Antarctica v9 [I, Gp, Gr]

[MrBenn]

Also, it's not immediately clear which continent matches the names in the legend below.
It took me a moment, but it's possible that it may be more difficult for the colorblind...?
Otherwise, this looks really interesting, and it's clear you've put a lot of thought and work into it.

I like the ticker text at the bottom; have you tried putting the region names on the map at all? It might be needed

Yep, benny and Benn ( ). I'm rapidly coming to teh conclusion that I'm going to need something different from the ticker in order to display the continent bonuses. I will try to put the continent names on the map itself, as that stands out as the best option, but I may have to go with a minimap, which I don't really think will suit this map.

I don't think you need to get rid of the ticker, as long as it is easy to identify which region is which.

You could try putting the names on the regions like on the Berlin map? That would work... I share your reservations about the minimap in this instance

Mr B

[Mjinga]

Lovely map! I'll definitely be looking forward to playing on it.

I have a suggestion about the South Pole (it may already have been given, but I didn't have time to read through more than the first three pages and at least I'm not asking if it's the only thing that can attack ships ). What if you make the South Pole start neutral, with a fairly large number of neutrals (enough to discourage a straight run for it with cards) and then it can attack the ships, as now, but at the end of each turn, it resets to the fairly large number of neutrals? Just an idea.

[mibi]

Yeah thats good stuff. Nice feeling and flavor. Whats up with the legend though, circles and flags in there? looks overly cluttered. I am a little bummed that the bonus info is relegated to some tiny text at the bottom. It might be unreadable in the small version.

The impassibles legend kind of look like dinosaurs. What are they anyways?

[e_i_pi]

Lovely map! I'll definitely be looking forward to playing on it.

I have a suggestion about the South Pole (it may already have been given, but I didn't have time to read through more than the first three pages and at least I'm not asking if it's the only thing that can attack ships ). What if you make the South Pole start neutral, with a fairly large number of neutrals (enough to discourage a straight run for it with cards) and then it can attack the ships, as now, but at the end of each turn, it resets to the fairly large number of neutrals? Just an idea.

That's exactly what I plan on doing

I figure it's gonna need a fair few neutrals, maybe 12-15, in order to inhibit quads games becoming 'everyone deploy on one person and hit the pole immediately'. I'm tossing up the idea of having South Pole lose 1 army per turn, and if there is an XML implementation of 'Incrementing Neutrals' having the attrition of 1 army per turn on the neutrals and bumping them up to say 20. So, the longer the game goes, the easier it is to take the pole.

[e_i_pi]

Yeah thats good stuff. Nice feeling and flavor. Whats up with the legend though, circles and flags in there? looks overly cluttered.

I'm considering moving the circles to the ships, there seems to be enough room. That would also make way for a mini-map for the continents.

I am a little bummed that the bonus info is relegated to some tiny text at the bottom. It might be unreadable in the small version.

I'm going to redo the small version by deleting all the text and circles and re-doing it from the base image resized down, to ensure legible text.

The impassibles legend kind of look like dinosaurs. What are they anyways?

Well, I would argue that dinosaurs are pretty impassable They're mountains, they're looking a lot better than the original, but if they look ambiguous, I'll work on them some more.

Thanks for the feedback mibs

[e_i_pi]

Lack of updates has been due to crazy amounts of real life work and also I had to redo the PS file from an earlier version to allow undoable filters. Another few hours work has been done on it, but it's not really noticeable, as it's all behind the scenes stuff - cleaning up borders, outlying pixels, fine-tuning layer effects etc. This is an example of the sort of fine-tuning I have done:




Obviously, an update with just this stuff isn't really much of an update, but it's necessary to do, and very time-consuming. Should be a good update next week, with a change in the legend, circles next to ships, and a mini-map. Stay tuned

[e_i_pi]

Version 6 is up.

Main changes are behind the scenes stuff, though I added a mini-map that's colour-blind friendly, changed a ticker, and put circles and names next to the ships.

Click image to enlarge.

[lt.pie]

looks great e-i-pi

[yeti_c]

There's a whole lotta pie in this thread!!

Agreed though - this needs to go into the foundry proper.

C.

[RjBeals]

Bravo eipi.

My only comment - is this the globe we're looking at? I can see the what looks like the edges of earth, with space in the background? If so, maybe define the earth a little better. some glow or a hard line or something. Looks a bit like a blurry transition now.

But A+ on the map.

[jiminski]

very very tasty! I like the deep Ocean blue against the pastels of of the land, it juxtaposes to splendid result.

[e_i_pi]

Bravo eipi.

My only comment - is this the globe we're looking at? I can see the what looks like the edges of earth, with space in the background? If so, maybe define the earth a little better. some glow or a hard line or something. Looks a bit like a blurry transition now.

But A+ on the map.

Yeah it's the globe. I've tried with a subtle outer glow on a whole layer to get that atmospheric effect, but I'm not happy with it. I think I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and just draw a circle with 0% fill and add an outer glow to that to get it just right.

Also, the flags on the ships will be changing so they don't look flat, but I gotta download the software, and currently my flatmate is killing our bandwidth via an Age of Conan patch

[benny profane]

I agree with RJ.
You also might consider fading the ocean color from shallow to deep more gradually.
My issues with gameplay haven't changed. I think you should connect the uppermost parts of Thwaite and Icestream to the respective territories for the sake of clarity.
You also might want to make the border between McMurdo and Cape Adare more defined.
Otherwise, good work.

[BENJIKAT IS DEAD]

Very nice - this gameplay configuration has been suggested many times (a big cannon that can bombard starting positions) - and I hope that this one can finally go all the way.

My main concern atm is that the text legend is rather small and a bit lost... (and may only get worse with the small map).... and obv there needs to be a big discussion re starting neutral numbers... but fantastic so far.

[e_i_pi]

I agree with RJ.
You also might consider fading the ocean color from shallow to deep more gradually.

Yeah I hear ya loud and clear. The original image had 3 tones of blue, and so I separated those into layers, and put inner and outer glows on them to mesh them together better. It looked great when it was still a draft, but it's the black sheep now. That's one aspect that's going to get a lot more attention graphically. I haven't been happy with it for about the last 4 updates. It's a time consuming aspect though, so I didn't want to get bogged down on it early on.

My issues with gameplay haven't changed. I think you should connect the uppermost parts of Thwaite and Icestream to the respective territories for the sake of clarity.

Yeah, I do see where you're coming from. That whole area where it narrows is a mess as far as I'm concerned. I've already modified it heavily from what it actually is, and I'm trying to stick to the original as much as possible, but something's going to have to be done about it, cos it's a bit hard to make out.

You also might want to make the border between McMurdo and Cape Adare more defined.
Otherwise, good work.

That too is an area deserving some attention. I cleaned it up a bit, but not enough. It's the colour of the continents, not the border. When I was messing with colours, the border became very distinct with certain combinations, but I have to address the colour-blindness aspect too. It's a very fine balance, and at the moment, still teetering.

----

Very nice - this gameplay configuration has been suggested many times (a big cannon that can bombard starting positions) - and I hope that this one can finally go all the way.

This is the part that's going to be the hardest to nail down. Too little starting neutrals will make this terrible in quads, too many will cause games to go too long. I'm putting a ball-park figure of 12-15 on there now, but it's going to need a long discussion

My main concern atm is that the text legend is rather small and a bit lost... (and may only get worse with the small map).... and obv there needs to be a big discussion re starting neutral numbers... but fantastic so far.

The text needs to be embiggened (hehe), I only noticed an hour ago that the bottom text is a smaller pointsize than the top. As I've said in previous posts though, the text is going to be completely redone for the smaller version, so the font stays the same pointsize.

[jiminski]

There seems to be great concern about the speedy transition between Ocean colour.
If you study islands in deep oceans (they are the top of huge mountains poking through the Ocean surface quite often) they go from shallows made up of very light blue to very deep Ocean blue almost instantly.. not so dissimilar to the way depicted in your map.

[RjBeals]

There seems to be great concern about the speedy transition between Ocean colour.
If you study islands in deep oceans (they are the top of huge mountains poking through the Ocean surface quite often) they go from shallows made up of very light blue to very deep Ocean blue almost instantly.. not so dissimilar to the way depicted in your map.

Agree here jim - and it really sets this map apart. But I'm sort of thinking the light blue (glowing aquablue) to dark blue (almost black) is a little to sudden. I would suggest trying what reggie did with his New Zealand map. It's the best looking water i've seen in a while.

Click image to enlarge.

[jiminski]

There seems to be great concern about the speedy transition between Ocean colour.
If you study islands in deep oceans (they are the top of huge mountains poking through the Ocean surface quite often) they go from shallows made up of very light blue to very deep Ocean blue almost instantly.. not so dissimilar to the way depicted in your map.

Agree here jim - and it really sets this map apart. But I'm sort of thinking the light blue (glowing aquablue) to dark blue (almost black) is a little to sudden. I would suggest trying what reggie did with his New Zealand map. It's the best looking water i've seen in a while.

Click image to enlarge.

far be it from me to question your eyes RJ (they should be pickled and given to science.. a bit later of course.. when you are almost finished with them) but if that dark contrast were to be lessened to the example you gave (wonderful though it is in it's own right) the map would lose all its charm for me.

The pastel shades chosen in the Landmass needs a much darker Ocean to carry it .. in my opinion.

[The Viking]

What's the point of the picture Jiminski?

[RjBeals]

What's the point of the picture Jiminski?

It shows the drastic change from light blue to dark blue around the islands. Good photo to prove your point. Whichever eip chooses, I'm sure it'll turn out great.

[jiminski]

... Whichever eip chooses, I'm sure it'll turn out great.

no doubt you are correct mate!

[InkL0sed]

Definitely deserves an Idea stamp.

[MrBenn]

A good update - it looks like the feedback is now coming thick and fast too

Welcome to the foundry proper D>

[foregone]

Well done on the stamp, e_i_pi.

[e_i_pi]

Thanks MrBenn, it's been a journey