I guess that's just a "Misty Mountain Hop."

@ Kalexius

I believe it is better if you circle the mountain (I believe you are talking about the southern most icon) in the old map image, and show where you believe it is now on the old map.

I guess I know what you are talking, but I do not think snowline correlate with the mountain icons that closely.

To my understanding, the old maps were relative and not definitive.

Thanks for your inquiry.

Answer: Mountains haven't moved. That said, one of the reasons we felt we needed to change the art style is the icons, while providing a good approximation that there were mountainous regions and elevation changes in the areas, were being interpreted too literally and not to scale.

The change in art style was, in large part, to ensure you were getting as accurate of information as you could without impacting the value of explorers and cartographers.

Thank you.

I believe this also has to do with the relative elevation changes between the much higher baseline Alpine Forest elevation and the lower Mixed Leaf Forest Elevation that made the icons display what looked like a large mountain just outside the tip of Luxspring

I believe that one of the devs described that the "peaks" icons were based on the relative slope of the mountains going up to their peaks and not necessarily the size of the mountains themselves.

So that example in Larentia showed that there was a considerably steep mountain in the overall lower elevation plane of the MLF, not that it would be the largest among the rest of the Alpine Forest mountains since that biome already sits higher in elevation and the rise to the mountain peaks are more gradual at that point.

So based on serp's reponse, they ran DSS with us picking on misleading graphics. Aside from moutains moving all over the continent, the actual elevation or size of moutains changes drastically. Where the old map makes it look like some moutains are going to be huge this new and apparently correct map puts them as hills in many places and even in some places has completely erased them. So if you picked next to a moutain for any reason and now have a hill or plains, your SoL ig.

Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 08:21 AM - Mon Mar 16 2020

So based on serp's reponse, they ran DSS with us picking on misleading graphics. Aside from moutains moving all over the continent, the actual elevation or size of moutains changes drastically. Where the old map makes it look like some moutains are going to be huge this new and apparently correct map puts them as hills in many places and even in some places has completely erased them. So if you picked next to a moutain for any reason and now have a hill or plains, your SoL ig.

Seeing as how important DSS was/is to so many people. It's somewhat amazing SBS just seemly didn't give two fucks about misleading people. Many people picked different locations for many different reasons. If in game they aren't even close to whatever they picked for, well that isn't going to end well.

Personally, this whole thing just makes me regret ever buying a title. I get things will change. But I never thought the map would change, so soon after the majority of us did pick.

Which just leads back to the main point, if SBS wasn't happy. Why in the world did they start DSS in the first place? It seems like they had plans to fix/change it all up as well. I am still confused why the whole map isn't blurry then. Why make it crystal clear for the kings? Are those that only people that matter?

SBS were quite clear in their early comms. A mountain symbol did not mean there was a mountain peak. Merely a form of gradient in the local area. This was initially deliberate to avoid presenting us with too much detail and keep an element of surprise. At no stage have we been misled in that respect. We just "officially" have a little more clarity now than then, though for some of us, the domains are more or less how we pictured them anyway.

Posted By Serpentius at 2:55 PM - Sat Mar 14 2020

Thanks for your inquiry.

Answer: Mountains haven't moved. That said, one of the reasons we felt we needed to change the art style is the icons, while providing a good approximation that there were mountainous regions and elevation changes in the areas, were being interpreted too literally and not to scale.

The change in art style was, in large part, to ensure you were getting as accurate of information as you could without impacting the value of explorers and cartographers.

Thank you.

With all due respect and I actually mean that. If the art style was misleading enough that

The change in art style was, in large part, to ensure you were getting as accurate of information as you could...

Why were folks forced into DSS with a map that SBS knew was misleading?

Posted By Oracle at 07:46 AM - Mon Mar 16 2020

SBS were quite clear in their early comms. A mountain symbol did not mean there was a mountain peak.

The legend when you expanded it in the intial map said small/medium/large moutain peak for the snow-topped "moutains" so is there a source for these comms on the forums saying that something labeled mountain peak was not an actual mountain peak?

Posted By Oracle at 07:46 AM - Mon Mar 16 2020

At no stage have we been misled in that respect.

I mean it was apparently so misleading they pushed back SoE 3 months for an opportunity to redo the entire map to not be misleading. So misleading that they sacrificed all the other symbols and identifiers for a version where all that is left is roads and elevation. That's how important it was to get this map version out. That seems like it was pretty misleading to me.

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Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 5:21 PM - Sun Mar 15 2020

So based on serp's reponse, they ran DSS with us picking on misleading graphics. Aside from moutains moving all over the continent, the actual elevation or size of moutains changes drastically. Where the old map makes it look like some moutains are going to be huge this new and apparently correct map puts them as hills in many places and even in some places has completely erased them. So if you picked next to a moutain for any reason and now have a hill or plains, your SoL ig.

Also my understanding.

Let's redo DSS !!!! :D

They aren't going to redo DSS, so accept it and move on. You went from being on a mountain to mountain adjacent and someone else went from mountain adjacent to on a mountain...would you have picked their county instead? Perhaps...but in the case of the OP where it switched kingdoms, almost certainly not. The vast majority of people picked based on the best features available within their pre-chosen political communities.

A different Release Candidate build of the exact same map could just as easily have moved any towns off of the mountains in your duchy.

We were told repeatedly that the map was highly stylized, so if you assumed your town was on a mountain peak you were making a wild assumption with no solid basis.

I get that it's frustrating that there is a lot of inconsistency here, and decisions were made based on a design decision to give imprecise information that was later reversed to give better information...but sometimes in life you make a call based on the info at hand and later get more info. There are no save points, no do-overs.

For me, I thought I had a town on an island that is now on a peninsula due to better water rendering. Oh well...I've accepted it and moved on. That's life in Elyria.

Accept it, and move on.

Posted By Quintero at 12:08 PM - Tue Mar 17 2020

They aren't going to redo DSS, so accept it and move on. ... Accept it, and move on.

I know bro, ain't arguing for realz about that. Was just tongue-cheek. It's also not affecting me, either.