dual-level map

[ustus]

ok, so I was sitting thinking, slightly bored, enjoying the variety of the map ideas here, and I remembered one I saw here for a city with three levels, and I had an odd thought: what if we had two levels in a map, the small map, and the large map. One moves between the two by changing the map size. I'm not sure if it would work with the XML (regrettably, i know nothing about XML) but if the two map sizes are different XMLs or even could be coded to have slightly different connections (say, each territ borders two others on each layer, with either one or both of those being different depending on the layer?). Does anyone know if this is possible?

The next question, of course, is whether or not this is advisable. The large version of this map would have to be the same size as the small version, and I know I use the large map and never even scroll to the small map. But I could definitely read the small map with no problem. I think this could be an interesting experiment, I don't know if it would work, or even if it's a good idea though, and I'm not pisitive that I have the time to carry it out.

Any thoughts? (even "that's a horrible idea!" is useful, as long as you tell me why)

[Evil DIMwit]

You can't have territories behaving differently in the large and small map -- the only difference in coding is that the army numbers are at different coordinates. What might be possible is putting certain territories outside the map bounds for each size, so that the small map contains one set of territories and the large one contains another set (with possible crossover).

On the other hand, it is pretty darned inadvisable. Even if it is possible to do, it would just mean players have to keep switching back and forth and have a harder time wrapping their head around the map. And surely some confused newbies would be wondering where half their territories are. Overall it would just be weird to anyone who's not familiar with the map.

So, as awesome as this two-level map might be, don't expect it to make it past the theory stage.

[ustus]

alright. That's about what I expected, but it seemed like an innovative enough idea that I thought i'd throw it out there. See what's possible, see how bad the reception is, decide if I want to try to work around that. If it's really that bad at first glance, then it's not worth taking a shot at. Thanks for the advice.

[sully800]

You know, I actually like the idea. I think it's a good way to handle insets that we see in several maps (so perhaps you can always see all the borders, but you can only see names/armies by zooming into the small map). I think it could work, though it would admittedly be one of the more confusing maps on the site.

Unfortunately I don't think it would be allowed since small and large maps are required - and this version would make players use both the small and large map to play a single game, thereby eliminating the point of having separate small and large maps.