Moderator: Cartographers
The Bison King wrote:Also concerning the Road bonus counter in the lower left corner. Maybe a visual representation (rather than a written version) would be a more clear and effective way of presenting the bonus structure, what do you guys think?
I'm actually really confused by the bonus legend... why is it repeated twice, and how do the coloured regions relate to the roads?
I know you've been given the gameplay stamp, but I haven't seen any real analysis of the gameplay configuration - to me the bonuses seem really high?
Have I missed the results of any of the bonus calculators, or was there any discussion about the relative bonus values in different areas?
If you only took the castle off of Dalmus it would be confusing. But, I was trying to say if you took the castles off both Dalmus and Chunjaris then it wouldn't be confusing. You would still have a castle on Theraland to show that it connects to Hellengar but it is redundant to put a castle on Dalmus and Chunjaris because it is already shown that it is connected by the road. You could still put the castles there if you wanted too, but you don't need them there. Does that make sense?
The Bison King wrote:I'm actually really confused by the bonus legend... why is it repeated twice, and how do the coloured regions relate to the roads?
I think you are looking at a version that someone else posted as an example of how else the road bonuses could be done. That's not a real version of the map, Dub Warrior posted it.
Listen to him - RJ IS THE MAN!RjBeals wrote:you should keep the photoshop effects to a minimum. Straight watercolor is the look you should go after. I know that's tough - but it looks freakin awesome.
The Bison King wrote: At least I'll be able to say I tried... and wasted 3 hours.
It's never a waste if you learned something
It's looking really good geographically from my view. I know this is game play discussion but I do agree with MrBenn that some bonus's are too high.
I agree with that post of somebody that you should keep the photoshop effects to a minimum. all glow, blur or shadows need to be as subtle as can be 
Lol I wasn't touching Ifnal. I think it's perfect at 3. Livonia was definitely one I was thinking. Even though it's in the middle once you hold the bonus it is defend-able from 3 territories. I think Ithernia should be 1 instead of 2 because it is easy to defend from two territories. Increase Solonabirsk by 1 and decrease Skyatica by 1. Reasoning is because Solonabirsk has to be defended from 5 attack-able territories and a bonus of 3 doesn't fit the men needed to defend it. Skyatica is defendable from 4 territories but it's not as open to being attacked from many bordering territories. I would drop Caprinthia to 5. It has 5 attack-able borders and has 6 territories total to hold it and +6 for that seems overpriced. Lastly I think the road bonus Arleus - N Frontier should be increased from +5 total to +6 total. If you hold either the Arleus to Denmarn, or Denmarn to N Frontier for a bonus of 2, you have to potentially take 4 more territories to only gain 1 additional bonus (besides the +2) for the entire line of 8 territories. It doesn't fit the total men needed to take that.
I would suggest moving the numbers off the castles somehow, or perhaps expanding the castles so they look legible when there are numbers over them.
Yep, that glow is much better.
I still think those testlines in between the roadbonus and the continent-bonus is not working. have you played around with position and font-style? Keep your legend simple and clean to have more attention towards your map.
Nice changes. The more you improve upon this map the more I like it. I have some graphical suggestions. Mostly involving the color tones from the map key not matching the map itself. I believe I mentioned some of these before that you talked about getting to in the graphics shop.
Below and above the Dalmus island you have all that green which is not show in the map key. Also the ocean is a lighter blue in the key compared to the map. Skyatica's color could be darkened in the map key to match your recent change. Most of the countries could be brightened or darkened a little bit to match. These are minor things but I think it would improve. My biggest thing is the color of Rollaland is a little lighter then that of Ifnal. Also the line pointing to Rollaland in the map key could be put in the middle of Rolloland. I think these two things would make it more clear that it is a part of Ifnal, which as you know I was confused about when I first looked at this map.
Nice changes. The more you improve upon this map the more I like it. I have some graphical suggestions. Mostly involving the color tones from the map key not matching the map itself. I believe I mentioned some of these before that you talked about getting to in the graphics shop.
Looks like a nice map to me
I agree with making a few of the castles a bit bigger, they work fine on the large map but on the small map they are a little hard to make out at a first glance (especially Morova and Theraland)
Also the grass part of the non-playable territory looks a bit weird, the desert is fine but the grass looks like its been done with washed out watercolour paint the transfer between grass and desert directly south of cancallus desert is the worst bit but the sudden transition on the border of chunjaris also clashes somewhat. Most of the stuff to the east looks fine however so it may just be a little tweaking that's needed.
