German/Italian Unif.[D, Gp, Gr] BETA, all files p.1

[Industrial Helix]

Yeah, I basically took the sea route idea from Kabanellas' Third Crusade map. Basically, if two sea lanes connect at sea then it acts as a cross roads. I see what you mean about it being counter-intuitive at this point, however, I think it will clear up during a game pretty quick.

[jefjef]

Hi Industrial!

Thought I'd stop & peek. (when do we get to play Amer colonies?)

Just a few minor things. I sure like blueish water.

Sea routes. White would look better. I liked the dashes you had in previous version.

The multiple routes coming off Cagliari. How about ya tie em all together?

The route from Ajaccio maybe connect it to Sassari instead.

The Lissa sea route. How about joining it a tert or two south? OR better yet an additional route to like Bari. You could use a little more flow and weight added to that bonus.

Thanks.

[ender516]

Hi Industrial!

Thought I'd stop & peek. (when do we get to play Amer colonies?)

Just a few minor things. I sure like blueish water.

Sea routes. White would look better. I liked the dashes you had in previous version.

The multiple routes coming off Cagliari. How about ya tie em all together?

The route from Ajaccio maybe connect it to Sassari instead.

The Lissa sea route. How about joining it a tert or two south? OR better yet an additional route to like Bari. You could use a little more flow and weight added to that bonus.

Thanks.

If the multiple routes coming off Cagliari were to be tied together, it would imply more attack routes than the current arrangement has, for example, Genoa vs Calatafimi. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just different.
In fact, if all those routes were tied together, one might consider adding a Tyrrhenian Sea territory. Did maritime battles play a part in this history? Would it make sense to represent mastery of the seas in this area?

[Industrial Helix]

I'll maybe blue up the water and I'll try white again with the dots.

As for the sea routes, the only major sea battle was at Lissa between A-H and Italy. I could definitely adjust the connection south as Jefjef points out, it could use from more connections. The sea routes in the west reflect the established routes of the islands. It seemed to me that it made sense that France would connect with Corsica and Piedmont would not. The same applies to Piedmont's connection to Sardinia as France would have no business with a connection there. The Corsica/Sardiana connection seemed logical to me given the closeness of the islands. I figured Piedmonte/Sardinia needed a connection to the southern tip of the boot as historically there was an invasion there. I believe there was historical precedent for the link to Rome.... though i can't recall it off the top of my head. I believe Garibaldi left from south Italy to Rome at some point.

[jefjef]

You have good west established sea routes. But look at maybe connecting the route from Ajaccio to Sassari instead.

And look at connecting Provence to Bastia instead.

It would remove the hop, skip & jump feel to that area. Increases the strategic value of two terts and marginally lightens the weight on Cagliari.

Is 5 for A Kiralysag Magyarorszag right? Seems it should be worth 4 compared to the others & considering it's location.

But if you add a sea route to Bari area then 5 for sure would be good.

[Industrial Helix]

Blued up the sea and adjusted the sea lanes. Added one to Bari. I decided not to switch it to Bastia because I don't want the islands to be too easily threatened. I figure the sea should have some sort of barrier effect.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

it made sense that France would connect with Corsica and Piedmont would not. The same applies to Piedmont's connection to Sardinia as France would have no business with a connection there. The Corsica/Sardiana connection seemed logical to me given the closeness of the islands. I figured Piedmonte/Sardinia needed a connection to the southern tip of the boot as historically there was an invasion there. I believe there was historical precedent for the link to Rome.... though i can't recall it off the top of my head. I believe Garibaldi left from south Italy to Rome at some point.

i agree with all of this. however, elba should have a connection only to toscano, as it wasn't a trading or transport crossroads, nor did it play any part in battles. this will give to stati della chiesa one non-border region out of four. corsica can also be tied more closely to france by connecting ajaccio to either nice or cote d'azur (this helps with fortification by linking two border regions).

ian.

[alexandrois]

With the italian map i would add some port symbols and just say all ports connect

[Raskholnikov]

That would totally change the entire game-play dynamics. Not sure it fits with the author's vision for this game...

Lets say we have Venice, Genova, Naples, Palermo, Brindisi... the minimum I think. To hold a region one must cosolidate each port to be stronger than up to 4 other players combined... This may work in different types of games without region bonuses - but here, I think it would make it very hard to win any region bonuses at all. The entire dynamic of the game would shift towards consolidating one's own port and denying others theirs. Anyway, that's just my feeling.

[Industrial Helix]

Ian- I see your point, I'll drop the elba connection. As for adding another connection for France... I'm hesitant but it might be a good idea for gameplay. Like I said before, i don't want the islands to be too difficult to hold... but I think it might make it slightly easier to hold France if I did add the connection. I'll try it out and see how it fits.

alex- Well, see Rash.'s answer. That's the basic reason I don't want to tie them all together.

Rash. - Yeah, agreed. Good insight!

[Industrial Helix]

Updated the sea lanes...

Click image to enlarge.

[jefjef]

Looks good! Nice clean up on the sea lanes.

I see one dot a bright white. How about the rest of them? I think it would look a lot better.

[The Neon Peon]

I'd like to see the drop shadow leave the sea lines.
I'd also like to see the opacity of the glow on the title reduced.

Both just seem to pop off the map a bit too match. They are gathering all of my attention.

Very nice style on the two maps.

Why is " [7] With Savoy " in the legend twice?

[ender516]

I'd like to see the drop shadow leave the sea lines.
I'd also like to see the opacity of the glow on the title reduced.

Both just seem to pop off the map a bit too match. They are gathering all of my attention.

Very nice style on the two maps.

Why is " [7] With Savoy " in the legend twice?

The "With ..." entries in the legend indicate an additional bonus for holding the extra territory in addition to the bonus above:
6 for Regno Di Piemonte-Sardegna, 7 for Regno Di Piemonte-Sardegna plus Savoy; 6 for L'Empire des Francais, 7 for L'Empire des Francais plus Savoy, and so on.

Now that my attention has been drawn to the bonus legend, a couple of comments:

• There is one place where Venezia is misspelled Venecia.
• It might help avoid confusion like The Neon Peon's if the colours behind the additional bonus were swapped to match the bonus colour in the corresponding box above, that is, for example, swap the purple and green on the "With Savoy" box below the "L'Empire des Francais" box so that the purple portions are adjacent. This would also be done for the "With Venezia" (after the spelling fix) box beneath the "Osterreich" box and the "With Romagna" box beneath the "Stati della Chiesa" box. I don't know how the split boxes are constructed, but a 180 degree rotation would do the trick.

[iancanton]

Looks good! Nice clean up on the sea lanes.

seconded. lissa is now the convergence point for a battle!

steirmark and dalmatia were part of austria and not of hungary, so they need to be moved into the yellow bonus, along with lissa (u can't really show the yellow-and-green on such a small island).

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/eceurop ... 71914.html

this leaves hungary with only 2 regions, so try splitting them into kroatien, slawonien, alsó-magyarország (lower hungary) and felső-magyarország (upper hungary).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Hungary

we also placed custoza too far west. it is south-east of lake garda and close to verona, which is part of the veneto region (called venezia here), not lombardy. let milano be called magenta (another famous battle), let custoza be renamed milano and split venezia into a western custoza region and an eastern venezia region.

http://turismo.provincia.milano.it/turi ... l?id=33922
http://www.italianmade.com/wines/doc10045.cfm

this results in 3 too many non-neutral regions on the map. possible regions to merge are the two corsica regions, the two sardinia regions, abbruzzo and capitanata (new name abruzzi e molise - this merger is especially beneficial for gameplay because due sicilie becomes easier to hold) and consenza with basilicata (new name calabria).

http://winecountry.it/regions/abruzzo/

The Kingdom of Southern Italy came to an end in 1860 following Garibaldi's victorious campaign that united modern Italy. Abruzzo was then joined with Molise into a single region known as Abruzzi e Molise.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

OK, I made most of the changes recommended. I rotated the boxes so they match with the above box, dropped some of the glow on the titles and lowered the drop shadow on the sea lanes. I made most of the name and territory changes that you suggested, Ian, but I did something a little different with Custoza. I want the territories that held the major battles to mean something, which was why originally it was a straight shot from Venezia to Piemont... so instead of adding another territory in there, I moved the east border over some so as to cover the actual spot, and brought back the straight shot via Custoza. It should be on the location as well as have gameplay significance. I also changed the Austro-Hungarian Empire around... Hungary is divided differently now and has most of croatia... I looked at a map and Dalmatia was kind of a detached set of islands part of Austria. That wouldn't make too much sense gameplay wise for me, so I relocated the border with Krain. It's fudging it, but I think it makes sense for the game play of this map.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[ender516]

Another good update. I'm glad you took my suggestion about rotating the boxes, but I think you missed the "With Romagna" box below the "Stati della Chiesa" box.

[Industrial Helix]

Yep, I sure missed it. I just rotated it on my version. You'll see it in the next update.

[ender516]

Say, if you are still looking for different ways to draw the sea routes, and if you are using Photoshop, or know enough about it to emulate its features in the tool you do use, you might want to look at this idea. The graphics gurus discussing it seemed excited, but it's too far outside my knowledge space to comment very cogently.

[iancanton]

the connections look pretty good now and u've made a decent job of hungary too. the only exception i can see is the bottom of the map, where cagliari-calatafimi-catania-messina-cosenza feels far too much like a section of rail sicily. can calatafimi border both messina and catania instead of only catania? also extend the apennine mountains so that lazio cannot attack abruzzi e molise - this is a cardinal fact of italian geography.

understandably, with all the recent changes, bonuses haven't kept pace and most look a bit high. the most obvious ones are hungary, which is a +2 rather than a +4, and france, which is a +4 (+5 with savoy) and not a +6 - france is nicely tucked away in the corner with only one enemy able to reach him. piemonte needs to be reduced to +5 (+6 with savoy) because it makes such a powerful combination, with only 4 borders, with france. ducati di toscana's +4 (+5 with romagna) was a hangover from when it had 4 borders; now that it has only 3, the bonus can be reduced to +3 (+4 with romagna). the two sicilies with reduced regions is now almost exactly classic europe or north america (+5 instead of +6). the only bonus that looks low is lombardy: maybe it can be +3 instead of +2, now that it has one extra region.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Hmm... interesting idea, Ender... Definitely a good find. I'll play with it and see what I come up with. For the time being, I like the dots and if necessary, will address the sea lanes come Graphics stamp time.

Ian, your crits have been taken and put into effect. I agree with everything, but withheld on the "with Savoy bonuses" as those bonuses now read "with Nice and Savoy." I'm open to reducing them, but I think some consideration ought to be given to them as it now requires two territories to get the bonus.

As for Germany, I made a graphics color switch. I think its an improvement... but I'm not 100% satisfied. It's late, I'll give it a mess about later. It just seems to lack the clarity that the Italy map has. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I also removed Luxembourg from the superbonus of France and West Prussia. It just seems historically inaccurate... well, it is. But As previously mentioned it should have some role and the gameplay would be better for it. For now, it is a non-bonus and will start just like any other territory.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

those bonuses now read "with Nice and Savoy." I'm open to reducing them, but I think some consideration ought to be given to them as it now requires two territories to get the bonus.

good catch on nice and savoy: since they were handed over to france together, it makes sense that they are treated the same way on our map. i agree with the +2 extra for holding nice and savoy with either france or piemonte. the newly-reduced france, being in the corner, is a much easier bonus than piemonte and therefore ought to have a lower bonus of +3 (+5 with nice and savoy - 8 regions with 4 borders, similar to regno delle due sicilie). move the troop circle for nice to the south-west, so that we can see the border with genoa and the purple colour of the bottom stripe.

i've just noticed that the green, grey and white zones are all completely linear, for example lazio-roma-umbria-marche, giving a repetitive pattern. perhaps let lazio connect with umbria to reduce this effect (this looks like the easiest border to tweak).

u've reduced the ducati di toscana with romagna bonus to +4, as intended, but left the without romagna bonus unchanged at +4.

on the germany map, i wonder whether creating a luxemburg bonus box with the number 0 in it would be a neater way to show its zero bonus.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Thanks Ian. I think all the suggestions were adopted, plus a few graphical clean ups I made.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

i've just been to geneva, where the red cross is based. henry dunant founded this organisation as a result of seeing the wounded from the battle of solferino, in 1859. might solferino be a more appropriate name for the lombardy region? it has the advantage that the region doesn't have a similar name to the bonus zone of which it is a part. the location is also correct for solferino, though u might like to change the border so that, of the 3 lombardy regions, only custoza connnects to venezia.

http://www.redcross.org.uk/standard.asp?id=90628

the newly-reduced france, being in the corner, is a much easier bonus than piemonte and therefore ought to have a lower bonus of +3 (+5 with nice and savoy - 8 regions with 4 borders, similar to regno delle due sicilie).

once u amend france to +3 (+5 with nice and savoy) in the legend, so that this bonus balances regno delle due sicilie, i see no major gameplay issues for italy. a single stamp will be applied for both maps together, unless u prefer one for each.

three of what i presume are spelling mistakes on the germany map: the spellings i know are württemberg, salzburg and breslau.

http://www.baden-wuerttemberg.de/en/index.html
http://www.visit-salzburg.net/
http://www.wroclaw-life.com/wroclaw/breslau

keeping the same bonus colours on both maps for france, austria and hungary is a nice touch.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Well... that was kind of quick. This map is progressing so much faster than 13 Colonies... but I think its partially because I'm not making a lot of the same mistakes.

Anyway, here's Italy adjusted... i won't be posting it until the gameplay stamp has been awarded and Germany has been settled. So lets get talking about Germany!

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.