Scotland [Quenched]

hulmey · Post by **hulmey** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:21 am

LOL, if you look at the map close enough it looks like the head of a grumpy old man!!

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:46 am

question about tartans: if i am to proceed with this, I'd like to know from you all if there are certain tartans that i should be trying to use in certain regions... I'd like to make this as accurate as possible, so I don't want a southern clan's tartan up in the Shetlands, etc.

Otherwise, the other concern will begetting colors that work together. There are thousands of patterns on-line so finding samples to work with won't be a problem. I'll probably go with more muted tones, and try to make them look like slightly worn, 19th century patterns.

MPL · Post by **MPL** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:52 am

yes... finaly something new

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 12:07 pm

Okay, heres a good map for what family is where. I agree it would be a nice touch to put families in the right places.

http://www.scotsfamily.com/clan_map.jpg-large image so i havn't posted it.

Most of the work would come from trying to get tartans that are different enough.

Even nicer, it looks like that map agrees with mine on territories

A few suggestions:

Highlands:
Cameron-http://www.scotlandshop.net/images/swatches/c%20200%20x200/cameron-erracht-anc-200.jpg
Mackenzie:http://compuball.com/av/images/mackenzietartan.gif
Mackay:http://www.clanmackay.ca/anctar.JPG

Islands:
Macleod:http://www.lindaclifford.com/Images/MacLeodDr.jpg
Macdonaldhttp://www.scotlandshop.net/images/swatches/macdonald-clanranald-mod.jpg

Grampian:
Gordonhttp://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/gordon.gif
Granthttp://www.scotlandshop.net/images/swatches/g/grant-modern.jpg

Central:
Robertson http://www.lindaclifford.com/Images/RobertsonHtg.jp

Run out of time but there are plenty of others.

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:14 pm

New Map: ScotlandGimp V1.7:Gameplay map

Changes
-Orkney and shetland are in highlands
-attack route now from orkney to aberdeen instead of to lewis
-Caithness & sutherland merged
-Lothian now part of borders
-i've inputted the new numbers into the spreadsheet and put those on the bonus box.
-My map will no longer worry about graphics so try to ignore all the little name shadows and mysteriously yellow islands.

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:55 pm

Balsiefen wrote:-My map will no longer worry about graphics so try to ignore all the little name shadows and mysteriously yellow islands.

Right... as we roll along with this I'll implement your new changes a few days behind you so there can be time for discussion.

Time to think about making yourself a signature, Bals.

Also, I encourage you to post a description of this project in the thread in the General Discussions forum. That thread needs a bump anyway.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32474

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:57 pm

Thanks, hadn't seen that. I dont often venture into General discussion.

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:01 pm

Balsiefen wrote:Thanks, hadn't seen that. I dont often venture into General discussion.

i know, sometimes it's scary outside the foundry, what with all those 'other' people. :wink:

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:42 am

Personally, looking at it now, i think the islands bunus should be braught down to a 2

Anyway, does anyone have any problems?

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:50 am

Merged the south east regions.

This is my first stab at mountains on a CC map... i kinda like 'em. I'll have to tweak the regional borders, and I still need to draw in all of the territory borders.

I agree that the Isles bonus is too high, and borders may now be too low.

reverend_kyle · Post by **reverend_kyle** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:57 am

Lets all ignore the actual scottish person in the thread. This map looks scottish, at least by stereotypes.

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 3:36 am

Who do you mean, Gimil or me?

Anyway, i think oaktown is going to be putting in many of gimils suggestions. Its just a long job so it wont get done all at once.

Apart from anything else, i think it was more Gimils ideas that were playing on steryotypes rather than mine or oaktowns. (not that that is a bad thing, if you've ever been into a scottish woolen mill you'll see how scottish people have taken using steriotypes for conning English people out of a huge amount of money into an art form)

yamahafazer · Post by **yamahafazer** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:07 am

I like the new citys and hills.... could the hills do with some colour though... you might be doing that later anyway so if you want just ignore me I don't mind...

khazalid · Post by **khazalid** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:09 am

new graphics are looking much sharper. how about a nice thistle in the background? or an under kilt closeup?

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:15 am

yamahafazer wrote:I like the new citys and hills.... could the hills do with some colour though... you might be doing that later anyway so if you want just ignore me I don't mind...

Actually i agree, i think those mountains could end up quite good with a bit of tweeking.

Anyway, any comments on gameplay?

gimil · Post by **gimil** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:22 am

khazalid wrote:new graphics are looking much sharper. how about a nice thistle in the background? or an under kilt closeup?

i would very much like to see a thistle implimented into this map

also i done really think mountains are appropriate in the south end of teh map, that is the scottish lowlands, ive never seen a mountain there :wink:

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:30 am

Thistle is easy enough to work in... I'd like some art in the dead space anyway, and the lion seemed a bit much when I tried dropping it in.

Mountains may need some color, but let me play with the tartan idea and see how that effects things. It'll either kick ass or be a total eye-sore (I'm kinda betting on the latter).

gimil wrote:also i done really think mountains are appropriate in the south end of teh map, that is the scottish lowlands, ive never seen a mountain there

Hmm... thoughts, balsie? I'm following your lead on this one. Looks like there are hills in the borders region and I remember Edinburgh being surrounded by hills, so maybe I just need to flatten the southern hills out a bit to make them distinct from the highlands ranges?

gimil · Post by **gimil** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:32 am

oaktown wrote:Hmm... thoughts, balsie? I'm following your lead on this one. Looks like there are hills in the borders region and I remember Edinburgh being surrounded by hills, so maybe I just need to flatten the southern hills out a bit to make them distinct from the highlands ranges?

yeah the lowlands are still extreamly hilly lol. But i dont think montains are what your looking for, maybe rivers would be better?

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:06 am

Sorry, i had posted an answer to gimils stuff but the bloody screen went onto "page cannot be displayed" and i lost it all. Just as my lunch break ran out.

Anyway, There is a sizable hill range on the southern Lothian boarder and while, i'm not sure about the Dum and Gall range, by the looks of your map, there are a few hills.

However, i've been thinking, do we really need either of those ranges. The lothian range is not useful as we have merged it into boarders anyway (unless we want an interestingly shaped continent which is always a thaught) and it may be quite interesting to loose the D&G range to create a continent with 3 borders sort of like on the portugal map. (A 3 terr, 2 boarder cont is hard to bonus as really, the fairest amount for it should be 1.5)

What do people think?

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:55 pm

Balsiefen wrote:However, i've been thinking, do we really need either of those ranges. The lothian range is not useful as we have merged it into boarders anyway (unless we want an interestingly shaped continent which is always a thaught) and it may be quite interesting to loose the D&G range to create a continent with 3 borders sort of like on the portugal map. (A 3 terr, 2 boarder cont is hard to bonus as really, the fairest amount for it should be 1.5)

Eliminating the mountains around Dumfries and Galloway won't screw things up any. I do think that 3 terits w. 2 borders is a respectable +2... easier to capture yet harder to hold than a 4 terit/1 border region like Australia. But 3/3 is fine as well.

As for eliminating the mountains south of Edinburgh, you are correct in that they no longer play the role they used to around the Lothians. However, we've got a lot of little territories in the Borders area, and it's going to be a bit messy figuring out how they're all going to fit together. The total land area on your map of the seven territories in Borders is smaller than some of the single territories in the north. Without an unpassable border or two down there it's something of a free-for-all with everybody bordering everybody.

Request for clarification: everything that I'm seeing has Stirling in the Central region... thoughts anyone?

Let me propose something that may be blasphemous to a Scotsman: can you merge the Lothians into one territory? It will be easier to work with on the map, and has the added benefit of making the city a border territory; a player might have a better chance of going after the cities bonus if Edinburgh isn't buried in a region.

That means, of course, you're down to 34 territories... you have a lot of real estate in the highlands to add a territory or even two, and there are other ways you could go...

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:59 am

oaktown wrote:
Balsiefen wrote:However, i've been thinking, do we really need either of those ranges. The lothian range is not useful as we have merged it into boarders anyway (unless we want an interestingly shaped continent which is always a thaught) and it may be quite interesting to loose the D&G range to create a continent with 3 borders sort of like on the portugal map. (A 3 terr, 2 boarder cont is hard to bonus as really, the fairest amount for it should be 1.5)

Eliminating the mountains around Dumfries and Galloway won't screw things up any. I do think that 3 terits w. 2 borders is a respectable +2... easier to capture yet harder to hold than a 4 terit/1 border region like Australia. But 3/3 is fine as well.

As for eliminating the mountains south of Edinburgh, you are correct in that they no longer play the role they used to around the Lothians. However, we've got a lot of little territories in the Borders area, and it's going to be a bit messy figuring out how they're all going to fit together. The total land area on your map of the seven territories in Borders is smaller than some of the single territories in the north. Without an unpassable border or two down there it's something of a free-for-all with everybody bordering everybody.

Okay, we'll see how both of those go the first may be best to depend on
whether there really is mountains in that region.

The second one i agree, its proberbly best to keep them for now. As lothians southern boarder does have a useful hillrange anyway.

Request for clarification: everything that I'm seeing has Stirling in the Central region... thoughts anyone?

I dont think moving stirling if thats what your thinking would be too good. It would make the continents look a bit dashed up and make strathclyde much harder to hold.

Let me propose something that may be blasphemous to a Scotsman: can you merge the Lothians into one territory? It will be easier to work with on the map, and has the added benefit of making the city a border territory; a player might have a better chance of going after the cities bonus if Edinburgh isn't buried in a region.

That means, of course, you're down to 34 territories... you have a lot of real estate in the highlands to add a territory or even two, and there are other ways you could go...

I'm not sure how blasphemous it is, i'll have to leave that to someone who knows anything about lothian, so i'll tacke it from a gameplay perspective.

Firstly, it would make a continent that would be much smaller, and easier to hold, I'm not quite sure how that would work with the other small nearby conts but it might.

However, i dont think we could get above 34 terrs, I take your point about splitting the highlands up a bit more but in reality, it doesn't have any smaller territories. A huge amount of stuff crammed into the bottom and nothing at the top is how scotland is built. We could re-split caithness but that would only take it to 35.

However, there may be ways around it if it would make the map easier graphicly

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:26 am

Hey Bals... I put this together before I saw your post, in which you suggested doing exactly the opposite of what i did in two places. Just know that everything can be redone or undone.

Basically I just drew the territory borders, using a scotland counties map I superimposed over my map. There are some items worth noting:
•I kept all three Lothians, and while they're small I think I can nudge them and make it work. We're still at 36 territories.
•I stuck Stirling in Central (before I read your post). If you hate it we can moe it back, but I was working from maps I found online.
•Lost the Edinburgh mountains (again before I read you latest post). I think it makes the region cleaner, but it might make play more interesting to throw them back in.
•kept the other southern mountains, as space/readability is not an issue. I can delete them in five seconds.

Somebody please remind me to flip the castles... the shadow is on the wrong side compared to the mountains!

Last update for a few days... happy Thanksgiving!

Balsiefen · Post by **Balsiefen** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:33 am

Ha, no problem, it actually looks quite good, especially streaching argyll to meet the othrt terrs.

What we really need now is for people to say what they want out of those options.

Get posting people

oaktown · Post by **oaktown** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:46 am

Balsiefen wrote:Ha, no problem, it actually looks quite good, especially streaching argyll to meet the othrt terrs.

I actually played with putting another territory in there but it was just too cramped.

What I like about this arrangement is that Strathclyde is now a very holdable 6 terit/3 border bonus... it's the North America of this map, and it's right next to Dumf/Gall which is the South America of this map.

Central, however, is almost impossible to hold right now. But that might be OK since it's the center of the map, and where powers will meet to do battle. And isn't that where many of Scotland's great battles have been fought anyway? Bannockburn? Falkirk?

I'll push out the smaller territories a bit so we can eventually squeeze territory names and army circles in there, though if we go with muted colors instead of the yet-to-be-attempted tartan backgrounds we may be able to do without army circles.

yamahafazer · Post by **yamahafazer** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:55 am

Cos you ask us to say..... you need to flip the casles....

anyway... it's definatly getting there... game play on this latest update looks good... i think better than the earleyer ones....

but I'm willing to be perswaded otherwise..