2D handpainted world maps with terrain modifier

I have this idea for hobby-game where I have this huge map that player would be able to walk (in 2D plane) around but instead of randomly generated map, it would be from one big map texture pasted on a big plane.

On top of that, certain patches of the map (i.e. river, swamp, mountain, etc) would have modifier on them that would affect the player in certain way (i.e. movement speed, damage to health, blocked path).

-- Does creating another layer of game object (i.e. river object, mountain object) on top of the main plane a good way to do this?

-- I have stumbled upon many advise to not go overboard with gameobject but with the above method, I might have hundreds of gameobject just to represent terrain features and another hundreds to represent resources, settlements, etc. Would that be bad?

I haven't had any significant training using unity and c# but I have completed dozens of disconnected tutorials and had a good grasp of basic things.

So I love to hear some suggestion for direction that I should take in making this project a reality :]

Sorry if this is not too technical for this subs.

 

I'll answer this to the best of my knowledge, if anyone thinks I'm mistaken feel free to correct me.

1. I'm assuming you will use Tilemap? Either way, If you want something to behave different from your map-base, it needs to be an GameObject with attached components. In my game my base is just a plane of grass. Everything on top of that is a GameObject because thats the level of customization I need. For example if you want to walk slow in a swamp, well you need a Swamp-tile prefab that has a collider on it so that your game will know to slow down your player.
2. This is hard to say in my opinion, it very much depends on what those objects do. The easiest path here is to just not worry about it until it's a problem, and if it ever becomes a problem try to optimize your code. And if that doesnt fix it either then it's time to look into how to only render what the player sees in the curent camera view.

My advice, start trying stuff out. DON'T start out by creating this huge game. Make a smaller one that uses a lot of the same features you want in your future, much larger, game. Because you will make a mess of everything in your first few projects. Your code will be ugly, inefficient and your editor will be cluttered. But that's what it's like for everyone so don't worry. Just don't start out by building something huge. Baby steps and patience is the only way to success here.

Good luck!

 

Thank you for the good word.

I think what I need the most is way to manage my analysis paralysis better.