TRAFALGAR [12.4.2012] QUENCHED (V65)

[the.killing.44]

Are you going to have the commanders (or at least some) start neutral? Because 3 terits spread out can be placed with a bonus pretty easily.

[cairnswk]

there's like no blue ships. although i suppose thats to reflect the fact that the brits and the spaniards kicked the crap out of napoleon?

What are you talking about man....there are plenty of blue ships on the map that belong to the French.
the French and the Spanish just happen to be on the same side.
History lesson perhaps whites....

[cairnswk]

Are you going to have the commanders (or at least some) start neutral? Because 3 terits spread out can be placed with a bonus pretty easily.

That's a possibility

[whitestazn88]

there's like no blue ships. although i suppose thats to reflect the fact that the brits and the spaniards kicked the crap out of napoleon?

What are you talking about man....there are plenty of blue ships on the map that belong to the French.
the French and the Spanish just happen to be on the same side.
History lesson perhaps whites....

there are a combined 31 french and spanish ships, there are 27 british ships, 16 ships are french, 15 spanish. but i think the first time i counted, i must have missed some cuz i only counted like 12 french ships

and yes, apparently i do need a history lesson lol... didn't know the french and spanish teamed up on that one. french history gets overlooked in the states cairns

[cairnswk]

there's like no blue ships. although i suppose thats to reflect the fact that the brits and the spaniards kicked the crap out of napoleon?

What are you talking about man....there are plenty of blue ships on the map that belong to the French.
the French and the Spanish just happen to be on the same side.
History lesson perhaps whites....

there are a combined 31 french and spanish ships, there are 27 british ships, 16 ships are french, 15 spanish. but i think the first time i counted, i must have missed some cuz i only counted like 12 french ships

and yes, apparently i do need a history lesson lol... didn't know the french and spanish teamed up on that one. french history gets overlooked in the states cairns

cool, whites

[Incandenza]

Any coments?

Well, obviously some of the cannon are going to have to be tweaked to ensure they're poitning at the proper ships...

as far as gameplay, well, that's trickier. I've been staring at the damn thing for the past ten minutes trying to come up with something insightful, and I've failed abjectly (then again, it is still the AM, and I'm usually not up to speed mentally until the afternoon, so I'll keep trying).

One question: do you have some sort of plan for additional bonuses?

[cairnswk]

...
One question: do you have some sort of plan for additional bonuses?

Yes, but haven't really had the time to figure out exactly what....it's been a heavy week for me...
1. too hot to be on the computer for too long coz it's summer
2. i've got the flu
3. resigned from my job on Tuesday
4. got a possible offer for other work yesterday
5. Christmas party today
Life is wonderful

[LED ZEPPELINER]

i would suggest an easier layout, maybe not so many lines

[The Neon Peon]

Lines should connect from a uniform point on each ship, such as the center, not be different everywhere.

Some of the bombardment is still unclear because the cannon points between two ships.

Your legend still says attacks and bombards.

Why do you have two attack/bombard lines between two ships? only one is necessary.

[Telvannia]

I'm really glad someone is tackling this idea at last, one of the thing i have always thought had the potential to be a great map! And judging by your past record of complex war maps i can think of no-one better than you to do it.


Now i have dealt with the flattery, time to get down to business, lets start off with a small picky issue, you seem to be 2 short on the French fleet, but that is hardly of any great importance.
Keeping with the small and insignificant if you have space you could put Nelson's famous signal behind the legend.
Just another trifling matter, at the top you have the faces of Nelson and Napoleon (I think it is them it is hard to tell at that size), surely you could have the faces of Napoleon and George III or Nelson and his French/Spainish counterpart.
Also without knowing what you are doing for bonuses, here is what i think would make a good set:

• British Weather Column
• British Lee Column
• HMS Africa
• French Ships
• Spanish Ships

You would have to work out the actual numerical value for each of the bonuses, as im terrible at gameplay mechanics

[cairnswk]

i would suggest an easier layout, maybe not so many lines

Yes, i can work on that.

Lines should connect from a uniform point on each ship, such as the center, not be different everywhere.

Some of the bombardment is still unclear because the cannon points between two ships.

Your legend still says attacks and bombards.

Why do you have two attack/bombard lines between two ships? only one is necessary.

1. OK
2. cannon pointing needs to be cleaned up
3. well, there will be a differentation
4. as a method of indicating two-way attacks. When men boarded from a ship, they usually boarded via ropes that swung from their own ship or gang planks, so i thought it would be a great idea to have two lines, and if there was only one yellow line to a red ship, then it would be a one-way attack indicator.
i thought it would be better than having one-way arrows.

I'm really glad someone is tackling this idea at last, one of the thing i have always thought had the potential to be a great map! And judging by your past record of complex war maps i can think of no-one better than you to do it.

And i'm glad someone esle has found the thread, thanks Telvania

Keeping with the small and insignificant if you have space you could put Nelson's famous signal behind the legend.
[q/uote]
Jolly splendid idea, thanks for that.

Just another trifling matter, at the top you have the faces of Nelson and Napoleon (I think it is them it is hard to tell at that size), surely you could have the faces of Napoleon and George III or Nelson and his French/Spainish counterpart.

Those are the faces of Nelson and French commander Pierre-Charles Villeneuve...i have yet to put the spanish commander in.

Also without knowing what you are doing for bonuses, here is what i think would make a good set:

• British Weather Column
• British Lee Column
• HMS Africa
• French Ships
• Spanish Ships

You would have to work out the actual numerical value for each of the bonuses, as im terrible at gameplay mechanics

HMS Africa (frigates) was part of the Weather column, but i'll consider this...good work.

[cairnswk]

Also without knowing what you are doing for bonuses, here is what i think would make a good set:

• British Weather Column
• British Lee Column
• HMS Africa
• French Ships
• Spanish Ships

You would have to work out the actual numerical value for each of the bonuses, as im terrible at gameplay mechanics

HMS Africa (frigates) was part of the Weather column, but i'll consider this...good work.

OK, in the middle of finishing design for legend, and perhaps this would be difficult to implement to indicate which is the weather column etc for the british. i'd have to have another colour for the british. i don't think there is room for a mini-map, so not sure how to accomplish this.

[cairnswk]

Version 7.

1. Not done - still haven't finished the full compliment of french ships and all the ship names.
2. re-worked the legend areas with provision for Bonuses
3. Simple differentiation between British Weather and Lee Columns ......................................... look for on the legend and map
4. inclusion as suggested of the famous flag message

[The Neon Peon]

I think bonuses should be of the type of "x troops for every y (country)'s ships held. Or that same thing except only if you hold the commander for that country (which starts neutral).

Otherwise, the bonus is impossible to obtain.

Great map, and great work on the legend... really good idea. I love the bottom right, but I think that the left part of the legend is too hard to see. Some of the details are made really clear, and they drown out the others to being hardly visible.

[LED ZEPPELINER]

what i think might be a cool idea is if you were to make it so some boats can only reainforce each other (not attack) and others can attack another but not reinforce it, just throwing that ou thiere, maybe with like ally boats and enemy boats

[cairnswk]

I think bonuses should be of the type of "x troops for every y (country)'s ships held. Or that same thing except only if you hold the commander for that country (which starts neutral).

Otherwise, the bonus is impossible to obtain.

OK, let me reason this....i can see where you saying the bonuses might be hard to obtain.
But if we split the three armies into two group above and below that dotted weather/lee indiactor line, it would give two more region bonuses that were easier to obtain.

Great map, and great work on the legend... really good idea. I love the bottom right, but I think that the left part of the legend is too hard to see. Some of the details are made really clear, and they drown out the others to being hardly visible.

Not sure exactly what you mean here.....about the left part of the legend & the drowning out business.

what i think might be a cool idea is if you were to make it so some boats can only reainforce each other (not attack) and others can attack another but not reinforce it, just throwing that ou thiere, maybe with like ally boats and enemy boats

And sorry for this, but totally don't understand this one. Please expand.

[cairnswk]

Version 8

1. I've moved some terts around to be able to achieve continent style bonuses.
Not all cannon are in place yet, but the main players are.

[cairnswk]

Let's see.....

Bonuses might be:

British A 13 6 5 2 +7
French A 8 7 5 3 +7
Spanish A 6 2 3 2 +3
British B 14 8 6 3 +9
French B 8 6 7 3 +6
Spanish B 9 5 6 3 +6

What do others think?

[Incandenza]

Let's see.....

Bonuses might be:

British A 13 6 5 2 +7
French A 8 7 5 3 +7
Spanish A 6 2 3 2 +3
British B 14 8 6 3 +9
French B 8 6 7 3 +6
Spanish B 9 5 6 3 +6

What do others think?

Them's some big bonuses.... I agree with Peon, I think some Berlin-style "build your own bonus" action might work nicely for this map. That way the bonuses can be smaller and a bit easier to obtain (and hold).

[cairnswk]

Them's some big bonuses.... I agree with Peon, I think some Berlin-style "build your own bonus" action might work nicely for this map. That way the bonuses can be smaller and a bit easier to obtain (and hold).

OK, but what do you suggest...we override the normal +1 for 3 and make it +1 for 2 or 4...or whatever?

[cairnswk]

Version 9

Some suggested bonuses

[TaCktiX]

I'm having a hard time getting behind this map. It just doesn't have that "catch" to it present in a lot of your other maps.

- The cannon-pointing mechanism is clunky and hard to pin down right off what's attacking what. Dotted lines would do a lot of help for this.
- Whilst Santissima Trinidad and Victory are nice and emboldened, Bucentaure is not.
- A lot of the text seems to waver between bold and faded, and it's very offputting. Uniformity in name-look would help a lot.
- Instead of "Plus for any commander +1", "Any commander gives +1" is much better verbiage.
- What is the "thing" on the left side of the map? I can't tell if it's the front of a ship, the side, or what-not, it just doesn't look "right", particularly toward the top.
- If possible, adjust the verse underneath the title to note its rhyme more. "Great losses of ships and life were suffered this day / To dear old Napoleon away"
- What do the naval symbols mean in the title? They have zero significance to me, and if they're merely an echo of the verse above, I'd suggest moving the verse down a bit and the symbols up and have the verse overlaying the symbols.
- Adding "Any" to the bonuses would help a lot toward understanding. For the first 5 minutes of looking at this map, I thought that there were only 5 French in the Weather Line and only 8 British in the Lee Line until I actually counted them. The bonus numbers themselves are pretty good.
- Instead of using "A" and "B", why not "W" and "L"? It'd match the line names more.
- Since there is no functional difference between a frigate and a ship of the line (other than attacks that are already noted on the map itself), noting which is which is rather pointless. And what is up with the bottom left corner? They don't make sense.

I'd have to say this has been rather scathing of me. But when I say that maps get
,
the results aren't always pretty.

[cairnswk]

I'm having a hard time getting behind this map. It just doesn't have that "catch" to it present in a lot of your other maps.

- The cannon-pointing mechanism is clunky and hard to pin down right off what's attacking what. Dotted lines would do a lot of help for this.
- Whilst Santissima Trinidad and Victory are nice and emboldened, Bucentaure is not.
- A lot of the text seems to waver between bold and faded, and it's very offputting. Uniformity in name-look would help a lot.
- Instead of "Plus for any commander +1", "Any commander gives +1" is much better verbiage.
- What is the "thing" on the left side of the map? I can't tell if it's the front of a ship, the side, or what-not, it just doesn't look "right", particularly toward the top.
- If possible, adjust the verse underneath the title to note its rhyme more. "Great losses of ships and life were suffered this day / To dear old Napoleon away"
- What do the naval symbols mean in the title? They have zero significance to me, and if they're merely an echo of the verse above, I'd suggest moving the verse down a bit and the symbols up and have the verse overlaying the symbols.
- Adding "Any" to the bonuses would help a lot toward understanding. For the first 5 minutes of looking at this map, I thought that there were only 5 French in the Weather Line and only 8 British in the Lee Line until I actually counted them. The bonus numbers themselves are pretty good.
- Instead of using "A" and "B", why not "W" and "L"? It'd match the line names more.
- Since there is no functional difference between a frigate and a ship of the line (other than attacks that are already noted on the map itself), noting which is which is rather pointless. And what is up with the bottom left corner? They don't make sense.

I'd have to say this has been rather scathing of me. But when I say that maps get
,
the results aren't always pretty.

OK, i think i got most of your suggestions above in Version 10 below, i don't think adding dotted lines to the cannon will help but it might cause more confusion and certainly the map doesn't need any more lines; but i will work further on that so that it is clearer.

Click image to enlarge.

[cairnswk]

Oh and clearly the left legend is not finished yet....more artwork to be done there.

[LED ZEPPELINER]

what i think might be a cool idea is if you were to make it so some boats can only reainforce each other (not attack) and others can attack another but not reinforce it, just throwing that ou thiere, maybe with like ally boats and enemy boats

And sorry for this, but totally don't understand this one. Please expand.

what i mean is if you were in a real naval battle, you wouldn't be attacking ships from your own fleet, so some connecting ships, maybe could just be able to reinforce one another, but not attack one another, i hope it makes sense