Antarctica v9 [I, Gp, Gr]

[e_i_pi]

Does all the text have to be curved, crooked, and sideways?

--lanyards

Spose I could uncrooked, uncurve, and unsideways the text. It's gonna be a tight squeeze in some places though. I'll see what I can do

[lanyards]

Does all the text have to be curved, crooked, and sideways?

--lanyards

Spose I could uncrooked, uncurve, and unsideways the text. It's gonna be a tight squeeze in some places though. I'll see what I can do

I say uncurve them all, and keep as many as possible horizontal. If it won't fit normally, well just have to suck it up.

--lanyards

[e_i_pi]

Does all the text have to be curved, crooked, and sideways?

--lanyards

Spose I could uncrooked, uncurve, and unsideways the text. It's gonna be a tight squeeze in some places though. I'll see what I can do

I say uncurve them all, and keep as many as possible horizontal. If it won't fit normally, well just have to suck it up.

--lanyards

Alright, I'll bring out v3.5 today sometime with non-curvy option.

[e_i_pi]

On the backburner for a few days while I work on Tournament Toolkit, and some private contracting work that's edging to be finished.

[e_i_pi]

Map version 3.5 is up. See OP for list of changes

[bigimg]http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll71/e_i_pi/Antarcticav35.jpg[/bigimg]

[Emperor_Metalman]

The Peninusla should have more borders. One border is not enough.
Also, East Antarctica has too many borders.

The idea with the ships is good, but each ship should be able to attack every continent to prevent one player from gaining too much advantage on the initial drop

[e_i_pi]

The Peninusla should have more borders. One border is not enough.
Also, East Antarctica has too many borders.

The idea with the ships is good, but each ship should be able to attack every continent to prevent one player from gaining too much advantage on the initial drop

Peninsula has two borders: Pine Island -> Thwaite... and Ronne -> Thwiate and Heritage

As for East Antarctica, I might extend Shirase to cover up to the coast, and extend Princess Elizabeth to go to the mountains.

Re: the ships, I would prefer if they attacked only two specific provinces each. I've set it up so that each player can reach the pole within 5 moves minimum, and every path to the pole crosses at least one other players path. If I had the ships landing anywhere, everyone would go for Recovery and Support Force, making 80% of the map redundant, kind of like AoR, which I want to avoid.

[e_i_pi]

[bigimg]http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll71/e_i_pi/Antarcticav40.jpg[/bigimg]

*Bump* Version 4 is up.

The graphics are finished for the draft stage
Tentative bonuses are in
Legends / titles / etc are in
All ships are in
Ready for community consultation on the finer points of the map

[Juan_Bottom]

Ok, I just have to say this again.....
The contries that you have chosen are all caucasian ones, save one. No Asian or Black nations will have power in 2060? It just feels wrong to me....


The ships can only be attacked via the South Pole?

[foregone]

Been a while since I popped in here and its looking really nice, like the legend and the news flash bonus thingy, very cool.

Ok, I just have to say this again.....
The contries that you have chosen are all caucasian ones, save one. No Asian or Black nations will have power in 2060? It just feels wrong to me....


The ships can only be attacked via the South Pole?

On that, not that I think countries are divided by race at all (what is a Black nation?), but since RSA is one of the few countries at this stage with a permanent outpositing there and its just so much closer than most, I though you would've included it. Sorry, I realise I should have said this earlier along the process

[e_i_pi]

Ok, I just have to say this again.....
The contries that you have chosen are all caucasian ones, save one. No Asian or Black nations will have power in 2060? It just feels wrong to me....


The ships can only be attacked via the South Pole?

I've decided to run with just a straight colonisation type map based on the countries that lay claim over the Antarctic. Unfortunately, I dropped Chile, to make room for both USA and Russia. No African or Asian countries lay claim over Antarctica.

Argentina, Australia, Britain, Chile, France, New Zealand and Norway have Antarctic territories, or lay claim over Antarctic territory, which can be seen here. I dropped Chile for two reasons - firstly, their claim is in almost exactly the same place as Britain and Argentina, secondly, I needed to make way for Russia and USA, whose omittance would be egregious.

I had only 2 countries left that I could include, so I included Russia and USA as both those nations reserve the right to make a claim. I appreciate that there are many fine countries around the world that take interest in the Antarctic, but there are only 8 ships (for gameplay purposes), and I have to go with what are the logical and rational choices. South Africa, while being a nation that strongly pursues interests in Antarctica, does not lay claim, or reserve the right to lay claim. If you argue for South Africa, then you must also argue for Brazil, India, China, Uruguay, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Peru, South Korea, Ecuador, Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, as they all have consultative status in regards to Antarctica.

And yes the fleets can only be attacked from the South Pole. Gives everyone time to get on land, then pursue an objective to put a stranglehold on the other players / other team.

[wcaclimbing]

[adv. idea]



... just need a CA to come sticky this.

[Emperor_Metalman]

The Peninusla should have more borders. One border is not enough.
Also, East Antarctica has too many borders.

The idea with the ships is good, but each ship should be able to attack every continent to prevent one player from gaining too much advantage on the initial drop

Peninsula has two borders: Pine Island -> Thwaite... and Ronne -> Thwiate and Heritage(It looked slightly unclear on the map)

As for East Antarctica, I might extend Shirase to cover up to the coast, and extend Princess Elizabeth to go to the mountains.

Re: the ships, I would prefer if they attacked only two specific provinces each. I've set it up so that each player can reach the pole within 5 moves minimum, and every path to the pole crosses at least one other players path. If I had the ships landing anywhere, everyone would go for Recovery and Support Force, making 80% of the map redundant, kind of like AoR, which I want to avoid.I meant having the ships landing in one territory per continent

Otherwise, nice job on the update

.

[e_i_pi]

The Peninusla should have more borders. One border is not enough.
Also, East Antarctica has too many borders.

The idea with the ships is good, but each ship should be able to attack every continent to prevent one player from gaining too much advantage on the initial drop

Peninsula has two borders: Pine Island -> Thwaite... and Ronne -> Thwiate and Heritage(It looked slightly unclear on the map)

As for East Antarctica, I might extend Shirase to cover up to the coast, and extend Princess Elizabeth to go to the mountains.

Re: the ships, I would prefer if they attacked only two specific provinces each. I've set it up so that each player can reach the pole within 5 moves minimum, and every path to the pole crosses at least one other players path. If I had the ships landing anywhere, everyone would go for Recovery and Support Force, making 80% of the map redundant, kind of like AoR, which I want to avoid.I meant having the ships landing in one territory per continent

Otherwise, nice job on the update

.

Yeah, I might ditch the island-archipelago structure around where Peninsula joins up with West Antarctica / Marie Byrd Land, as it's kind of ambiguous at the moment.

The ships landing points and game balance / imbalance is something that needs a fair amount of community discussion, which I'll try to start up soon

[yeti_c]

i figure its gonna be a desert by 2060... so you should incorporate that

Just to point out - Antartica is already a Desert.

C.

[yeti_c]

And on topic - Loving the map - but you're gonna have to make those flags easier to see - the difference between Aus, NZ & Blighty is seriously small (more so for Aus & NZ of course)

C.

[InkL0sed]

I think you should add a slight glow around the earth, or maybe have some kind of lighting effect instead.

[e_i_pi]

And on topic - Loving the map - but you're gonna have to make those flags easier to see - the difference between Aus, NZ & Blighty is seriously small (more so for Aus & NZ of course)

(EDIT)
I've just done a little more research, it turns out that Australia use their own flag to represent their Antarctic territory, and New Zealand (who claim Ross Territory - not shown on my map) have a proposed flag visible here.

So, Britain would retain their mostly white Antarctic flag, Australia would have the navy blue flag, New Zealand would have the sky blue flag.

Also, I have to make the French Antarctic flag a little more visible against the sea and legend backgrounds, possibly by lightening the flag a little in both cases.

Thank you very much for your input here

[e_i_pi]

I think you should add a slight glow around the earth, or maybe have some kind of lighting effect instead.

Totally. I haven't even begun on the ocean texturing, the latitude/longitude lines, or the "outer space" bit.

Currently, the overlay texture on the land is just a stock setting in Photoshop. i will likely use this image as the overlay texture rather than the silky/milky texture that's on there at the moment.

The sea is currently three layers, and while I don't mind the "shape" of the layers, they really need a lot of work to get them where I want them (eg - subtle inner glows to fade nicely with the next layer, fractal ripple effects to break up the block colour, etc)

Also, the earth will be surrounded by an atmospheric glow, similar to what can be seen here. I am still tossing up whether to have the sun in there, or whether that will cheapen the entire image.

[MrBenn]

e_i_pi, could you post your latest image in the thread as well as in the first post; it makes it easier to see which comments refer to which version

Some of the region colours are a bit too similar to one another - I'm mainly thinking about the purple/red area, particularly as they border one another.

The new wording for the South Pole bombard rule makes more sense, and I do like the 'newsflash' style. I think that some people may struggle to match up the colours to the regions; is there any way you can add the region names to the playable map??

I understand the reason why you're making the South Pole territory unable to attack its neighbours; but it seems a little unnecessary to me... You could have some sort of South Pole command station that can only be attacked by the South Pole terr; and the command centre can launch the bombardments... that might make a bit more sense to the 'story' of the map?

[e_i_pi]

e_i_pi, could you post your latest image in the thread as well as in the first post; it makes it easier to see which comments refer to which version

Done, apologies for that

Some of the region colours are a bit too similar to one another - I'm mainly thinking about the purple/red area, particularly as they border one another.

Agreed 100%. Thankfully, I've done the province layers in a way that I can simply flood fill them with a new colour. I plan on making all the colours different, and 'icier' if that makes sense.

The new wording for the South Pole bombard rule makes more sense, and I do like the 'newsflash' style. I think that some people may struggle to match up the colours to the regions; is there any way you can add the region names to the playable map??

That's going to be difficult, but this is definitely noted as a problem with the map. I'll get to this a bit later. Maybe if the colours change, that might remedy it enough, though I won't count on it.

I understand the reason why you're making the South Pole territory unable to attack its neighbours; but it seems a little unnecessary to me... You could have some sort of South Pole command station that can only be attacked by the South Pole terr; and the command centre can launch the bombardments... that might make a bit more sense to the 'story' of the map?

Yep, agree 100%. I was thinking of this exact concept (a station within the province itself). I could either have the station as a single province, OR have the South Pole province on a separate minimap, with 4-6 provinces inside it, similar to the railway stations in Bamboo Jack. I'm going to leave this part of the map until later, as I want to get the graphics tidied up a bit more.

Comments greatly appreciated, thanks for the input MB, I'll update 1st post with the suggestions now

[MrBenn]

I understand the reason why you're making the South Pole territory unable to attack its neighbours; but it seems a little unnecessary to me... You could have some sort of South Pole command station that can only be attacked by the South Pole terr; and the command centre can launch the bombardments... that might make a bit more sense to the 'story' of the map?

Yep, agree 100%. I was thinking of this exact concept (a station within the province itself). I could either have the station as a single province, OR have the South Pole province on a separate minimap, with 4-6 provinces inside it, similar to the railway stations in Bamboo Jack. I'm going to leave this part of the map until later, as I want to get the graphics tidied up a bit more.

I'm not too worried about the graphics for now; I'd much rather this debate was sorted
Is there enough space on the non-playable area for a command centre/station?

[e_i_pi]

I'm not too worried about the graphics for now; I'd much rather this debate was sorted
Is there enough space on the non-playable area for a command centre/station?

The area to the right of the legend is reserved for a small impassables / one-way attack legend (just below the USA ship).

I'm considering rotating the entire map, though I'm skeptical as to whether this will actually create more usable space. I'd like to avoid clutter, and having areas of ocean that are blank helps in this aesthetic regard.

There is room to shift the entire map left about 15-20 pixels, and up another 15-20 pixels or so, which may create enough space in the bottom right in order to have a mini-map showing continent bonuses and/or continent names. I'd prefer to retain the two news tickers for aesthetic reasons, so naming the continents may the the way to go with the mini-map.

Um, this doesn't answer the command station issue *doh*... brb with a reply to that

[e_i_pi]

Ok, currently, in terms of gameplay, South Pole can be attacked from 4 provinces, 3 of those provinces being vulnerable from different areas of the map, one being a 'landlocked' (or more precisely, territory-locked) province.

If I had a command station that could only be attacked from South Pole province, that would create a choke point, which I am trying to avoid. Maybe just put a command station graphic there? I certainly don't want a 1-province border to the bombard point

[edbeard]

how about it's not part of that bonus area and you have one-way arrows going towards that territory so it's more noticeable?