Famine V.19.3 pg1+35 [I] [Reworking]

[TaCktiX]

I'm not going to say abandon this map. You have a badly advertised gimmick that needs to be explained better: minus reinforcements without resources. A simulated "upkeep" to your empire, requiring a player to capture resources to meet that demand. You really need to bring this out and expand on it, stating what resources contribute what army count, and how that counteracts the upkeep generated by all other territories. At the same time you'll need to make starting castle bonuses and resource bonuses large enough that people in No Cards won't be walking around with negative reinforcements unless they're flaming idiots (read: never captured a resource). I wish you the best of luck on this, and I think with some work you could pull this through.

[bryguy]

In a way, I also think you should just abandon this map. In my opinion, a map has to have at least one of three things in order for it to be successful:

1) an entirely new gameplay with original gimmicks
2) a classic style map with no gimmicks but new area of the world map
or
3) Amazingly good graphics

few things

1) Does have new gameplay with original gimmicks, only map out there that has -1 without resources
2) This is a new area of a make believe world
3) The graphix depend on who your asking, some people who i showed the map to before i showed it to u guys said it should be quenched right then (luckily u guys didnt!)
4) the number then ) is my thing!

As far as I see it, this map has none of those and will never have any of them unless you completely restarted from the beginning. This is the same old conquer-all-castles style of gameplay and has no original gimmicks. On top of that, the graphics have no appeal at all. I suggest you go out and buy photoshop instead of just using a trial and start a brand new map. Take one of Oaktown's ideas and just start anew.

Dude i did start this basically from the beginning before, have u ever looked at the really old versions before version 11? they look like crap. And the, as u call it, same old conquer-all-castles style of gameplay, isnt the same. It has 8 castles instead of gimil and DiMs 6-7, There are currently 3 maps in existence with the said gameplay, and DiM even said before that we need more maps like this. Oh and I would gladly buy photoshop and do one of Oaktowns ideas WITH this idea still going, but i dont happen to have $700, do YOU have $700 I could have?

If you don't want to do that, then leave the mapmaking to more experienced players

Leave the mapmaking to more experienced players?!?!?! Dude I have a higher rank than u, more than 300 more games than u, joined before u, and beaten some people that were at one point getting close to the conquerer rank! (long ago when i was a cook soon after joining ) So you can NOT say that im not experienced. I also know how to make maps, im the best person on cc as far as i know that can do amazing things with inkscape and GIMP, u can NOT say im experienced

I'm not going to say abandon this map. You have a badly advertised gimmick that needs to be explained better: minus reinforcements without resources. A simulated "upkeep" to your empire, requiring a player to capture resources to meet that demand. You really need to bring this out and expand on it, stating what resources contribute what army count, and how that counteracts the upkeep generated by all other territories. At the same time you'll need to make starting castle bonuses and resource bonuses large enough that people in No Cards won't be walking around with negative reinforcements unless they're flaming idiots (read: never captured a resource). I wish you the best of luck on this, and I think with some work you could pull this through.

There I agree, I really do need to explain it better. And yea I will need to have higher bonuses, but as far as I know for XML (havent really been checking up on it lately) there is a [minrecruits] or something tag where u can set how little u can get minnimum. Also, im gonna be changing the ammount of armies in the more deserted areas to neutral 1, but im gonna change it so that you need have to get a resource for each area. Im also gonna need to

1) add more boats
2) Mess around with the neutrals in the desert so that they are mostly 1s, with 2s and 3s and 4s next to tray village
3) make it so that you need a resource for each area, so that its more like u keep
4) Modify the menu so that its on top (sorry but thats gonna make it more like gimils)

[bryguy]

just to let u guys know, i probably wont have an update for a while, here are the reasons


1) Im really busy this week/next week
2) Its my sisters 17th birthday today
3) My cat just died

[Mr. Squirrel]

few things

1) Does have new gameplay with original gimmicks, only map out there that has -1 without resources
2) This is a new area of a make believe world
3) The graphix depend on who your asking, some people who i showed the map to before i showed it to u guys said it should be quenched right then (luckily u guys didnt!)
4) the number then ) is my thing!

1) That is new, I'll admit, but to me, it seems like it was not quite so thought out as it should have been. For one, you hardly explain it all on the map. Also, it seems like some people stupid people, as Tacktix wrote, would fall into negative reinforcements and then would be out of the game forever. You need to rethink this and make adjustments, or get rid of it completely.
2) It might be a new map, but it looks just like any other. Feudal war and the Age of Realms maps look exactly like this one. If you want to make it unique, you will need a new style, not the simple, scattered castles and resources on map with some rivers and mountains interspersed. If you take one of oaktown's ideas, it will really add to the originality of the map.
3) Many people on the forums when they see a new map want it quenched, so that statement doesn't really help. Most of the time, they are referring to gameplay instead of actual graphics. Check out the Iceland map by RjBeals, and Oaktown's High seas map. That is what I consider 'Amazingly good graphics'. Yours does not even compare to theirs.

Dude i did start this basically from the beginning before, have u ever looked at the really old versions before version 11? they look like crap. And the, as u call it, same old conquer-all-castles style of gameplay, isnt the same. It has 8 castles instead of gimil and DiMs 6-7, There are currently 3 maps in existence with the said gameplay, and DiM even said before that we need more maps like this. Oh and I would gladly buy photoshop and do one of Oaktowns ideas WITH this idea still going, but i dont happen to have $700, do YOU have $700 I could have?

The number of castles you have has little effect on the originality of the map. And, what I think DiM was saying is that we need more Feudal-style maps where you start out with only one territory, not necessarily just another castle battle. And, I already do have photoshop. You can get it off ebay for less than half the price you suggested.

Unless something is done, I don't think this map will ever leave the main foundry.

[bryguy]

few things

1) Does have new gameplay with original gimmicks, only map out there that has -1 without resources
2) This is a new area of a make believe world
3) The graphix depend on who your asking, some people who i showed the map to before i showed it to u guys said it should be quenched right then (luckily u guys didnt!)
4) the number then ) is my thing!

1) That is new, I'll admit, but to me, it seems like it was not quite so thought out as it should have been. For one, you hardly explain it all on the map. Also, it seems like some people stupid people, as Tacktix wrote, would fall into negative reinforcements and then would be out of the game forever. You need to rethink this and make adjustments, or get rid of it completely.
2) It might be a new map, but it looks just like any other. Feudal war and the Age of Realms maps look exactly like this one. If you want to make it unique, you will need a new style, not the simple, scattered castles and resources on map with some rivers and mountains interspersed. If you take one of oaktown's ideas, it will really add to the originality of the map.
3) Many people on the forums when they see a new map want it quenched, so that statement doesn't really help. Most of the time, they are referring to gameplay instead of actual graphics. Check out the Iceland map by RjBeals, and Oaktown's High seas map. That is what I consider 'Amazingly good graphics'. Yours does not even compare to theirs.

This is FANTASY not real life stuff, so thats the main reason why it looks nothing like theirs. And how do u get that this looks like AoR??? Feudal maybe but i dont think so for AoR (AoR is much better!)

Also, The castles arent randomly dispersed (villages maybe but not the castles) and the impassables are set up so that nobody decides to kill everyone else in Round 1. Also like i told tak, there is something in the xml that lets u code how little armies u can get in 1 turn, which that would of course be set to 1 for this map. And yes i know that i need to explain it better, ive been trying to figure out a way to explain it better.

Dude i did start this basically from the beginning before, have u ever looked at the really old versions before version 11? they look like crap. And the, as u call it, same old conquer-all-castles style of gameplay, isnt the same. It has 8 castles instead of gimil and DiMs 6-7, There are currently 3 maps in existence with the said gameplay, and DiM even said before that we need more maps like this. Oh and I would gladly buy photoshop and do one of Oaktowns ideas WITH this idea still going, but i dont happen to have $700, do YOU have $700 I could have?

The number of castles you have has little effect on the originality of the map. And, what I think DiM was saying is that we need more Feudal-style maps where you start out with only one territory, not necessarily just another castle battle. And, I already do have photoshop. You can get it off ebay for less than half the price you suggested.

Unless something is done, I don't think this map will ever leave the main foundry.

You do start out with 1 castle, and i set the map up just right so that nobody can conquer the game on round 1

[Mr. Squirrel]

As to the graphics issue, just because this is a fantasy map doesn't mean it has to be bland. Why can't there be a fantasy map with as good of graphics as Iceland and the High Seas? Just because no one has done it yet, doesn't mean it can't be done.

Also, I think you are confused. I know that you only start out with one territory. That much is obvious, but that is not what I am nagging about. What I am nagging about is the fact that you are creating another map where its all castles and villages on green land. BE CREATIVE! GET AN ORIGINAL IDEA! The AoR trilogy and the Feudal map is already done this idea. Do something new. Make the castle's spaceships and have them invade territories on earth, make the castles a disease where your goal is to infect the all of the people in an area, use one of Oaktown's ideas, I don't care, just do something new.

[bryguy]

As to the graphics issue, just because this is a fantasy map doesn't mean it has to be bland. Why can't there be a fantasy map with as good of graphics as Iceland and the High Seas? Just because no one has done it yet, doesn't mean it can't be done.

Also, I think you are confused. I know that you only start out with one territory. That much is obvious, but that is not what I am nagging about. What I am nagging about is the fact that you are creating another map where its all castles and villages on green land. BE CREATIVE! GET AN ORIGINAL IDEA! The AoR trilogy and the Feudal map is already done this idea. Do something new. Make the castle's spaceships and have them invade territories on earth, make the castles a disease where your goal is to infect the all of the people in an area, use one of Oaktown's ideas, I don't care, just do something new.

its not just 'castles on green' its also the first map with castles on a desert. This is an original idea, neither AoR or Feudal are like it anymore except for the fact that they have castles and villages. And im sorry Mr. Squirrel but your starting to get me angry, and im close to pushing a button to ignore u

edit: ok not really for the ignore thing, but about your spaceship idea

1) I cant draw spaceships
2) i cant draw anything that looks like earth

and im already gonna be making a new map for one of oaks ideas. I stayed up last night thinking of what i could do for a Sand Castle Builder. And i really also dont want to do something along the lines of and infection. Also, the map is not bland, its just not as good as some of the maps here.

[Mr. Squirrel]

I wasn't actually making suggestions for new maps with the spaceship and infection ideas. I was just trying to justify my point. (Although the spaceship thing does sound cool)

Either way, I'm going to quit arguing. You obviously cannot see that your map lacks any creativity whatsoever. I will be greatly surprised if this is ever quenched.

[bryguy]

I wasn't actually making suggestions for new maps with the spaceship and infection ideas. I was just trying to justify my point. (Although the spaceship thing does sound cool)

yea it did

[/threadjack]

Either way, I'm going to quit arguing. You obviously cannot see that your map lacks any creativity whatsoever. I will be greatly surprised if this is ever quenched.

TY

[bryguy]

Ok guys time for V.14

Click image to enlarge.

Things You Need To Know

7 Continents
8 Starting Points
(I think) 105 Territories

Changes:

Added more/maybe moved villages
Added Trees
Moved the menu to the [b]bottom[/] so that it differed from feudal
Reworded the famine stuff
Added something at ice fishing
Made the resource pics smaller cause i realized that they were oversized
Added an area showing basically each resources area/effect area
Moved the resources around slightly
Added a darker/thicker line to show where the grain/grapes effect stops
Made a couple of lines simpler (ill try to make more simpler next update)
Changed the legend font
Changed the thing around tray to a lake (ill change it again some other time if u wish, but i tried a mountain and for that i had to lose some stuff to have that)
Changed the attack lines from falis-boat-yarb
Made the size of the fishing-boat-army-circles to the correct size
Moved the f-b-a-c's positions slightly for some, a little bit greatly for others
Think I moved the castles out from under the words
Changed the legend color once moved to a lighter gray


Points of Discussion:

Are the trees ok?
Is the wording for famine better/understandable?
What should I add where the menu was?
Is the ice fishing pic ok?
Is the thick line for showing where grain/grapes effect ends ok?
Can you read the new title/legend font?
Is the lake ok?
Is the new ammount/placements of villages ok?

[InkL0sed]

About the famine. I'm not quite sure what you mean in the legend, but maybe instead of a positive territory bonus, you could have a negative one? So every 3 territories after 9 gives you -1.

[Kaplowitz]

As you are moving away from the original Photoshopped image, its getting blurrier and blurrier and i think that looks bad. Any way you can sharpen it up?

[InkL0sed]

As you are moving away from the original Photoshopped image, its getting blurrier and blurrier and i think that looks bad. Any way you can sharpen it up?

I agree -- also, make the coastlines-water transition look a little... smoother? Maybe some beaches?

[bryguy]

As you are moving away from the original Photoshopped image, its getting blurrier and blurrier and i think that looks bad. Any way you can sharpen it up?

I agree -- also, make the coastlines-water transition look a little... smoother? Maybe some beaches?

the coastlines-water transistion is smooth (mostly), and the only way that i could give the illusion of it being smoother would be to blur it, which none of us really like

and yea ill see what i can do about sand/beaches

About the famine. I'm not quite sure what you mean in the legend, but maybe instead of a positive territory bonus, you could have a negative one? So every 3 territories after 9 gives you -1.

you didnt read it all, did you? it says:

A current famine causes all normal territories in your possesion to have a negative bonus of 1

negative means -

and also idk if that would work ink, cause some sections have a ton of territories, others have not so many.

[bryguy]

As you are moving away from the original Photoshopped image, its getting blurrier and blurrier and i think that looks bad. Any way you can sharpen it up?

ill try

edit: ok the blurriest thing on the map is the borders, how abouts i scratch them as they are and put in some newer, not blurry, and straighter ones? oh and less pixely

[InkL0sed]

About the famine. I'm not quite sure what you mean in the legend, but maybe instead of a positive territory bonus, you could have a negative one? So every 3 territories after 9 gives you -1.

you didnt read it all, did you? it says:

A current famine causes all normal territories in your possesion to have a negative bonus of 1

negative means -

and also idk if that would work ink, cause some sections have a ton of territories, others have not so many.

I did read it

The way you have it in the legend now, it seems like every territory you have gives you -1. So having 12 territories would be -12 + 1 = -11 bonus. Which would be pretty ridiculous.

[bryguy]

About the famine. I'm not quite sure what you mean in the legend, but maybe instead of a positive territory bonus, you could have a negative one? So every 3 territories after 9 gives you -1.

you didnt read it all, did you? it says:

A current famine causes all normal territories in your possesion to have a negative bonus of 1

negative means -

and also idk if that would work ink, cause some sections have a ton of territories, others have not so many.

I did read it

The way you have it in the legend now, it seems like every territory you have gives you -1. So having 12 territories would be -12 + 1 = -11 bonus. Which would be pretty ridiculous.

does nobody read posts anymore??

ive told u guys (and squirrel) that u can set it so that people can get a minnimum bonus of 1, meaning they cant get any less than that

[InkL0sed]

does nobody read posts anymore??

ive told u guys (and squirrel) that u can set it so that people can get a minnimum bonus of 1, meaning they cant get any less than that

Did I say anything about not getting any armies? I only said a -11 bonus is pretty huge. Now stop telling me I'm not reading posts, and actually understand what I'm saying instead, mmk?

[bryguy]

does nobody read posts anymore??

ive told u guys (and squirrel) that u can set it so that people can get a minnimum bonus of 1, meaning they cant get any less than that

Did I say anything about not getting any armies? I only said a -11 bonus is pretty huge. Now stop telling me I'm not reading posts, and actually understand what I'm saying instead, mmk?

sorry, i was in a really sour mood when i posted that (it was meh b-day and my ear was killing me), and now ill try to comment on your post again, what u said is a little hard for me to comprehend at the current moment (tired)


ok so each normal territory is -1, each castle/nomad camp are 6, and each village are 3, plus the 3 for 1 territory u would get at the start, so you start your turn with 9, then say your an idiot and ignore the resource (and this is pretending your at kift) then you go on a rampage up and over all the way to oyp for some reason, ignoring all villages/resources, then that would be roughly (depending on which way u went) -13 armies, which along with your +10 armies (add an extra 1 for having 13 territories in stead of 11 or less, cause 11 or less is 3, 12-15 is 4) then you have a negative bonus of 3 (-3 if u want it simpler ) which would be a pain...

BUT!

with the current xml, you can have some minnimum reinforcement tags at the start of your xml, which in it you could state how many the minimum armies is, which would be set to 1. But say you do the same thing but instead go after elifan castle, then your gonna run into trouble getting there, cause im gonna have a little higher rate up in the desert of neutrals, same for:

coce

and between

tyry-anara-lakri


ok does that help now?

[InkL0sed]

Wait -- you're going for a higher rate in the desert? You mean, the famine will go at a higher rate?

Why not go -1 for every two normal territories, and -1 for every 1 desert territory? I think that would be much more reasonable, but then again you seem to have thought about this more. Also, whatever you settle on, you're gonna have to make the details very clear on the map itself.

[oaktown]

alright, I'm glad to see this thread get back to the business of making this map work.

I have a thought... if the concept of the famine is going to be the 'hook' that pulls people in to play this map, you should make that the theme of the map. Right now when I look at it I see large green stretches and a lot of water, neither of which suggests famine to me. And the title - Empire Builder - makes me think of kings and armies expanding for wealth and glory, and not of everyday folks trying to collect enough food to maintain life.

I don't think the map needs to be scrapped, but I do think it needs to be overhauled so that the overall look of the map is suggestive of the kind of fantasy world you want to portray. If the famine is going to drive the gameplay of the map, let it also drive the graphics. The landscape could be dry and barren. The lakes could look like the water level has receded due to an extended period of drought. Instead of castles built to inspire fear and respect you could have make-shift fortresses behind which the people huddle for survival. You could give value to controlling sources of fresh water by adding bonuses for holding an oases, well, spring or river. The resources territories could look markedly different than the surrounding territories which have been effected by drought. And you could even rename it to put "Famine" front and center.

That's just my two cents.

[InkL0sed]

I agree completely with Oaktown. The famine is a really cool idea -- run with it.

[bryguy]

alright, I'm glad to see this thread get back to the business of making this map work.

I have a thought... if the concept of the famine is going to be the 'hook' that pulls people in to play this map, you should make that the theme of the map. Right now when I look at it I see large green stretches and a lot of water, neither of which suggests famine to me. And the title - Empire Builder - makes me think of kings and armies expanding for wealth and glory, and not of everyday folks trying to collect enough food to maintain life.

I don't think the map needs to be scrapped, but I do think it needs to be overhauled so that the overall look of the map is suggestive of the kind of fantasy world you want to portray. If the famine is going to drive the gameplay of the map, let it also drive the graphics. The landscape could be dry and barren. The lakes could look like the water level has receded due to an extended period of drought. Instead of castles built to inspire fear and respect you could have make-shift fortresses behind which the people huddle for survival. You could give value to controlling sources of fresh water by adding bonuses for holding an oases, well, spring or river. The resources territories could look markedly different than the surrounding territories which have been effected by drought. And you could even rename it to put "Famine" front and center.

That's just my two cents.

I like the idea, but its gonna be kinda hard for an overhaul, although i have been trying to figure out a way to get some barren land in there, so yea. Course, i dont know what i would do with the river then, cause i made it in photoshop and i cant make anything like it in gimp/inkscape (actually i can, but it might not look that good)

BUT

even tho it would be hard, it is possible, as i just realized that by taking a picture of something to use for a pattern, i can change the opacity of it to give stuff texture, and i figured out how to give stuff the shadows/light look that you get from dodging&burning

so yea it might take a while, but it would be possible, so yea ill look s'more into it

edit: also, i still like my original idea of an empire building map, but i think that ill make that a new one cause i recently had some great ideas that would change this maps layout 100%, basically it would be that there would be some nearby zoomed in villages and you could get armies for things like

Army Acadamy
Archers
etc....

so yea im probably gonna change this to the famine idea, and do another map for empire builder

edit(2): wow i was just thinkin about what my original idea had been and how much this had changed since then when i realized something, my original idea didnt include famine, and idk where or how famine slipped in. My original idea included that the farther you extend your empires reach usually the more food you get cause you'll be aquiring more people. So that (the needing more food as you extend your reach) had been my original idea, and somewhere along the way famine slipped in. So how about this (unless u really like the idea of famine and such):

The farther away from your castle/a castle/nomad camp you are, the more negatives it is and so the resources are still needed to stop that. So like the territories touching the castle/nomad camp have no negative, 2-3 spaces away have a -1 negative, 4-6 spaces away has a -2, 7-10 has a -3, and 11 and up has a -5? Course that would mean that each territory would have to be written in the xml as a continent but still.....

[TaCktiX]

Famine idea has my three thumbs up, even though I only have two. If you made the green areas much patchier, showed a recession line (simple dry dust like the desert should be fine), you could rebrand this map into something cooler. Also, change it to Famine if you're going to go forward with this. Empire Builder the title has been a major reason you've gotten Feudal War/AoR comparisons at every turn.

As for the present map, you need to bring the castles into the new graphics standard. Adding some shadow and generally making them thicker should do the trick. The trees looks like you were drunk and had a 1-pixel brush and felt like adding some "pepper" to your map. Ask gimil and DiM for some suggestions on how to fix that. The villages look like corn, again reference gimil and DiM.

On the legend, I would suggest changing the Fishing boat bonus to be "per 2" or something similar, since you can hold 4 boats total. Also, you need to specify whether any Fishing Boat can attack any other, or whether they have connector lines. Right now they're stranded in space. Also, make the boats bigger. Who cares about appropriate scale, right now they look like brown and white dots. Look into changing the name of the Fishing Dock, or adding "any fishing boat" privileges to it, for it's misleading at present.

[bryguy]

Famine idea has my three thumbs up, even though I only have two. If you made the green areas much patchier, showed a recession line (simple dry dust like the desert should be fine), you could rebrand this map into something cooler. Also, change it to Famine if you're going to go forward with this. Empire Builder the title has been a major reason you've gotten Feudal War/AoR comparisons at every turn.

OK so its decided then, the map is now something along the lines of famine

now for some good ideas for a cool name..???

As for the present map, you need to bring the castles into the new graphics standard. Adding some shadow and generally making them thicker should do the trick.

ok yea, im gonna do some of what oak said to, which is changing some castles to fortresses, and keep the castles in other areas. but yea ill do that, thanks

The trees looks like you were drunk and had a 1-pixel brush and felt like adding some "pepper" to your map. Ask gimil and DiM for some suggestions on how to fix that. The villages look like corn, again reference gimil and DiM.

your very close! i wasnt drunk but on sugar high (which has the same effect of being drunk for me) and it was a 5 pixel brush with a 50 jitter (i only know that u can do that in gimp, maybe photoshop, if you could in photoshop i could never figure it out)

so yea i ll get advice from DiM on how to do that

On the legend, I would suggest changing the Fishing boat bonus to be "per 2" or something similar, since you can hold 4 boats total. Also, you need to specify whether any Fishing Boat can attack any other, or whether they have connector lines. Right now they're stranded in space. Also, make the boats bigger. Who cares about appropriate scale, right now they look like brown and white dots. Look into changing the name of the Fishing Dock, or adding "any fishing boat" privileges to it, for it's misleading at present.

actually im gonna add more fishing boats, that way you can get like 6-8 boats total. And yea, i had that they could attack each other in previous versions, then i forgot about it in the last update. Boats = bigger, gotcha.