[Abandoned] Mississippi Magnolia St

[vaughn03]

I can change 'Steamboats assault all fishing boats' to 'Natchez assaults all fishing boats'?

You guys lose me on everything else... Need to be told what to do and then no problem...

Vic tells me you are going to do the code for us - Nolefan5311. That's great but I was hoping maybe you could walk me thru it some? I'd like to learn. I've played around with html a little - just enough to be dangerous I'm afraid but I'd like to learn more. I'm pretty good at PhotoShop - people actually pay me to do it... Would certainly trade knowledge or skills.

Also have my own map that I want to do at some point...

[VicFontaine]

I can change 'Steamboats assault all fishing boats' to 'Natchez assaults all fishing boats'?

CORRECT.

[VicFontaine]

OK, here's the latest written update before we post the image tonight or tomorrow:

1) We've added an objective win: "Control all CT's and Jackson for one turn to win."
2) We've made all the steamboat wheels/army markers WHITE to match their river ports' wheels.
3) We've made "All CT's assault one another" after Nole's strong suggestion to eliminate too many bonuses easily controlled. This will make things much harder.
4) We've moved Memphis further south overlapping 55 and Red Clay/Delta to indicate that Red Clay and Delta are accessible to one another via Memphis.
5) We've changed the legend wording so "steamship" is now "steamboat" for clarity.
6) Adjacent to "The Natchez" steamboat, we've added the following: ("The Natchez" assaults all Gulf Boats)
7) Corinth, a red city in the upper right of the board, has been moved so the city name "Corinth" is over the red city as it should be.
8 ) We've added a red city, plus explanation, in the legend. Can't believe we didn't see this was left out. Good eye Willy Billy Pig.
9) We've added in a symbol for I-59.

[nolefan5311]

All sounds really good. There still may be some recommended changes in gameplay (mainly accessibility and suggested bonus values) but those are all a step in the right direction. Looking forward to seeing the changes.

[VicFontaine]

Map Name: Mississippi Magnolia
Mapmaker(s): Vicfontaine, vaughn03 appearing as The Voice of Reason, aka, the Production Artist.
Number of Territories: 78
Special Features: multi-level bonuses (multiple regions, autodeploys, additional bonuses within regions, etc.), culture-specific to Mississippi
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: There are no unique Deep South (USA) maps and this one provides that as well as detail into some Mississippi history; gameplay is easy but multi-dimensional with bonuses, attacks, defensive positions, etc.

UPDATE AS OF June 7, 2012. Please make this supersized. You have no real quality objections not to and had already told us you would. We continue to get complaints about how "crowded" this looks. We've continued to say, "Make it supersize and it won't be crowded."

800 size:

Click image to enlarge.

1000 size:

Click image to enlarge.

WHAT HAS CHANGED:
1) Legend has been clarified
2) Slight alteration of map and tert locations for clarity
3) **OBJECTIVE WIN HAS BEEN ADDED
4) More awesomeness included


(Older Version:)
(update #5)

Click image to enlarge.

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(update #4)

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(update #3)

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(update #2)

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ORIGINALS (hand-drawn):

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— Terts separated by thin black lines (the highways of MS), thick red lines (MS interstates), and the white line (the historic Natchez Trace Parkway). Attacks are made over impassables through cities. Thus, cities sitting on I-55 connect their adjoining terts, etc.

— Many cultural icons scattered in approximately their actual geographical areas; these are accessed via small-towns (where the culture really is anyway) indicated by the "red cities."

— Steamboats, a historical feature of the Mighty Mississippi river (and MS state), as well as Gulf Fishing Boats (a major part of our state). River cities that autodeploy (along with other "blue cities").

— Universities (Ole Miss, Mississippi State [MSU], University of Southern Mississippi [USM] are accessed via their adjoining cities (so: Oxford gets to Ole Miss, Starkville gets to MSU, and Hattiesburg gets to USM).

Multiple bonus features; many angles of attack and defense. This is a strategist's DREAM map:
1) hard to contain and be contained
2) hard to win (objective: hold all CT's and Jackson and Memphis for 1 turn to win), especially on no spoils (my preference in games)
3) having to think several turns ahead and anticipate the enemies movement

http://s1154.photobucket.com/albums/p537/vicfontaine1/?action=view&current=MagnoliaMap.jpg

[WILLIAMS5232]

looks good...

a few of my thoughts;

1. the legend says

i think this needs clarifying...
one thing is it says something about small cities in the medium city section. this confuses me. probably because i'm from mississippi.
2. another thing is it says;

well, it's easy to see that the closest city to miss. state is columbus. but in real life miss state is in starkville. ( everyone knows this )

3. this may be clearer if worded differently

maybe something like; "steamships assault adjacent steamships N-S
( it's also unclear what the steamship ports assault
4. also do the small cities only assault the CT'S and nothing else?

so, those are a few things i see. actually, i think the whole legend and bonus explanation needs to be reread and reworded. although i think i get it for the most part, it seems to be a little hard to understand. and some questions can be raised.

i'm not trying to be difficult, i think there will be others that feel the same as i do.

other than that. a very nice looking map, and it seems to be shaping up nicely.

[VicFontaine]

You know, this would be much easier to clarify (regarding the clogged sections) with a supersized map.

Or we can just cut the size of the map down to have another Luxembourg.

The other things do need correcting as you pointed out and gave great pictures for us to see. Thanks for doing that work.

I'll see if I can rewrite the legend and post another update over the next week or so that answers most/all of your objections, instead of doing so here. How's that?

[koontz1973]

Universities.
Why does one of the universities assault the other two when they can only bombard each other? Why can the other two not attack southern miss at all?
Would it not make sense (and easier to understand) to have all three connected through assaults or bombardments. Or maybe, remove all of the attacks and give an additional deployable bonus for holding all three.

Steamships.
I am assuming that the white wheel icon is for the steamships and the blue one is the port for each ship. If this is correct then which port connects to which ship? Which port is for Belle of the Bend?
The sentence of Stamships attack each other north and south is not needed at all as you have the attack arrows on the map itself.
Fishing boats, can these only be attacked by the steamships or are they steamboats?

Cultural treasures.
You use the abbreviation CT a lot in the legend. Please use the full wording so as to not cause confusion. You have in the legend small cities assault cultural treasures, does this mean all CTs can be assaulted by all small cities or small cities can assault CT in same bonus area.

Am I correct in saying that if I hold Wolf R, and I want to attack Leaf R, I have to go through Hattiesberg?

[vaughn03]

Production Team is poised and ready for direction... Will have time today - 6/10 - and tomorrow...

[nolefan5311]

Click image to enlarge.

Issues that I see off the top of my head:

• There is not a blue wheel that assaults the Belle of the Bend. Is it Memphis? I think you need to put a blue symbol in the legend also showing that blue and white wheels attack each other
• Adding in the wording of the legend under Capitols, "assaults all adjacent regions and adjacent regions along roadways" or something like that.
• I still don't see an I-59 marker. And again, I have to suggest to get rid of the road bonuses outside of the Natchez Trace completely. Like I said previously, nothing about them is unique to Mississippi and the only serve to add an unnecessary complication.
• Universities "assaulted by nearest city". This is not clear enough because as Williams pointed out, whats geographically closer is not necessarily shown that way on the map. Have you thought about making the universities their own regions? The legend has to be perfectly clear and it appears you're overestimating most people's knowledge of Mississippi
• Similarly, why don't you make the Cultural Treasures their own regions as well?
• Is the Natchez the only territory that assaults fishing boats? If so, that will need to be changed as I can hold the fishing boat bonus while only needing to hold Natchez as the bottleneck. And it doesn't make a ton of sense that the only regions that can assault them is one of the Steamboats
• "Steamboat" and "Steamship" are both being used. They all need to be changed to one word for consistency. I see "Steamship", "Steam Ship", and "Steamboats". Also, I see "Fishingboats" and "Fishing Boats".
• There are still some things that remain unclear that's keeping me from running the bonus spreadsheets...for instance, is Clarksville and Cleveland part of the Delta bonus? Is Canton not part of either bonus? Is Columbus, Starkville, and Macon part of the Black Prairie bonus? What about Tupelo? It's just not clear to me.
• I see potential issues arising with the army markers on the capitals and blue steamboats. I'm not sure how this can really be fixed, maybe you do vaughn?

I honestly expect a little reluctance on some of these changes, but I don't think the supersize is going to happen, so you'll have to work with what you're able to work with. There's a little much going on and the legend isn't clear enough.

[vaughn03]

Vic?

I have to do what Vic says or he'll go on a tirade against me...

Waiting patiently.

[VicFontaine]

Vic?

I have to do what Vic says or he'll go on a tirade against me...

Waiting patiently.

You tell me when we can get to work by emailing me. We don't need to decide that on the forum thread.

[WILLIAMS5232]

Click image to enlarge.

• And again, I have to suggest to get rid of the road bonuses outside of the Natchez Trace completely. Like I said previously, nothing about them is unique to Mississippi and the only serve to add an unnecessary complication.

vic, i got to go along with this, i know you may not like it now, but when the map is done and complete i think even you can appreciate this change.

i'm basically in agreement with everything nolefan says, but to me, if you were going to do anything this is the big one that i would do.

no, we're not in cahoots, in case you were wondering.

[isaiah40]

Vic in response to this:

Please make this supersized. You have no real quality objections not to and had already told us you would. We continue to get complaints about how "crowded" this looks. We've continued to say, "Make it supersize and it won't be crowded."

I said this back on Mar 4:

I've looked over this a few times now to figure out the best way to rearrange things so you won't need to go so big. Right now you can crop the height down from the 1024 to 1000. So if you can do that and update your supersize application with what sizes you are looking - both small and large- then I will take another look and go from there.

Please notice that I didn't say that I would approve your "supersize" application, i said that I would take another loo and go from there. That being said, you still have plenty of room on the sides to make the gameplay instructions clear and concise. So your "supersize " application is denied and you will need to keep this at the standard sizes of 800x840 for the large and 630x600 for the small.

[vaughn03]

Why aren't the dimensions proportional? We will need to adjust for the second size?
Who's the Big Cheese on sizes again? I'd like to find the answers to this... The whole thing makes no sense to me - the difference between 840 and 630 isn't worth doing - (the computer can zoom it just as effectively). CC should have LARGE map for desktops and small map for laptops and smaller... This is really a much bigger issue than the Miss Map, IMHO.

[koontz1973]

Why aren't the dimensions proportional?

They are. A scaled down layer of 840/800 comes to 630/600.

We will need to adjust for the second size?

No you will not.

Who's the Big Cheese on sizes again? I'd like to find the answers to this... The whole thing makes no sense to me - the difference between 840 and 630 isn't worth doing - (the computer can zoom it just as effectively). CC should have LARGE map for desktops and small map for laptops and smaller... This is really a much bigger issue than the Miss Map, IMHO.

The big boss man lack.

This issue with size is not a major issue with this map. Right now, the issue that needs to be dealt with is game play. A lot of what is on the map (has already been pointed out so will out go there again) may not even end up in the final map. You have already proven that the map can come down to 840/800 so scaling it down further is not a big deal. Just look at the left and right side of the map, a lot of space has been completely wasted. Look at some of the other maps on the site. Made before SS came around. A lot have more territs with complicated GP (Stalingrad, Rorke's Drift) and they have managed to fit it all in.

We continue to get complaints about how "crowded" this looks.

Where are these complaints?

If the map is too crowded, then some of the GP elements may need to come out or change. This is your choice now Vic and Vaughn. This map has elements that could make for a great map so please do not stop, but please cut out the "let us have supersize" talk. It is getting you no where.

Give yourself some more room to play with.
Catfish, blues guitar, plantations etc are all very large. Nice graphics but large. Make these half the size they are. Same goes for the steam boats and oyster boats.
You have a lot of roads that are impassable. Why not use one type instead of 3 for these. That gets more space.

These 3 things will not only give you more space but take out the cluttered look you have. You do not need to go larger, if anything, you need to make things smaller.

Hope you continue with it.

[thenobodies80]

Ok, this is the official final say on the size of this map.
Like isaiah has said the map should stay easily within the standard size limits, so the large must be max 840x800 px (wxh) and the small must be max 630x600 (wxh).

To do that, you need first to use the space more wisely, if you need to cut something, cut something...then draw your large map within the standard size limits, when you will reach the graphics stage scale down your image to a size that is within the small map limits, both images don't have to be exactly those sizes, just those are the limits you have to consider and respect.

Map Sizes - Each map must eventually be submitted in two sizes. The 'large' map may be up to 840px wide and 800px high. The small map may be up to 630px wide and 600px high. Mapmakers are encouraged to make their 'large' maps smaller than the maximum size limits when possible. The 'large' map must be noticeably larger than the 'small' map; 9% larger is required but 33.3% (1/3) is recommended. The majority of mapmakers begin working on their large image; although it is worth ensuring that everything will remain clear and legible on the small image relatively early during development.

I know that big/small sizes are not consistent, those sizes were decided in past and probably we will change them in the next future to create more consistence, but for now please follow the guidelines and develop a map that respect "the bold/underlined part" of the above quoted text

Thanks
Nobodies

[DoomYoshi]

The road bonuses do suck. They don't all suck, but the I-10 does, it makes the gulf so much more valuable. Since you can't just get rid of the I-10 though, you should just get rid of all the road bonuses.

[vaughn03]

Sorry for confusion. You wrote:

'So your "supersize " application is denied and you will need to keep this at the standard sizes of 800x840 for the large and 630x600 for the small.'

Not proportioned... (numbers switched)

This is Vic's map - I merely offered to help. Will move/reduce/eliminate as instructed when you come to a consensus.

Thanks.

[isaiah40]

Sorry for confusion. You wrote:

'So your "supersize " application is denied and you will need to keep this at the standard sizes of 800x840 for the large and 630x600 for the small.'

Not proportioned... (numbers switched)

This is Vic's map - I merely offered to help. Will move/reduce/eliminate as instructed when you come to a consensus.

Thanks.

Yes sorry I meant 840x800 for the large. Now they are proportional!

[nolefan5311]

Moved to the Recycling Bin

It would appear that development of this map has stalled. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Foundry Moderators will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.