Japan - 日本 - Quenched

[MrBenn]

I am willing to try stretching a the geography some, your draft is very good oaktown, it looks like Japan, but one of my first observations would be is the islands look, inflated.

To somebody who knows the geography of a particular country well, they will usually notice any distortion. However, in many cases, some distortion is absolutely essential to making a map work here on CC. The trick is to distort it enough to make it work, but not too much as to make it completely unrecognisable. I could name any number of maps with distorted areas/borders - on Europa, I set out to achieve a completely geographically accurate map of Europe, but still had to fudge things to make it work!

Could you maybe fudge the shape a little, by stretching it NorthWest to SouthEast? It would give a little more girth to the country, and make more space for the territories.

A little bit of rotation might help to get a better fit on the canvas, and inflating/fattening the islands a bit would help give some more space - you could experiment with different satellite angles, or different projections. The key thing is to give yourself as much room as possible on the land to fit things in.

[RedBaron0]

No WWII map, that's for sure, that niche is filled to the brim.

I'm fiddling with angles and stretching the borders. I should have something posted in the next day or so to show you my progress. That map most likely will be missing some of the frills of the first draft, and most likely the mountain impassibles. I'm unhappy with the look of the little green mountains, and I know I'll have to make them look better before the end anyways. After the update and input from you all I'll look into Google Earth and see if different vantage points from overhead might be better for the map.

[Mr Pink]

Hi,

I know it's been tried several times before, but can't someone please revive plans to produce a Japan map.
I have a few ideas of my own, but I have never been involved with designing a map and wouldn't know where to start.
Any takers?

Mr. P.

[RedBaron0]

{Points} Japan - A new attempt!

[barterer2002]

I wonder if perhaps the way to handle Japan is not to be a straight geographic styled map but rather a map of their class system with everything from the Emperor to Gishas to Ninjas to Ronin and even Shishi

[AndyDufresne]

I wonder if perhaps the way to handle Japan is not to be a straight geographic styled map but rather a map of their class system with everything from the Emperor to Gishas to Ninjas to Ronin and even Shishi

Interesting idea...I kind of like it.


--Andy

[mattosaurus]

I agree on using the class system idea. Japan as a country is just too linear, and a straight geographical map is boring. One with the class systems would be unique and appeal to a greater variety of people.

[Mr Pink]

Great! Good Luck.

I recommend you consider including ports (eg: Hakodate, Sendai, Yokohama, Kobe, Kyushu, Okinawa, Shikoku).

Mr P.

[RedBaron0]

Small only - 601x600

Click image to enlarge.

I'll consider the class system in conjunction with the map if there is enough support. The class system includes 4 tiers, Samurai, Farmers, Artisans, and Merchants. It might be possible to assign some territories as one of these classes. Discuss it, but for now I'll continue to work on the basic map. I am unsure about the idea personally, I don't want to over complicate this.

The revision does not have the mountains on them, I need to work them out a bit more. Seeing the map in just it basic political divisions help me to see where I can erase border lines then add the mountains back in and only move territory names and the circles if necessary. Also discuss where it might be best to add the mountains back in. I'm figuring I'll put less mountains back in, some in the area of Nagano and up and down the central axis of Tokoku, and maybe a few spots here and there. Further updates I'd like to connect via the sea more territories. Perhaps the small island territories on the east coast(Tsushima-Oki-Sado-Rishirito) connected to each other and a few connections along the west coast via natural points sticking out. (Sapporo-Iwate-Izu-Wakayama-Miyazaki?)

[barterer2002]

well if you were going to incorporate class into a straight map like you're doing I think the advantage would be to take terts and make them able to attack other similar terts (or lower terts). Most of your terts would be farmers but you could add in the merchant class in each bonus region and have them able to attack each other allowing for movement throughout. Samarai could attack other parts of the map (in one way attacks-not on other Samarai terts though I think) while the Shogun and Empereror regions could autodeploy an extra 2.

[AndyDufresne]

The above post has some good ideas, though I'm afraid that space and room for icons as such may be limited---due to how close all the borders and names are.


--Andy

[RedBaron0]

True, to add in the class system, I'd probably have to focus in primarily on central Honshu and turn into more of a feudal era map. I'm not to hot on that idea myself.

My feelings are if you can't at first get a simpler, basic Japan map through the foundry then the reason no one has been able to fill this niche, is there isn't really a niche to fill. Part of it may be the basic geography of Japan is too up and down, so even though there have been good attempts, with good mapmakers, at making Japan, it just will never get the support it needs.

On a side note, how about the map without the mountains? Does it look a little more playable if I don't add them back? I can work on merging some of the smaller territories together and repositioning territory borders, to reduce the overall clutter of the map.

[barterer2002]

The above post has some good ideas, though I'm afraid that space and room for icons as such may be limited---due to how close all the borders and names are.


--Andy

Well you could put crossed swords (similar to the sword and scabbard of the majors I suppose) on a tert on each bonus region without too much effort. Sapparo, Fukushima, Nagano, Tochigi, Shiumane and Kagoshima could all support this I think.

really though I think that the class structure of Japan lends itself more to a different type of map (I'm thinking of the way that Prohibition Chicago doesn't really take the city or Poison Rome doesn't take Rome in) and that's not the way that RB wants to take this one which is all good in my book.

I'm not sure that Japan lends itself to a simple map there Mike but I'll try to get some more ideas for you tomorrow if I come up with some.

[AndyDufresne]

As pointed out, a simple geographic map involving Japan has always been, hm, difficult to make work, gameplay wise and graphic wise.

Most of the attempts, I recall, tried to go for the standard 40+ territories, similar to the Classic Map. What if you went a smaller route---it'd clear up some problems, or at least, make things more manageable. For instance, two maps that come to mind --- USA-West has 24 territories I believe, and USA-Southwest has 32. Perhaps 32 might be an idea to consider....


--Andy

[MrBenn]

Great! Good Luck.

I recommend you consider including ports (eg: Hakodate, Sendai, Yokohama, Kobe, Kyushu, Okinawa, Shikoku).

Mr P.

[Merged] - this post was in the map ideas thread, and is now up the page a bit ^^