[Abandoned] American Heartland

by **RjBeals** on Wed Jan 11, 2012 8:59 pm

Doesn't the heartland include like Iowa and the Dakotas? I like the layout you have here. Looks interesting with the straight borders and then the curvy Mississippi under it. Looking forward to what sort of Americana graphics you come up with.

by **The Bison King** on Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:41 pm

RjBeals wrote:Doesn't the heartland include like Iowa and the Dakotas? I like the layout you have here. Looks interesting with the straight borders and then the curvy Mississippi under it. Looking forward to what sort of Americana graphics you come up with.

"Heartland" is really a vague open ended term that could pretty much refer to anywhere in the interior united states, usually leaning towards the central east since that's where the geographic population center is.

by **Industrial Helix** on Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:22 pm

RjBeals wrote:Doesn't the heartland include like Iowa and the Dakotas? I like the layout you have here. Looks interesting with the straight borders and then the curvy Mississippi under it. Looking forward to what sort of Americana graphics you come up with.

Well, Ohio's motto is "the heart of it all", so I pretty much regard Ohio and its environs as the heartland. And by curvy mississippi do you mean the curvy Ohio river?

by **RjBeals** on Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:38 pm

Industrial Helix wrote:And by curvy mississippi do you mean the curvy Ohio river?

well i'll be damned. I always thought that was a part of the Mississippi.

Click image to enlarge.

by **AndyDufresne** on Fri Jan 13, 2012 10:26 am

I think every state in the Midwest believes they are a part of the Heartland, and lots of things in the Midwest are named Heartland. In fact, University of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa have a traveling trophy called the 'Heartland Trophy' for NCAA Football.

--Andy

by **The Bison King** on Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:12 am

Ok, I'm posting this just to give people an idea of where I'm going with this. As you can see for starters I'm increasing the amount of territories that are in each state. Basically I'm arriving upon the philosophy that more is more, and more is always better. Especially when it comes to territories on CC maps.

I'm not sure where to go with Farmland territory names. I'm trying to avoid town or city names because it's a thematic clash with the city territories. I've done a test run on Ohio where I just pick a county from that region and use it for the whole area. Hopefully that wont get a lot of flak from people who think that their county is being inappropriately ignored, because I used Hamilton instead of Clarimont of whatever.

Click image to enlarge.

The below image is ESPECIALLY NOT to be taken literally. It is just to show you guys the artistic direction that I'll be going with this later on. All the artwork on there is copyrighted stuff I pulled from the internet and WILL NOT be used on the final or any following versions. The above map just looked so naked that I wanted to give you guys a look at what this will be like further along.

Click image to enlarge.

by **The Bison King** on Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:29 pm

Click image to enlarge.

Ok still not there yet but at least all the territories are there and labeled.

by **bryguy** on Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:41 pm

AndyDufresne wrote:I think every state in the Midwest believes they are a part of the Heartland, and lots of things in the Midwest are named Heartland. In fact, University of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa have a traveling trophy called the 'Heartland Trophy' for NCAA Football.

--Andy

The heartland generally is defined as the midwestern states. That includes Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, the Dakotas, a bunch of states I forgot the names of because I'm bad with state names, Ohio, Indiana....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

by **natty dread** on Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:40 am

So, how do you plan on players to start on this?

If it starts as a random drop, it will be very unequal, with all the +1 for x bonuses... but if everyone starts with just a city, and the cities can attack each other, then... first round eliminations.

I think this needs to be solved first.

by **The Bison King** on Wed Jan 25, 2012 3:09 pm

natty_dread wrote:So, how do you plan on players to start on this?

If it starts as a random drop, it will be very unequal, with all the +1 for x bonuses... but if everyone starts with just a city, and the cities can attack each other, then... first round eliminations.

I think this needs to be solved first.

Uh crud I didn't think about that... obviously.

ok, here's what I'm thinking. All Cities start neutral (equivalent to their value, maybe starting at 2 for the +1's). We add the rule +1 for every 3 farmland territories "with at least 1 city" and add a city in West Virginia so that players can reap it's farmland bonus.

by **natty dread** on Thu Jan 26, 2012 1:36 am

The Bison King wrote:Uh crud I didn't think about that... obviously.

Here, you can have one of these:
#-o

The Bison King wrote:ok, here's what I'm thinking. All Cities start neutral (equivalent to their value, maybe starting at 2 for the +1's). We add the rule +1 for every 3 farmland territories "with at least 1 city" and add a city in West Virginia so that players can reap it's farmland bonus.

Hm, that could work. However, that makes all of the bonuses dependent on the cities. It will make them heavily contested... so you may want to code all regions that are adjacent to cities as starting positions to ensure their even distribution.

by **BGtheBrain** on Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:40 am

by **The Bison King** on Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:38 am

BGtheBrain wrote:This is awesome. Thanks for correcting Kentucky.
You may want to change Newport to Covington.
Covington is the 5th largest city in Kentucky and is over double the size of Newport.
Im impartial to Florence though and you could throw in a tribute to the landmark the....

Florence Y'all Water Tower - This can be seen from the interstate and is a recognizable landmark for anyone who has driven up or down I-75

Maybe make a little mini one on the map.

Click image to enlarge.

Well on my most recent version I actually took the territory out all together. However I may still add it back in. If I do so I will add it back in as Covington.

And yeah I've seen that water tower, and am aware of the lovely little factoid that it used to say "Florence Mall" until the city made them change it because they weren't allowed to advertise on public property.
Do you live in Covington? Florence?

by **BGtheBrain** on Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:39 am

by **The Bison King** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:34 am

Click image to enlarge.

Ok I suppose it's about time I start working on this again. Permitting that there actually is support and interest for this map.

by **natty dread** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:15 am

You didn't add the "must hold city" thing to the farmland bonuses...

by **The Bison King** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:20 am

natty dread wrote:You didn't add the "must hold city" thing to the farmland bonuses...

Not yet. I will though. I also still need to add a city in West Virginia.

by **AndyDufresne** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:22 am

The Bison King wrote:Ok I suppose it's about time I start working on this again. Permitting that there actually is support and interest for this map.

I think a heartland map could work, but I've never heard of West V. being part of the heartland. It seems like the heartland is shifted East quite a bit. Though Heartland is always a pretty ambiguous term, since a lot of states claim (or want to claim) they are part of such an area.

Best of luck.

--Andy

by **The Bison King** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:28 am

AndyDufresne wrote:
The Bison King wrote:Ok I suppose it's about time I start working on this again. Permitting that there actually is support and interest for this map.

I think a heartland map could work, but I've never heard of West V. being part of the heartland. It seems like the heartland is shifted East quite a bit. Though Heartland is always a pretty ambiguous term, since a lot of states claim (or want to claim) they are part of such an area.

Best of luck.

--Andy

Yeah, I don't know what you'd call West Virginia part of. Appalachia I suppose. I kind of think it's sort of it's own thing down there.

by **Industrial Helix** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:17 pm

Maybe it's me but I'm waiting on a more pretty version before I can sticky this and stamp it.

by **natty dread** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:17 am

Industrial Helix wrote:Maybe it's me but I'm waiting on a more pretty version before I can sticky this and stamp it.

I think the map looks fine enough for a draft stamp. Also I believe Bison King has shown that he is capable of taking the graphics to a sufficient level... but this is just my opinion.

However I would say the legend should be corrected to reflect the gameplay change about the cities (see above), because without that change the gameplay doesn't make any sense...

by **The Bison King** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:00 pm

natty dread wrote:
Industrial Helix wrote:Maybe it's me but I'm waiting on a more pretty version before I can sticky this and stamp it.

I think the map looks fine enough for a draft stamp. Also I believe Bison King has shown that he is capable of taking the graphics to a sufficient level... but this is just my opinion.

However I would say the legend should be corrected to reflect the gameplay change about the cities (see above), because without that change the gameplay doesn't make any sense...

And I still need to add that city in W. Virginia. After that it should be ready.

by **chapcrap** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:31 pm

I don't support the name of this map. It isn't a true representation of the Heartland.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Midwest_%28United_States_of_America%29

Other than that, I think the map looks pretty good.