Conquer Club

This is my first attempt at designing a map -- so I'm a little lost on the procedures that the professionals usually take. I'm up for some constructive criticism if anyone has any.

I got the idea for the Corridor from when I was using the Via train, and from other travels that friends or myself took across these amazing routes.

QWC v0.2a7

v0.2a6 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/Sikauran/QWC2A6.png?t=1255708581
v0.2a5 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/Sikauran/QWC2A5.png?t=1254316551
v0.a4 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/Sikauran/QWCA4.png?t=1254093152
v0.a3 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/Sikauran/QWCA3.png?t=1255723121
v0.a2 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/Sikauran/QWCA2.png?t=1255722715
v0.a1 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/Sikauran/QWCA1.png?t=1255723036

There are a bunch of places where there is not enough room for army numbers. Also, the font is hard to read. More advise later.

New aditions to the map: Drummondville, and Bancroft.

I am still having dificulties with finding the right font. If anyone has advice about this, please tell me, I am open for any suggestions at this point.

Hello - Welcome to CC and the Foundry

About the map, i think that the main problem is that you have to cover a big area.
Everything is very small, too small for a large version.
In the same time you have a lot of unused space inthe upper and lower parts of the map.
Try to zoom everything, use a bigger fonts, add a title, increase legend size are some good things to do to start working on your map.

You should find some useful information in the following threads:

Drafting Room Guidelines
How to make a map
Mapmaker's guide to the foundry
Mapmaking tools
Giving and receiving feedback

Nobodies

Thanks for the advice nobodies.

In the mean time, I've:
- ADDED Army Circles;
- CHANGED to a better Font;
- REVISED Bonuses, based on values given by a Bonus Calculator.

Things I still have to do:
- ADD Legend Items; Title;
- CROP spaces at Top and Bottom;
- Make necessary Adjustments where needed.

Well, the army circles need to be a bit bigger, I tried adding some army numbers and they didn't fit in the circles, they sort of just covered the circles.

Yes, the imgs all have been 1024x640px or 960x640px until I save them through photobucket which compresses them down to 800px wide.

I've attempted to resize the image to the optimum 840x800px, though photobucket still wont allow anything larger than 800px wide.

I've left v0.a4 to compare it against v0.2a5.

A whole lot more readable! Instead of having the army circles and the diamonds for each town, go ahead and remove the diamonds and put the army circles in their place. This will make the map less cluttered. Are you going to color the background any? It looks a little bland right now without any color (besides the city names). Maybe you could do an inset of the golden horseshoe and add a couple more cities that are in it. You have room to do it.

After much frustration, I think I have a solution to the tight confinement and the large empty areas: Maybe if I made an exploded section or sections of the tight areas like the Golden Horseshoe. This should give more room for everything like the army circles without clutering over the routes; keeping the pathways understandable.

NuclearMarathon wrote:After much frustration, I think I have a solution to the tight confinement and the large empty areas: Maybe if I made an exploded section or sections of the tight areas like the Golden Horseshoe. This should give more room for everything like the army circles without clutering over the routes; keeping the pathways understandable.

That will work! Now let's see it!

This looks like it has some serious potential. Let me mount an offensive I haven't for several months.

Gameplay
- The bonus regions feel a little bit inflated. Granted the Golden Horseshoe has a lot of connections, but 8 territories for a +7 bonus? Most of the others are similarly excessive. I would say bias toward low-bonus for the entire map and introduce a few other ways to gain bonuses (like auto-deploy territories, or "Main Hub" bonuses scattered about the map, you appear to have territories of this variety already around, add a bonus).
- The present font is actually readable on account of being sans-serif, but it's a little small. I've seen your ideas to add breakout boxes for the more congested areas, so that should help with both the font and your other issues.
- The bonus colors are different enough to be differentiated...assuming you're not colorblind in some way. Perhaps add a minimap or some other cue for what area is where (like text on the map as a region name).
- Having a negative bonus for anywhere (Bancroft in this case) is a major non-incentive to ever hold it, and could even put someone to drop it at a permanent disadvantage. Instead, have it start as a neutral of 3 or so. That'll lower incentive to hit it early on, but not keep it practically ignored by anyone struggling for a bonus.

Graphics
- I like the diamonds. Seriously. They're poignant and non-distracting, and they're different from the umpteen-zillion maps on CC that have army-circled subway lines or something similar. Just figure out how to space them well enough to have sufficiently-large army circles.
- The entire map is clean, which is a major plus for a map this early on. I like the good design flow, and while it may be a little bit blank at points, you certainly can improve that in time instead of having to figure out what to take out where. Keep with the simple colors and themes, and rely on that for the map's beauty.
- A title is required. Your original draft had one, but I think you can one-up that with some subway-related imagery or perhaps some symbolism of Quebec. Be creative with your title, I've always used the title as an inspiration for the rest of the map's appearance.

I believe that is sufficient to keep you busy. Behold, even the most dormant army can sometimes mobilize and get you
.

ooh, I like the end line . Much better than when it was just "Consider this attacked"

Working on the exploded sections, but photoshop has a habit of crashing more often for this specific map. -- Progress has been slow.

I agree with TaCktiX about the diamonds. Enlarging them to serve as the backdrop for the troop numbers instead of the usual circle would be a novelty that should count for something in the Foundry.

And I also agree that a separate visual cue for the bonus zones would help, so I suggest that you use not just diamonds, but different shapes for each zone (apart from the Corridor, which consists of regions from other zones, no?). Off the top of my head, I can imagine diamonds, squares (same shape, but rotated), triangles pointing up, triangles pointing down, pentagons, hexagons, octagons, and circles. Any of these could also be stretched horizontally to accommodate 888 (or n888) better.

It looks like you have underlined the endpoints of water routes. Is that worth mentioning or at least depicting in the legend, say by putting sample city names on the waterway in the legend?

As far as Bancroft and its negative bonus is concerned, I have no problem. That feature is well utilized in the Dust Bowl map and keeps you thinking. But I am wondering why you chose to use it here. Do you see Bancroft as a vital point on the map which players should struggle to hold, or do you just not like the place, perhaps because you were forced to spend a week there one day?

Ok, a new version with the exploded section added.

And thanks to Ender to finding a spelling mistake with Cobourg

This looks much better.
It is clear and readable, and seems like a fun map to play.
Just a tip, add the version number in the title to let people know there is an update.
Also, now you might want to work on making the background more interesting, maybe a picture of Windsor or Quebec City in a corner or something.
What is so bad about Bancroft that it has a -1?

Looking really good NM!! I'd go with what Taxtic said about using the diamonds for the army numbers instead of the circles, as they would fit in with what you have.

A couple of suggestions here. Change the name of Northeastern Ontario to either North Central Ontario or Canadian Shield. Also I agree with CW, add a picture of either Quebec City or Windsor or both. I think the rest of the background can remain as is as you already have a lot going on.

For the Bonuses, maybe they should be as follows:

The Quebec City - Windsor Corridor +24
Greenbelt +10
Southwestern Ontario +6
Northeastern Ontario +5
Saint Lawrence +5
Ottawa Valley +6
Thousand Islands +7
Golden Horseshoe +9

Is Kingston on the corridor or off? It looks as if though it is off of the corridor. VIA's map shows it on the corridor. If so, maybe you can place Kingston right on the corridor.

That's all I have for now, so keep up the good work

I doubt how well this map can be shrunk down to a small version considering how close together some of the circles are.

Revised Bonuses:
4 - Saint Lawrence
5 - Ottawa Valley
1 - Bancroft
5 - Thousand Islands
4 - Northeastern Ontario
9 - Greenbelt
6 - Golden Horseshoe
5 - Southwestern Ontario

However, bonuses and graphical details really shouldn't worried about until it gets to final forge. Speaking of which, I think this map should be ready to be approved to the next level of development.

I agree that this map is ready for its draft stamp.

Evil DIMwit wrote:I doubt how well this map can be shrunk down to a small version considering how close together some of the circles are.

I'm thinking about the same thing...

[Moved]

It would appear that development of this map has stalled. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Foundry Moderators will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.