Conquer Club

Serbia wrote:I also like the flags, I didn't notice them all right away though, is it possible to try to darken them up a touch, so they are more visible?

As far as the flags go, the darker they are the harder it is to read the territory text. I might just update the map without them to see what everyone thinks.

casper wrote:Woah... yeah this looks great!!

As a resident of Illinois, gotta disagree with the naming of some of the territory names though. Springfield should be renamed Champaign / Urbana or just Champaign if that's too long. (home of U of I). Springfield is actually due south of Peoria..not east or north. Granted Springfield is the state capital but the way you have the state split up it doesn't make any sense.

I will look into fixing that. How and what do you suggest I do?

casper wrote:Moving on to Indiana and Michigan..Goshen should be South Bend.

Goshen is my hometown. I have taken some liberties as the map author to put in Goshen.

casper wrote:Lansing should be Kalamazoo. Cadillac should be Traverse City. Or move the circle down and rename it Grand Rapids.

Done!

casper wrote:And then the rivers. There is no major river that splits Indiana and Illinois that far north or in Michigan either. And the Ohio River certainly does not flow north where you have it splitting Dayton and Columbus. Dayton is also a lot further south btw. I realize though that you probably put these there for strategic reasons but overall it's just not realistic.

I downloaded maps of each state with specifically made to show rivers. There are rivers there. They may not be as large as I have described but I did not make them up. I needed to have some borders and as some of us know, there are no mountains in Indiana.

casper wrote:Overall very impressive. Needs a lil work but I think it's a great start. So nice to open a new thread and not see complete crap.

Thanks. I try to get my idea out right the first time. It saves a lot of posting and talking for no reason. This way everyone can get a feel for my vision of the map at the start.

oaktown wrote:at first glance, my only concern would be the size - but you've already mentioned that you're on it.
Can you give us the territory count?

There are 45 territories. I think after I clip the west side of the map and maybe shrink the Large one down a bit, it will be much more appropriate for the site.

Jedimika wrote:Nice. But, once again Vermont and Lake Champlain get the shaft. *sigh*

Sorry.

DiM wrote:

casper wrote:

DiM wrote:so this is the geographical map you were talking about.. nice.
i don't quite like the idea that the lakes are territories. i would have preffered the lakes as impassable borders with some routes between ports.
and i don't get the ports attacking lakes thing.
one port can attack each lake or what?

Chicago can attack Lake Michigan but Milwaukee cannot.

i understood that part but can chicago attack lake ontario??

I said in the 1st post that this portion was not worded correctly. Basically the port territories can attack the lakes they touch. From there the lakes can attack each other by way of the rivers and such that connect them. The lakes can only attack the land at port territories. It is very wordy so I need to get some advice on how to condense it better.

I think its pretty good, but it need a little work though.

You could just draw routes instead of this whole port concept.

Coleman wrote:You could just draw routes instead of this whole port concept.

You mean basically having arrows in/out of the lakes and port territories. Do you think players would understand that other territories cannot attack the lakes?

I think arrows would make the map too busy. You don't need all of that.

BTW, Pittsburgh is spelled with an H.

my eyes are hurting by looking at it

WidowMakers wrote:

oaktown wrote:at first glance, my only concern would be the size - but you've already mentioned that you're on it.
Can you give us the territory count?

There are 45 territories. I think after I clip the west side of the map and maybe shrink the Large one down a bit, it will be much more appropriate for the site.

People will want you to increase that by 3 to 48. And by "people" I mean me.

Since you're already redoing Illinois, I would suggest starting there. Based on your current region distribution this would be the best place to make a region larger (that entire SW area has several small regions right next to each other). I would suggest 2 more in Illinois and maybe 1 more in Ohio, perhaps Pennsylvania.

Also, you should rename the territory "New York" to be either "New York City" or just "NYC" if space does not permit, so that it is distinguished from the region name "New York."

More comments to come. This map really interests me, but I'm a bit busy at the moment.

Well I'm just going to give a run down on what I think right now.

The Good:
Concept is great, layout is great, map is pretty.

The Bad:
The docks. The red rim thing isn't really an ideal way to label them, but I understand you don't feel done yet.

The Ugly:
While I understand the artistic reasons for the way the text is displayed on an angle with the rest of the map, it is really hard to read and match up what goes where bonus wise.

Looks busy but like it could be fun

i think that you need to rename scranton as harrisburg and name harrisburg as phily.

also take the names of the bonuses and make it "stand out" more.

other wise i think its good.

Okay, here's some more detailed stuff:

For the ports, I would very much like some sort of graphic that physically connects the lake and the land, like a pier. This will make it much more clear that it is only connecting those two territories. Due to the compactness of the area, I don't think Detroit would be able to continue to be a port with this graphic, given the port already in Taledo. I think the gameplay is fine without Detroit being a port.

You need to do something about the border around the lakes to indicate that, aside from the ports, they do not connect with the land territories. Perhaps do some sort of 3D land rise so that the land is above the lakes, and only the piers go down to it. (i.e., sink the lakes slightly)

For the bridges and lake connections, I thought a 3D bridge with a two-way arrow running underneath it would look good and be much more clear.

You need to shrink the mountains between Scranton and Harrisburg to make it more clear those territories connect.

I'm somewhat torn on the rivers. I think from a visual perspective they look great as is, but at the same time they are rather thin and often the divisions take a closer look. I could see a lot of people making the mistake that certain territories connect, like Madison and Minneapolis.

You need to move the boundaries for Evansville so that it no longer borders Dayton. This brings Indiana to 3 territories with 2 borders instead of 3 (now the same as Minnesota and Pennsylvania).

I would change North Bay to no longer be a port. This would both reduce Ontario to 4 borders instead of 5, and give the Great Lakes one territory that isn't a border (Lake Huron). Both regions would then be MUCH more holdable, whereas the way they are now neither is a viable region to go for.

I think nearly all of your bonuses are 1 lower than they should be, although since they're almost all like that it sort of works out to be fair in a way. I feel like you either need to add 1 to every bonus except for the Great Lakes, or bring that bonus down to 5. My vote would be adding 1.

WidowMakers...great looking start to your map, i like the concept.
* think it is too busy however with all the background flags - I liked the simplicity of your Mountain Kings and uncluttered appearance there and it had definite flavour. There is simply too much to concentrate on graphically in this one.
* Love the way it is laid in perspective - great graphic enhancement there
* Not sure about the lakes being territories
* is there any way the lines of longitude can be dulled/removed in the territories - my eye keeps wanting to wander to that meridian near the eastern borders of goshen, indianapolis and evansville, possibly because it seems such a prominent line that divides the map visually
* I won't even attemtp to comment on borders or territories as this is not my region, but it looks good.
Hope this helps.

Awesome visually!

Maybe just tone down the flags in the background.

this is a good start, however I am not a fan of the place names. naming each territory after a major city is rather bland and misrepresentative. For example, the area called Plattsburg is actually called North Country ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Country,_New_York ) and naming after a crappy dirty city like plattsburg ruins it for me.

didnt you spell pittsburg wrong? I believe there is an h at the end.

Gorgeous! I love it!
I like the busyness of the map, it's fun.

Suggestions:
Maybe to clarify the ports, you could have the shores of the lake be an impassable border, with the actual ports being open, that way, it eliminates the confusion on which port can attack where.

Perhaps rename Peoria as East St. Louis. I know it's a rough town, but St. Louis sort of dominates that region, even though it's in Missouri, so you have to take that into account.

As to giving Toledo a port, and not Detroit, that's insane. Detroit is superior to Toledo in every way. If one of them loses a port, it HAS to be Toledo. Give Toledo's port to Cleveland, if needs be.

For the text, you could perhaps have it "standing up" perpendicular to the map itself, to highlight the text without the fading.

The bonuses seem low for Indiana and Illinois, if not for the rest of the map.

MR. Nate wrote:As to giving Toledo a port, and not Detroit, that's insane. Detroit is superior to Toledo in every way. If one of them loses a port, it HAS to be Toledo. Give Toledo's port to Cleveland, if needs be.

Well, I only look at it from a map perspective. Clearly you cannot make them both ports, I only picked Toledo because Detroit's shoreline is smaller. I didn't really analyze it from the perspective of their real life importance. If the port will fit in Detroit, then by all means eliminate Toledo's port instead, or move it to Cleveland.

For the text, you could perhaps have it "standing up" perpendicular to the map itself, to highlight the text without the fading.

I'm assuming this is intended just for the bonus text, I like this idea as well.

I like it alot. I agree that the bonuses for illinois indiana and ohio are low by 1, IMO.

it's allmost perfect maybe if you made the colours easier to see.other than that it's perfect

Samus wrote:

MR. Nate wrote:As to giving Toledo a port, and not Detroit, that's insane. Detroit is superior to Toledo in every way. If one of them loses a port, it HAS to be Toledo. Give Toledo's port to Cleveland, if needs be.

Well, I only look at it from a map perspective. Clearly you cannot make them both ports, I only picked Toledo because Detroit's shoreline is smaller. I didn't really analyze it from the perspective of their real life importance. If the port will fit in Detroit, then by all means eliminate Toledo's port instead, or move it to Cleveland.

Don't mess with Detroit!

Serbia wrote:

Samus wrote:

MR. Nate wrote:As to giving Toledo a port, and not Detroit, that's insane. Detroit is superior to Toledo in every way. If one of them loses a port, it HAS to be Toledo. Give Toledo's port to Cleveland, if needs be.

Well, I only look at it from a map perspective. Clearly you cannot make them both ports, I only picked Toledo because Detroit's shoreline is smaller. I didn't really analyze it from the perspective of their real life importance. If the port will fit in Detroit, then by all means eliminate Toledo's port instead, or move it to Cleveland.

Don't mess with Detroit!

I would never mess with Detroit! Only a fool would mess with a city whose crime rate was that high.

UPDATE NUMBER 2

Here is quick update with several of the changes.
48 territories and the names have been changed. Plus the territories borders have been adjusted along with the width

I know there is more but here is what I have so far.

looks great...

I dont like how the legend text and descriptive text has the map angle perspective on it. it makes it hard to read.

is there a reason you dont give the map like a 5degree counter clock wise turn? I feel like i need turn my head sideways a bit to look at it.

One point id like to bring up. Does Detroit border Lake Huron? I can see it borders the lake between Huron and Erie (St. Clair lake i think???), this could easily be mistaken either way.

Instant hit!