Conquer Club

i just changed the saturation by -20, i think its good not sure how much you changed it by. i think i will merge 4 pairs of territories so that i can have 72 left and thus after neutrals on saigon and hanoi then it will be a golden number, but i have yet to decide just which ones. if i merge them well i might be able to bump up every piece of text by 1 or maybe 2 sizes. once again if i merge it strategically i can also get rid of some bridges. its pixelated because of when i enlarged it several times, i suppose i can go over it with pencil that should do the trick for the borders. change the name, this is a bigger change and i might see the opinion of a number of others before changing to see if enough people think it is bad to justify the change. im not sure what you mean when you say the impassables dont look like much of anything

i am currently in the process of some major territorial changes, hopefully making the gameplay and graphics better at the same time in that bonuses between regions wont be so skewed and also less regions in congested areas such as the two deltas makes it easier to read and look at. i am planning to cut the number by 4 in the north and 4 in the south, so far i have reduced red river delta from 10 to 7 and also merged a pair of territories in the northeast. i plan to merge more in the northeast so to balance it out i am dividing up territories which have surplus space, anyways the ones im dividing are only 4 territory regions so they could use some more

i havent finished my improvements yet but i have for the top half so here

i have made it less saturated by 20 points, the titles have been increased from 9 to 11 and most importantly i have cut 3 territories from red river delta and 3 territories from northeast and added 1 each to northwest and north central coast making a total of 4 territories cut. i also made the borderlines sharper by replacing the pixelated and blurry lines with pencil, taking up less space and is sharper.

oh and i havent come up with a good name to replace this yet so that will have to wait until the next update. also i cut one bridge but the rest i deemed necessary. sorry for not doing this in one post i just thought of it later

What software are you using?

gimp is it bad?

Gimp is fine.

Remember to put everything on it's own layer though. Everything... background on one layer, land colour on one, borders on another, text on another... it will be much easier to make changes this way.

yup, i have 128 layers right now

Sounds about right for a map this size.

not really many comments since yesterday so i'll just continue doing my territories overhaul

version 2.0
first the graphics updates
-every territory title changed from size 9 to size 11
-one bridge taken out in the north
-less saturated by 20 points
-thick blurry lines replaced with thin sharp pencil lines
-new red arrows indicating one way attacks
gameplay updates
-territory count reduced by 8 of the following
--northeast 11 to 8
--red river delta 10 to 7
--northwest 4 to 5
--north central coast 4 to 5
--south central coast 8 to 7
--operation 34a 4 to 6
--southeast 7 to 5
--central highlands 5 to 6
--mekong river delta 13 to 9
--ho chi minh trail stays the same
-bonuses adjusted following reduced territory count
--northeast 8 to 5
--northwest 3 to 4
--red river delta 9 to 6
--north central coast stays the same
--ho chi minh trail stays the same
--operation 34a 1 to 2
--south central coast stays the same
--central highlands stays the same
--southeast 6 to 5
--mekong river delta stays the same
--hanoi and saigon stay the same

goals accomplished in version 2.0
-easier to read texts
-larger territories, text not cramped and allows for the larger text
-clearer lines for better well, clarity
-more even gameplay
-not so confusing since less territories

Ditch the army circles... they make it exceptionally ugly.

I have a problem with the USA and landing craft in North Vietnam because landings didn't happen. The USA's military actions in the north were generally limited to air strikes, making North Vietnam the most heavily bombed country in the history of war.

I like what you did with the color change.
The legend is not legible. It is too small. Just enlarge it so that it reaches all the way to the edge of the canvas. You can move that star up or down.

A few things for this update:
1. You still need to have the same color font for all territory names, so to make it easier to look at from afar and easier to read up close (the grey in North Central Coast is extremely hard to read).
2. I don't understand the one-ways in Ho Chi Minh Trail. They make that bonus area rather overpowered (though the small +2 bonus does a decent job to balance this)
3. I had trouble finding Hanoi and Saigon. You should highlight those more since they yield a +2 bonus.
4. The Operation 34a territories aren't purple, but it's purple in the legend...?
5. Good job with the Mekong River Delta close-up

-Sully

Industrial Helix wrote:Ditch the army circles... they make it exceptionally ugly.

I have a problem with the USA and landing craft in North Vietnam because landings didn't happen. The USA's military actions in the north were generally limited to air strikes, making North Vietnam the most heavily bombed country in the history of war.

oh, operation 34a did happen, it was covert and it was landing south vietnamese commandoes it didnt really mention american troops landing though it was coordinated by them. it just wasnt a big deal since it wasnt landings like say d-day, they would have been at night and only small amounts of troops at a time to attack small targets like bridges and stuff.

porkenbeans wrote:I like what you did with the color change.
The legend is not legible. It is too small. Just enlarge it so that it reaches all the way to the edge of the canvas. You can move that star up or down.

i will try but i have to make sure all the layers line up properly

Victor Sullivan wrote:A few things for this update:
1. You still need to have the same color font for all territory names, so to make it easier to look at from afar and easier to read up close (the grey in North Central Coast is extremely hard to read).
2. I don't understand the one-ways in Ho Chi Minh Trail. They make that bonus area rather overpowered (though the small +2 bonus does a decent job to balance this)
3. I had trouble finding Hanoi and Saigon. You should highlight those more since they yield a +2 bonus.
4. The Operation 34a territories aren't purple, but it's purple in the legend...?
5. Good job with the Mekong River Delta close-up

-Sully

im afraid same colours fonts would make some bits hard to read, i mean dark on dark or light on light isnt very good thats what i had before kind of. different colours also helps to distinguish between regions. i could use some more opinions on this.

hmm, maybe but then australia is +2 with less territories and thats alright

yup, i will probably make them brighter, you are talking about on the legend right? or on the map as well?

oh well, they arent really any specific colour on the regular map but i thought it would be more coherent to have one colour for it in the legend so i thought purple which is a cool (as in cool or warm) colour and close to blue would suit. because i was making north vietnam have the reddy warm colours and the south have bluey cool colours making a nice contrast i could make them purple in the main map, but that would look a bit weird i think

thanks

summary of points
-ditch the army circles
-enlarge the legend (the whole thing)
-same colour fonts*
-ho chi minh trail over powered*
-highlight hanoi and saigon
-better link between purple in legend and colour of boats

*discussion to follow

discussion
these points are ones which have been suggested but i am not too sure about, remember i am an amateur so i dont have much experience but i am not too sure about these 2 points.
-is the colour fonts good now or should they all be the same colour?
-is ho chi minh trail overpowered?
if other people could share their opinions about these points it will be appreciated

What do you mean Ken "the layers must line up" ?
Don't you have the legend on its own layer ?
Just scale it up.

You have not optimized that layer, have you ?

If you did, you will need to make another one from scratch, detail will be lost if you scale up "optimized" text, because it is no longer a vector image.

i have one layer for the legend background and one for the stuff on top plus all the text. its probably possible to merge them but i wouldnt know how.....yet.

kengyin wrote:i have one layer for the legend background and one for the stuff on top plus all the text. its probably possible to merge them but i wouldnt know how.....yet.

lock those layers together, then scale them up together.

Do you use photoshop ?

gimp, its similar though right?

kengyin wrote:gimp, its similar though right?

Sorry, but I do not know a thing about gimp. I am afraid that you will probably have to redo everything except maybe the text. If you were scaling down you would not have any problems, but like I said, You will loose image quality when you try to scale something up. That is unless it is text that has not been optimized, as it is vector based and can be scaled to any size, up or down.

In photoshop you can scale up as many layers as you want together. You just click on one of the layers, then check the little box next to the layers that you want to include with the re-size. the box will display a little chain link. when it is on it is locked to the layer that is highlighted. it will scale or move together with that layer. You can link as many layers as you want. I do not know if GIMP is anything like this or not.

v2.1
-army circles removed
-purple tags added next to boats to relate to the purple in the legend
-side flag backgrounds narrowed
-thus main image width increased
-whole legend increased in size
-all text in legend size increased by 1 size
-yellow circles indicating hanoi and saigon

porkenbeans wrote:In photoshop you can scale up as many layers as you want together. You just click on one of the layers, then check the little box next to the layers that you want to include with the re-size. the box will display a little chain link. when it is on it is locked to the layer that is highlighted. it will scale or move together with that layer. You can link as many layers as you want. I do not know if GIMP is anything like this or not.

gimp has the same function. It works in exactly the same way.

kengyin wrote:

Industrial Helix wrote:Ditch the army circles... they make it exceptionally ugly.

I have a problem with the USA and landing craft in North Vietnam because landings didn't happen. The USA's military actions in the north were generally limited to air strikes, making North Vietnam the most heavily bombed country in the history of war.

oh, operation 34a did happen, it was covert and it was landing south vietnamese commandoes it didnt really mention american troops landing though it was coordinated by them. it just wasnt a big deal since it wasnt landings like say d-day, they would have been at night and only small amounts of troops at a time to attack small targets like bridges and stuff.

Well yeah, it may have happened but it was not a large scale thing, which is what this map is proposing it is. When players play this game, they're going to be invading the north in droves and that is totally contrary the American part of the vietnam war.