and once they are downloaded, they remain in the main MAP folder of the game. If you plan on playing without an Internet connection, use the “Download maps for this whole campaign” feature in OpenGen beforehand, so you already have all the required maps on your computer.

If you want to create a scenario using OpenSuite, you’ll need two things, a map picture (.jpg or .png), and the fitting .mapx terrain definition. For tiled maps you only need the terrain definition. You can’t miss it, it’s the very first thing OpenSuite asks for when selecting “New Scenario”.

Where to find a fitting map? There is a website dedicated to OpenGen maps which allows you to search and visualize them: http://www.gilestiel.eu/mapfinder/ However, it only contains maps up to a given size (3150 x 3000 px), anything bigger can only be found at open-general.com.

The .jpg / .png map picture is purely decorative, it’s to show the player that a given hex is water or forest, etc.. The actual information about each hex is contained in the terrain definition. If you don’t load one, you whole map will be just “clear” hexes, regardless of what the map picture shows. While making a scenario you can alter the terrain as you wish. When you save a scenario, all terrain information will be stored inside your scenario, and .mapx file will not be used anymore.

Note: “.map” definition is the old PG2 format, it doesn’t contain terrain names (like city names, etc.), special layers (like built or painted facilities) or the new OpenGen terrain types. If you import an “old format” .map definition, you will also need to get the fitting names list, which is a text file (.txt) bearing the map’s number. Newer “.mapx” definitions contain everything.