Conquer Club

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?

1 Picture tells more than a 1000 words...

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?

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?

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.

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?

Yeah I punched the numbers into a calculator a long time ago. Since then there has been a lot of tweaking with the bonuses. I've played about 6 or 7 games on this map and have adjusted the bonuses a little each time according to changes that have been made on the map. They might seem a little high but I like games with bigger troop drops, so that's more in the category of personal preference.

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?

It kind of makes sense, but just as a visual choice I think it reads better with the cities there, so I'm keeping them where they are.

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:

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.

Ah, that makes a bit of sense. I'll try and get some time to get my head around it properly in the coming days

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.

Listen to him - RJ IS THE MAN!

Well, I'm kind of experiencing technical difficulties. I made this little guy for the visualized road bonuses, but It's not really fitting in well with the rest of the composition. I mean I can make it fit but then all the detail is so tiny that it isn't really useful for making the bonuses clear. I don't know I'll play around with it more and try to make it work. I'd hate to let this pretty little map go to waste, but If I can't find a balance between size an legibility I'm going to have to just stick with the written out bonuses explanation. At least I'll be able to say I tried... and wasted 3 hours.

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

Ok, I added the counters to the small map now. Also you'll notice that the glow I put behind the Road bonus counter is different, which do you guy's prefer?

It's never a waste if you learned something

I guess I learned... we'll I don't know what I learned but I hope you guess can at least enjoy looking at that map for what it is. It kind of shows the geography in a more detailed way, I thought that was kind of a nice touch.

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.

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.

just curious, like what?

Oh damn! you know what I just noticed. The Ifnal-South Livonia road bonus is still at 4. I thought I lowwered that to 3 a while ago. well I don't know if that changes much but I'll drop that one down for sure.

Don't Say Ifnal that stays at 3. I could be convinced that Livonia could be dropped down to 3 however since it's in the middle of the map 4 seems fair to me.

Yep, that glow is much better. 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
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.

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.

Summary:
Livonia +4 to +3
Ithernia +2 to +1
Solonabirsk +3 to +4
Skyatica +4 to +3
Caprinthia +6 to +5
Arleus - N Frontier Road bonus +5 total to +6 total

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.

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.

...Shit...

ok, you have some really good points in there and I'm going to abide a few of them. I'm just afraid of opening a "pandoras box". Where as soon as I go back and adjust one gameplay aspect the door will be opened and I'll never get back on track because I'll be too flooded with suggestions. Any way on to what I agree with and what I don't:

Dropping Livonia to +3: Like I said I'm willing to do that but as I said it's dead center in the map so it's still hard to hold (or more so hard to grab in the first place) since it's the source of so much traffic. I'd like to hear a few more peoples opinions on that subject. I will be asking my friends who have played on the map and whose opinions I respect dearly (they know who they are).

Dropping Itherania to +1: Pass, it's just too low, sort of generates a "why bother" effect.

Dropping Skyatica to +3 and Raising Solonabirsk to +4: That is the most sound thing I have ever heard. I will definitely be doing that, I amazed the thought hadn't occurred to me already.

Dropping Caprinthia to +5: Yeah I think I could live with that. I'm going to go ahead and do it and if my friends whose opinions I respect dearly disagree strongly I'll change it back.

Raising Arleus-N. Frontier to +6: I think I'll be passing on that on as well. My resoning is that by the time anyone gets around to considering grabbing that long long long track of land it is only because they have a few bonuses already under their belt or in a position where they can be that confident. They don't need another +1.

Any way back to graphics

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.

what about just lowering the opacity a little bit. I'll tell you what I'm going to go ahead and do that and you can tell me what you think.

Yep, that glow is much better.

I assume you are talking about the 600x600 version

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.

testlines? I'm afraid I'm not exactly clear what you mean by that?

Ok I already posted the new version.

Changes:

Solonabisk raised to +4

Skyactica dropped to +3

Caprinthia dropped to +5

Ifnal-South Livonia dropped to +3

Skyatica's colored darkened a little bit more (to make it more visibly distinct from Solonabirsk)

The glow behind the road bonuses changed on the 800x800 version.

The opacity of the castles lowwered to 60%

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.

Yeah I remember making those changes. At some point on of the versions lost those changes, I'm not really sure how? I think it was when I added the castles.

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.

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.

The only parts of the map key that have to match the real map are the bonus territories, so things like the green I'm leaving out of the key because there isn't enough room for the detail. I might change the color of the water in the key just to make things a bit more visible and distinct.

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.

I'll try and make those castles a little more visible. The grass (as well as the rest of the map) is water color, that's why it looks like that. I dunno, I think that your issues with the geographical touches (the green) lie far in the realm of personal preference. I like the green regions and no one else has complained about them (I can't remember but I think a few people mentioned liking it). Also they don't affect gameplay so unless hordes of people agree with you I'm just gonna let well enough be on that one.

Any Way it seems that at this point the majority of the comments involve matching, and adjusting colors, so before I start doing that could someone please run the color blind test on this, so that can take that into consideration when I start making those adjustments?

http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckImage.php

the protanope/deuteranope simulations are the important ones. Tritanope is so rare it doesn't really matter...

The results of the poll, which was over ages ago...

Should there be road bonuses?
16 votes and 44% for No Roads
17 votes and 47% for Having roads
3 votes and 8% for Do not create

Here's the result of the color blind test. Honestly I can't tell the difference between the two. I think their are a few regions that look sorta close like Arleus and Ifnal, maybe the Desert and Itherania, but their not too bad. I dunno what do you guys think, anything too close?