Map Name: Paris Mapmaker(s): sempaispellcheck Number of Territories: 39 Special Features: Starting neutrals, autodeploy, partial bonuses What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: This map continues the great tradition of CC city maps established by the NYC map. Paris is one of the world's most famous cities - a fantastic tourist destination with a long and eventful history. It is also, according to Jon Stewart's America: the Book, "the world's most...seizable city." If ten (count them, ten) different groups/tribes/etc. can take Paris, why can't we?
Version 9: Large - 800x720
Click image to enlarge.
Changes: Added 5th star and bridges back in, redid bonus area borders, erased overlap in territory borders (the borders themselves may still need fixing, but they seem OK for now, at least), fixed title font, added minimap to explain bonuses, added cartoon and Paris coat of arms to fill empty space, found "parchment"-type texture for background (the "paper" texture koontz gave me, with a slight change in color), went back to original "oil paint" texture for land area (because I like it), added an impassable (Canal St. Martin - between the territ of the same name and Gare du Nord).
Still to do: Landmark illustrations, improve bridges (how?).
Questions: Do I need more impassables? (if so, where and what kind?) Do the territory borders need redoing?
Notre Dame starts as neutral 10, other 4 landmarks start as neutral 5.
39 territories Drop: (to be confirmed) 2 players: 12 regions per player, 15 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks) 3 players: 11 regions per player, 6 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks) 4 players: 8 regions per player, 7 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks) 5 players: 6 regions per player, 9 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks) 6 players: 5 regions per player, 9 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks) 7 players: 4 regions per player, 11 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks) 8 players: 4 regions per player, 7 starting neutrals (including 5 landmarks)
If there is any other info you would like me to post here, please ask for it. Thank you!
Looking for feedback on anything and everything. Tell me what you think (and why you think it )
Last edited by sempaispellcheck on Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:53 pm, edited 22 times in total.
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
Well taking a quick look at this map I'd say your biggest problem is that the map is very plain. One big thing you could do to fix this is by adding some texture to the map, I'm not sure what program you're using but I know photoshop pretty well and there are others on here who know other programs. Next, the colors of the french flag bleed on to the playable area, which is ugly and kind of distracting, you should erase the areas where the flag colors go onto the map. Your next biggest problem is pixelization, which if you're unfamiliar with the term is where the lines or colored areas appear jagged or blocky. The river is the biggest culprit and some of the territory borders are pixelated as well. Ltly, the map needs some kind of character or Parisian feel to it. You could try putting in little illustrations of the major sights in Paris, such as eiffel tower, the arc de triomphe, the Bastille, Notre Dame, ect.
I hope this helped and I think once you get these things taken care of you should attract much more attraction from other map makers and commenters.
Thanks a lot for the feedback, Helix, much appreciated. I'm working with GIMP (too poor for Photoshop, unfortunately).
Your suggestions make a lot of sense, and I had actually been thinking about illustrations of the landmarks (and maybe a baguette or something in the background?) for my second draft.
The pixelization will probably be the hardest thing for me to deal with, but I'll figure it out or ask for help.
Thanks again for your feedback, and hopefully I can get my second draft out soon!!
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
Your map should have some sound gameplay before you start worrying about the graphics. At the moment, there aren't many regions, and there's nothing to really show off the unique qualities of Paris.
You have some 4-way borders, where it's unclear which regions attack which. For instance, I can't tell if Batignolles is supposed to attack Opera etc. Actually, I think the map would benefit from some more impassables in this format.
For the record, I've always liked the graphics on the Vancouver map (even though it shows a lot of the surrounding area, it's still a city map as far as I'm concerned).
There are plenty of people here who can help with GIMP and offer good advice.
This is my first map, and I am by no means what you would call an artist. That said, I'm working on the feedback that Helix has given me, and will go from there.
Glad you like the concept, though!
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
Hey ManBungalow!! I'm sorry I didn't see your comment before.
Speaking for myself, I don't see too many problems with the gameplay as is. Counting the metro stations, the map has 42 regions, which is not a bad number - and certainly not the least ever seen on CC, as Duck and cover only has 24. Also, I had a fair bit of trouble fitting the text into the territories as they are, so it would take some doing to fit them in after dividing territories to add more.
As stated in the note at the bottom center of the map, territories cannot attack across corners, so Batignolles and Opera can't attack each other. It's all coded in the XML if you have the time to sift through that.
I like the Vancouver map' graphics as well, but I'm not certain what I could take from them to apply to my Paris map.
I am working on my second draft, which will contain a number of substantial improvements over this first draft, and hope to be able to post it soon.
Thank you for your feedback!! sempai
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
Cool that you are doin a Paris city map, at this stage you have some work in front of you.
Some comment for you: you just cant enlarge the version you done and call it "large map" every thing gets pixilated that way, you need to work on both as uniqe maps, ofc you can copy stuff but bewhare of pixilation. the colors you use for background, it dosent look good that they mix in layers, bonus areas in serval colors confuses. the winnings condictions I have also used on some of my maps, and its already tryed out on my Danmark map, 5 was to hard. http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=151728&start=0
This map seems way too small to support 5 10n Objectives. Maybe make it 4 of 5 (a la Copenhavn)? Maybe reduce the neutral presence? Maybe make them all +1 autodeploy?
if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a butterfingered walrus! Tennessee Tuxedo
Thanks for the feedback, guys!! Flapcake, you raise some great points, and I will definitely work on those in my second draft.
About the winning condition - I want it to include territories all over the city, so it won't be advantageous to camp out in or exclude any one area. If I make it 4 of 5, I'm worried that players may just ignore la Rive Gauche completely because it only has 1 objective territory (Tour Eiffel).
Should I make them neutral 5s w/+1? And if I do, should Notre Dame keep its +2?
Thanks again for your feedback!! sempai
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
Also, I am considering changing the name of "Luxembourg" to "SciencesPo" or "IEP" (Institut des Etudes Politiques - Institute of Political Studies).
Thoughts?
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
Second draft posted - see first post of thread. I'm thinking it'll be easier to just keep all drafts in the first post with spoilers rather than have them sprinkled throughout the thread.
The one thing I had wanted to do for this draft but didn't get to was to insert miniature drawings of the landmarks I will be using as objectives. At this point, I'm still not sure how to do that, so that will wait for the third draft.
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
sempaispellcheck wrote:Hey, Flapcake and DoomYoshi!!
Thanks for the feedback, guys!! Flapcake, you raise some great points, and I will definitely work on those in my second draft.
About the winning condition - I want it to include territories all over the city, so it won't be advantageous to camp out in or exclude any one area. If I make it 4 of 5, I'm worried that players may just ignore la Rive Gauche completely because it only has 1 objective territory (Tour Eiffel).
Should I make them neutral 5s w/+1? And if I do, should Notre Dame keep its +2?
Thanks again for your feedback!! sempai
I wouldn't worry too much about camping out.
Keeping +2 makes sense, and you can even have that one with more neutrals on it to reflect the greater bonus and central location advantage.
However, your map is tripping me out! It is faster to march through the territories than it is to take the ligne 1! Is this true while traveling through Paris?
EDIT: It is actually the same pace; still weird though.
EDIT again: Thinking about it twice, the neutrals negate that statement. It would only be equidistant in the late game. I don't foresee very many late games here though.
if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a butterfingered walrus! Tennessee Tuxedo
DoomYoshi wrote:Keeping +2 makes sense, and you can even have that one with more neutrals on it to reflect the greater bonus and central location advantage.
So, should I keep Notre Dame at 10 neutrals, or maybe cut it down to, say, 8?
Fier d'être un Hussard du Dragon et le chef de l'Équipe de Divertissement!! High score: 1850 - 4/7/13 Seeking reserves for 3 tourneys (sign up here, here or here)
DoomYoshi wrote:Keeping +2 makes sense, and you can even have that one with more neutrals on it to reflect the greater bonus and central location advantage.
So, should I keep Notre Dame at 10 neutrals, or maybe cut it down to, say, 8?
I am not sure, let's see what some others think?
if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a butterfingered walrus! Tennessee Tuxedo
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