German/Italian Unif.[D, Gp, Gr] BETA, all files p.1

[lt_oddball]

can you not find military medals for France (on Paris) Denmark (on Kopenhagen) and Habsburgs (Vienna) ?
<<why Dybböl and königsgradz ? >>
To plant the german (basic) Iron Cross on foreign troop-generating-centers is giving a wrong message.

The Italy map doesnot have the same problem.


I hope the neutral countries Holland, Belgium , Luxemburg , Switserland, etc..are impassable ?


I like the maps/themes.

[Industrial Helix]

porkenbeans - The mountains were just something I tried out based on a tutorial online, but I've since been messing around with it and think I have something better. Stay tuned on the mountains. I see what you mean about the borders now that you mention it, I think its because some of the borders are from the original scale up to large from small and some have been redrawn. I'll be going over the entirety of them to get a uniform look and eliminate blur. Thanks for your crits!

whitestazn - happy birthday!

killing - For the land and sea I will try what you have suggested and see how it pans out. As for the border size, I intend to redraw them all for the next version. As for the font, it comes in all caps so there's not much I can do about it that. I might shrink it a little as suggested though. The rivers have been going constant changes, I can't seem to find something that works but I will keep trying. As for the addition of personality territories, its certainly interesting but its not a direction I want to take this map in. Thanks for your input!

It_oddball - The Iron Crosses and Shields are put in to show the important places during each war of unification. In the case of Italy, all the important places were in what is now Italy. In the case of Germany, all the important battles were outside of Germany. Prussia and Austria waged war with Denmark for Schleswig Holstein and won the battle of Dybbol. Prussia then warred with Austria-Hungary and defeated them in Konigsgratz which lead to the annexation of several of the German territories under the protection of Austria. The expanded Prussia and ally Bavaria then warred with France, defeated them at Sedan and captured Paris in 1870-1. Bavaria and Prussia agreed to unite and The German Empire was declared at Versailles with Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, as Kaiser of Germany. So the historical fact was that Germany waged its wars of unification outside of Germany, rather than in and this map reflects this. I chose Prussian signs because they were Prussian military victories, rather than French or Danish or Austrian, and they were battles instrumental in the formation of the German Empire.

I'm not trying to reinforce the perception that Germany was an aggressive state any more than it was during the admin of Bismarck and Wilhelm I, I see what you mean about sending wrong signals but I think these are historical fact and there is no embellishing involved. For what its worth, Denmark broke the London protocol which resulted in its battleground defeat and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Sure Bismarck goaded the French government, but that's a minor detail.

Also, All the countries not involved in the wars of Unification are impassable. Thanks for your input!

To do:
Add mountains in better effects.
Redraw all borders
Rivers
Play with font size
Spell check piedmonte

[porkenbeans]

I know that you will hear different from a few map makers, but (and I know this first hand from a friend of mine that works as a graphic artist for a local T.V. station), ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS start with your large version first. You can scale down without loosing detail. If you try to go the other way and scale up, you will always have a certain amount of loss in detail. No ifs and or butts.
I know the argument put forth by some that it is easier to start with your small version first. Because you can make sure that your text will not be too small to read. Well, all you really need do, is never make your text smaller than 18 pix. while working on your large map version. 16 is pushing it, but some fonts work better than others at small sizes. That way you are pretty safe from encountering any problems when sizing down. If you are unsure check first to make sure the font will size down to where its going to be.

[the.killing.44]

18px is title-size…

Why are you changing the mountains? I love them as is!

[porkenbeans]

18px is title-size…

Why are you changing the mountains? I love them as is!

18 pix. is what I used on my large version Romania map. My small version is 30% smaller than that, and the text is still legible. I would not want it any smaller than that so no smaller than 18ix. on the large is my rule of thumb. This is only a general rule of thumb, as fonts are all different, and some work better than others at small sizes. All you really have to do if you have any concerns, just make sure before hand that your font can be scaled down to the % that your small map is.

[ender516]

To do:
Add mountains in better effects.
Redraw all borders
Rivers
Play with font size

When you are playing with the font, don't forget the spelling mistake in PPR.

[RedBaron0]

Looking good IH.

Look to smooth some of your borders out a little bit, I know you're probably looking to maintain a close geographic constancy, but borders like the ones making up Hanover aren't necessary, and a little fudging of the border will allow a better fit for the territory name. You certainly look ready for the Foundry, graphics wise there some little spots that could use a bit of tidying up, but no major issues. Your gameplay has a lot of variations and should lend itself well to the game. Think about separating France a little more from the the maps. Historically, France dabbled in the affairs of these fledgling nations and in the end more or less FUBARed themselves for most of the latter half of the 19th century, just a suggestions, whatever you decide I'm sure is more than playable.

[lt_oddball]

It_oddball - The Iron Crosses and Shields are put in to show the important places during each war of unification. In the case of Italy, all the important places were in what is now Italy. In the case of Germany, all the important battles were outside of Germany. Prussia and Austria waged war with Denmark for Schleswig Holstein and won the battle of Dybbol. Prussia then warred with Austria-Hungary and defeated them in Konigsgratz which lead to the annexation of several of the German territories under the protection of Austria. The expanded Prussia and ally Bavaria then warred with France, defeated them at Sedan and captured Paris in 1870-1. Bavaria and Prussia agreed to unite and The German Empire was declared at Versailles with Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, as Kaiser of Germany. So the historical fact was that Germany waged its wars of unification outside of Germany, rather than in and this map reflects this. I chose Prussian signs because they were Prussian military victories, rather than French or Danish or Austrian, and they were battles instrumental in the formation of the German Empire.

I'm not trying to reinforce the perception that Germany was an aggressive state any more than it was during the admin of Bismarck and Wilhelm I, I see what you mean about sending wrong signals but I think these are historical fact and there is no embellishing involved. For what its worth, Denmark broke the London protocol which resulted in its battleground defeat and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Sure Bismarck goaded the French government, but that's a minor detail.

I know of the battles outside the borders (well admittedly, only the French one, declaration of unification in Versailles and taking of Elzass ) ...but then the game implementation would have to be something like "conquer (at least ? of the following) Paris , Dybbol, Königsgrad, München and you get bonus of +? instead of the autodeploy +1 for each of these places you control .
Autodeploy +1 is something for "troop generating centers" ; Big cities with barracks, war Industry, food generation centers, invasion entry points, spawn points, etc.. and that is not the case here.
(It would be if it was meant as troop generation centers for the French in Paris, or the danes in Kopenhagen, or the Habsburgs in Vienna to put in their weight at these corners of the map).

So the iron crosses stay, but the request is to change the bonus benefit.

[Kabanellas]

I know that you will hear different from a few map makers, but (and I know this first hand from a friend of mine that works as a graphic artist for a local T.V. station), ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS start with your large version first. You can scale down without loosing detail. If you try to go the other way and scale up, you will always have a certain amount of loss in detail. No ifs and or butts.
I know the argument put forth by some that it is easier to start with your small version first. Because you can make sure that your text will not be too small to read. Well, all you really need do, is never make your text smaller than 18 pix. while working on your large map version. 16 is pushing it, but some fonts work better than others at small sizes. That way you are pretty safe from encountering any problems when sizing down. If you are unsure check first to make sure the font will size down to where its going to be.

yes, my way too. Always from large to small.

[sam_levi_11]

dont know if its been discussed but modena, tuscany and parma were kingdoms of their own at the time i believe.

Also sardinia Peidmont owned savoy and nice, they could be a bonus for sardinia peidmont.

Lastly why is croatia is there? It doesnt seem to serve any purpose

[natty dread]

Always from large to small.

I learned this the hard way...

[Industrial Helix]

Porkenbeans - Yeah, graphically speaking its easier to downsize. What I intended to do with this map was figure everything out small and then go large once I was ready for major graphics modifications.

killing - I think the mountains are good, but they need a little tweaking and cleaning up. It's not going to be a major change.

ender - added to the to do list.

Red - Thanks! I'll adjust the borders a little to fit the names better. As for France, I think it was a major power during the wars of unification for both new states. Bismarck knew that he couldn't bring Germany to full power without pushing down France and Italy couldn't unify without a major power to counterbalance Austria. Balance of Power politics and war was a major factor for the creation of these states and that's why I'm trying to give the great powers more of a presence on the map.

it_oddball - I see your point about the troop generating centers but I think you might be looking at it differently than I am. You're looking at them as trooper generating areas for Germany or a Germany oriented player, but what you need to keep in mind is that they're also troop generating areas for an Austrian player or a French player or a Danish. If a player starts in Germany he's going to have to contest with players that started in Austria or Denmark or France.

sam levi - yeah, I think nobodies brought it up earlier. The problem with the individual kingdoms in the center is that there's to many of them and its hard to assign bonuses to each one without giving away the bonus. I didn't want to have a bunch of one ter. bonuses in the center of the map. So I grouped them as a single bonus. But as time goes on the historical inaccuracy nags at me so it might change yet, though I'm not sure how to do the bonuses. I'll give it some thought and any suggestions or ideas would be great.

As for Nice and Savoy, P-S sold it to France in exchange for help during the wars, hence Savoy is a duel occupied territory between P-S and France, Nice is too small to do such a thing graphically so I gave it to France.

I threw Croatia in there because when I cropped the area of Europe it was there and also part of Austria-Hungary. Croatia and the Dalmatian coast were also territorial ambitions of Italy's for quite some time. Furthermore, the naval battle of Lisse is out that way and I needed to round out that connection on the map.



Thanks everyone or the great feedback and input! I should have a new version coming up pretty soon answering these raised points.

[porkenbeans]

Yeah, it's like nat said, he learned the hard way. He most likely had to start from scratch to do his large version. To produce a quality map takes a lot of time and effort. So, why on earth would anyone want to double that by working on the small version first ? It makes much more sense to start with the large version, and just remember to make your text large enough that it can be scale down, for the small version.

[natty dread]

Well, not quite from scratch, but I know I'll have to do lots of finetuning on the large image in the future, if my map ever gets past the drafting room...

[porkenbeans]

Well, not quite from scratch, but I know I'll have to do lots of finetuning on the large image in the future, if my map ever gets past the drafting room...

Well put it this way. Everything that you enlarged, has lost detail. Some things may not be so easily evident, but There Is loss of detail in Every brush stroke, believe me. These people that say to start from the small, do NOT understand this, and their eye is just NOT trained well enough to see it.

[Industrial Helix]

I've got a new version that should address many of the concerns brought up. The only thing I haven't tackled yet is the sea connections, which I'm still trying to figure out how best to do.

The biggest change made is the addition of Lorraine in the Alsace region. I figure two provinces were annexed from France, so its historically accurate, and it helps to balance out some gameplay.

Cologne changed to Köln. Fixed Piedmont to Piemont. Fixed the game objective typo as well.

Redrew the borders.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[Raskholnikov]

Objective: Win ALL 4 Iron Crosses....

There ARE 5 Crosses!

(For all Next Generation fans, you know EXACTLY which episode I'm alluding to here )

[Industrial Helix]

No idea what you're talking about but I fixed the Objectives on my version of the map. Thanks!

[porkenbeans]

There are "FOUR" lights.

[thenobodies80]

Onward and Upward

[Industrial Helix]

Thanks Nobodies! Well, I guess the next stage is to evaluate and fine tune the gameplay. So thoughts on that would be great!

[AndyDufresne]

I'm really liking the stylistic view of this map---the borders, territories, colors, lines, etc. But the title gets an unfortunate thumbs down. It clashes a little too much for my taste.


--Andy

[iancanton]

is there a case for putting luxemburg, which was part of the german confederation, into the purple-and-white hatched area? the length of the name is obviously a problem, but lux can be written in belgium, with a line pointing to the troop circle. does berlin, rather than mecklenburg, start neutral? there is a missing border between pfalz and nuernburg. riems ought to be reims.

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/lowcoun ... 51839.html
http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/lowcoun ... 91867.html

to eliminate the awkward 2-region +2 bonus, i suggest shrinking the torino region and splitting the expanded lombardia into milano (western half) and custoza (eastern half). the current custoza region can be renamed cremona, which is more accurate for its location. custoza is not shown on the map below, but it is located close to lake garda. bastin ought to be bastia. good work so far, except for the sea routes!

http://www.big-italy-map.co.uk/map-of-lombardia-map.htm

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Thanks Andy and and Ian.

I removed a bunch of stuff from the logo... I agree it doesn't mix well with the graphics. This seems to work alright but I'm gonna mess with it still. Any ideas are appreciated.

I changed the sea routes, still not perfect but better. I wish I could do dashed lines but its difficult with photoshop.

I made the changes that Ian suggested. Luxembourg seems like it might be a good idea to include, as Ian pointed out, it was part of the Zollverein and was an issue between Germany/Prussia and France. I just realized I forgot to update the legend... next update it is then.

Here they are:

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[ender516]

I am a little concerned that the three-way sea route connections are unclear. Can Roma attack Calatafimi? Can Elba attack Cagliari? The sweep of the lines force a sharp turn which is a little non-intuitive.