Page 4 of 13

hmm...

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 11:20 am
by Solus
Are the dotted lines like harbors or something? (just a question not saying its bad) :-k

Re: hmm...

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 5:20 pm
by edbeard
Solus wrote:Are the dotted lines like harbors or something? (just a question not saying its bad) :-k

they're just sea routes.


been busy so I haven't even touched the map in a while. If I remember correctly I was working on the rivers, where they become part of the ocean. And, I think I was having trouble getting something that looked good or blended well. Hopefully I'll get some time this week.

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:33 pm
by edbeard
Image

here's the latest of what I'm working on


Andy I think you asked about the location of continents. this is the only real setup out there. By that I mean that in terms of natural areas and their names, these vicinities are the only one's I've found. As for specific territories being part of those areas, well those are totally flexible.

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:47 pm
by thegeneralpublic
That river chunk in Campo Grande looks out of place...perhaps connect it to the nearby river (regardless of actual river placement) and add a bridge?

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 10:41 pm
by Optimus Prime
This is going to seem completely random and odd in this thread but not only do I really like the way this map looks, I am extremely eager for it to get quenched sometime in the future because it would fit perfectly into my Battle of the Americas Tournament plan.

:wink: :wink:

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 10:46 pm
by Bad Speler
Somehow missed this thread for a while, sorry if anything im suggesting are repeats:

The sea routes and the outline looks very thick.

The army shadows are look a bit too white, i suggest making them more transparent.

Also, any chance of including the falkland islands?

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:27 am
by cairnswk
edbeard...i haven't seen this map for a while.
It's coming along very nicely...just a touch dark to look at but possibly not a problem. :D I don't know how the rest fo the forum feel?

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:49 am
by Solus
thegeneralpublic wrote:That river chunk in Campo Grande looks out of place...perhaps connect it to the nearby river (regardless of actual river placement) and add a bridge?


He's got a point... (just making sure it's heard) :P

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:22 pm
by Gilligan
Why is Patagonia a +2 when you have 3 borders to defend?

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:40 pm
by edbeard
I've been contacted by Marvaddin, who you might know worked on a South America Map before. He's from the region so he's going to give me some advice about country names, and possibly about which territories should go in which continents. Obviously gameplay should be number one priority, but with his knowledge of the area, it would be a mistake to not see what he has to say.

One thing he mentioned specifically was the size of the Amazon. I know it's supposed to be bigger, and I have considered adding Bogota to it even before he contacted me, but I'll see exactly what he has to say about all this when he contacts me again.

As for a few things you've mentioned. I agree that the water routes are quite large, so I'm going to make them with smaller circles.

I like having the outside border of South America Larger than the internal borders. I just think it looks weird when they're all the same size. I will connect the middle river to the part in Cordoba.

I will be lessening the intensity of the army circles.

In my mind, the chances of me adding the Falklands is small. I just don't think it adds to the map and/or the map is detracted from without it. But, if it's something other people think is very important we'll figure something out.

As for the bonuses, here's how they come out with the forumla. Some might be slightly off since I did it all in my head.

South America

Highlands 3
5 3 3 3

Guianas 5.42
8 5 6 4

Plateau 4.25
6 4 5 4

Pampas 3.5
5 3 6 5

Patagonia 2.58
4 3 3 2

Amazon 4.33
6 4 6 4

Andes 5.58
8 5 7 4

I rounded where I thought it was necessary. I just didn't feel that for 4 territories with 3 borders and only 3 territories that can attack it, Patagonia was worth 3.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:02 pm
by Unit_2
try the XML code

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:58 pm
by edbeard
XML doesn't take long, but there's no point for me to do it at this time. Once things are more settled upon then I'll do it.



EDIT: August 30

still working on this. We lost 2 weeks because we both thought that the other was working on something. We were also too patient to ask anything. Shows how important good communication is.

Anyway, I believe Marv will be out of contact for two weeks. But, once he comes back we should have something able to post on the forum. I think we're just waiting on territory borders (which we're trying to have as realistic as possible).

Hopefully you guys will like it and thanks for being patient.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:08 pm
by edbeard
Well I don't know if it's long awaited except perhaps by a few, but here's the new map. It's now a joint project between Marvaddin and myself.

There are 44 territories now btw.

Image

General Comments:
Bonuses - I used the general formula that many people use, but a few borders have changed since I did it and Marv suggested perhaps dropping Brazilian Highlands and Amazon by 1.

Chubut/Buenos Aires. Right now they have a border but they could easily not making Pampas another 4 territory with 2 borders continent. Thoughts?

There's another river in Brazil that we could add to give another impassable border between Xingu and Maranhao (and possibly Goias too). Personally I don't think it's a good idea but maybe others think it is needed. To me it seems like that would just make holding that top right area too easy.

Water routes. I'm not happy with them at the moment. I have to say doing the route from Ceara to Suriname has probably been the most annoying thing I've had to do in quite a while (and it still looks like crap). I like how the dots look in general, but I think dashed lines might be much easier at this point. Any suggestions for how to do this (dots) easily are welcome. If not I'll switch to dashed lines.

You might notice that Suriname actually encompasses both Suriname and French Guiana. We could make the French Guiana area a dead area, but I think that would just give more questions.

Andes: Marv thought about making it quite a large continent with 10 or 11 territories. I personally like how we have it now, but what do y'all think?

To Do:
Accents on the names. Marv still has a few more names he wants to look into so they are not quite finalized yet. I'd prefer to do the accents all in one go, but I might just do them if I feel like it.

XML. Actually I'm all done save for recentering a few circles that I've moved and putting in and removing a few borders we've changed. (yes both small and large)

Small Map. Once we're agreed for the most part on the large I'll do the small (I've already got the circles done except for a couple that we moved so small map will not take probably 20 minutes)


There's probably a lot more things I forgot to say, but I'm drawing a blank right now.

As for what Marv did and what I did. Well everything on this map was done by both of us. I drew half a line then Marv finished it. Marv coloured in half an area and I finished it. Took a long time, but I think the final product is quite good!

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:27 am
by hulmey
As for what Marv did and what I did. Well everything on this map was done by both of us. I drew half a line then Marv finished it. Marv coloured in half an area and I finished it. Took a long time, but I think the final product is quite good!

Wow sounds kinda guy :D

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:17 am
by jako
edbeard wrote:General Comments:
Bonuses - I used the general formula that many people use, but a few borders have changed since I did it and Marv suggested perhaps dropping Brazilian Highlands and Amazon by 1.

Chubut/Buenos Aires. Right now they have a border but they could easily not making Pampas another 4 territory with 2 borders continent. Thoughts?

There's another river in Brazil that we could add to give another impassable border between Xingu and Maranhao (and possibly Goias too). Personally I don't think it's a good idea but maybe others think it is needed. To me it seems like that would just make holding that top right area too easy.

Water routes. I'm not happy with them at the moment. I have to say doing the route from Ceara to Suriname has probably been the most annoying thing I've had to do in quite a while (and it still looks like crap). I like how the dots look in general, but I think dashed lines might be much easier at this point. Any suggestions for how to do this (dots) easily are welcome. If not I'll switch to dashed lines.

You might notice that Suriname actually encompasses both Suriname and French Guiana. We could make the French Guiana area a dead area, but I think that would just give more questions.

Andes: Marv thought about making it quite a large continent with 10 or 11 territories. I personally like how we have it now, but what do y'all think?


1. i think another bonus would just give this map too many bonuses thus ruining gamplay. i say stick to the current number of bonuses.

2. i agree, a river there would make it much easier for some1 to expand caatinga easily. a side not: u rrivers are terrible. they look like long rectangular tubes and are hard to see. perhaps darkening them and givign them a more circular look.

3. i really like ur dot water routes but i really dont know how u can fix the one from suriname to ceara.

4. suriname is good as it is.

5. if u made the andes 10-11 terrs, it would cramp up that area way too much and ruin the visual appeal of this map so far. plus u would have to increase the bonus for it and possibily add more mountain routes to offset this. basically, too many terrs in andes will ruin gameplay.

one last thing, y did u get rid of panama? and the gray shading on the outer borders is a bit too much. its too dark compared to teh rest of ur map, and extends too much into the andes.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:04 am
by edbeard
thanks jako for the comments

regarding your bonus talk I think you misread something I said

I'm still working on the rivers I forgot to mention that. I agree they are crap.

Panama is not technically part of South America so we said bye bye to it

I'll wait see if others agree with your other comments

repost of v11 for ease of viewing:
Image

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:16 am
by yeti_c
The Suriname & Guyanas names aren't that well placed with their territories - the problem is that to move them would be to move your sea route - so I can't see a solution at the mo?!

C.

PS - I like the new slightly darker look though...

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:16 am
by Unit_2
you need to put the darker colors back, and maybe take out a peice of
the andes mountins so teh bonus is harder to keep.

keep working on this, it looks very good.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:22 am
by unriggable
It's hard to tell where puerto asen ends or begins, since it's so skinny, i suggest you get rid of some mountains to make it a bit more visible / noticeable.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:39 am
by Coleman
I agree with the mountains, 6 or 8 of them could be nudged right a bit.

Image
The 6 I pointed at and possibly a few more north of the upmost arrow.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:31 am
by mibi
I dont like the 'shading', its extraneous and not executed very well.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:06 pm
by edbeard
mibi wrote:I dont like the 'shading', its extraneous and not executed very well.

would you mind being more specific about what you don't like exactly and if there's any shading of the continent colours that you do like?


one thing I like about Andes is that the shading touches Panama so when it hits that dead area it's not as abrupt looking (at least to me)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:37 pm
by cairnswk
edbeard...i haven't seen this map for a while....looking very good now....
from a design viewpoint, would you consider:
* downsizing the legend two or three points so that "G Highlands" is a little further away from the names of terts Rio Grande and Uruguay...i consider them to be a little too close;
* also your names in red doesn't particularly "gel" with the rest of the title colours and compass in that area.
* would you consider adding sparsely some white/gray caps to the southern most mountains around Mendoza and Santa Cruz - a little touch of realism

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:28 pm
by I GOT SERVED
Firstly, I'm very excited to see a South America map in the works. But I have a few critiques:

-The background colors seem a little too..."glossy", for lack of a better word. I like the gray tint, but the extra white shine seems a bit too much.

-There needs to be more of a color difference between B. Highlands and Pampas. While I can distinguish that they're different colors, possibly making it more of a distinguished finish would be nicer.

Thanks.

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:45 pm
by reverend_kyle
mibi wrote:I dont like the 'shading', its extraneous and not executed very well.

I agree with this.