Nordic Countries [Quenched]

[thenobodies80]

Any reason for this? This is a region of europe that not many people are familiar with. I thought that the cities would at least be somewhat more recognizable than some obscure regions that nobody knows, except the few people that live in that area...

no reason, just a personal preference
And yours is a good point.

I don't want to touch the sea too much, because IMO it quite accurately represents the look of the baltic sea. The baltic sea is a very dark and sinister looking sea.

i trust you
Maybe with the new texture it will look different.

Are these from the bonus calculator or your own estimate?
Why +1 on denmark when it has to defend 2 borders? Is it because it is the smallest "continent" with only 3 territories?

Also, how do you feel about the supercontinent bonuses? Where you get additional +1 for holding both norways or both finlands, and an additional +2 for holding both swedens?

yes, bonus calculator. (btw, if you don't have a program to open the xls file you can downlaod openoffice, it's free)
usually you have to adjust values and keep in mind that calculator understimate the bonuses in the middle.
danmark is a fair +2 but the +1 autodeploy on one border should make it too strong, specially in the early rounds...(i think )
And yes +2 for all sweden and +1 for all finland look good.

[natty dread]

danmark is a fair +2 but the +1 autodeploy on one border should make it too strong, specially in the early rounds...(i think )

Well, what if I were to get rid of the +1 autodeploy for capitals, and instead make them a collection bonus?

like thus:

3 capitals +1
4 capitals +2
5 capitals +3
6 capitals +5

[natty dread]

Ok here's two possible new versions.

v.5 - Old ocean, no glow around land

Click image to enlarge.

v.5a - Ocean modified a bit, glow around land, land colour saturation reduced

Click image to enlarge.

I didn't change the bonuses yet. I'll do that later...

Anyway, which looks better? Or, if you like some things in one version and some things in the other, I can combine them for the next version.

Feedback plox!

edit. made another one:

V.5b - otherwise same as 5a except different ocean, flags added

Click image to enlarge.

[soundman]

Flags don't seem to fit. You should pull Iceland down some so the space is even with the left side. I think I like 5a better...

[natty dread]

Flags don't seem to fit. You should pull Iceland down some so the space is even with the left side. I think I like 5a better...

Hmm, down with the flags then.

Aah, crap, it's such a pain moving that iceland... do you know how many layers there is, which I need to align? Paint.net doesn't even allow moving multiple layers at once, unless you merge them and then there's no way to separate them again... I'll probably do it, just wanted to vent, as it is a pain in the ass...

Yeah I'll probably go with 5a, but I'm going to decrease the saturation on that ocean a bit, it seems a bit too bright now that I look at it...


Also, someone said the font of the territory names is not good, so I made samples of some different fonts to choose from:



First one is current font- I think it was Tahoma.

2nd is Batang with an outline.

3rd is Dotum with bold, and a drop shadow.

4th is Palatino Linotype with an outline.

[whitestazn88]

looks pretty cool, but the only thing i'll say about it is that i don't know if northern europe is a good title or not... i'm not a huge geography buff, and i don't quite know what constitutes northern europe, but i feel like you can't have estonia w/o latvia & lithuania (maybe it's just a personal reason...) and what about russia? doesn't it go just as far north as scandinavia?

just something to think about. i don't think it would really be a big issue if the title was kept or not.

[natty dread]

i feel like you can't have estonia w/o latvia & lithuania (maybe it's just a personal reason...)

I included Estonia, because it's culturally very close to Finland. They're almost the same people, the language is almost the same... Latvia and Lithuania, not so much. Besides, that's where the legend is

and what about russia? doesn't it go just as far north as scandinavia?

Yes, but Russia is not considered to be a part of Europe.

just something to think about. i don't think it would really be a big issue if the title was kept or not.

Well yeah. Thanks for your interest though, and I have a feeling I'll get to explain the title quite a few times before this map is done

I named the map Northern Europe because it sounds better than "The Nordic Countries and Estonia", ok?

[whitestazn88]

i feel like you can't have estonia w/o latvia & lithuania (maybe it's just a personal reason...)

I included Estonia, because it's culturally very close to Finland. They're almost the same people, the language is almost the same... Latvia and Lithuania, not so much. Besides, that's where the legend is

and what about russia? doesn't it go just as far north as scandinavia?

Yes, but Russia is not considered to be a part of Europe.

just something to think about. i don't think it would really be a big issue if the title was kept or not.

Well yeah. Thanks for your interest though, and I have a feeling I'll get to explain the title quite a few times before this map is done

I named the map Northern Europe because it sounds better than "The Nordic Countries and Estonia", ok?

russia isn't part of europe?

[natty dread]

No, it's not. It belongs to Asia. Hey, look at the classic map! Where is Russia? Not in Europe...

[Incandenza]

Visually, it's coming along.

Thematically... well, it's kind of an odd grouping of countries, it's sorta like "popular American conception of Scandanavia and oh yeah Estonia too". Your stated reason for including Estonia is that it shares a lot culturally with Finland... well, then, why is Iceland there? It's only nominally a Scandinavian country, much in the same way that y is only sometimes a vowel, and it's such a singular little culture that I'd be surprised if there was much in common between the average Icelander and the average Swede (tho a Bjork-ABBA mashup wouldn't be devoid of entertainment).

I can also tell you that the unsexy title isn't doing you any favors (plus, when I think of northern Europe, places like northern Germany and northern Poland spring to mind much more readily than the various countries you have arrayed here).

And now that I've totally shit in your punchbowl, I'll say that you clearly have some talent, I just don't think you've found the right killer project yet. You could probably navigate this map into the final forge with a great deal more work, but you'll end up with a pretty run-of-the-mill CC map. And I've already made clear the risks you run pushing forward with Proteins 101... I dunno, it's just rare to see much in the way of graphic oomph in the drafting subforum, but here in the service of a map that, personally, leaves me with a sort of "meh" feeling. It's sort of a European version of the USA Map Pack, which (no offense to wids) I loathe.

[natty dread]

Thematically... well, it's kind of an odd grouping of countries, it's sorta like "popular American conception of Scandanavia and oh yeah Estonia too". Your stated reason for including Estonia is that it shares a lot culturally with Finland... well, then, why is Iceland there? It's only nominally a Scandinavian country

Well the starting point was the Nordic Countries, which includes all countries here except Estonia. And Iceland has lots of common with Denmark and Norway... Vikings, ever heard of? And I have already stated why I wanted to include Estonia.

But, if it's such a big deal, that my map can't move forward without fixing it, then I can just scrap Estonia and call the map The Nordic Countries or something. How's that? Would also save me lots of time, not having to answer a zillion more questions of "why is Estonia on the map"...

I think the trouble here is that I have two or three distinct cultural groups of countries. The Denmark-Norway-Iceland group, which are the descendants of the Vikings, and Sweden might be included to this group by some definitions, although personally I feel Sweden is the odd one here, although linguistically they share a lot with Denmark and Norway. Then there's the Finland & Estonia group, which can hardly be called a group because it only has 2 members...

So, you think this map would be any good without Estonia, or should I just forget about the map? In your opinion?

[snufkin]

I had never heard of Gäddede before - apparently it´s a small village with 456 inhabitants.

If you move it to the extreme south of your green area then you can call it Östersund which is a hundred times larger.

[natty dread]

I had never heard of Gäddede before - apparently it´s a small village with 456 inhabitants.

If you move it to the extreme south of your green area then you can call it Östersund which is a hundred times larger.

Thanks, that's a good idea. I think I'll do that for the next version.

[Incandenza]

So, you think this map would be any good without Estonia, or should I just forget about the map? In your opinion?

Well, dropping estonia would certainly help your overall theme... If nothing else, it would stop all the questions about its inclusion.

As to the larger question... well, it's your map, but you're treading extraordinarily well-worn ground here. Speaking as another foundry-goer and not as a FA, I'd be perfectly happy if the foundry never produced another basic-gameplay medium-size geographical map ever again, especially ones depicting Europe and North America. CC's straining at the gunwales with such maps, to the point where few (if any) new ones stand out. For instance, Vancouver's a great trips map, but it's not necessarily any better than Triple Alliance, and IMHO it doesn't really add much of anything to the site, especially when you consider the amount of time and effort put into the map by shakeycat and all the commenters in the thread.

Just my $0.02

[natty dread]

Well, dropping estonia would certainly help your overall theme... If nothing else, it would stop all the questions about its inclusion.

I might take it into consideration.

As to the larger question... well, it's your map, but you're treading extraordinarily well-worn ground here. Speaking as another foundry-goer and not as a FA, I'd be perfectly happy if the foundry never produced another basic-gameplay medium-size geographical map ever again, especially ones depicting Europe and North America.

Yeah, well, what kind of maps would you like to see? Just wondering...

I for one think there would be room for a map of this region. Granted, there are maps of europe, but almost all of the countries in my map are severely underrepresented in CC. Denmark and Iceland are the only ones which have their own map. There's no map of Scandinavia or Nordic countries either. So IMO there definitely is a niche for a map of this region.

It's funny though. I started making the Proteins 101 map, and people say it won't make it, because the subject is too obscure and unorthodox, nobody wants to conquer a protein. So I start to make a geographical map, and now you say there's no room for any more geographical maps, that new maps should be something else. Just saying, it's kinda funny. What kind of maps should I make then?

A propos, here's another update of this map, version 6a:

Click image to enlarge.