Nordic Countries [Quenched]

[isaiah40]

Mountains are much better, now there is no doubt as to which territory borders what!

Toilet paper? Charmin comes to mind

[natty dread]

Ok, tried several different textures. They looked really cool but didn't really work with the visual style. I might show them some time, just to show off...

Anyway here's one I came up with that I think looks decent. I mean the one on the playable area, I put this old texture on the neutral area just to show how neat it is to differentiate the neutral area from playable with texture...

[bigimg]http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9586/northeuropev24f.png[/bigimg]

[ender516]

Ok, tried several different textures. They looked really cool but didn't really work with the visual style. I might show them some time, just to show off...

Anyway here's one I came up with that I think looks decent. I mean the one on the playable area, I put this old texture on the neutral area just to show how neat it is to differentiate the neutral area from playable with texture...

You're right, that is a good way to distinguish playable from non-playable, but I think generally the non-playable texture should be plainer than the playable.

[natty dread]

You're right, that is a good way to distinguish playable from non-playable, but I think generally the non-playable texture should be plainer than the playable.

This better?

[bigimg]http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3165/northeuropev24g.png[/bigimg]

[isaiah40]

I think that the no-playable area can have no texture to it. As IMO it detracts from the rest of the map. Maybe lighten it up as well.

[ender516]

I think that the no-playable area can have no texture to it. As IMO it detracts from the rest of the map. Maybe lighten it up as well.

I agree about the texture: non-playable should be dull and boring. But if anything, it should be darker, since the playable areas are primarily light colours, and the sea is basically black.

[natty dread]

Aaah, you guys are confusing me! Lighter, darker, what???

[natty dread]

OK I made both then. Also tried slightly different circles for the capitals...

Lighter:

[bigimg]http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/924/northeuropev24h.png[/bigimg]

Darker:

[bigimg]http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/2131/northeuropev24i.png[/bigimg]

[isaiah40]

Go enders way but with no inner glow/bevel on it. Just make it blah! Then it should be good to go.

[natty dread]

Go enders way but with no inner glow/bevel on it. Just make it blah! Then it should be good to go.

Remove bevel? I'm thinking maybe just reducing the opacity on it... No bevel at all would make it look weird and flat (when all other land has a bevel).

Btw how's the capital circles? Keep them or back to original?

[natty dread]

OK how's this?

[bigimg]http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/634/northeuropev24j.png[/bigimg]

[ManBungalow]

The mini-map could pose difficulties. I think you need to textually explain that holding Northern Sweden and Southern Sweden together gives an additional bonus. Those arrows are hard to understand at first. In fact, it took me a while to realise that Norway is actually two bonuses because the (thicker) bonus edge is so short there.

Also, you may want to re-arrange Denmark a little. I'm not quite sure whether Skane attacks Sjaelland or Kobenhavn and if Fyn attacks Sonderjylland.

I otherwise like the graphics as they are and have a feeling this will be getting the Draft stamp soon.

[natty dread]

The mini-map could pose difficulties. I think you need to textually explain that holding Northern Sweden and Southern Sweden together gives an additional bonus. Those arrows are hard to understand at first. In fact, it took me a while to realise that Norway is actually two bonuses because the (thicker) bonus edge is so short there.

I'll try to fit in a text about it somewhere.

Also, you may want to re-arrange Denmark a little. I'm not quite sure whether Skane attacks Sjaelland or Kobenhavn and if Fyn attacks Sonderjylland.

Skåne attacks Köbenhavn only. I'm not sure what I could do to make the Skåne-Köbenhavn connection more clear... do you have any ideas?

As for Fyn/Sönderjylland, I'll redraw the border between Fyn/Sönderjylland/Århus to make it more clear.

I otherwise like the graphics as they are and have a feeling this will be getting the Draft stamp soon.

Thanks! I certainly hope so. This map has come a long way from what it was in the beginning...

[Peter Gibbons]

I want to ask what might be a stupid question... why is this still in the "Map Ideas" area? This seems fairly developed and everyone knows the direction the map is going in. Does this have to do with the new foundry system or is it just an oversight?

My concern is this: natty_dread has now done 24 versions of this map and we're 16 pages into a discussion. And, quite frankly, only about a dozen or so people have weighed in. It shows dedication to the map that natty_dread is responding to all inquiries and essentially is the author of every other post on this thread. The potential problem with that, though, is fewer people are looking at this map here and in the long-run, it's not a good thing to respond to every single nitpick, which seems to be what is happening right now. I can potentially see some high levels of frustration developing if (to use an example) this map gets pushed in another graphical direction like Japan was after a lot of initial work by the mapmaker.

The bottom line for me is that this map needs to be looked at by more people and longer discussions need to be had in between every single update. That will happen at the next stage. So, I ask... why aren't we at the next stage yet?

[natty dread]

I want to ask what might be a stupid question... why is this still in the "Map Ideas" area? This seems fairly developed and everyone knows the direction the map is going in. Does this have to do with the new foundry system or is it just an oversight?

It's the new foundry system. Design brief has been submitted, now it's up to the moderators to review the briefs and move the maps.

I appreciate your concern, but I'm sure the moderators will start moving maps soon. And if the map needs a new graphical direction in the graphics workshop, then I'll make one. I'm not going to let minor obstacles keep this map from getting quenched...

Anyway, here's version 25.

[bigimg]http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/1860/northeuropev25.png[/bigimg]

[Industrial Helix]

Sorry to be a pain about this... but I still think the texture looks bad. It's too uniform and too big. I look at that and I think, one single photoshop filter... which is usually bad.

And your army dots should be light, not dark. The numbers show up better on light than dark.

I like the mountains though, nice improvement.

Maybe extend the mountains to block Sweden from upper Norway and create a little enclave? Seems like it might be better for gameplay. Then knock Upper Norway down to 3 and bring Upper Sweden down to 3 as well.

South Finland has 10 territories... Up that to maybe 5 as well?

What's the point of having Foroyar in this map?

Are the capitals part of the bonus regions? You should specify this somewhere.

[natty dread]

Sorry to be a pain about this... but I still think the texture looks bad. It's too uniform and too big. I look at that and I think, one single photoshop filter... which is usually bad.

I like this texture, but I can scale it a bit smaller and see if that works better. (Ps. I don't use photoshop, I use Paint.net.)

And your army dots should be light, not dark. The numbers show up better on light than dark.

Lighter circles would actually be worse, when the land colour is so light. If it eases your mind I can put all colours of 88:s on the next image... then we'll see if they need adjusting.

I like the mountains though, nice improvement.

Thanks!

Maybe extend the mountains to block Sweden from upper Norway and create a little enclave? Seems like it might be better for gameplay. Then knock Upper Norway down to 3 and bring Upper Sweden down to 3 as well.

I'll think about it.

South Finland has 10 territories... Up that to maybe 5 as well?

South Finland is already getting 4 when you count the autodeploy. It has 10 territories, true, but only 2 borders to defend...

What's the point of having Foroyar in this map?

This can be read earlier in the thread... in a nutshell, I needed a connection between Denmark and Iceland, to make the gameplay more dynamic. Someone suggested adding Faroe islands as a connector between the two countries and I thought it was a good idea.

Are the capitals part of the bonus regions? You should specify this somewhere.

They are, and good point. I will do this.

Thanks again for your feedback, I'll get working on the changes...

[natty dread]

OK I hate to admit it I.H but you were right about the army circles. In places where the circle needs to be placed outside or on the edge of the land, blue numbers were hard to read. Sure the dark circles looked better, but since form must follow function (check it out, it says so in foundry guidelines!) I played around with luminosity curves.

Extended the mountain to give a longer border between northern norway & sweden.

Added some legend text.

Redid the texture. (made it smaller, otherwise same)

Sprinkled more army numbers on the image!

And trying new frames for Iceland & Faroe.

Forgot to do anything to the bonus values though... but OTOH we might as well wait until Gameplay shack to adjust them, since they surely will be debated there...

Anyway, I call this version 25b:

[bigimg]http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9774/northeuropev25b.png[/bigimg]

[MrBenn]

The Nordic region of Europe provides a solid basis for working towards a geographic map; it's also a bit bigger than some recent maps, which should make for good games with larger numbers of players.

There's a pretty good (and fairly advanced draft of Scandinavia floating around in the recycling bin (it's called 'Scandinavia Rex' or something) which should give you a good idea of the kind of thing you should be aiming for.

Graphically, I have a sneaky suspicion that the current image is still a long way from where a fully Quenched map will be - but you first priority is going to be be to work towards getting your gameplay stamp. There is a lot of potential here - read through the gameplay guide and start balancing and fine-tuning your map.

[moved to Gameplay Workshop]

[natty dread]

Graphically, I have a sneaky suspicion that the current image is still a long way from where a fully Quenched map will be - but you first priority is going to be be to work towards getting your gameplay stamp. There is a lot of potential here - read through the gameplay guide and start balancing and fine-tuning your map.

Wow, thanks for the move. Now this is getting somewhere.

And thanks for that tip about that Scandinavia map. I'm not sure if I've already seen it but I'll check it out.

I have already looked into the gameplay guidelines, and for now I'd like to raise the following points:

Point 1 when considering the 6 capital territories and the glacier, which all should start neutral, there are 55 territories to be divided among players.

The nearest optimal numbers would be 57 or 53, so it's either scrap 2 territories or add 2 more. Or make 2 start neutral, but I kinda wouldn't want to go that route since there will be 7 neutrals anyway.

Adding 2 territories doesn't seem a viable option, the map is already kinda crowded. So: Which two territories should merge to which?

One clear possibility would be Härjedalen -> Dalarna, IMO. (Hope the Swedes won't hate me for this! ) As for the other... Tornio -> some adjacent n. finland territory, not sure which.

Unless anyone has any better suggestions? I'm all ears... I mean, eyes


Point 2 Do we need another bonus area? There are not too many small bonus areas in the map. The old gameplay with the cities had less territories, so with moving to the new system we now have larger bonus areas, and bonuses. The only viable option I can see is dividing Sweden into 3 parts, south, north & middle. Is this a good idea? It would require quite a bit of work, but I'm not opposed to doing it if the majority of the Foundry feels that this is necessary.

[MrBenn]

For completeness, you could consider adding Svalbard, and some other islands?

With the Glacier, there's no reason you would need it to start neutral - Sure it would suck to be dropped it, but there's going to be no real reason for anybody to capture it otherwise?

[natty dread]

For completeness, you could consider adding Svalbard, and some other islands?

With the Glacier, there's no reason you would need it to start neutral - Sure it would suck to be dropped it, but there's going to be no real reason for anybody to capture it otherwise?

Hmm you may have a point about the Glacier. I might just scrap the Glacier territory, and make it an impassable instead. (this would give more room for text in the lower right corner also. two birds...)

A killer neutral would also be a possibility, but again, there'd be no reason to take the territory.

As for Svalbard... I don't think it's a good idea... For one, it would have no place in the gameplay, it would need to be placed in the northern edge or it wouldn't make any sense, and up there, it can't really be used to connect any two territories (unless perhaps Norway and Iceland, but I don't want any more connections on North norway - in fact less would be better).

And if it's only connected to one territory it'll just be a pointless dead-end.

What other islands do you have in mind? Öland (the narrow slip of land between Götaland and Gotland) could be one, possibly. That small Danish island, forgot it's name, was also suggested, but that part is too crowded to add anything, and also, it would not suit the gameplay. It would again, either be a dead end or add a new border to Denmark - the map needs to have a few easily defendable bonus areas.

So I can only see 1 territory added, which would bring the number of starting territories to 56. If I go with your advice and make the Glacier not start neutral we'd have 57, but then... is it really fair for someone to start with a territory with decay? In 8 player games when everyone has a low territory count it might be the thing that costs you the game.

I think merging 2 territories and possibly scrapping the glacier would be the best solution, but I'd like to hear other opinions. Should I put a poll on it?

[Peter Gibbons]

Really glad to see this moving!

Here's my input for now:

1) I'm going to start with a mea culpa. I was about to type:

The Svalbards are really far north. I know geographic realities can be tweaked/ignored in our maps, but there is a significant distance between the Svalbards and mainland Norway that is difficult to ignore. If you include them, where do you stop? I'm not a Nordic political expert, but I'm pretty sure Bouvet Island maintains the same political status with Norway... should it be included?!

Then I did the research, which I should have done in the first place. Svalbards are a part of the Kingdom of Norway, while Bouvet is a dependent. Also, they are closer to continental Europe than Iceland is. So, in short, I don't object to this idea. I just hope that it can be done without crowding the map. You have Iceland, the Faroes and possibly the Svalbards on this map in places that aren't geographically realistic. I think it will work, but I think it's going to be a tough process to get it right.

2) I know that I'm going back to a point from 5 pages ago (and one that doesn't need to be decided until the graphics workshop), but even though I think it's better than before, I still would love to see Denmark get a different color. I think the Southern portion of the Iceland map is a good color to work off of. A rose/pink hue that doesn't stray totally away from the scheme you have. It's not that what you have is wrong or or difficult to discern, it's just that it seems boring. I know what you're going for and I like it a lot--but I still think the map deserves or needs a strong color splash. But again, that will come later.

3) Bonus regions. I'm glad you brought this up. I'm not a geographical expert, but if there's a way to divide Sweden and/or Finland into 3 regions, rather than 2, I think it will help gameplay. You can still keep the superbonuses (and they can become even more important AND difficult to hold). Dividing those countries in two just gives the feel of "well, I want to have superbonuses so I just cut the countries in half."

With all that said, I want to make one thing clear. I keep coming back to this map thread because I love the idea, the start and your work. So any comments/suggestions are solely because I really like the direction you're going in. I take no offense if you ignore my advice and I hope you don't take any when I give it. I wish there were more mapmakers as dedicated as you.

[natty dread]

Thanks again for your feedback Peter! I'll try to address each point briefly...

Svalbards are a part of the Kingdom of Norway, while Bouvet is a dependent. Also, they are closer to continental Europe than Iceland is. So, in short, I don't object to this idea. I just hope that it can be done without crowding the map.

Well, I already stated my view on the Svalbard issue earlier... So unless someone can suggest a way to include them that addresses the problems that it would bring (or unless I can come up with one myself, but so far I have no ideas) I'm very reluctant to put it on the map, as I don't see how it can be done so that it works for both gameplay and reasonable consistency...

Iceland and the Faroes are on the map, true, but the routes between them and Denmark/Norway are at least somewhat reasonable, if just scaled down a bit.

2) I know that I'm going back to a point from 5 pages ago (and one that doesn't need to be decided until the graphics workshop)

I thank you for the opinion, but as you said, it can wait until graphics shop, and I have already spent so much time tuning the graphics of this map, that I really want to focus on the gameplay for now - I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to nitpick the graphics enough to drive me bonkers when the map hits the next workshop.

(personally, I don't think it's a bad idea at all. It could work, and I hope you'll remind me again when we're at the graphics phase)

3) Bonus regions. I'm glad you brought this up. I'm not a geographical expert, but if there's a way to divide Sweden and/or Finland into 3 regions, rather than 2, I think it will help gameplay. You can still keep the superbonuses (and they can become even more important AND difficult to hold). Dividing those countries in two just gives the feel of "well, I want to have superbonuses so I just cut the countries in half."

Personally I think Finland can be as it is... Southern finland only has 2 borders, so the high territory count balances that somewhat. But dividing Sweden into 3 parts may not be a bad idea at all. The only question is where?

With all that said, I want to make one thing clear. I keep coming back to this map thread because I love the idea, the start and your work. So any comments/suggestions are solely because I really like the direction you're going in. I take no offense if you ignore my advice and I hope you don't take any when I give it. I wish there were more mapmakers as dedicated as you.

Aww, you're making me blush.

I absolutely won't take offense though, good feedback is what keeps the map alive. By all means keep giving your comments, whether the feedback is positive or negative. If I make some stupid changes it's better that I know about it right away



edit. I've added a poll about the bonus areas. I put in options to divide Finland, or divide both Sweden and Finland, although I can't see why anyone would want them both divided...

[natty dread]

Ok, here's an alternate version, with Glacier removed, and two territories merged, and the sea connection between Iceland and Norway moved - this would give Northern Norway, Northern Finland and Southern Sweden each one border less to defend.

If we go with these changes it might make adding bonus areas unnecessary, perhaps. But that's not the real point of the changes... the real point is, now we have exactly 53 territories that start non-neutral. Which is supposed to be an optimal number:

2/3 players: 17 territories each
4 players: 13 territories each
5 players: 10 territories each
6 players: 8 territories each
7 players: 7 territories each
8 players: 6 territories each

[bigimg]http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9261/northeuropev26.png[/bigimg]