South America [Quenched]

[edocsil]

i duno those colors r kinda dready somewhere in between would be good tho...

[Solus]

i duno those colors r kinda dready somewhere in between would be good tho...

It's looking awfully difficult to find a balance between the two color schemes, if you could combine the two schemes then it would be fine. (1st ones too bright and the second is too gloomy)

[edbeard]

I think you guys are talking about my version, but I just want to make sure you are not confusing RjBeals' gloomy thing as mine?


no offense Rj, just way too greyed out for me

[Solus]

I think you guys are talking about my version, but I just want to make sure you are not confusing RjBeals' gloomy thing as mine?


no offense Rj, just way too greyed out for me

I'm not confusing them I'm saying find a balance between them and it won't hurt my poor eyes so much.

[edbeard]

let me be more clear.

are you saying I should find a balance between my latest version and the thing RjBeals did?

Or, are you saying I should do the middle ground between my latest version and the "brighter" one I had before?

[edbeard]

I'm pretty sure you meant in between my 2, just wanted to make sure. Anyway, here is in between the v7 and v8

v7 v9 v8

[Solus]

let me be more clear.

are you saying I should find a balance between my latest version and the thing RjBeals did?

Yes, this is what I'm saying.

[edbeard]

let me be more clear.

are you saying I should find a balance between my latest version and the thing RjBeals did?

Yes, this is what I'm saying.

to be honest the chances of me doing that are slim to none. That goes completely against the colour styling to which I'm going.

I don't see how people can complain against the "brightness" of version 8. And, frankly anything less than that takes away from the Rainbow-esque scheme.

v8

[MR. Nate]

I don't want to sound pushy, but if the foundry wants you to tone down the colors, and you refuse, why should the foundry pay attention to you? Nobody's picking on you, but the consensus is that the colors are overpowering.

If I read correctly, the Andes has 5 borders, but only 3 places to attack from? The 4 territories in the middle are unable to attack, but you've got to defend them. It seems horribly hard to hold, and not even remotely worth taking. If everyone's OK with that, that's fine, but from a playability standpoint, if I did play the map, I would be hoping not to end up in the Andes at all.

[edbeard]

I haven't refused to tone down the colours. I have done that and I hardly think that the few people that have commented on the toned down version, v8, speak for the foundry.

I have refused to put out something that looks like crap. In my humble opinion, the greyed version RjBeals put out looks like crap. I hope you don't take offense Rj, I realize you're trying to help. Mostly likely you were just trying to make a point and just giving an exaggerated example. Anyway, anything in between the version you put out and v8 looks awful to me. I'm hardly going to put out something I don't like.

In addition, that change is far from the colour style/scheme I am trying to have. Yes, I do have to listen to feedback and make changes when they make sense, but I have the right to create the map in the way I want it to be.

The "consensus" was about the older versions. There is nothing close to resembling a "consensus" on v8.


My posts may come off as harsh and curt, but I do greatly appreciate all feedback received. Especially the gameplay feedback from you nate, which I think might be the first.

As for Andes, it has 4 places to attack from and 5 borders needing to be defended. A bonus of 6 is probably better, and maybe higher if people think so. Like I said, I haven't really had any gameplay feedback yet, so I'd like to see more before I make a decision on the bonus, though I am leaning to increasing it, and possibly for Guianas as well.

[MR. Nate]

I'm not criticizing the colors. I'm not opposed to bright colors, I'm just saying, before you say "I'm not going to make that change" you may want to, say take a poll, talk to Andy, whatever.

On to (the more important) gameplay.

I didn't see the connection from Iquique to La Paz, so my mistake. Still, the whole Andes area seems unwieldy. The concept of a flat area west of the Andes appears to be added for gameplay, but personally, I'm not a fan.

The other issue to me is rivers. They break up the map more than they should. For instance, the river through the highlands is exists solely to prevent armies from moving directly from to Teresina to Recife. But they're both internal territories to the area, without borders. It doesn't prevent internal movement at all, because it essentially creates 2 routes from Brasilla to Natal. To me, the rivers make the map seem more claustrophobic than it already does, which is bad, because it's already too narrow.

[edbeard]

I'm not criticizing the colors. I'm not opposed to bright colors, I'm just saying, before you say "I'm not going to make that change" you may want to, say take a poll, talk to Andy, whatever.

well nice to see that you read my response regarding this matter. oh wait. it appears you didn't. Or, you decided to ignore it and try to get the last word in anyway. I'm still waiting for response on v8, which I have now put back into the first post. And, notice that it came about from a suggestion from Andy.


as for the rivers, it's not like I conjured them up from nowhere. they are all real rivers in the continent, and they all do serve a purpose for gameplay. the river you talked about does exactly what you said it did. when you're holding the area it doesn't matter, but it adds to the difficulty of conquering it. And, if you're trying to eliminate someone you might be forced to go through a highly fortified area. instead of just being able to get there directly. that's just a personal preference thing but it adds to the character of the map.

as for the Andes, there's almost always at least one difficult place to hold on every map. I don't see why this map should not have one. To me, saying I shouldn't have that area is like saying we shouldn't have asia on classic or germany on Europe. Should I increase their bonus? Maybe. I'm waiting for feedback on it.


edit:

real quick, I want to add, it's not like I'm not trying to get the colours to be something that everyone can agree are good. But, trying to keep my vision and please the "too bright" crowd is not easy. I am hoping that v8 is good enough for everyone, but we'll see. this is pretty much the only thing I've been tinkering with for the past few days, in regards to map making I mean

[RobinJ]

I'm not criticizing the colors. I'm not opposed to bright colors, I'm just saying, before you say "I'm not going to make that change" you may want to, say take a poll, talk to Andy, whatever.

On to (the more important) gameplay.

I didn't see the connection from Iquique to La Paz, so my mistake. Still, the whole Andes area seems unwieldy. The concept of a flat area west of the Andes appears to be added for gameplay, but personally, I'm not a fan.

The other issue to me is rivers. They break up the map more than they should. For instance, the river through the highlands is exists solely to prevent armies from moving directly from to Teresina to Recife. But they're both internal territories to the area, without borders. It doesn't prevent internal movement at all, because it essentially creates 2 routes from Brasilla to Natal. To me, the rivers make the map seem more claustrophobic than it already does, which is bad, because it's already too narrow.

About the Andes: I see no problem in having a difficult to hold continent - most maps have them (Classic has Asia, etc.). Although, perhaps the bonus should be boosted a bit if that is the case.

The rivers: I'm not sure on this but aren't they all geographically accurate? Personally, I think that is quite important in any map of a real place, especially one so large.

The colours: I've come round to the bright colours now and quite like them (at least since they've been toned down). It's nice to have something different and S. America does seem to give out the image of being rich and abundant because of the rainforests and so on. (I know that is not entirely true as there are a lot of slums in big cities more barren countries aren't much better than living in Africa, but still...) Therefore, I would be quite happy to keep these colours as the base for the map. I'm not saying don't alter them but I no longer think anything so drastic needs to be done about them

[AndyDufresne]

A few random thoughts:

Hm, regarding the colors, I wouldn't mind seeing a slightly 'darker' version (not by gray, but simply a few nudges darker on the color scale).

And while looking at the map, I started to think of your Caribbean map, as it also used relatively bright and light colors. But I think the reason it worked easily there and not so much here...is because of the spacing between island continents. I think there is a congestion feel when you push all the colors together, that make them a little over powering...when one by itself is actually fine. I think the collective region may be working against you in some way. Something to think about.

Right now, the rivers feel like they are popping up out of the land, see if you can perhaps reverse that effect, or at least make them feel 'flatter'. Also, it looks slightly odd when the river doesn't empty into ocean areas (like Santos).

Mountains, the white doesn't work with the map I don't think (and I am not really sold on the mountain shapes themselves). I think definitely darker, grayer, browner, something...other than white. As you are using white army shadows...I don't think you want any more white on the map than you need.

I like the simplicity of the map, but I think something behind the Bonus Legend would be beneficial, if not at least to make them names stand out and make them all easier to read. (The darker colors especially).

Regarding some Andes region and some gameplay, it is interesting to note that though it and Guianas are similar in country and border number, the Andes region has the unfortunate draw of two one-way borders, and a border not touching one of its own borders (the southern one). Take a look at Guiana, and all it's borders touch at least one (So if a border is taken out, theoretically you can attack it back), while Andes is a little more hampered this way. But do those things warrant a bump to 6? I'm not sure, but something to take into account, the various factors. A 6 could be a good thing...adds a little more diversity to your nearly 'twin continental scheme'.

Hm, I assume you based the various bonus regions on actual regions. Are there other scheme's out there? I'm just curious, if you've taken other idea's into account during development.


--Andy

[edbeard]

I doubt I'll be updating again 'till sometime next week, so here's something I've been tinkering with for a few days. It's nowhere near being done, so I'm not looking for "mistakes" I just want to see if people like the general direction it is going. And, it only addresses visual issues not any gameplay talk. the bolded text is for those who only scan words