The Balkan Peninsula [FF] --Feb 2nd 2010--

[ZeakCytho]

Bridges are WAY too thick, can you make them smaller?

Sure thing.

If I have time later today I'll post v9, with the bottom of the legend area cut out and the bridges redone.

Gameplay comments, anyone?

[gimil]

If you hold greece you can advance into holding European Turkey without increasing your borders. I think this makes for a cheap and nasty extra bonus without increasing what you need to defend. If you strip the mountains in thrace back a little that should open things up a little although it may require bumping up the bulgaria bonus by 1.

[ZeakCytho]

If you hold greece you can advance into holding European Turkey without increasing your borders. I think this makes for a cheap and nasty extra bonus without increasing what you need to defend. If you strip the mountains in thrace back a little that should open things up a little although it may require bumping up the bulgaria bonus by 1.

I think I'll delete the very last few mountains so Thrace and Burgas connect. Since Burgas is already a border for Bulgaria, this shouldn't effect that, but it means Thrace and Trakya will both need to be held to hold that corner. Unless the player then holds Burgas, which would reduce the border back to one. But by then you're holding 11 territories, 3 borders for a +6, which is roughly comparable to the Romania bonus (10 terr, 3 borders, +6), so it's all good

[whitestazn88]

hey, this is my first look at the map, and i must say its nice. some comments:

the legend is a little big in my opinion, you could make that smaller and then make playable area a little bigger.
this is also true of the upper centimeter or so at the top that is black. maybe we could get more playable area, although it still looks fine
i don't particularly like the darkness of the background, but i have no suggestions as to what to do with it.
i really like the multitude of bonuses, especially the small ones. this will be a great map to play on.

[zeros]

There is a gradual improvement and clearly you are putting a lot of time and effort into this. However, I must agree with 'whitestazn88' that the legend is now too dominant.

I wonder if this was an attempt to cover the background image of Italy? -What I was saying about Italy before still applies: If it is not part of the game, it does not need to be shown at all. Geographic accuracy only matters to the territories included in the playable area of your map. For example, a map of Australia does not need to include parts of Indonesia, Borneo or New Zealand; regardless of scale.

[ZeakCytho]

hey, this is my first look at the map, and i must say its nice. some comments:

the legend is a little big in my opinion, you could make that smaller and then make playable area a little bigger.
this is also true of the upper centimeter or so at the top that is black. maybe we could get more playable area, although it still looks fine
i don't particularly like the darkness of the background, but i have no suggestions as to what to do with it.
i really like the multitude of bonuses, especially the small ones. this will be a great map to play on.

I can make the legend smaller, but I won't scale the playable area up. I'm happy with the size of this map now and everything fits properly. Scaling the map up would require me to redo all the borders a third time, which is just not worth it.

There is a gradual improvement and clearly you are putting a lot of time and effort into this. However, I must agree with 'whitestazn88' that the legend is now too dominant.

I wonder if this was an attempt to cover the background image of Italy? -What I was saying about Italy before still applies: If it is not part of the game, it does not need to be shown at all. Geographic accuracy only matters to the territories included in the playable area of your map. For example, a map of Australia does not need to include parts of Indonesia, Borneo or New Zealand; regardless of scale.

I don't follow what you're saying about Italy. You want me just to delete the landmass, despite the fact that it's actually there? What about all the unplayable land north of the Balkans - delete that too? And Asian Turkey? You'd prefer this map as a big floating island?
The fact of the matter is that Italy is physically in that area, and there is no way to crop the playable area to include Slovenia, Romania, and Greece and not Italy. It stays.

[ZeakCytho]

Version 9 below. I compacted the legend, made the bridges thinner, removed the mountains between Thrace and Burgas, and added attack lines to Crete.

Click image to enlarge.

Thoughts, especially gameplay related ones?

[DimnjacarStef]

great job zeak, finally somebody wants to do Balkan map. I'm from croatia so there is something that I would like to suggest. I agree with everything with qwert but u already removed mistakes that he suggested.

1. my opinion is that all the names in croatia must be either in croatian or in english. U wrote Slavonija(with j) and u didn't wrote Dalmacija how r we saying here. I'll rather have croatian names like serbia have serbian names and bosnia bosnian. So, Istria is Istra, Dalmatia - Dalmacija, Central Croatia - Središnja Hrvatska. If u didn't know but croat name for croatia is Hrvatska. There's also one more problem, the better name for Gorski kotar will be Lika cuz this is Lika and Gorski kotar is on the Slovenian border.
2. border between central croatia and slavonija is not just like that. South border of slavonija must follow river sava, I can draw it to u if u want. This doesn't change gameplay but it will be correct.
3. if u want more territories u can add Dubrovnik cuz Dubrovnik was republic for a long period of time. It will be real situation cuz fbih has a passage to the sea, and southern part will be Dubrovnik. And 2nd island if u look from south of croatia isn't island but peninsula (but this is minor mistake). Also, if u want some more territories, u can split Fbih into two parts - Bosna and Hercegovina, cuz Bosna is in majority muslim territorry and in Hercegovina lives Croatian.

great job anyway, I really appreciate that u do this.

[The Neon Peon]

I think that Kosovo would look much better as a slightly different shade of green than with lines running through it.

The best option would be making it into a capital with a capital symbol of some kind. The symbol would look much better, and it would reduce confusion since capitals are used on other maps and are defined as a territory with its own bonus while part of another bonus.

[ZeakCytho]

great job zeak, finally somebody wants to do Balkan map. I'm from croatia so there is something that I would like to suggest. I agree with everything with qwert but u already removed mistakes that he suggested.

1. my opinion is that all the names in croatia must be either in croatian or in english. U wrote Slavonija(with j) and u didn't wrote Dalmacija how r we saying here. I'll rather have croatian names like serbia have serbian names and bosnia bosnian. So, Istria is Istra, Dalmatia - Dalmacija, Central Croatia - Središnja Hrvatska. If u didn't know but croat name for croatia is Hrvatska. There's also one more problem, the better name for Gorski kotar will be Lika cuz this is Lika and Gorski kotar is on the Slovenian border.
2. border between central croatia and slavonija is not just like that. South border of slavonija must follow river sava, I can draw it to u if u want. This doesn't change gameplay but it will be correct.
3. if u want more territories u can add Dubrovnik cuz Dubrovnik was republic for a long period of time. It will be real situation cuz fbih has a passage to the sea, and southern part will be Dubrovnik. And 2nd island if u look from south of croatia isn't island but peninsula (but this is minor mistake). Also, if u want some more territories, u can split Fbih into two parts - Bosna and Hercegovina, cuz Bosna is in majority muslim territorry and in Hercegovina lives Croatian.

great job anyway, I really appreciate that u do this.

Thank you so much for your comments!
1. I'll make all the name changes for the next version
2. Border will be redrawn
3. My only concern is that there won't be room on Dubrovnik for the name and army circle, and an attack route between Dalmacija and Dubrovnik. But it's certainly worth a try. I'd then redraw the border of Bosnia so there is an outlet to the Adriatic.
I'd love to split FBIH into the ethnic parts (more accurate and another territory), but I'm not sure where the border should be. I'll do some research into this, but if you could post an image of how the border should be I would be much obliged

I think that Kosovo would look much better as a slightly different shade of green than with lines running through it.

The best option would be making it into a capital with a capital symbol of some kind. The symbol would look much better, and it would reduce confusion since capitals are used on other maps and are defined as a territory with its own bonus while part of another bonus.

I kind of like Kosovo with the stripes. How do others feel about this?
I'd rather not add capitals, for a few reasons. First, many capitals are on the border between multiple territories (eg Slovenia), and some other countries have territories named after their capitals (Bulgaria, Albania). Adding capitals would make balancing the gameplay harder. It would be, with 11 capitals on the map, a number of small bonuses, which the map already has a lot of. But if numerous other people advocate adding in capitals, I'll consider doing it
Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, and just making Kosovo a capital with a symbol and not do anything else? I think the text in the legend about Kosovo's bonus is clear enough, though I can change the text if anyone wants. I think the stripes draws enough attention to the fact that it's not a standard territory.

[the.killing.44]

Try this out on Kosovo, just to see how it looks. Make the lines a couple px bigger, but make the opacity (of the lines) 50-75%. Oh, and obviously make the no. of lines less, so they don't run into each other.

.44

[Qwert]

First its good that we have member from Croatia to help with Croatia territories.(Hrvatska is also in Serbian Language,well before war we learn same language Serbo-Croatian language,or Croatian-Serbian ).
Well if you ask me,you can use space in Water to put army circle or name,if you dont have space in territory,its not forbiden to do that.
Like i say before-you can have Capital bonuses by collecting several capitals,its no need to be bonus for each capital.
I think that every thing will be much clear when you put circle or numbers on map,in that way we will see how many you have space on map,for additional territories.

[DimnjacarStef]

i'm giving u some links where u could look at. If u want to map defined by ethnical affiliation look at first link. But, I think it's a little complicated to do that cuz situation is very confusing. in 2nd link u can see map of hercegovina but like u see, one part of hercegovina lies in republika srpska and other one in fbih. Situation in Bosnia is so complicated that it would be great if somebody will have time in future to do do Bosnia as separate map .
3rd link is link to map of croatia where u can look how bosnia have exit to adriatic.

http://europelostandfound.net/files/elf ... n_2005.gif
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4425 ... a51mg4.jpg
http://www.apartments-maritimo.com/kart ... acija.html

[DimnjacarStef]

i'll draw my suggestion for dubrovnik. I've already done that, but my stupid computer freezed.

[ZeakCytho]

Try this out on Kosovo, just to see how it looks. Make the lines a couple px bigger, but make the opacity (of the lines) 50-75%. Oh, and obviously make the no. of lines less, so they don't run into each other.

.44

Hmm...I can try, though I'm not sure how that would look.

First its good that we have member from Croatia to help with Croatia territories.(Hrvatska is also in Serbian Language,well before war we learn same language Serbo-Croatian language,or Croatian-Serbian ).
Well if you ask me,you can use space in Water to put army circle or name,if you dont have space in territory,its not forbiden to do that.
Like i say before-you can have Capital bonuses by collecting several capitals,its no need to be bonus for each capital.
I think that every thing will be much clear when you put circle or numbers on map,in that way we will see how many you have space on map,for additional territories.

I still think having capitals will make the gameplay harder to balance, even if it is like +1/3 capitals held. I'm just not a big fan of capital gameplay. But if a lot of people call for them, I'll add them. I will definitely be adding Dubrovnik to the map - I think there is room, looking at it again.

i'm giving u some links where u could look at. If u want to map defined by ethnical affiliation look at first link. But, I think it's a little complicated to do that cuz situation is very confusing. in 2nd link u can see map of hercegovina but like u see, one part of hercegovina lies in republika srpska and other one in fbih. Situation in Bosnia is so complicated that it would be great if somebody will have time in future to do do Bosnia as separate map .
3rd link is link to map of croatia where u can look how bosnia have exit to adriatic.

http://europelostandfound.net/files/elf ... n_2005.gif
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4425 ... a51mg4.jpg
http://www.apartments-maritimo.com/kart ... acija.html

Thank you for the links. The third one will be very useful for drawing Dubrovnik. I'm not sure how to spit Bosnia best, though. I think ethnic groups would be a bad way to split it, but at the same time, Herzegovina alone overlaps Republika Srpska, which is not good. Do you have any other thoughts on how this can be done?

To Do:
1) Add in Dubrovnik and fix the Bosnia exit to the Adriatic
2) Rename various Croatian territories
3) Redraw the border between Central Croatia and Slavonija
4) Mess around with the stripes on Kosovo

Anything else not on the list that is definitely in the "to do" pile? I'll add the fixes to Bosnia to the list once we actually decide how to change it.

[MrBenn]

When you want a change from border tweaking, the title really needs some work.

I like this image... you could do something like this for the title?


As far as capitals go, I don't really have any bias one way or the other, other than to suggest that if you do go down that route, you could incorporate the flag icons from the image I posted which would bring some cohesion to the two elements...

It's developing nicely

[TaCktiX]

Alright, my forces are mobilizing.

Graphics
- Overall, really good color scheme. The water texture is straight gorgeous and the land texture is subtle enough not to overwhelm but certainly noticeable.
- Moldova (the text) just barely overlaps on its border, messing up the clean feel on the map. Reducing the text size, moving it around just a smidge, fudging the border, or something like that should fix the problem. Heck, you could even pull a Pepperonibread and stick it sideways.
- The river looks like that part of the Balkans has been subject to torrential rainfall for 10 years straight. I know you're going for noticeable, but the thick line contrasted with the lovely thin border lines is rather incongruous. Thin the river up, including the bold gray lines. The bridges are enough to note "yo, this is impassable, just like all those other maps out there".
- Kosovo's crosshatching might be proper political demarcation, but it looks bad. Perhaps altering the color to be darker or slightly more gray (also a proper way of noting disputed territories) would look better. The big huge Text Box of Doom explaining Kosovo's bonus is sufficient to note its difference.
- Your legend still looks like The Text Box of Doom. I think too much text is devoted to noting Kosovo's composite bonus nature. Europa has the Motherland bonus in it, and has half that much text to describe the bonus. Since Kosovo is the same general color as the region of Serbia, people can pick up on that, promise. The bonus regions are really good-looking, though.
- The FBIH abbreviation is necessary, but where its meaning is located is isolated from the territory. It took me a little bit of search to find FBIH, though due to your minimalist text approach (save Kosovo bonus) it's easy to find. Consider repositioning it but don't think it required.
- The mountains are cute and seem to fit the map well, but they bug me just a bit, most likely due to the color of the territories nearby not being obscured by the mountains. Slightly more opaque mountains should do the trick.
- The dots connecting Crete to the rest of Greece might look better in a white tint instead of a navy blue. Try it and see.
- See if you can lessen the stroke on the small islands. Their color is getting overwhelmed by that inner stroke.

Gameplay
- Albania may only be three territories, but I think it's a +2. Compared to the other +1's (2 territories, fewer connections), Albania has to defend from 6 different fronts. Though it also needs to be considered you can string Albania and Montenegro together with relative ease. I'd advocate +2 for the sake of a good "middle bonus" (your map has none) and for how difficult it'll be to defend against Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.
- It's hard to tell if Thrace is impassable to Kyustendil or not. See the mountains comment above.

That's all for now, your map has been

[ZeakCytho]

When you want a change from border tweaking, the title really needs some work.

I like this image... you could do something like this for the title?

You've given me a very good idea for the title...let me see if I can pull it off for version 10

As far as capitals go, I don't really have any bias one way or the other, other than to suggest that if you do go down that route, you could incorporate the flag icons from the image I posted which would bring some cohesion to the two elements...

It's developing nicely

Yeah, if I make capitals I'll try to incorporate the flags. Thanks for your comments

Alright, my forces are mobilizing.

Woo! I'm gonna get attacked!

- Overall, really good color scheme. The water texture is straight gorgeous and the land texture is subtle enough not to overwhelm but certainly noticeable.

Thankies

Moldova (the text) just barely overlaps on its border, messing up the clean feel on the map. Reducing the text size, moving it around just a smidge, fudging the border, or something like that should fix the problem. Heck, you could even pull a Pepperonibread and stick it sideways.

I'll fudge the border to get it to fit - I think having one diagonal territory name with everything else horizontal would look odd.

The river looks like that part of the Balkans has been subject to torrential rainfall for 10 years straight. I know you're going for noticeable, but the thick line contrasted with the lovely thin border lines is rather incongruous. Thin the river up, including the bold gray lines. The bridges are enough to note "yo, this is impassable, just like all those other maps out there".

Okay, I'll thin the river's borders. You want me to thin the entire river as well? I could draw it with a thinner brush easily.

Kosovo's crosshatching might be proper political demarcation, but it looks bad. Perhaps altering the color to be darker or slightly more gray (also a proper way of noting disputed territories) would look better. The big huge Text Box of Doom explaining Kosovo's bonus is sufficient to note its difference.

I'll see what I can do - I think your suggestion will look better than .44s, but I'll try both.

Your legend still looks like The Text Box of Doom. I think too much text is devoted to noting Kosovo's composite bonus nature. Europa has the Motherland bonus in it, and has half that much text to describe the bonus. Since Kosovo is the same general color as the region of Serbia, people can pick up on that, promise. The bonus regions are really good-looking, though.

Numerous people also missed/misunderstood the motherland bonus on Europa. I think it's better to err on the side of caution, especially since I have the room to do so. I can shrink the size of the font, though, and rearrange it to make the whole legend area jut out less

The FBIH abbreviation is necessary, but where its meaning is located is isolated from the territory. It took me a little bit of search to find FBIH, though due to your minimalist text approach (save Kosovo bonus) it's easy to find. Consider repositioning it but don't think it required.

I agree with you, but don't see a better place to put it. I think it's good enough where it is, unless someone comes up with a better location. I'd rather not make a second floating box above the legend just for that abbreviation.

The mountains are cute and seem to fit the map well, but they bug me just a bit, most likely due to the color of the territories nearby not being obscured by the mountains. Slightly more opaque mountains should do the trick.

I don't follow what you're saying. The mountains are just lines; the territory color shows below them because there is nothing above it. You want me to paint the triangles of the mountains in with like a 10% opacity black brush or something?

The dots connecting Crete to the rest of Greece might look better in a white tint instead of a navy blue. Try it and see.

It was like that in version 1, and someone (Ink, maybe, or wca?) didn't like it. I can try something else - maybe a lighter blue instead of white.

See if you can lessen the stroke on the small islands. Their color is getting overwhelmed by that inner stroke.

No inner stroke there, but I can try making them thinner. It'll just mean redrawing the island borders again . I'll see what others want first.

Albania may only be three territories, but I think it's a +2. Compared to the other +1's (2 territories, fewer connections), Albania has to defend from 6 different fronts. Though it also needs to be considered you can string Albania and Montenegro together with relative ease. I'd advocate +2 for the sake of a good "middle bonus" (your map has none) and for how difficult it'll be to defend against Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.

You're right, it should be a +2. Fixed for the next version.

It's hard to tell if Thrace is impassable to Kyustendil or not. See the mountains comment above.

I'll add another mountain in southwest of it so it's clear they don't connect.

That's all for now, your map has been

Okay, revised to do list:
To Do:
1. Add in Dubrovnik and fix the Bosnia exit to the Adriatic
2. Rename various Croatian territories
3. Redraw the border between Central Croatia and Slavonija
4. Mess around with the stripes on Kosovo
5. Fix the placement of the Moldova label
6. Thin the rivers
7. Shrink the font on the Kosovo explanation text and make the entire legend area smaller
8. Change color of the Crete attack routes.
9. Up the Albania bonus
10. Add in a mountain between Thrace and Kyustendil
11. New title layout

Things to maybe do:
1. Make the mountains more opaque?
2. Split Bosnia differently?
3. Capital bonuses?
4) Thin the islands out?

[Qwert]

2. Split Bosnia differently?

I dont understand what you mean?

Any way i have great idea how to Implement Mrbeen idea to bonus section. Create similar bonus minimap(like i create in Europe 1914) and add Flags,names and bonuses value,i think that these will look much,much better then present bonuses boxes.

[ZeakCytho]

2. Split Bosnia differently?

I dont understand what you mean?

We were discussing of ways to divide Bosnia to get more than 2 territories, but there was no conclusive answer about the best way to do it, because splitting it into Bosnian and Herzegovinian areas creates overlaps between FBIH and RS.

Any way i have great idea how to Implement Mrbeen idea to bonus section. Create similar bonus minimap(like i create in Europe 1914) and add Flags,names and bonuses value,i think that these will look much,much better then present bonuses boxes.

The problem with making a minimap like Europe 1914 is that there is not enough room. I need to fit 11 different names, some of them pretty long (Bosnia and Herzegovina, e.g.), and 11 different numbers with few enough overlaps that people can tell what is what. Splitting the continents apart makes it fit much more nicely. I think what needs to change now is the background to the minimap - we need something other than the black box with bevel.

I made most of the changes for version 10 already. I'm still working on the title, however. My idea kinda turned out like crap. I do want to incorporate the flags, though. While we continue to discuss gameplay (particularly the final number of territories), I'll keep thinking about the title.

[wcaclimbing]

- The mountains are cute and seem to fit the map well, but they bug me just a bit, most likely due to the color of the territories nearby not being obscured by the mountains. Slightly more opaque mountains should do the trick.

I like the mountains as they are now.
They're nice and simple, I like how they look.

[Qwert]

well i work a little with these minimap bonuses,and i think that these is possible,ofcourse i dont have original files.

Click image to enlarge.

[ZeakCytho]

Do other people like what qwert did with the legend area? I could do something similar to that. Before I didn't have any sort of border around the area, which made it look odd (see version 1). I'd just need to find a way to make the legend area flow into the map better. Maybe I'd need to put a border around the entire map, then...

Anyway, here's version 10. Most of the changes are made. I think the new title looks like crap.

Click image to enlarge.

Changes from last version:
1. Added in Dubrovnik and fix the Bosnia exit to the Adriatic
2. Renamed various Croatian territories
3. Redrew the border between Central Croatia and Slavonija
4. Messed around with the stripes on Kosovo
5. Fixed the placement of the Moldova label
6. Thin the river out
7. Shrunk the font on the Kosovo explanation text and make the entire legend area smaller
8. Changed color of the attack routes.
9. Made Albania +2
10. Add in numerous other mountains to make the borders clearer
11. New title layout
12. Made bridges perpendicular to the river at the point of crossing.

Things I Really Need Feedback On (in rough order of importance)

• Number of territories. Can we squeeze 4 more in? With Dubrovnik added we're at 50 starting territories, and would like to be at 54
• Title and Legend Suggestions. Do we want to follow what qwert suggested for the legend in his post above?
• Adding capitals? I'm against this, the community seems fairly split
• Is it clear that Dalmacija and Dubrovnik border each other and that Dubrovnik is part of Croatia?
• Stripes on Kosovo good now?
• Bridge graphics - people happy with them? I'm not really...

[DimnjacarStef]

good job there zeak.
I like your legend more then qwert's but it can be confusing for people that don't know Balkans as I do. So, I think he is right.
Thanks for croatian names and for new border between Slavonija and Središnja Hrvatska. Now it's really good.
I think it's clear that dubrovnik it's part of Croatia but there's a little mistake in drawing cuz this island near bosnian border isn't island but peninsula. If u will have time u can change it, but it's not huge mistake and don't effect gameplay. my opinion is that u can change it cuz Dubrovnik will be then bigger.
I agree with u when we're talking about bridges, they can be better.
I was thinking about splitting Bosnia but it will be very difficult to do that. Situation like it is now it's maybe the best way to do. Other idea is to split BiH also in two territories, first will be Bosnia and other Hercegovina but u decide.

[DimnjacarStef]

there's one more thing about the names. Styria is a state or Bundesland, located in the southeast of Austria and in the north Slovenia. so it's the name for some parts of Austria and some parts of Slovenia. In slovenian language the name will be Štajerska. So if u want u can change it. The same thing is with Carniola - in slovenia it is called Kranj or Kranjska.