Conquer Club

Version 27:




What is new:

• New Font for the territories
• No more Shading or stroke in the unplayable area
• Slightly more stroke in the playable area
• Slightly more texture on the sea

What is left besides the small map?

Looks great to me. I still think the glow inside the land terts is too much, and I see you added more. To me it's distracting. I think you should have it, just lower the opacity a lot. But up to you, and can certainly be worked on easily enough with both versions.

Wow, it really pops with that shading on the land

greenoaks wrote:Wow, it really pops with that shading on the land

(Can't resist this) does the leg and foot lift up too when it pops?

It's too good - your making the rest of us look bad - you need to mess it up a little more....

Aleena wrote:It's too good - your making the rest of us look bad - you need to mess it up a little more....

Hah. . Not even close

I agree with Seamus, the glow is a bit too wide. Some texture for the centers of the territories will do wonders as well.

Whatever you did to the hills.... undo it at the very least. The shadowing there is totally off and unrealistic.

Are your ocean colours back-to-front? Isn't deep water darker and the shore line lighter?

Reversing them would allow the rivers to match the shoreline colour-wise

Bruce, a couple of things I have spotted.
Legend above the D in Courland, a funny yellow red smudge needs to be removed. Same behind the A in Auks'tatia.
River impassable legend, the blue is not touching the sides so the paper shows through.
Krasavla name, invert this with the 88s, so the name sits better in the region.
Daugavpils name touches its borders. Reposition so it does not please. Same as Rezekene.
The border around Aizkraukle, can this be redrawn to allow the name to sit inside the region? I think it can be.
And lastly from me, impassables, Can you add another tree or mountain to the lines so they clearly go over the corners of the borders.

koontz1973 wrote:Bruce, a couple of things I have spotted.
Legend above the D in Courland, a funny yellow red smudge needs to be removed. Same behind the A in Auks'tatia.
River impassable legend, the blue is not touching the sides so the paper shows through.
Krasavla name, invert this with the 88s, so the name sits better in the region.
Daugavpils name touches its borders. Reposition so it does not please. Same as Rezekene.
The border around Aizkraukle, can this be redrawn to allow the name to sit inside the region? I think it can be.
And lastly from me, impassables, Can you add another tree or mountain to the lines so they clearly go over the corners of the borders.

Which tree line???

Bruceswar wrote:Which tree line???

All of them. Right now the impassables stop at the borders, get them to run over a little so the next border looks partly blocked.

Version 28:




What is new:

• Added Slight texture to the territories
• Fixed some boarders to fit the names better
• Few minor touch ups in the dead area
• Expanded and or added trees / mountains to cover more area
• Fixed some other minor impassible fixes
• Other minor fixes

Bruceswar wrote:

BluU wrote:I also think islands should yield a bonus of 1 comparing to the other bonuses of 2 which look much more harder to defend[/list]

@ the point about the islands. I want that bonus to come into play... So with that said if you make it a 1 bonus then nobody is gonna mess with it. Make it 2 and people will want it.

bruce, +2 for the 2-region osel bonus will not fly. not only does it mean that the easiest bonus zone to take has the biggest bonus-to-region ratio at 1:1, which is the wrong way round, but the location of osel is the most natural place on the map to hide in a multiplayer game while collecting a bonus and waiting for opponents to weaken each other; +1 per turn is enough of a reward for the hide-and-wait strategy.

there is also no reason for an easy sea connection between kuressaare and talsi. no bridges, ferries or planes go that way in peacetime, while an army will find such an international sea crossing extremely hazardous: hitler's forces failed to cross a similar distance from france to england. removing this sea route gives some respite to courland, which has been hard-pressed all through the development of this map. some more of those awfully nice trees, positioned between kuldiga and tukums, together with removal of the sea route, will help to give to the map at least one bonus zone larger than classic oceania that players will consider to be viable.

with 6 border regions to defend, the riga bonus is too hard for a +5. this can be solved by putting trees on the north side of limbazi.

the n1 neutrals will need to become n2 neutrals if, during beta, it is clear that the 3-region bonuses are the first to be held in the vast majority of games. from the mapmaker handbook, there should be many ways a game might progress on a map, and many roads to victory. if holding a 3-region bonus before the enemy does is the key to victory in 80% of 1v1 games, for example, then the map clearly fails the many roads to victory test.

did i say that i like the trees? they look a lot better than the mountains, which are unconvincing, and the rivers, which are still a different hue from the sea and lakes. is there any chance that u might replace either the mountains or the rivers with more trees? incidentally, trees don't grow in straight lines. where u have room (such as between jurbarkas and marijampole), draw an odd-shaped clump of them that covers the borders and more. the africa ii map has good examples of non-linear clumps of trees that cover borders.

ian.

iancanton wrote:

Bruceswar wrote:

BluU wrote:I also think islands should yield a bonus of 1 comparing to the other bonuses of 2 which look much more harder to defend[/list]

@ the point about the islands. I want that bonus to come into play... So with that said if you make it a 1 bonus then nobody is gonna mess with it. Make it 2 and people will want it.

bruce, +2 for the 2-region osel bonus will not fly. not only does it mean that the easiest bonus zone to take has the biggest bonus-to-region ratio at 1:1, which is the wrong way round, but the location of osel is the most natural place on the map to hide in a multiplayer game while collecting a bonus and waiting for opponents to weaken each other; +1 per turn is enough of a reward for the hide-and-wait strategy.

there is also no reason for an easy sea connection between kuressaare and talsi. no bridges, ferries or planes go that way in peacetime, while an army will find such an international sea crossing extremely hazardous: hitler's forces failed to cross a similar distance from france to england. removing this sea route gives some respite to courland, which has been hard-pressed all through the development of this map. some more of those awfully nice trees, positioned between kuldiga and tukums, together with removal of the sea route, will help to give to the map at least one bonus zone larger than classic oceania that players will consider to be viable.

with 6 border regions to defend, the riga bonus is too hard for a +5. this can be solved by putting trees on the north side of limbazi.

the n1 neutrals will need to become n2 neutrals if, during beta, it is clear that the 3-region bonuses are the first to be held in the vast majority of games. from the mapmaker handbook, there should be many ways a game might progress on a map, and many roads to victory. if holding a 3-region bonus before the enemy does is the key to victory in 80% of 1v1 games, for example, then the map clearly fails the many roads to victory test.

did i say that i like the trees? they look a lot better than the mountains, which are unconvincing, and the rivers, which are still a different hue from the sea and lakes. is there any chance that u might replace either the mountains or the rivers with more trees? incidentally, trees don't grow in straight lines. where u have room (such as between jurbarkas and marijampole), draw an odd-shaped clump of them that covers the borders and more. the africa ii map has good examples of non-linear clumps of trees that cover borders.

ian.

A bit late for game play issues? With that said... I am still open to changes, but I prefer to leave them until beta. The extra trees I am open to look into, but I am really liking the connection between the islands and courland. I will respond more to this post later when I have more time.

I agree that the mountains are the weakest graphic. I almost thought they were tire tracks representing a road, and then I focused and figured it out. But they definitely need to look more natural in some way.

The borders of Valka seem to invade Gulbene... both at the Valga-Valka-Gulbene intersection and at the Cesis-Valka-Gulbene intersection. I don't know if that's an actual overdrawn line or just an illusion, but if it's the latter, then perhaps it could be thinned somehow.

The Limbazi title touches the border. Perhaps it could be moved down a couple pixels? I realize you're pretty cramped with the troop circle being there also, but perhaps just a little more squeezing would do it?

The islands across the Curonian lagoon are incorrect. If you are looking at this in modern times, then the Curonian Spit should be one continuous strip, not a chain of islands at all. This should be a very smooth arc:

If you were looking at it from some historical point-of-view, you might see separate islands, but my impression was that you wanted to go present-day and not historical.

I'm almost thinking that you looked at satellite maps and confused the Curonian lagoon with the nearby Bay of Danzig or the Vistula lagoon.

One way to solve the mountains is this, scrap them and use the trees instead. These are by far a better graphic. As for the island change, leave it as it is. It honestly does not make any difference. The missing part can just be so thin it cannot be seen. Well, that would be my excuse.

Agreed with the island issue, it borders a non-playable area and is totally at your discretion as to how it looks.

I'd also say scrap the current mountains, but I'd ask you try and redraw them yourself first, and then add more mushroom trees as a last resort.

I will also suggest that you add a light bit of glow to the territory names. In some spots where they cross into other territories or non-playable areas those names do suffer some readability issues.

I am working on an update.. should be posted soon.

I'm in agreement with ian on removing the mountains and putting the trees in their place. As for the rivers, I would have them show the underlying water texture that you have for the seas. That's all I have for right now.

isaiah40 wrote:I'm in agreement with ian on removing the mountains and putting the trees in their place. As for the rivers, I would have them show the underlying water texture that you have for the seas. That's all I have for right now.

I like that the rivers are different. I do not know any river that matches the sea in color! Find me one in real life?

Version 29:




What is new:

• More Texture added
• Moved around some numbers and names
• New Mountains or rather downgraded to hills to better fit the region
• Other Minor Fixes

What is left besides the small map??

The new mountains look great!




The Valka-Gulbene border is still the same, and now the label for Gulbene has vanished, as well.

Also, the Limbazi label still touches the border.

Dukasaur wrote:The new mountains look great!




The Valka-Gulbene border is still the same, and now the label for Gulbene has vanished, as well.

Also, the Limbazi label still touches the border.

Opps let me fix that.. I did not mean to do that

Fixed now... I did not mean to turn off that layer

Bruceswar wrote:Fixed now... I did not mean to turn off that layer

Cool!