Lol I wasn't touching Ifnal. I think it's perfect at 3. Livonia was definitely one I was thinking. Even though it's in the middle once you hold the bonus it is defend-able from 3 territories. I think Ithernia should be 1 instead of 2 because it is easy to defend from two territories. Increase Solonabirsk by 1 and decrease Skyatica by 1. Reasoning is because Solonabirsk has to be defended from 5 attack-able territories and a bonus of 3 doesn't fit the men needed to defend it. Skyatica is defendable from 4 territories but it's not as open to being attacked from many bordering territories. I would drop Caprinthia to 5. It has 5 attack-able borders and has 6 territories total to hold it and +6 for that seems overpriced. Lastly I think the road bonus Arleus - N Frontier should be increased from +5 total to +6 total. If you hold either the Arleus to Denmarn, or Denmarn to N Frontier for a bonus of 2, you have to potentially take 4 more territories to only gain 1 additional bonus (besides the +2) for the entire line of 8 territories. It doesn't fit the total men needed to take that.
...Shit...
ok, you have some really good points in there and I'm going to abide a few of them. I'm just afraid of opening a "pandoras box". Where as soon as I go back and adjust one gameplay aspect the door will be opened and I'll never get back on track because I'll be too flooded with suggestions. Any way on to what I agree with and what I don't:
Dropping Livonia to +3: Like I said I'm willing to do that but as I said it's dead center in the map so it's still hard to hold (or more so hard to grab in the first place) since it's the source of so much traffic. I'd like to hear a few more peoples opinions on that subject. I will be asking my friends who have played on the map and whose opinions I respect dearly (they know who they are).
Dropping Itherania to +1: Pass, it's just too low, sort of generates a "why bother" effect.
Dropping Skyatica to +3 and Raising Solonabirsk to +4: That is the most sound thing I have ever heard. I will definitely be doing that, I amazed the thought hadn't occurred to me already.
Dropping Caprinthia to +5: Yeah I think I could live with that. I'm going to go ahead and do it and if my friends whose opinions I respect dearly disagree strongly I'll change it back.
Raising Arleus-N. Frontier to +6: I think I'll be passing on that on as well. My resoning is that by the time anyone gets around to considering grabbing that long long long track of land it is only because they have a few bonuses already under their belt or in a position where they can be that confident. They don't need another +1.
Any way back to graphics
I would suggest moving the numbers off the castles somehow, or perhaps expanding the castles so they look legible when there are numbers over them.
what about just lowering the opacity a little bit. I'll tell you what I'm going to go ahead and do that and you can tell me what you think.
Yep, that glow is much better.
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I assume you are talking about the 600x600 version
I still think those testlines in between the roadbonus and the continent-bonus is not working. have you played around with position and font-style? Keep your legend simple and clean to have more attention towards your map.
testlines? I'm afraid I'm not exactly clear what you mean by that?