MrBenn wrote:Cairns,
I'm sorry that my previous post in this thread was so critical, and that I did not take the time to reflect constructively. As I said in my PM, you have continued to stretch the boundaries and have helped to broaden the CC experience of many players - for that I applaud you. You have made a significant and positive impact to the foundry, and your voice/opinion is one that I hold in high regard.
As far as Poison Rome goes, I know I have broadly come late to the game, and fully appreciate the frustration that comes with that.
Thanks MrBenn,
I hope we can move forward and be mindful that i think everyone who comes into this place hopes to be positive and achieve something for the site, and that we are human, we all make mistakes and sometimes events like early forging (not your issue here) of maps and not giving enough feedback should be done before maps make it into FF. I hope something towards this, perhaps some announcement on the home page like "whatever map nearing FF, your comments are needed" would be pertinent to getting people into the foundry to make comments at the
appropriate time and not when the map reaches FF.
Here are some of my specific concerns:
1. Gods border Emperors but not each other. Other than the fact you've used gods and goddesses, I wonder if you could add a line of text by each of the temples for the gods saying something like 'CERES: goddess of Agriculture', 'MARS: god of War' 'JOVE: god of the Sky' 'JUNO: goddess of Fidelity'. I know there isn't much space, but even something small might help to affirm that the temples belong to the gods. An alternative option might be to ghost the image of a temple into the background of the explanatory text on the legend?
Yes i'm putting a God temple in the legend to cover here. I'd like the idea of the education bit but the map is already heavily crowded and i don't think extra text would add aesthetics.
2. Adoption. Presumably adoption paths also act as attack routes? I don't know whether this needs to be made explicit or not? I'm not completely sold on the red colour, but perhaps nothing else quite looked right? A totally random idea might be to make them look a little mosaic-y? I'm aware that I haven't said anything particularly solid on this point, so feel free to overlook it.
I've changed the text to read:
Use for attack. Family member on other end not part of family bonus
3. Bombardments. It took me a while to locate the fig on Livia Drusilla. There is possibly space to add a second fig image by moving the army square to the right a little - this would help to draw attention to the fact she has many poisoned figs, as well as making it more visible? At the same time, it might be worth making the other figs very slightly smaller (as in a couple of pixels). I had a random idea for the poison bombardments too - the vial works for the attacker, but perhaps you could have a chalice with coloured liquid in it to represent the target, rather than a vial of what looks like a different poison? Alternatively a paler 'diluted' vial (of the same colour as the poisoner) might work for the target?
Adding a second fig to Livia Drusilla and indeed chalices and changing colours i think might only add to confusion. Thank you for the offer though.
4. Cleopatra. There isn't anything on the legend to indicate why she is purple, which means that people are likely to assume that she plays a significant role gameplay-wise. Also, the Romans didn't have a numeral for 0 (which is the primary reason their numbering system didn't stand the test of time) and this detail grates when the rest of the map is so meticulously researched. An empty circle may work, although I'd be inclined to suggest a dash/hyphen.
I think that most players would know that Cleopatra is not part of the "Roman Royal Family" but indeed Egyptian, and that purple represents Royal purple, that's why it's different, and it also draws attention to the fact that somethign different is happening here. However, she is integral to this whole story and was included as an attack route from Caesar to Antony.
As for the zero, there was some discussion some pages back about using zero and to co-relate with the rest of the family bonuses, zero was the best alternative to use as players recognise it as being 'nul', while the other roman numerals give flavour to the map and period.
5.The Family Unit Bonuses. The legend has a brighter orange than is used on the map - or it
looks brighter than on the map. The main thing that bothers me, is that while I can work out who borders who, I want it to be much more obvious... Part of me wonders whether you could use slightly different coloured lines to represent each different family unit?? Or you could pick
4 slightly different colours to shade the lines?? I also wonder whether the Marriage symbol is really needed on the legend, as that could be implied from the diagram beside it in any case?
In the legend, i've fixed the colours to coincide with the rest of the map.
I am not wanting to change the colours of these connection, there was large debate in the Foundry to get this to the stage it is, and those who participated at the time were happy with the result.
I think the marriage symbol is needed as it clearly shows who married who. Implication from the diagram does not cover who married who in my mind, and i think it plays an important part of the game strategy if you read the legend left to right.
I applaud the offer of the four color therom, and understand it (although it took some time to read just the introduction). While it is pertinent in many situations, there are those situations outside of it's theory and this is one of them. I think to add more colour to a map that is intended to look something akin to white marble/stucco etc, would be horrific for Rome. There are certainly more than four colors in this map when consideration is given to the shades of white/grey, green, reds, oranges and other small touches.
6. Miscellaneous Graphical Nitpicks. The box around Caesonia has a slight indent in it, which looks slightly odd, particularly as it's the only one like it (I think); I'd tweak it to make it completely square - like the box around Britanicus.
Done.
The box around Sextus Julius Ceasar looks like it has half the roof missing. I know this intentional, but personally I think it looks incomplete.
More roof added.
Finally, there appears to be slight inconsistencies in the edging around various boxes - compare Julia Livilla to Nero Ceasar right beneath it, or Castor Drusus to Tiberius Gemellus, for example.
I have now spent over an hour analysing the map, and I don't think it is actually as confusing as it appears to be at a first glance, although I still don't feel the gameplay is that intuitive. In general, the gameplay feels balanced, but I cannot fully get my head around all the overlapping bonuses. The graphics are of a high standard, and despite my concerns, I think the map is definitely worthy of the Final Forge.
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intuitive "able to understand or know something without conscious reasoning"....this map was
never meant to be intuitive, MrBenn. As you know i don't always make simple play classic style LCD/KISS maps. I like to offer something that people can chew over and have challenge from to get their brains thinking.
The overlapping bonuses simply mean that these people/terts will be highly targeted to gain the family bonus, and in some respects
will cause some bottle-necking. So strategically placement of armies will have to occur to overcome this.
Thanks for spending the time btw. I've also spent a lot of time on it trying to give people what they wanted (within reason).
So here is Version 37.
I have moved various army boxes around as suggested by .44 and these will show in centering tests.
If there are no more graphic changes, i will again split the map and create the large and then work on the xml centering.
