Three Kingdoms of China - v10.1 [2015-02-01] p15 [Quenched]

[koontz1973]

Seamus, a few things for you.

kingdom of Shu mini map is out of scale to the others. Out of all the mini maps Wei is the best. Copy that over to the other two and you have a winner.
One way arrow from Tian Shui to Yong, whilst clear, it will need a simple text put on the map to explain it to all the players that do not get it. Is their a historical reason for this one way attack or is it something Gimil made up? Try to give the text some flavour like the Army from Tain Shui holds the mountain pass stopping all attacks from Yong.
Why the change in font for the bonus regions in the mini map? The title font for each mini map works, give the regions the same effect so they do not jump of the page.
Lastly, try to distress your map a tad. It is looking , make it look .

[Seamus76]

Seamus, a few things for you.

kingdom of Shu mini map is out of scale to the others. Out of all the mini maps Wei is the best. Copy that over to the other two and you have a winner.
One way arrow from Tian Shui to Yong, whilst clear, it will need a simple text put on the map to explain it to all the players that do not get it. Is their a historical reason for this one way attack or is it something Gimil made up? Try to give the text some flavour like the Army from Tain Shui holds the mountain pass stopping all attacks from Yong.
Why the change in font for the bonus regions in the mini map? The title font for each mini map works, give the regions the same effect so they do not jump of the page.
Lastly, try to distress your map a tad. It is looking , make it look .

The mini-map scale should not be a problem. Also for the next update I have adjusted the contrast of the Jiao bonus color which should put that issue to bed once and for all.

I'll add some text to the left of Yin Ping about the one way arrow. Something along your lines, "Tain Shui holds the only mountain pass." Should work, yes? Also, from what I've read, and translated to the map by gimil, "the reason for the one way is to represent the historical failed attempts of the south invading the north". It also adds more gameplay strategy to holding Central Wei.

I like the change in font, would making the font smaller help?

What distress suggestions were you thinking? It has a nice texture now, which I'm not sure "more" will equal more.

[koontz1973]

Not sure if making the font smaller will help, it is just that is jumps of the map now. Make it smaller, lower the opacity or my best bet would be to make each bit of text the same colour as region it goes to. Getting the names of the mini map itself will allow you to do this. Have a play around and see what looks good to you.

As for distressing it, and this is my point, it looks too bloody nice. A few things for you to try out would be to put a roll effect on it (as if it had been unrolled), a crease in it (either one or two as if it had been folded up, 2 would be best). Last idea for now would be to put a subtle paper effect on it. Spent some time looking and Chinese paper (old ones) seem to have a very rough texture to it.
This one is good to use.

show

You see what I mean. The paper has all of these rough bits to it and this alone will give you that look.

[Seamus76]

Not sure if making the font smaller will help, it is just that is jumps of the map now. Make it smaller, lower the opacity or my best bet would be to make each bit of text the same colour as region it goes to. Getting the names of the mini map itself will allow you to do this. Have a play around and see what looks good to you.

As for distressing it, and this is my point, it looks too bloody nice. A few things for you to try out would be to put a roll effect on it (as if it had been unrolled), a crease in it (either one or two as if it had been folded up, 2 would be best). Last idea for now would be to put a subtle paper effect on it. Spent some time looking and Chinese paper (old ones) seem to have a very rough texture to it.
This one is good to use.

show

You see what I mean. The paper has all of these rough bits to it and this alone will give you that look.

Ok, I'll see what I can do, but I don't want to do too much as I'm a big fan of the current look and feel, and in case there are other changes as the map moves up. I mean it's still in the drafting room, and as far as I can see the gameplay is solid, and the only comments for weeks have been graphics related. Thoughts on a move or two up?

[cairnswk]

Seamus, i don't doubt your commitment to making this map, and yes, i too think it is time is was rolled out of Drafts into the foundry.
i wonder what reasons it is being held up for? Wouldn't hurt to know!

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-01-11:
- Scaled down the Shu mini-map.
- Lowered the opacity of some of the mini-map bonus names. I think they pop less, and all blend in better.
- Added in a different paper background along the lines of what Koontz suggested, and added creases to grunge it up and make it a little more . Koontz, is this more along the lines of what you were thinking?

As for the one-way arrow, I'm not sure adding text for that is going to work, spacially that is. I tried moving the mini-map around to see where and how it would fit, and it was really rather awkward and detached.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v3.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Much better Seamus, well done, it has that feel to it now.

I still say to make the 3 legends the same in all aspects. Look at the blue mini map and copy that for the others. You lowered the title opacity (Kingdom of Shu etc), bring this back out.

[Seamus76]

Much better Seamus, well done, it has that feel to it now.

I still say to make the 3 legends the same in all aspects. Look at the blue mini map and copy that for the others. You lowered the title opacity (Kingdom of Shu etc), bring this back out.

Thanks for the suggestions.

When you say make them the same in all aspects as the blue mini-map, you mean to pull the bonus names out and just have the bonus values inside? Blue is like that simply because the areas are so small it looked better outside. If that's what you mean it can certainly be done. As for adding any one-way attack arrow text, moving the green bonus names out will cut down even more on any potential space for that.

Also, I actually didn't lower the opacity of the "Kingdom of Shu" mini-map title, it does seem lighter though which I can only attribute to the new background, which is a little lighter than before and doesn't bring out the darker colors as it did before.

[koontz1973]

Correct, it is the blue one to copy. Numbers on the map, names of it. All the titles, all seem lighter, try to bring them out a tad more so the stand out better than the bonus names but not more than the mini map itself.

Leave the text of if you want. I was trying to get some historical feel to it but if you do not want it then fine.

[generalhead]

The contrast For the kingdom of Wu is good on the mini map
I think the bigger mini maps do show better
The lines on the map look awkward to me

[RjBeals]

The lines on the map look awkward to me

Me too - because of the map graphics, the crease lines don't really give the illusion of paper folded map. They just look distracting. But I like the texture itself.

[Seamus76]

I'm about to post another update, moving the mini-map text out, should I ditch the lines and just leave the texture, or is there something I can do to make the lines work and look better?

[koontz1973]

Lines you can leave for later. Lets see this update.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-01-11:
- Moved the red and green mini-map labels outside of the map.
- Brought out the names more.
- For now just lowered the opacity of the line.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:
v3.1 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Seamus, here is your sticky. Stamping in two days as normal. But before I stamp this, I am going to ask if you want it stamped with the new rules now in place?

With the folds, they will need a lot more work done on them but you can do that as you go though game play and graphics. The lines that I think RJ is talking about and I do kind of agree with him is this, you territ lines and land/sea border are just too curvy. rough them up a bit. Not jagged but I can see every single point you have made. Look at Tian Shui - Han Zhong border. That is a nice line. Get the rest like this. It will mean a complete re do I am afraid but you have time.

[Seamus76]

Seamus, here is your sticky. Stamping in two days as normal. But before I stamp this, I am going to ask if you want it stamped with the new rules now in place?

With the folds, they will need a lot more work done on them but you can do that as you go though game play and graphics. The lines that I think RJ is talking about and I do kind of agree with him is this, you territ lines and land/sea border are just too curvy. rough them up a bit. Not jagged but I can see every single point you have made. Look at Tian Shui - Han Zhong border. That is a nice line. Get the rest like this. It will mean a complete re do I am afraid but you have time.

Thank you sir, and yes please stamp this.

RJ is specifically talking about the creases though, but if you're not a fan of the other lines I can have a deeper look. At first glance the territ lines look good to me, there is good consistency with curves and jaggs. The sea/land border is pretty smooth, which I can jag up a bit.

by RjBeals » Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:41 am
...because of the map graphics, the crease lines don't really give the illusion of paper folded map. They just look distracting. But I like the texture itself.

[koontz1973]

The creases will need more work, but as I said you have a lot of time to play around now with them. So as you do not bugger up your image, make a copy of it and play around till you find something that work. As yes, the territ lines are way to smooth. Give them a natural feel to them if you know what I mean.

[The Bison King]

Looking awesome! Why is this still in the drafting room?

[generalhead]

Looking awesome! Why is this still in the drafting room?

It got stamped, you have to read back two and three posts.

[koontz1973]

Seamus, just posted this in GH Easter Island thread and it might help you to. With the mountains, try to change the colour of the smaller ones. Then place some in front of the larger mountains to add depth to them. Where you have the range going between red/green, add a few more going into red. Not as impassables but again to add depth to the range. Apart from that, the only other thing I can think of is adding some shadow to them.

EDIT:
Here you go Seamus. Use this wisely.

[Seamus76]

Seamus, just posted this in GH Easter Island thread and it might help you to. With the mountains, try to change the colour of the smaller ones. Then place some in front of the larger mountains to add depth to them. Where you have the range going between red/green, add a few more going into red. Not as impassables but again to add depth to the range. Apart from that, the only other thing I can think of is adding some shadow to them.

EDIT:
Here you go Seamus. Use this wisely.

Thanks koontz. I've added more mountains to the red range, and will be starting on the shadows.

Gameplay and bonus values should all be solid, if some of the gameplay guys can verify that I think we can move this one along pretty quickly.

[nolefan5311]

Can you post a map in the OP with the starting neutrals? The cities will have to start neutral.

[Seamus76]

Can you post a map in the OP with the starting neutrals? The cities will have to start neutral.

Working on it now.

Currently I have the 8 Cities as starting positions with each player receiving one, and the others being neutral. So in 1v1 games players will start with 1 each, and the other 6 will be neutral, and in 8 player games each player will have 1. Koontz and I worked this out a while back, and I think it works really well for making the cities a playable option in all game types. Does that work for you?

[V.J.]

Here are the starting positions and neutrals we came up with(this includes 1 city per player):

In 2 Player game 10 fields each and that's 20 total
3p = 8 each = 24 total
4p = 8 each = 32 total
5p = 6 each = 30 total
6p = 6 each = 32 total
7p = 4 each = 28 total
8p = 4 each = 32 total

3 hard coded neutral fields would be:
"bei ping west" because it could be a starting bonus for someone that gets the City next to it. Other two "Liang North" and "Nanman" are again going make it harder to get +2 bonus.

[Seamus76]

I've updated the OP with the starting position info, and put a version of the map with starting positions under the current version. Let me know your thoughts.