I have some news for you today, some are good, others not.
Team Changes
As some of you may have already noticed, the Cartographers usergroup has gone through some changes.
Unfortunately, isaiah40, after a long and exemplary period of service has decided to step down, at least for a bit, to take care of some RL stuff.
I'm confidend we will see him again wear the blue shoes a day, but for now we can only thank him for the hard work he has done for the Foundry.
Thank you As Foundry Foreman, I am really sad to lose a precious and extraordinary pair of hands in dealing with all my stuff; you have been a great Deputy Foreman and in more than occasion I don't know what I would have done without you.
Luckily, I can say we're good friends and we don't need blue shoes for that!
If isaiah40 is leaving, on the opposite, we're pleased to have some fresh blood in the Blue Team.
Please give a warm welcome to dolomite13 and Kabanellas.
They are well known in the foundry and they have showed their skill as mapmakers. Now they are willling to contribute in a different capacity to share their knowledge and help everyone here in producing the best possible maps.
Again, welcome guys!
Transformation
A few days ago bigWham has announced here a new release with some great stuff.
One of the things we can find is a great new feature that can be used in our future maps: Transformation.
After looking at it, more than a feature, it looks more than a totally new way to think about maps.
I bet that this new feature mixed with the previously released Exclusions can bring us to a new level of map-making.
So first of all, Thank You bigWham!
Now, what is Transformation? How to use it?
bigWham wrote:This started off as an implementation of koontz1973's Suggestion Increasing / Decreasing Neutrals..
However the concept of Transformation takes this idea further to include the general ability to apply rules that transform any territory in different ways. Transformation rules, called Tranforms, can be applied:
- to individual territories, or to every territory.
- at the start of every turn, every round, or at the start of specific rounds
- to neutral armies, player armies, opponents armies, or some combinations of these
- to set armies to fixed amounts, change by fixed increments, change by fixed percentages, or make random changes within a range
Since, Transformation requires an extended explanation, we're not going to list here all the things you can do with it or how to write it into the xml file.
Just let me say that, if you want, in theory, you can plan each single turn, round or move in a game on a map and so, today we're introducing a total new level of strategy into the game!
If you are interested in knowing more about how to use Transformation, please visit the dedicated post into our xml guide.
If you have any further question about how to use them after reading the guide feel free to post here or start a your own topic into Foundry Discussions.
...and more!
Finally, we are now ready to start with the third step that I announced with the introduction of the testing tool.
As planned, we're moving to the last step of this first transformation (it looks an important word for us this year!) of the Foundry process.
Now, all maps that have received the draft stamp can be tested while the map is going through the gameplay stage. At some point the CAs will ask you to test your map before to allow it advance to the next stage of production. This because it makes more sense to test if something is wrong than assume it and see what's happen after months.
Anyway, dont' worry! you don't need to produce perfect files to test your map with the CAs and the other Beta testers.
All we need is a rough map image and a working xml file. If you need more info about these files, please send me a PM. Instead, if you need to have your map tested please post your files into the map thread and point there the CA that follows your map. We will do the rest.
We have some other things almost ready for you all, but we decided to split them a bit in the next weeks. Like I said this will be a year of transformation!
Stay Tuned!
Nobodies
