The Black Sea [July 2nd] V.2, Pg. 1 & 4

[tkr4lf]

Map Name:The Black Sea
Mapmaker(s): tkr4lf
Number of Territories: 71 for now (may be more when/if I add cities)
Special Features: none for now
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: new location

Map Image:

Version 2:

Click image to enlarge.

show: Previous Versions

show: Pre-File Loss Versions

New to Version 2:
-Region names - Some of these will be changed soon, likely in the next version. I will also be changing some of the region borders. I will be striving to make the regions as accurate as possible. Expect this in the next update.
-Mini map added to legend - The bonus values on the mini map are tentative. Once I get impassables on the map, I can figure out proper bonus values.


To do:
Territory names
Sea Routes
Impassables
Mini Map
Fill out the legend
Better background for legend
Find a better map border than the black line
Add the cities back in (probably)
Probably some more stuff I can't think of right now


Feedback/Discussion wanted: - Still need some discussion on these issues...
Does this one look ok so far? Are the colors acceptable? I really liked the previous version better, but not much I can do about it. I can keep tweaking the colors, but they're pretty close to how they were. As long as people don't hate them, then I'll probably leave them be.

I'm going to abandon the victory condition idea. I don't think it really added much to the gameplay. Will anybody really miss it?

I am probably going to keep the cities. They will just function as either autodeploys or a +1 per 1 or 2. Is this something you guys would like to see? Or would you rather just see them scrapped and have this a straight up geographic map?

Instead of having the Black Sea be a killer neutral that assaults and is assaulted by every land region it touches, I think I'm going to have a killer neutral terit on the sea, and have 1 or 2 terits from each bonus region around it connect to it via sea routes. Does this sound like a better route to go, or did you like it better before?

[The Bison King]

Yeah, I actually think this is a really cool idea. It's an interesting selection of land you've picked here. It creates some cool shapes and features a lot of different cultures.

[AndyDufresne]

I think I could get behind this project, I like the idea. If you can get the graphics going, it looks like a fun map!


--Andy

[Oneyed]

looking good.

the most of cities by sea are also seaports. maybe they would be connected?

Oneyed

[DJ Teflon]

Or the black sea could be a killer neutral giving access between areas (killer neutral due to pollution).

[The Bison King]

either way shouldn't this been in the drafting room?

[natty dread]

either way shouldn't this been in the drafting room?

Yeah well, in case you haven't noticed, threads don't move very fast here... oh, if only we had a drafting room mod who would be invested enough in the foundry as to check all of the threads every day...

[tkr4lf]

Yeah, I actually think this is a really cool idea. It's an interesting selection of land you've picked here. It creates some cool shapes and features a lot of different cultures.

Cool, thanks. I was just browsing through maps seeing what looked fun to draw, and it popped out at me. Seemed like an interesting area for a CC game.

I think I could get behind this project, I like the idea. If you can get the graphics going, it looks like a fun map!


--Andy

Thanks. I'll be trying, on the graphics front.

On that note, I've been searching for a way to make the water look more like water. Right now the texture I have on it doesn't really cut it. I haven't come across any good tutorials yet, as most of them seem to deal with water drops, not bodies of water. Anybody know any good tutorials for that sort of thing?

looking good.

the most of cities by sea are also seaports. maybe they would be connected?

Oneyed

Or the black sea could be a killer neutral giving access between areas (killer neutral due to pollution).

I'm not sure what I'm going to do in that area. My original thought was to have some sea route connections on the black sea, but I suppose it could get rather busy looking in that area if I have too many.

I like the killer neutral idea, but I'm not positive that it would work if the objective remains the same. Since capturing and holding the 10 cities around the black sea would result in victory, it seems almost too easy to have 1 terit separating them all. Seems like it would make the objective harder to only have a few connections on the black sea, so there aren't too many ways to get across, forcing you to hold more terits and be more powerful in order to make a grab at the objective.

Thoughts on this?

either way shouldn't this been in the drafting room?

Eh, based on my track record with maps, it's probably better to wait until I actually get the full draft ready. Right now it doesn't meet the guidelines to be a draft. Let me get the rest of the work done (I may hold off on impassables, we'll see), then we can get it moved into drafts.

either way shouldn't this been in the drafting room?

Yeah well, in case you haven't noticed, threads don't move very fast here... oh, if only we had a drafting room mod who would be invested enough in the foundry as to check all of the threads every day...

Ha, I'm used to it.

[Gillipig]

Could be a cool theme! One thing I see straight away is that you'll have to make Adygeya much larger in order to fit in the army numbers.

[tkr4lf]

Version 2:

Click image to enlarge.

New to version 2:
Finished up all of the city, terit, sea labels.
Added army circles.
Filled in the legend.
Gave the cities a drop shadow.
Adjusted the water texture a bit, I think it looks better than it did, but I'm still not satisfied with it.
Cropped out an extra 2 pixels of nothing that somehow got added to the bottom of the version 1 picture.
Adjusted some terit borders, got rid of a few terits, got rid of 1 city, Chisinau. It was just too small of an area to have labels for both the city and the region, so I just scrapped having a city in that bonus.

I decided to go with the Black Sea being a killer neutral, capable of assaulting any bordering land region. To fix the issue of that being a very easy way to capture all of the objective cities, I made it to where each city is inside of its territory. So you would have to assault the black sea, then say Crimea, then you could assault Sevastopol.




Some things I need to do for next update:
Fix the Rostov city/territory labels, I must have forgotten that one.
Add in impassables.
Add in sea routes (mainly for Aegean/Mediterranean Seas)
Adjust territory borders to ensure the army circles will fit. As gilipig pointed out, Adygeya will definitely have to be enlarged. A few of the terits in Greece and Georgia will have to be either enlarged or deleted/merged with other terits in order to ensure the numbers will fit.
Update continent bonus values after adding impassables. (This is a major one. Right now, the bonus values are all way too high, and rightfully so, since most of them would be nearly impossible to defend, given how open the map is currently. Once the impassables are in, the bonuses can be re-calculated.)
Drop the shadow around the land, and replace with an outer glow.
Fix the font. (Get rid of/adjust the drop shadow, change font to something a bit "cleaner" and less imposing, etc.)
Decide upon and implement all seas being playable terits. (If they will be, then no need for sea routes. If they won't be, then either remove or make less prominent the names of the various seas.)
Update the legend with suggested fixes.
Correct "Isle of Rhodes." Change to "Crete.


Some feedback I would like:
Does the water look better? I'm still not satisfied with it, so I would still be curious as to whether anybody knows of any good tutorials for making realistic looking bodies of water.
How readable is the font? Is it too dark? Too bold?
Are the borders clear enough? Do they look pixelated?
How is the placement for the army circles? Any issues anybody notices with those?
Will it be an issue with how I've handled cities/terits with the same name? As you can see, I named the region (e.g. Antalya) and then simply added (City) to the name for the city (e.g. Antalya (City)). Is that an acceptable solution or do I need to find a different name to use for those terits?
The cities...Do they look ok? I'm sure they will probably need to change eventually. An idea I had is to have one icon for the victory condition cities and one icon for the rest of the cities. Do you guys think that will be necessary, or is it clear enough which cities I'm referring to in regards to the victory condition?
Any other complaints, suggestions, issues I need to address, etc.?

[tkr4lf]

Could be a cool theme! One thing I see straight away is that you'll have to make Adygeya much larger in order to fit in the army numbers.

Thanks. You're right, it will need to be. A few others will need to be as well. Thanks for pointing it out!

Any other thoughts?

[tkr4lf]

Anyone?

[isaiah40]

Continue on my son!! This is starting to look better. The water, well it looks like you use the cloud filter for it. Keep up the good work!!

[tkr4lf]

Continue on my son!! This is starting to look better. The water, well it looks like you use the cloud filter for it. Keep up the good work!!

Yeah, it's the cloud filter with the solid noise sub thing. In version 1 I then went on to use the Ripple and Wave distorts over the Solid Noise, but it really didn't look so good. Then I just used the Solid Noise but checked the Turbulence box and I think it looks much better, still not so good.

Thanks for the support though!

[isaiah40]

I know natty can help you with that, since you're using gimp if I remember correctly.

MOVED into the Drafting Room!!