Just a small note: The maps I see here don´t exactly look like the ones for which I use MHL. I use MHL for simulating real-world mountainious areas. E.g., a game I played some time ago had about the extent Munich in the north, Milano in the south, Zurich in the west, Salzburg in the east.Alberth wrote: And now MHL. I see the same happening, people claiming it is great and such, while to me, huh? We already had hills, right?
Using MHL, it was possible to get the valleys in that region in great detail. E.g. you have a huge valley which in reality is at about 600m, you have a somewhat higher plateau near the valley at about 900m, you have a pass connecting the northern and the southern part of that area at about 1400m. In reality, all three points I refer to here have railway tracks, from 600m to 1400m the railway needs something between 30 and 40km. Near that locations, mountains of height > 3000m are situated.
Modeling something like this with just 15 heightlevels would have looked like, I start at heightlevel 4, the pass has maybe heightlevel 8, i.e. some small bridge near your station would already have a height difference in the order of 25% of the 800m between 600m to 1400m.
Sometimes, in mountainious areas railway tracks use side valleys to gain height, i.e. they head for some kilometers into some actually quite uninteresting (in terms of traffic) valley, make a 180 degree turn, go back at some slope, and come back to the main valley, but now maybe 100 or 200m higher - because the direct way was too steep for a railway.
Model such a situation with 15 heightlevels - it would consume a major part of the heightlevels you have.
I agree perfectly with your point that one cannot sensefully fill maps of 2048x2048 or even 4096x4096, yet I think heightlevel 15 is rather something like the old 256x256 map.