Conquer Club

Here's with MrBenn's Sugar Paper he liked. It's got a bit more fleck to it than the one I was using.



It makes me feel like I need to clean my monitor or something.

shakeycat wrote:It makes me feel like I need to clean my monitor or something.

Agreed. I'd either stick with your original version (with my apologies for wasting your time), or switch to a reduced opacity version of the ricepaper one.

We don't know until we try So we'll stick with this then:

Cant really say which one is better from my iPhone so i Will watch On my pc later and give my opinion About which one i think looks best

zimmah wrote:Cant really say which one is better from my iPhone so i Will watch On my pc later and give my opinion About which one i think looks best

You'll know when you start smudging up your screen with fingerprints, trying to get the pesky dust particles off it almost makes me want to use it as a texture!

It's so subtle though.

Maybe if I reduced the opacity of the wards?
flip between:
http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/tokyo/jul11.jpg
http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/tokyo/jul13a.jpg

shakeycat wrote:

zimmah wrote:Cant really say which one is better from my iPhone so i Will watch On my pc later and give my opinion About which one i think looks best

You'll know when you start smudging up your screen with fingerprints, trying to get the pesky dust particles off it almost makes me want to use it as a texture!

It's so subtle though.

Maybe if I reduced the opacity of the wards?
flip between:
http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/tokyo/jul11.jpg
http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/tokyo/jul13a.jpg

the second one looks good but there's a line at the hight of nakano, that splits the map in half. the upper half looks about right, everythng below that line is too bright.

I definitely like the second one, easy on the eyes. Love the gameplay, and the theme style. Should be a lot of fun. I do faintly see the line zimmah mentions, but it's pretty hard to notice.

Yep, definitely the 2nd version

Updated first post with this one as our working copy:



What's next? Any gameplay issues need clearing up? Does everything make sense? Are bonuses fair, neutrals high/low enough?

Remember, we were going the no-bonus start route. So players get the region bonus as always, but will need to conquer a landmark before their population bonus kicks in. The initial post outlines starting positions to prevent dropping with small bonuses in 2 and 3 player games as well.

Let's assume the logical first move is to take a landmark and start earning extra (numbers are in the initial post), which would be a minimum of +3 in a 1v1. Will either the first or second player be at an unfair advantage? It will probably take some thought as to which landmark to take first, preferably one the other player is nowhere near. Also, if a landmark inside a park is held, the park will build up by +2 every round and protect it for you and ensure your bonus.


Also, I still have to change the Asahi Beer Hall into the Tokyo Skytree. Will see if I can change the style of landmarks to make any more manga-ish, and will definitely make Tokyo Dome less ugly.

I do have to say I like the aesthetic on this map. Lovely color palette that certainly brings the sheer garishness of modern Tokyo to a map. So I've got a few nitpicks to work out the kinks:

- The left leg of the Tokyo Tower looks deformed compared to the other two. I tried altering my perspective, but it was still that way. It's leaning too far left.
- The black lines look silly compared to the Rainbow Bridge landmark. Perhaps consider making them generic bridges instead of lines?

Clarity-wise, just two things:
- The parks/landmarks bit is almost too close to the map proper. Perhaps consider boxing them off or relocating them a smidge? At first I thought they were legitimate territories.
- The bonus values seem all over the place. Excuse my ignorance of the bonus structure in relation to population bonuses, could you get me a table of what adds up to which? Right now I feel like the individual suburbs are undervalued and central Tokyo is slightly overvalued.

TaCktiX wrote:- The black lines look silly compared to the Rainbow Bridge landmark. Perhaps consider making them generic bridges instead of lines?

I would also suggest making road part of rainbow bridge much darker than the current shade of grey. At the moment it doesn't look right imo.

The map is looking very stylish.

Now some critique: The legend is a bit cramped. Make the four boxes more aligned. The distance between Central and Old is not even, make it the same angle by moving Old Tokyo to the right.

Also the legend of Parks and Landmarks is not really visible. You could make the background white just like the rest of the legend.

With population bonus you mean +1 for every 3 regions? Making a separate legend box for landmark influence and population could make it more clear.

Sorry for the long delay, shakey... I was unavoidably unavailable

Anyway, it seems the map has flourished in my absence. Your numbers for the map are doubtless correct, I was afraid that I might have counted a couple of bogus regions when I assumed that Tokyo U and the Tokyo Dome also had a pop. region to go with them instead of being single regions in their own right. With those fake 2 regions gone from my count, my numbers would match up with yours.

Going the 'Activation' route should make the gameplay easy to balance- you were wise in your consideration of the 1st-turn advantage in 1v1 games.

As for the 3-regions bonuses, I have no strong opinion one way or the other at the moment as to using starting positions vs. neutrals. Maybe if I crunched some numbers to see how it affected deployments... Anyway, the consolidation of the 2-region bonus areas into 3-region areas is a big improvement, and the even bonus across the board appears to me a Good Thing.

I wouldn't make the landmark neutral values too high, perhaps no higher than 5. Anything higher and the bonus for multiple landmarks will effectively be ignored, as well as possibly the pop bonuses until late game (unless that's a desirable outcome, in which case 6-8 neutrals should do).

----------

As for clarity, this map is a 100 times better. I think you can use more color in the legend to help out a bit, using the individual shades of yellow, blue or magenta for each bonus area with its corresponding listing in the legend. Also, the shade used for the 'pop-bonus only' suburban areas I feel should be as distinct as possible while still being bluish. That way, when it gets mentioned in the legend, the color can be more recognizable and easier to match with regions on the map.

I agree with Tack that the legend that describes the Landmark and Parks bonuses needs to be separated more from the map proper... it blends in too much right now.

As for the value of the various bonuses areas, and pop regions, I'm fairly satisfied that while the Central Tokyo region clearly has the biggest potential, that fact is balanced by the ease with which the Suburban bonus areas can be snatched up in the early game. Considering how wide open most of the bonus areas are on this map, the Suburban bonus areas might actually be preferred as they are all around the edges of the map. However, it couldn't hurt to do some digging to break down exactly how much each bonus area earns if a landmark is held and the pop bonus is active. Obviously, the Central Tokyo bonus areas will get the biggest boost, since they have the most regions.

Thanks for putting your numbers on the first post shakey, this map thread is aces.

-- Marshal Ney

The theme is good. Tokyo is an interesting city to make a map of since it stretches out like a big circle. I think you can make a very visually pleasing map out of this idea but graphics has to be top notch!

I will probably be slow with updates. New baby taking priority!

Congrats!! Come on though, every hospital room has wifi these days, and that's why they make laptops. Just kidding.

Actually, it was a homebirth! and I updated a few days after (I had her on the 14th). But it's kinda hard to draw careful pictures when holding a squirming baby in one hand, who could explode in cries any minute.

shakeycat wrote:I will probably be slow with updates. New baby taking priority!

Congrats

natty_dread wrote:

shakeycat wrote:I will probably be slow with updates. New baby taking priority!

Congrats

Ditto!

-Tardy

Thanks everyone

Just to keep things active:

I've swapped the beer hall for the Tokyo Skytree. I don't know what to do about the bridges: the black lines were temporary as I worked out gameplay. I don't know whether to try bridges like on Vancouver (I sketched one in here), which I find are very easy to understand visually, or to go for something more complicated in a similar theme to the rainbow bridge. I am just boggled by all the angles of different bridges, and there's so many, I can't imagine drawing them all in differently. I wanted the Rainbow Bridge to be special, and the rest to be dull and uncomplicated.

And there are other things I need to do .. a few mentioned the parks/landmarks bonus explanation blending in .. all in time.


I'm sure I mentioned fixing some of the tiny attraction pictures, just no idea how I would or if they really need it.

And of course, thank you all for your input and patience

The lower right corner looks like the legend! I'm confused !

Gillipig wrote:The lower right corner looks like the legend! I'm confused !

yes, the lower right corner is confusing

also:

the legend park has other graphics than the actual parks on the map
wakasu industrial zone name overlaps wakasu seaside park

Maybe you could put the bonus descriptions up top! That way it might not look like some parts of the map are a part of the legend.

When I was talking about the bridges, I wasn't meaning you need to change each one to be different. Just change the black line to be something like a bridge. What you've got for the Monzen-Nakacho / Moon Island connection would be fine.

/me waves a banner of support...