[Vacation until Dec] Knights & Warlocks - V15 - page 1&12

[DiM]

V8:
*made the paths more visible
*added 1 way arrows
*changed the legend.

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V8.jpg[/bigimg]

[isaiah40]

Sorry for the delay, I will take a look again at this this evening.

[Swimmerdude99]

Looks epic.

[lostatlimbo]

The legend looks much clearer now.

In what context does "connected to" refer in regards to the Farm/Mine/Lumber bonuses? Is it how many are chained together? How many are in the same colored region? Does the Farm/Mine/Lumber village itself count? (for example, I have Lo, Rinat, and Didy. Do I get +2 or +3 bonus?).

lo + rinat + didy will give you +2 because you have 2 villages connected to the farm. if you capture nec and tulangeo you'll get a further +2 for a total of +4. in somebody comes and takes didy, you'll not only lose the +1 for didy but also the +2 for nec and tulangeo because right now they're no longer connected to the farm in lo. however you can quickly take chu which is connected to tulangeo (and nec) and since it is a port it's also connected to rinat and now you're back to having +4.

Ah, that's pretty cool. I like the gameplay implications of this.

I also see why you have Sully on this - that seems like an XML cluster only he could sift through. :)

I assume the extent of the "connected to" is within the same colored region?

With such a harsh penalty on the Assassins/Clerics the Flying Monkeys & Griffins seem almost useless. No one will want to keep their troops on an Assassin/Cleric village, so bombarding them will be unnecessary. With a negative 2 bonus, I would want my opponent to keep their Assassin/Cleric. Perhaps you could give those another target? Such as Capitals or Nobles?

they're not useless in the context of being able to eliminate the enemy. see above.

Hmmm... perhaps there's an angle I'm missing. I can see some advantage in team play (bombarding your teammate's last troop to avoid the -2 penalty), but beyond that they seem similar to a killer neutral. The penalty of -2 troops and a decay of 5 makes it undesirable to leave any troops there. If my Knight/Warlock is the target, I'm deploying defensively and letting my opponent take a significant hit.

In All Your Bases, I don't assault the 10 neutral on Tech Level 3 unless I'm pretty sure I can finish with the win. I would think the same thing for Clerics/Assassins. I'm building up a good force and cashing in a set before I take a Cleric territory and if I fail to eliminate my opponent's Warlock, bombarding what's left of my Cleric troops would only help me by negating that -2.

I do like the back and forth of the bombardments, but I don't think I'd use the Griffkeys often.

[DiM]

The legend looks much clearer now.

In what context does "connected to" refer in regards to the Farm/Mine/Lumber bonuses? Is it how many are chained together? How many are in the same colored region? Does the Farm/Mine/Lumber village itself count? (for example, I have Lo, Rinat, and Didy. Do I get +2 or +3 bonus?).

lo + rinat + didy will give you +2 because you have 2 villages connected to the farm. if you capture nec and tulangeo you'll get a further +2 for a total of +4. in somebody comes and takes didy, you'll not only lose the +1 for didy but also the +2 for nec and tulangeo because right now they're no longer connected to the farm in lo. however you can quickly take chu which is connected to tulangeo (and nec) and since it is a port it's also connected to rinat and now you're back to having +4.

Ah, that's pretty cool. I like the gameplay implications of this.

I also see why you have Sully on this - that seems like an XML cluster only he could sift through.

I assume the extent of the "connected to" is within the same colored region?

i'd love if there were no boundaries to the "connections" but i'm not sure how big and complicated the xml might turn out so i'll have to discuss this with sully.

With such a harsh penalty on the Assassins/Clerics the Flying Monkeys & Griffins seem almost useless. No one will want to keep their troops on an Assassin/Cleric village, so bombarding them will be unnecessary. With a negative 2 bonus, I would want my opponent to keep their Assassin/Cleric. Perhaps you could give those another target? Such as Capitals or Nobles?

they're not useless in the context of being able to eliminate the enemy. see above.

Hmmm... perhaps there's an angle I'm missing. I can see some advantage in team play (bombarding your teammate's last troop to avoid the -2 penalty), but beyond that they seem similar to a killer neutral. The penalty of -2 troops and a decay of 5 makes it undesirable to leave any troops there. If my Knight/Warlock is the target, I'm deploying defensively and letting my opponent take a significant hit.

In All Your Bases, I don't assault the 10 neutral on Tech Level 3 unless I'm pretty sure I can finish with the win. I would think the same thing for Clerics/Assassins. I'm building up a good force and cashing in a set before I take a Cleric territory and if I fail to eliminate my opponent's Warlock, bombarding what's left of my Cleric troops would only help me by negating that -2.

I do like the back and forth of the bombardments, but I don't think I'd use the Griffkeys often.

i thought of making it like this to avoid rushes and to make people think twice before going for an elimination as failure in achieving it could cost them dearly. obviously the values are not set in stone so if others think they need changing then i'm not opposed. some form of closed-circuit pre-beta testing would really come in handy

[DiM]

Looks epic.

hopefully it will also play epic

[lostatlimbo]

i thought of making it like this to avoid rushes and to make people think twice before going for an elimination as failure in achieving it could cost them dearly. obviously the values are not set in stone so if others think they need changing then i'm not opposed. some form of closed-circuit pre-beta testing would really come in handy :roll:

I like the Clerics/Assassins as you have them. I think the penalty is appropriate. Its the Griffins/Monkeys I don't get, which is why I was suggesting other bombardments targets.

What about Capitals? Most of them are key connectors to the bonuses and would be a good target to bust up a large connection.

Alternately, maybe you could have a penalty offset to the Clerics/Assassins. Such as...

• Hold Cleric: -2 bonus and decay 5
• Hold Cleric and Griffin: +2 bonus and +3 autodeploy on Cleric

That way, there are still scenarios in the game were it is advantageous for the Monkey to bombard the Cleric, but it still prevents an early rush.

$.02

[Victor Sullivan]

i thought of making it like this to avoid rushes and to make people think twice before going for an elimination as failure in achieving it could cost them dearly. obviously the values are not set in stone so if others think they need changing then i'm not opposed. some form of closed-circuit pre-beta testing would really come in handy

I like the Clerics/Assassins as you have them. I think the penalty is appropriate. Its the Griffins/Monkeys I don't get, which is why I was suggesting other bombardments targets.

What about Capitals? Most of them are key connectors to the bonuses and would be a good target to bust up a large connection.

Alternately, maybe you could have a penalty offset to the Clerics/Assassins. Such as...

• Hold Cleric: -2 bonus and decay 5
• Hold Cleric and Griffin: +2 bonus and +3 autodeploy on Cleric

That way, there are still scenarios in the game were it is advantageous for the Monkey to bombard the Cleric, but it still prevents an early rush.

$.02

It sounds like you're suggesting a conditional auto-deploy (with the change in the Cleric's auto-deploy), which isn't possible with the current XML, I'm afraid.

-Sully

[gimil]

I haven't given this a full once over...but from a graphical perspective I think that the blue, purple (and to a lesser extent red) terr names aren't working. Those colours are to dark/saturated and absorb the glow/stroke The other terr names look good because they are light colours with a contrasting dark outer border. I suggest that the offending colour are either changed...or their tones adjusted so that they do not adsorb that contrasting stroke.

I have a bit I would like to say about the title area in general...but I don't have time at this moment.

[AndyDufresne]

I haven't given this a full once over...but from a graphical perspective I think that the blue, purple (and to a lesser extent red) terr names aren't working. Those colours are to dark/saturated and absorb the glow/stroke The other terr names look good because they are light colours with a contrasting dark outer border. I suggest that the offending colour are either changed...or their tones adjusted so that they do not adsorb that contrasting stroke.

I have a bit I would like to say about the title area in general...but I don't have time at this moment.

The darker/strong colors are indeed on difficult side of readability.


--Andy

[isaiah40]

Overall I believe this ready to be stamped. So without further ado here it is!

[DiM]

woop woop

[DiM]

V9:
*improved readability of darker coloured terit names (blue, violet and red)

i'll be starting the small if there are no other big issues.

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V9.jpg[/bigimg]

[AndyDufresne]

Dim, have you thought of using a white/gray outline for the Blue, Red, and Violet texts? Black works for the lighter colors generally, but the opposite (white or gray perhaps) might do better for those darker colors.

Otherwise the visuals of this map look really cool. It might be worthwhile investigating highlight/bolding/underlining some of the key things in legend, so it looks more like instructions and less like added thematic text.


--Andy

[DiM]

ok andy.


black outline with glow like i have now:


gray outline with no glow


white outline with no glow



as for underlining things in legend tell me what exactly you want highlighted and it can be done.

[AndyDufresne]

Hm, I don't know if any of those glows really look as good as I had hoped. I'll have to give it some extra thought. Thanks for the mock-up though, that is great.

In terms of important things in the legend, "bombardment" seems so. You also mention "one way attacks" (actually, one way has a line break in the middle of it), and the "lose" your knight/warlock also seems important. But if the bold/underline/highlighting looks like junk, you can probably go with what you have now.

You could if desired bold the +1, +3, etc's of the right hand legend area, but that might be less necessary.

Keep up the good work.


--Andy

[natty dread]

The white glow works better if you blur it slightly.

[DiM]

maybe this would be better:

[AndyDufresne]

maybe this would be better:

Of all the options, this looks pretty good. See what others have to say though!


--Andy

[natty dread]

Works for me.

[DiM]

V10:
*bolded/underlined some parts in the legend
*tweaked stroke/outline/glow for darker couloured terit names
*changed "strait" and "bonuses"

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V10-2.jpg[/bigimg]

[AndyDufresne]

You are on fire, DiM!

I don't know if anyone else mentioned, but you have "Straight" when I think you mean the homonym "Strait"

Straight: "Free from crookedness"
Strait: "A comparatively narrow water-way or passage connecting two large bodies of water"

Edit: In the legend, I'd also move the "Bo-" of "Bonuses" (referring to the farm/mine/mills) to the next line, so you don't have to break the word, since it looks like you have space.

Otherwise, this really looks superb.


--Andy

[Victor Sullivan]

You are on fire, DiM!

AAAHHHH!!! I got you DiM!!! *sprays DiM with a fire extinguisher* Phew!

Anywho, could you post the small and large versions without numbers? That XML is gonna take me awhile, so I might as well get a head start!

-Sully

[natty dread]

I've been meaning to ask... what are the random lines on the background of the legend?

They're sort of distracting... maybe you could lower the opacity of them somewhat.

[DiM]

You are on fire, DiM!

I don't know if anyone else mentioned, but you have "Straight" when I think you mean the homonym "Strait"

Straight: "Free from crookedness"
Strait: "A comparatively narrow water-way or passage connecting two large bodies of water"

Edit: In the legend, I'd also move the "Bo-" of "Bonuses" (referring to the farm/mine/mills) to the next line, so you don't have to break the word, since it looks like you have space.

Otherwise, this really looks superb.


--Andy

thanks for the kind words andy.

changed "strait" and "bonuses" in the image in the previous post.