Hello all!
Observe 0.7.2 is now available.
The main feature is something I have been asked about for a very long time: a complete custom Map Editor inside the game.
You can now draw a world from an empty canvas, divide it into regions, turn it into a scenario and watch countries fight across it.
Draw your own map
The Map Editor is available from the Scenario Editor. Start a new map, choose its resolution and draw boundaries directly onto the canvas. Close a shape and fill it to create a region.
The editor includes tools to:
Draw and erase boundaries.
Fill enclosed shapes as new regions.
Merge and erase regions.
Inspect automatically generated adjacency and override individual connections.
Generate and edit sea zones.
Preview the thickness of frontlines against the borders you drew.
Undo and redo painting changes.
When you build the map, Observe creates the region shapes, borders, adjacency, coastlines, sea routes and the data used by frontlines. The finished world can use the same wars, naval invasions, buildings, labels and simulation systems as the built-in Earth map.
Trace a reference or draw from nothing
You can import a reference image, move and scale it, then change its opacity while you trace. The reference is saved with the map, so it is still there when you return to edit it later.
Maps can also contain artwork layers. These can sit below regions, between regions and borders, or above the borders. Layers can be renamed, hidden and reordered. This allows a map to contain mountains, rivers, labels or other decoration without baking that artwork into its political regions.
Maps remain editable
A custom map is not destroyed when it is built. You can save it, reopen it, change its regions or artwork and build it again. The editor keeps the original authoring data rather than treating the first build as a final image.
Custom maps are attached to their scenarios. When a scenario is uploaded to the Steam Workshop, its map is packaged with it. A subscriber receives the complete world instead of needing to find and install a separate map dependency.
Region Editor
The Scenario Editor now has a Regions tab for both custom maps and the built-in map.
It can change a region's name and starting population. This keeps detailed scenario data out of the drawing workspace, where it would only get in the way of making the geography.
For a large custom world, you do not need to name and populate every region by hand. Population can be generated from the painted size of each region, with controlled variation so equal-sized regions are not exact copies. Names can be generated for one region or for every unnamed region at once.
God Mode and country controls
A country's map colour can now be changed while the simulation is running. The new colour updates its regions, fronts, labels and wrapped copies of the world.
Global Diplomacy AI and Nuclear AI switches now remain global. If you turn diplomacy AI off for the world, countries created later by rebellions or other systems also begin with it disabled. Newly created nations can also have diplomacy AI set directly.
Fixes
Rebellions Off: now also prevents rebellions caused by expulsion.
Finished worlds: isolated landlocked countries can no longer leave a simulation permanently unable to end.
AI Studio resets: country labels and capitals are rebuilt correctly between runs.
Generated flags: countries without an assigned flag receive a generated one when the scenario loads.
What comes next
This is the first public version of the Map Editor. Please report maps that fail to build, unusual adjacency, Workshop packaging problems or any tool that behaves differently after saving and reopening a map. If possible, include the map itself so I can reproduce the problem.
Thank you for playing Observe!