September 29, 2006
(Almost) Unprecedented levels of detail
The world map for a Dwarf Fortress build is a 2572x6168 bitmap. If we assume that each square is one square mile (they aren't exactly square, but whatever), we're looking at a map that's about 15 million square miles. This is larger than Russia.
Each local region is 3256x5760, and I'm pretty sure that every square on the world map can theoretically be zoomed in to a local map. So theoretically we're looking at a map that's 8,374,432x35,527,680.
That's... big.
Unsurprisingly, it takes a while to generate a world. I'd upload the map for your inspection, but it's 45MB.
The only game of which I am aware that had anything near this scope is Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, which had a map that has been estimated at 160,000 square miles. That's a little bigger than, Germany.
