Limes

[Permafrost]

We (a group of tow or three conquer club players) are about to make a map focued on good old Imperium Romanum and Germania with their well known border, the Limes. Our goal is to pronounce the difference in gaining Boni and troup movement at both sides of the Limes. It should be harder to pass through German terratories but easier downstream rivers. Their will be ways to attack with a fleet as well as one way attacks at the Limes. It is not sure yet if Romans will be easy to conquer (from interior) and easy to hold but with less bonuses. It's also not fully clear how to distribute bonuses in Germania. Maybe Romans will be the standard continents/provinces as in most conquerclub games and in Germania their are numerous of small bonuses. You collect latter while you are on your way, raid some neighbours and Romans and have a good time winning this game. Ok it's not that easy (as always) but it might give you a idea where we are aiming to.

XML-file

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[10.03.11] Almost every single last wish is fullfilled. But üixalated text is a question fo taste as we say in Germany and benefits the readability. The name will be changed another time to something with "AD ..." in it.

Click image to enlarge.

---|Small version|---
---|Small version with army numbers|---


[09.03.11] Wow, another update and another upgrade of readability. I've changed the the method for creating smaller map versions. Now they look like higher resolution with clearer Text (reminds me of old PC games ). We discussed about and erased one territory of Frisioni. There is also sporatically more space in territories. Roman interior boundaries along rivers now should be visible. The greenish german continents now have more different background colors. But more crucial: The army circles came back on stage but with a different more open look. The purpose is to help distinguishing between territory names and army numbers. As you can see this did something (but not everything). Maybe we don't have a choice and must except that this will stay a little bit irritating.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_10_s.png
---|Small version !!!with army numbers!!!|---


[19.01.11] The big business update has arrived. I've fixed a lot of things which were mentioned by the map team and which troubled us too. The (for gameplay) useless, only graphical mountains and rivers are now transparent or stroke. German territories are now wider at many sites as well as GS4 in Rome. Hopefully, this will solve the army number problem. Ritual places and Roman forts stay the only territories with cyrcles. German continents are colored now for easier distinction. We've opned up the southeaternmost connection between Romans and Germans to attack in both direction because Noricum and Raetia seemed to a too good winning position.

Normal starting neutrals (3), except for Ritual places (1) and sea territories (1)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_09_s.png
---|Small version|---


[30.12.10] That's the map we have printed and played on. There will be a lot of changes next time due to our fresh experiences in gameplay, etc.. Look forward!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_print_s.png


[30.12.10] Here we go again. I did many small changes like put a gradient onto the river systems to point out where the thing goes downstream. The colours of some notations on the map are different now as well as there have been some changes at the legend. The biggest advance are bigger dots as background of unit numbers. Additionally, they are a little bit more transparent now. I hope I solved the the problem with forests, swamps and grazing lands. They became easier to distinguish from the unit corridors in between and I reduced the shadow effects so there is more visvible corridor space now.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_08_s.png


[26.12.10] Mission readability proceeds + current version of our XML-file.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_07_s.png


[26.12.10] Ok, i rather liked the clouds but in the end with everything else on the map it really made things confusing. So i decided to get rid of them. However, the biggest advance in respect to the least map preview is the new and hope easy legend. Now, everyone should be able to discuss about the gameplay and don't hestitate to tell us mapping beginners what we should prevent.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_06_s.png


[19.12.10] Just to let you know that it's not dead :
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_05_s.png


[30.11.10] Only a few changes but we made up our mind about how the Romans will work in comparison to Germans. They have autodeploy on their forts (spiky points) and relativly small bonuses. They have less terretories and, thus, are better and faster to pass to reach far terretories and allow interaction (most interesting for multiple player games). As you can see, there are almost no two-way-attacks between Romans and Germans but one-way-attacks. The sea path is a hard choice: On the one hand you may be able to bypass other German terretories in both direction, but on the hand your troops are threatend by getting reduced to 1 each round on every sea terretory (we wanne reduce the amount of sea terretories to make this way more convincing). With everything together you'll have a great veriety of playing styles just because of troop mobility (i.e.: don't leave troops at sea when you play adjacent). Highlighted points at German side mark spots with ritual places (+1 bonus but no autodeploy) And here comes the current image:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_04_s.png


[21.11.10] Mhhrm, looks better now. It looks like there will be bonuses for German tribes too:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview_03_s.png


[13.11.10] Here is the first scatch:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13547611/Limes_preview.png

[Industrial Helix]

Interesting idea and a cool one at that. But there are a few problems which you should be able to fix.

All your territories need names.
You need to explain the sea territories.
Will there be bonuses? If so, how will they work?
A little paragraph explaining the map would be a good use of that free space.
Do the Germans have some sort of base or hq from which to work with.

Overall, its an interesting idea and I look forward to seeing it develop.

[Permafrost]

Thank you for your feedback. The Legend is uncomplete at the moment as well as the bonuses. We just wanted to show up with our idea (funny thing the limes is'nt inside yet ) to get some first reaponse likes yours.

[Permafrost]

Update (see first post)

[Arama86n]

wow, for a first post it's already looking incredibly interesting
Best of luck with this.

[Teflon Kris]

wow, for a first post it's already looking incredibly interesting
Best of luck with this.

I agree

Keep it up, this is lookin good.

[Permafrost]

Is it advisable in this case to place onlz colored (terretory)numbers instead of the full terretory name as combination of one or two characters?

For example:
For the moment, we are using C1, C2 for both map graphics and code (which appears while choosing where to attack in gameplay).
But, it migt be way better if we just put numbers on the map (1,2,3,...) and during gameplay they will be named like Cheruski 1 or at leat C1. As a consequence there would be more space on our map image to put in huger numbers (for people with limited sight).

What do you think?

[Arama86n]

I don't see any need to change it if your happy the way it is. To be honest, having the map show "ANgrivari" with AN highlightet, and then all the regions of that bonus called An1 An2 etc makes perfect sense, and will make the map & drop-down list easy to navigate.

Now, Industrial Helix is in the foundry team, I'm not lol, but surely there isn't a rule stating that the territories have to have names? Can somone in BLUE please clarify on this?

Edit; examples; In Oasis the desert regions are only numbered, in Hive the regions have only a letter and number, conquer4 & conquerman naturally, chinese checkers etc

[Permafrost]

Update

[jigger1986]

This map looks like when its done it will be awsome. Please continue!

[natty dread]

Nice first draft. Really, good job. Ok, now that the mandatory compliments are out of the way, here come the critics:

The clouds are unnecessary and distracting. They obscure parts of the playing area with no purpose but to look fancy. Functionality should always be more important than fancy looks, so I suggest removing them.

Also you'll need to improve on the clarity of the map. It's a jumble of colours currently. Everything is in the same level of focus and saturation, therefore making it hard to tell which territory connects to which. You should make more effort to differentiate non-playable area from playable, by using some kind of contrast - for example, the playable area can be lighter than nonplayable, or it can be sharper while non-playable is blurrier, or the colours can be less saturated - the point is, you'll need some sort of contrast on the map. IMO the best solution would be to lower the saturation and increase the brightness on the playable area, and decrease the brightness of the impassables and non-playable area.

The mountains also need some work - the overlay mode isn't working that well since the borders show through the mountains. You should add a layer of colour under them. And what function does the second mountain (on the right) have? Does it block passage between something? It's not entirely clear.

[Teflon Kris]

The clouds are unnecessary and distracting.

Maybe true for this map - although I have a map idea I would like to share with you where the clouds would be necessary.

[natty dread]

I'm listening...

[Arama86n]

I dunno Natty, unless it's really necessary, I'd want the clouds there, they really add a special feel to the map, and are part of making the graphics quite unique.

[Industrial Helix]

I rather like the clouds... the big thing that bugs me are all the photoshop filters and and the annoying patterns they make. Try making a standard map of just colors and lines for a start and then worry about making it fancy in the graphics workshop. Right now I'm having a hard time working out the gameplay because I'm being assaulted by so many various shades of green and computer generated patterns.

[Permafrost]

Ok, next update will contain both a more clear structured map with and without fancy graphics to make it easier to understand. I also like the clouds (half-3D-looking-at-a-tiny-world-feeling ) although it would makes things harder for people with worse eyesight (I'm wearing glasses too). The optical atmosphere of a map is one part of the whole gameplay and there are at leat a few of other maps around which are as hardn as to figure out. I will darken the unpassables in northwest because I too was unsure about how good they can be distinguished from the passable corridors.

Thank you for helping!

[Permafrost]

Small Update

[Permafrost]

Update

[Industrial Helix]

I'm still having a very hard time reading the map... think you can do a flat version with no drop shadows? Everything is all 3d on top of 3d and I can't read it.

River territories are pretty hard to make sense of because they're on a skinny river....

The biggest thing that is confusing as hell is the grazing lands, swamps and forests... I can't tell what is what. For simplicity's sake, combing them into one style of impassable. Make it a large black line or something obvious.

Also, start posting your updated versions as a separate post as well as updating the first page.

[Permafrost]

Do you mean, that the river is too hard to see? That might be. I wanted to make everything look semi-real because there are a lot of other maps around which look more or less plain - just like maps. And when it comes to German terretories: It is everything about watching the borders. At least them could be seen clearly and there is only a small area which may be of less readability (with grazing land). I, personally, have no problems with identifying 3D and I think, most of the players won't as well. Only the river-sea transition and the border to swamps (swamps are a higher level than settlements) don't fit the reality scheme. For the swamps this was necessary to not confuse. The transition into the sea is just a detail thing

I propose to make rivers more clear in the next update but to let the impassables are what they are in return. There are forests, there are swamps and something summed up as grazing land. It's just a more differentiated map which follows the overall rules of conquerclub with passables and impassables, deploys and bonuses, borders and terretories.

[Permafrost]

[26.12.10] Mission readability proceeds + current version of our XML-file.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

I concur with IH. This map needs a lot more clarity...

Rivers: if they do nothing in the roman area, why have them there at all? They're just distracting and confusing.

Then you have these territories separated by yellow borders, along with rivers crisscrossing them, and army circles and territory names on top of it all... you see where I'm going with this? It's hard to grasp how the territories connect, it's not instantly obvious... the boundaries of bonus areas are not clear, and the same can be said for some territories... I think this is the main problem you need to focus on.

Think about simplifying the concept a bit. Could you accomplish the type of gameplay you are going for with a simpler visual outlook? Also think about taking some artistic license with the geography in order to make the map more readable.

[Permafrost]

One problem might the distiction between Romans and Germans. They work different or if we put it this way: German territories are more complicated and use more features. But I don't want people to think, that the Rhine ends halfway ore the Black Forest don't exist. They are part of the historical setting and some equivalent features like the mountains in southwest and many rivers in Germany are implemented too. Most of the other maps don't get into that dispute because they use only special points for transportation, bonuses, etc. at most. It might be the better and easier way but it doesn't fit our goal this time.

And you are right. The Roman side has many more or less small uncertainties - I will find a way to fix this. But for German territories, mh, you see where the borders are. They are channeled in lighter corridors between three different impassables which are based on historical facts and they give some feeling. Just watch the white dots and how they connect on the map. There are a lot of other maps around which do not allow everyone to get a great whole overview and know everything in details. The players have to find it out and have to put their own strategies on the line. And there is a strategy behind understanding how to look at the map. It is like reading a book. So many letters, so many lines and dots and so on but everyone gets an idea how to read it sucessfull. The same goes for maps.I can understand that some people have a hard time to read it, so I have when I look at Hive, Feudal War, etc.. But this is not the same as being unable to have fun playing this maps.

[Permafrost]

I hope this helps evaluating:

Click image to enlarge.

[Industrial Helix]

Ok, every territory should be able to fit both the name and the numbers comfortably... because you need to accommodate a small version as well.

Next the yellow lines need to go in favor of something that fits the territory better. They're too thick and the contrast just makes them an eyesore to look at. Try a light green at 3 px wide.

The whole rivers attacking downstream seems redundant as most territories attack downstream anyways. There's a few that don't, but why not just open up the connection through the forests to make it so and spare yourself some unnecessary complication. The same thing applies to the red dotted lines through the woods... just make them a regular connection through the woods. You can keep it the same for the sea though, that makes sense.