Vertex/Austrum [Quenched]

[AndyDufresne]

I will look at putting in some settlements like the mountains and forests, but will not make them part of the game play. That will bring the life you are looking for.

Yeah, I like the sound of that.


--Andy

[ifuh]

hi,

I like the colour atmosphere and the usual accurate elaboration.

Those who can - Do, those who can't -criticise.
in my opinion:
Those who can - Do, those who can't -teach.

[MagnusGreeol]

Salut--To All----)
First off I'd like to Commend Everyone's enthusiasm and participation in this interest,[ Koontz--Nole- Andy-Sandman-Ifuh and of course General,,For if not for All of Us,,We wouldn't be here---budda-bing '') But seriously and not joking aside is the Talent- Honor- Loyalty-Commitment that I see from All of You is to bright for the blind ,,, I wish I had the knowledge and know how to do what You Guys are doing,,Creating,,and not only Creating,,but helping others Create,,It's like Your saying " I know I'm pretty busy In My life and My knowledge to Creat sht for My-self,,But You know what,,I'll help this Guy General with His idea and give- ( General-who I think is Quite knowledgeable)- Him some pointers and help with the map",,,Frigin Excellent Team & Human Being work!!--I think the artistry /colors and spherical dimensions are very easy on the eyes,,quite enjoyable to look upon ------Now I am embarrassed to even give My two cents,, but I will,--,General is One of My closest friends In this world,,and by no means is it a critique--But is it possible to break each region-(territ) I see into 2-3 more regions,,Do they look a little big and is it possible to break them down?, Also--and it was just a thought---could the Sea-dragon be a territ that can attacks all ships,,and All ships can attack it, but maybe sea-dragons don't attack each other? Mythical legend minded I suppose..but worth a shot ''),,,I agree with Sandman that it could maybe use a theme,,inhabitants, or History,,,All in All it's All GOOD Guys,,Thanks for Everything You do,,,I appreciate It,,,PS---I'll be teaming with General on >>>---AUSTRUM---> I already have a strat for it '') JK-haha-----Great -work every-One------ Sincerely------>>>----------MAG-OUT---------->

[Seamus76]

Couple of things my man...
For Austrum:
- Seems like the legends are different shades, and maybe that is by design, but example, the winning condition is super black compared to the bottom left bonus info.
- The ships in the winning condition legend seem to get lost to me. Can you bring them out a little more?
- Also with regard to the ships, I think they need to be spread out a little more. To me the best position would be E5, which seems to have a slight advantage since it doesn't border any other potential starting positions, and is protected.

by sannemanrobinson on Sat Nov 03, 2012 11:17 am
I'm still missing something in both maps, call it a theme or something to relate to. Are there inhabitants on these islands? Some villages and roads like on the Oasis map could show this.

I think this is a bigger point. What exactly brings the maps together, or are they part of the same thread, and similar in style, but completely different? I would rather there be a continuous theme between the two, or make their differences more pronounced and split them up. For me it would be cool if the Austrum map was actually "Arctous", and conceptually was a zoom in of that territory from the Vertex map. Not sure that makes sense, but keep up the great work.

[koontz1973]

Andy, thanks, glad to see you are still popping in whilst on your way to a happy banana filled retirement.
ifuh, thanks.
Magnus, Territs can go smaller, but I need to get a small map done and their might not be room. Let me look into it. Sea creatures are decorative.
Seamus, Will move E4 over to E5 (ships), legend ships, bring them out more OK, will look again at the text, but I believe they are all the same shade/opacity. But will double check. I understand the the idea of zooming into Arctous, but the site already has an Arctic map.

EDIT: Here are the maps, I think I got everything apart from the inner glow for Austrum. When put in, all the colour just made it look bad so it will stay as is for now. Added the settlements, redid the sea lines, moved ships and monsters, checked the text, it is fine but the colours of the background make it seem lighter/darker in areas. Looked at moving the mountains to go around the map like the monsters but it looked weird. Ships and text are at the same angle and the monsters are purely decorative. Still working on the wording for the legends but will need the GP mods to help me here.

Vertex

Click image to enlarge.

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Austrum

Click image to enlarge.

[Unstoppable!]

Absolute great maps, i will cert. play on this map.
It is hard to bring something completely different, but you managed it!!

[generalhead]

Brilliant, great Job man!

[koontz1973]

For both maps.
Removed the white around the circular borders as it was playing havoc with the black.
Changed the word Bonuses to Troops. This should be enough to allow players to understand that it is not going to be a normal map.
Vertex.
Reduced the gold glow around the legend text.

Click image to enlarge.

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Austrum.
Tidied up some of the glows.

Click image to enlarge.

[generalhead]

On the Austrum map Is your troops +1 legend a different color or opacity than the rest of the legends?

[koontz1973]

On the Austrum map Is your troops +1 legend a different color or opacity than the rest of the legends?

No, I doubled checked this when someone else pointed this out. It is because of the background. In Vertex, it is a solid green so it looks the same. In Austrum, it has a dark blue with white clouds so their is a bigger contrast of colour. This leads it to look different. That is the only explination I can come up with anyway.

[BisdeCapri]

Beautiful !

[nolefan5311]

We'll go ahead and get this one moved on up to the the MFW. Congrats koontz...

[koontz1973]

Beautiful !

Always nice to here.

We'll go ahead and get this one moved on up to the the MFW. Congrats koontz...

Nice way to wake up that is. Thanks nole.

OK, no territory troops foe these maps.
You only get the bonus troops which is hold 3 troops in an area and get +1. With a minimum of 3. This is the same as having the normal territory reinforcements but only getting it as bonuses. As you lot can see, I have very little room for text and do not want to go outside of the circles for any text apart from names. Is the current text understandable for all this:

bonuses
decays
winning conditions

If not, what does anyone suggest?

[generalhead]

I think your winning conditions and your decay are worded good. The only thing that is confusing is the min-3. Do you need to have that in there?

[koontz1973]

I think your winning conditions and your decay are worded good. The only thing that is confusing is the min-3. Do you need to have that in there?

If I get rid of it, then I will need to have normal territ troops as well as the bonuses. That might be a good idea as troop levels will be small and drag games out.

Will remove the min - 3 and have both bonus and territory troops. This will stop confusion when playing and allow me to keep the words down.

Thanks GH. Will post the maps shortly.

[DoomYoshi]

Can we have more interesting names for the territories than OT1 etc. These have the potential to be really rich maps, but that is holding me back from accepting them as the successor to AoR.

[koontz1973]

Can we have more interesting names for the territories than OT1 etc. These have the potential to be really rich maps, but that is holding me back from accepting them as the successor to AoR.

Adding Latin names as we speak. These where always place holders to see if any interest was to be found. Also, it made the bonus regions easier to find and understand as I do not want to colour the land more than glows.

[DoomYoshi]

Can we have more interesting names for the territories than OT1 etc. These have the potential to be really rich maps, but that is holding me back from accepting them as the successor to AoR.

Adding Latin names as we speak. These where always place holders to see if any interest was to be found. Also, it made the bonus regions easier to find and understand as I do not want to colour the land more than glows.

AWESOME

[koontz1973]

Vertex
Removed the Min-3
Names now in Latin.
Removed some mountains and trees for name fit.

Click image to enlarge.

Game play.
Normal territory bonuses. +1 for every 3 territs.
Bonuses consist of holding 3 territories in any region +1
Boreus, Supernas and Aquilonius territories all start as 3 neutral. All decay by one every turn held.
Arctous (part of winning condition) starts as 10 neutrals.
Hold Arctous and 15 territories for on round to win.
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Austrum
Removed the Min-3
Names now in Latin apart from the big island in the middle.
Removed some mountains and trees for name fit.
Redid some sea routes to go around the longer names.

Click image to enlarge.

Some of the names on the islands go over the edges. Can anyone not read them?

Gameplay.
Normal territory bonuses. +1 for every 3 territs.
Bonuses consist of holding 3 territories in any region +1.
Hastile, Sublica and Asser territories decay by one every round held.
Exploratorum (ships) are part of the positions but will have an underlying neutral of 3.

Positons.
Max of 2 given out. One ship and 3 territories given out randomly from the middle island.
Territories will have an underlying neutral of 2 so any not given out will be neutral.

[AndyDufresne]

Looking good so far, I'll have to give these maps a better look over soon.


--Andy

[nolefan5311]

I agree, these look great.

koontz, if they're not already there (I haven't checked) can you post an image in the first post of which regions start neutral and what they start as?

Also, some of the text in the corner circles are a little hard to read. I really like the font, but it's hard to read for me. Also, for Austrem, I think the winning condition needs to be changed since its tough to tell which ships are Exploratorum (only the ones in the upper right sea?), and which ones aren't.

[koontz1973]

Looking good so far, I'll have to give these maps a better look over soon.


--Andy

Thanks Andy.

I agree, these look great.

koontz, if they're not already there (I haven't checked) can you post an image in the first post of which regions start neutral and what they start as?

Also, some of the text in the corner circles are a little hard to read. I really like the font, but it's hard to read for me. Also, for Austrem, I think the winning condition needs to be changed since its tough to tell which ships are Exploratorum (only the ones in the upper right sea?), and which ones aren't.

Will post the Austrum map with neutrals later today. Vertex already has it (ignore the ones on the outside as they are just my workings for positions) Will post Vertex also.
Can change the text (I take it you mean the green text on the red/blue circle).
Exploratorum = all ships. Would it not be better to remove the text on the outside as it is no longer needed for the bonuses now that the territs have names. Only ones to stay would be the blue ones in the middle as they are needed to show the decays.

Going to remove the green text altogether. Just had an idea that might just work. If it does not, I will keep it but in a different form.

EDIT: Tried to put a poem around the edges. Like the bonus text it was hard to read and not practical. Why have a map with few words only to add more onto it. Here are both maps, removed the text in the edges as it was hard to read. Added a 30% white glow under the territ text to lift it up a tad. These will go into GP sections as well as they show current neutral values.
Vertex

Click image to enlarge.

Austrum
Austrum has positions in place. All ships and the centre island will be part of the positions with an underlying 3 neutral (explained in first post GP section).

Click image to enlarge.

[DoomYoshi]

Misc. Thoughts

Vertex:
15 territories is too many for a victory condition. An 8-player No Spoils would never finish.

Austrum
Baird sucks too much to be a starting point. Also, having killer starting positions is an extremely controversial decision... I figured we would no longer do that after the "Dust Bowl Dust Up".

Both:
The positions don't correlate to each other very well. In Vertex Rho and Cos are adjacent, but in Austrum, they are quite seperate. I was assuming this is too poles of the same world, is this not the case?

[koontz1973]

Misc. Thoughts

Vertex:
15 territories is too many for a victory condition. An 8-player No Spoils would never finish.

It would then just end up being a normal game of elimination. I can understand that the 15 might be high for 8 player no spoils, but 8 player esc game, the first round of spoils go to 25 and that might make it to low.

Austrum
Baird sucks too much to be a starting point. Also, having killer starting positions is an extremely controversial decision... I figured we would no longer do that after the "Dust Bowl Dust Up".

Hayes is in the same position as Baird. But the starting positions for the ships is not a crucial one to stay in the game. They are just part of the normal deploy. But as the winning condition is to hold Meridiem and 5 ships, I wanted all players to start with at least one in all games. In a two player game, each player will get 16 territs over all. (2 ships, 6 from the middle and 8 going around the outside). I would consider only having one or two in the middle given out as the positions. Then I can balance the game better for the ships. So Baird and Hayes would get a territ close to Meridiem whilst the others further out. As for the decays being starting positions, Dust bowl should be sorted now as a new xml was written and I have decays as positions in Rorke's Drift so I do understand some players feelings toward this.

Both:
The positions don't correlate to each other very well. In Vertex Rho and Cos are adjacent, but in Austrum, they are quite seperate. I was assuming this is too poles of the same world, is this not the case?

Both have latin names. It gives a other world feel whilst grounding the maps in reality. I used lakes and rivers as place names became to recognisable. Will make sure to go around and remove any name that is duplicated.

[DoomYoshi]

Misc. Thoughts

Vertex:
15 territories is too many for a victory condition. An 8-player No Spoils would never finish.

It would then just end up being a normal game of elimination. I can understand that the 15 might be high for 8 player no spoils, but 8 player esc game, the first round of spoils go to 25 and that might make it to low.


If someone has victory conditon, there is a decent chance that another player can hit any one of the 15 terts though. Needs more input from others I guess, I rarely if ever go for victory conditions.

Austrum
Baird sucks too much to be a starting point. Also, having killer starting positions is an extremely controversial decision... I figured we would no longer do that after the "Dust Bowl Dust Up".

Hayes is in the same position as Baird. But the starting positions for the ships is not a crucial one to stay in the game. They are just part of the normal deploy. But as the winning condition is to hold Meridiem and 5 ships, I wanted all players to start with at least one in all games. In a two player game, each player will get 16 territs over all. (2 ships, 6 from the middle and 8 going around the outside). I would consider only having one or two in the middle given out as the positions. Then I can balance the game better for the ships. So Baird and Hayes would get a territ close to Meridiem whilst the others further out. As for the decays being starting positions, Dust bowl should be sorted now as a new xml was written and I have decays as positions in Rorke's Drift so I do understand some players feelings toward this.

I mean that Baird sucks, because it only connects to a single land territory, and that territory is a decay. Hayes connects to 2 land territories, one of which is not a decay. The man-in-the-middle element doesn't help either.

Both:
The positions don't correlate to each other very well. In Vertex Rho and Cos are adjacent, but in Austrum, they are quite seperate. I was assuming this is too poles of the same world, is this not the case?

Both have latin names. It gives a other world feel whilst grounding the maps in reality. I used lakes and rivers as place names became to recognisable. Will make sure to go around and remove any name that is duplicated.