Conquer Club

natty_dread wrote:That looks nice. Although I would still make long island a bit brighter, it might still confuse some people... can't you make it the same colour as the rest of the bonus? Reduce the inner glow a bit?

Yes I can now that I think of it, I'll just make it a separate layer and leave it practically all white.

Here it is!

[bigimg]http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5601/fracturedamericav122.png[/bigimg]

The libs. and the freemen 's are a bit hard to decipher what they are. We know what they are, but a first time viewer does not.
Outside of that, the map is looking great.

For amusement, it may be fun to change the "Republic of Quebec" to "République de Quebec" (I don't know French unfortunately, but you get the jist).


--Andy

AndyDufresne wrote:For amusement, it may be fun to change the "Republic of Quebec" to "République de Quebec" (I don't know French unfortunately, but you get the jist).


--Andy

Yes I had it that way once, but a quick XML test came up with an error. Something that it couldn't recognize the name or something. So I just changed it back to english.

porkenbeans wrote:The libs. and the freemen 's are a bit hard to decipher what they are. We know what they are, but a first time viewer does not.
Outside of that, the map is looking great.

Thank you. There's not a lot I can do about that unless I go back to just having the one icon background in each of those places. So for the sake of consistency, they will have to stay that way.

isaiah40 wrote:

AndyDufresne wrote:For amusement, it may be fun to change the "Republic of Quebec" to "République de Quebec" (I don't know French unfortunately, but you get the jist).


--Andy

Yes I had it that way once, but a quick XML test came up with an error. Something that it couldn't recognize the name or something. So I just changed it back to english.

You can use accented characters, but you'll need to escape them using UTF encoding (I think that's what it's called - don't remember the technical term precisely)

As for the graphics, I think the cleaner map looked heaps better. If you're desperate to keep the background images in, then I'd suggest decreasing the opacity so that they're a lot more subtle. The symbol in the Mormoni region looks fairly pixellated, so fading it out will help that too

You could do with nudging some of your territory labels a little bit - place like Oklahoma/Virginia can be made to fit a bit better by nudging them a pixel or two. The 'I' of Illinois is a bit lost in the water too.

That's about it really...

MrBenn wrote:

isaiah40 wrote:

AndyDufresne wrote:For amusement, it may be fun to change the "Republic of Quebec" to "République de Quebec" (I don't know French unfortunately, but you get the jist).


--Andy

Yes I had it that way once, but a quick XML test came up with an error. Something that it couldn't recognize the name or something. So I just changed it back to english.

You can use accented characters, but you'll need to escape them using UTF encoding (I think that's what it's called - don't remember the technical term precisely)

As for the graphics, I think the cleaner map looked heaps better. If you're desperate to keep the background images in, then I'd suggest decreasing the opacity so that they're a lot more subtle. The symbol in the Mormoni region looks fairly pixellated, so fading it out will help that too

You could do with nudging some of your territory labels a little bit - place like Oklahoma/Virginia can be made to fit a bit better by nudging them a pixel or two. The 'I' of Illinois is a bit lost in the water too.

That's about it really...

Thank you Mr.Benn for your set of fresh eyes!!

I nudged a few names plus moved a couple of circles. Renamed Virginia to VA and Arkansas to AR to better fit the small map. Took out the backgrounds (I know, some of you will miss them, and tell you the truth so will I) for a cleaner look. Also shortened Illinois to IL. How does it look? Comments, suggestions?

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I have to agree with Benn, it looks loads better with out the background images. Great job!!

The only issue with adding abbreviations for territory names, is that you'll need to find a way of identifying them for non-Americans

MrBenn wrote:The only issue with adding abbreviations for territory names, is that you'll need to find a way of identifying them for non-Americans

Here are the changes for V12.4:

- Changed CO to Colorado
- Changed LA to Louisianna
- Changed MA to Massachusetts
- Changed GA to Georgia and moved it to the water and added an arrow pointing to where it is
- Changed MS to Missippi
- Changed IL to Capone
- Changed MI to Michigan
- Changed AR back to Arkansas
- Moved Massachusetts' army circle and number up some
- Switched Maine text and army circle and number around
- Redrew Kansas/Colorado border to fit in Colorado text
- Moved Long Island army circle and number out some so you can now SEE Long Island on both maps
- Added state abbreviation legend to the bottom left of map just above the Legend
- Reduced the size of some of the arrows

Everything done on this version was done for readability and for clarity!

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[bigimg]http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/6167/fracturedamericav124.png[/bigimg]

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Any other graphical issues I may have missed?

Perhaps raise Louisiana up closer to the army circle. Then you could move Houston up too.

If you wanted to use your symbols you might be able to do it as graffiti on your bonus wall. That could be cool.

NOTE: Not having them on the terts kinda took away your maps character. Just solid colors like the rest. IMO.

jefjef wrote:Perhaps raise Louisiana up closer to the army circle. Then you could move Houston up too.

If you wanted to use your symbols you might be able to do it as graffiti on your bonus wall. That could be cool.

NOTE: Not having them on the terts kinda took away your maps character. Just solid colors like the rest. IMO.

Louisianna can possibly be moved up a tad.

Hmmm ... use the symbols as graffiti? I'll have to play around with that. The legend is already filled, but I'll give it a try!!

You could change IN to Indy, in needed.

I'd maybe move the arrow and Georgia's name slightly down a little, to give it some space from South Carolina.

For the bottom left abbrev. legend---is there a specific order to it?


--Andy

AndyDufresne wrote:You could change IN to Indy, in needed.

I'd maybe move the arrow and Georgia's name slightly down a little, to give it some space from South Carolina.

For the bottom left abbrev. legend---is there a specific order to it?


--Andy

Can do, But I think I would move Georgia down as I am trying to make sure the people can see that South Carolina and Georgia d connect. The abbrev. legend should be in a specific order but because of space I had to do it that way. I didn't want them getting blended in with Baja California's.

Edit: I can change New Brunswick and Tennessee around, Virginia and Kentucky around as well.

NICE, I almost want to lick it to see if it tastes as good as it looks.

Couple of minor tweaks if you want to try them.

1.) Scale up the barbed wire a bit, and give it an outer glow to help it to be more visible.

2.) See if you can bring up some detail with the wall. I like the appearance of it, and I think that it should be made to stand out a little more. Something like what my last suggestion did for cairns Jamaica map with its legend.

A minor issue... the town of Timmins doesn't appear to be in the area you have labelled Timmins on the map... As far as I can tell from Google maps, that territory would be better named Winisk River or something to do with Polar Bears

porkenbeans wrote:NICE, I almost want to lick it to see if it tastes as good as it looks.

Couple of minor tweaks if you want to try them.

1.) Scale up the barbed wire a bit, and give it an outer glow to help it to be more visible.

2.) See if you can bring up some detail with the wall. I like the appearance of it, and I think that it should be made to stand out a little more. Something like what my last suggestion did for cairns Jamaica map with its legend.

Scaled the barbed wire a tad bit w/outer glow. The wall on the other hand is layer in between the paint and the text. I put the wall on top of the paint then brought the opacity down so the paint looked more like it was painted on the wall instead of pasted there. Actually, there are two layers of wall already there. The other is the actual background, and the other is I stated.

MrBenn wrote:A minor issue... the town of Timmins doesn't appear to be in the area you have labelled Timmins on the map... As far as I can tell from Google maps, that territory would be better named Winisk River or something to do with Polar Bears

Hmmm ... You're right, thanks Mr.Benn! I changed Timmins back to my original of Fort Albany.

Changed the Abbreviation Legend around to read left to right, bottom up (yes I know it's backwards going from bottom up, but if I did it the other way, it would really be cramped in then).

Here are the large and small with the changes!

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[bigimg]http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6886/fracturedamericav125.png[/bigimg]

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The barbed wire looks much better at that scale. The glow can be adjusted so as to fad out as it gets further from the wire. So that, the glow itself is not really noticeable. You just all of a sudden notice the wire. Increase the size and maybe even the spread. you can fad it all the way out to an inch or so. just so the glow itself is not really noticed at all. I hope this makes sense.

Also a quick tip to share. Always try to remember to create a separate layer for everything you do. That way you can make any needed changes in the future. Especially when you need to rearrange the order of a layer or two.

MrBenn wrote:The only issue with adding abbreviations for territory names, is that you'll need to find a way of identifying them for non-Americans

WW2 Europe does not use long names V1 V2... and yet when you drop men using drop down menus it is the long name. I see no reason that cannot work here.

Bruceswar wrote:

MrBenn wrote:The only issue with adding abbreviations for territory names, is that you'll need to find a way of identifying them for non-Americans

WW2 Europe does not use long names V1 V2... and yet when you drop men using drop down menus it is the long name. I see no reason that cannot work here.

It shouldn't, but IMHO, why confuse people? I think having the abbreviation legend would help make it clearer on what is what.

The legends looks pretty good, but the number beneath New England needs to be lowered a tad so it doesn't run into the words.

The army circles... they're too small and the line around them is a further hindrance to readability. I'd say your best option at this point would be to go with lighter squares without a line around them; the map is dark and it looks like you're going to have to cover the whole army number area with a lighter army circle/square.

As for the stars, try to make the bigger fudge the borders if you must.

The worst parts of the army circles are the ones where the numbers cross over the borders as the numbers are near unreadable. Baja California, Massachusetts, Chihuahua, Missouri, Tampa, Arkansas, Louisiana... which btw only has one n rather than 2. And so on and so forth. The biggest fix I think you can do is to get rid of the dark line around the circles, other than that, places like El Paso can be reorganized so the numbers fall on the blank area and the names squeezed in there.

Mississippi is also misspelled... but I think it might be intentional. Go with an abbreviations like Tennessee rathe than cut out 2 s's.

I tend to agree with IH about the circles. Removing the dark rings may be a good idea. I have noticed that the numbers stand out on the map without the circles altogether. Is there a rule that you have to have them ? If not, I think this map would look much better, if there were not any white dots covering it up.

Hello everyone! This post is brought to youby way of North Bay Ontario Canada! I will have the new version as soon as I can. The only internet I have is on my Palm Pre with unlimited data, so have patience and I promise to get a new version posted as soon as possible!

Okay now I have found FREE wifi, here is the newest and latest version.

Changes: those that IH mentioned and a couple of others.

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[bigimg]http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6761/fracturedamericav126.png[/bigimg]

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Playing around and came up with this version 12.6a. Tell me what you think yea or nay!

Version 12.6a
[bigimg]http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/4426/fracturedamericav126a.png[/bigimg]

Definitely yea. I was going to suggest adding some texture to an otherwise plain land, but this looks good, fills that void, and fits the theme & title. Looks good.