Conquer Club

Incandenza wrote:I'm glad to see this map back in the foundry... Of course, that being said...

The overall level of connectivity is pretty high, which is impressive in so linear a geographical subject, but the bonuses are still really brutal. In a way I'm kinda bummed the outlying islands were lost, as they provided the only other really plausible bonus along with the northern +2.
I whole heartily agree with this. I would also like to see outer islands returned. I am not sure about those being the only two "plausible" bonuses

Let me put it another way: you've got one easily-attainable bonus with 2 borders. The next one down has 4, then 6, 5, and finally 4 (working south). It'd be nice to find a way for a southern bonus to only have 3 borders and provide some sort of counterpoint to the northern +2. I'm not 100% sure how best that would be accomplished, it could be as simple as moving the Canterbury sealane from Otago to North Otago (tho I imagine there's a better way). If not, then you might want to think about reducing that +2 to a +1.

Moneymatt wrote:love the idea. go kiwi's

but......i have the idesa that the waiarapa isnt quite directly to the right. wellington takes the whole of the bottom part of the island.

• The coat of arms is blurry. I like it better than the flag, though. Take the image from here, convert to smart object and scale to your will
• The title's rather plain. Though I know you're going for the textbook theme, I'd like to see it spruced up a bit. Make it really … New Zealandish.
• You can fit the names in the terts. IMO, it doesn't matter if you override some borders — it's annoying to have the names floating in the sea. In some cases (Taranaki), you don't even need them in the sea to fit! I don't mind it in the minimap, but there's just such an excess of seaborne names it's annoying. In some areas you won't even need to!
• A small note in the key: can you use colons instead of hyphens (i.e. Population: >4,173,460)
• The routes are a bit … off: A couple things: first, I think reducing the size of the dots would help out; second they're not smooth. take the pen tool and trace the routes again, setting the brushes like you want them (I'd say it's x-1 px @ 200% spacing), then control click and "stroke path."
• The sea names are too big and "out there." I'd reduce them in size a ton, putting them into one line and lowering the opacity, perhaps halving it.
• The sea doesn't fit the land. I think it's been said before, but worth repeating. Your land terrain is exceptional — realistic, well-shown, etc. However, the land is minimalist, not really fitting that theme. I think if you were to find some good water images (Google Earth and the like), it would fly much better. Also, a water texture in really really low scale (adding to the zoomed-out feel) could work, though go with the first option. Just thinking out loud here, maybe you'd add a glow from the land, a gradient on the water, etc.
• The borders are a little to integrated. They seem a bit too into the map — blended in. They're borders: you need them out there! A small outer glow would do the trick
• Perhaps… you could add a representation in the dead lower-right area about where NZ is, not for educational purposes (per say), but rather for a nice image. Enclosed in the spoiler below is a nice example of what I was thinking, though you could zoom it out even more. There, also in the spoiler I included a map of what the scale I envisioned, without NZ highlighted. You could put it in a box with a title, color all the other land teal/gray, and NZ as blue, as that seems to suit the area.
  

  show: highlighted NZ

  show: scale example

• And… you need your sigs somewhere