World 2.0/1 Map [Quenched]

[Jargo The Axe]

hey sully..... shut up!

[Ninja Kid]

yea sully.......shut up!

[socralynnek]

sully, don't shut up!

To the others:
The map making process is a long one. That is, the map shouldn't be released til it's done. No one has advantages if a almost complete map gets released too early and then isa only almost complete for years. Wait a few days or weeks til it's finally done and we'll be happy forever...

[MTA-M]

Still a few things that are not really clear (sorry if some might have been reported earlier, I haven't read the entire thread):

-Can Prairies attack Western USA or can B.C. attack Midwest USA or neither?
-Can Norway attack Moskva (in reality Norway has a border with Russia, does it have here)?
-Is there a line between Ethiopia and Yemen? It’s a bit unclear due to the circle of Ethiopia?
-Can Mongolia attack Kazakhstan or can China attack Evenkia or neither?
-Can Irkutsk attack Korea?
-Is there a line from Papua New Guinea to East Australia?

[zim]

I noticed that there's only two sub-continents for Europe. Why don't you add the bright green European countries as a "Eurasia" subcontinent

Ambrose, this and other approaches to reorganizing Europe were discussed a few times over the course of the maps evolution. My main reasons for sticking with the current layout are:
1) I think the current demarc between "The West" and the east reflects current geo-political reality with the EU on one hand and the ex Warsaw pact on the other with a bunch of 'disputed' territory in between. I know accuracy shouldn't trump playability but if I can have both why not?
2) In the abstract risk strategy sense I like the way central/eastern Europe acts as a "no man's land" between Russia, Western Europe, Scandinavia and Middle East. It makes the area strategically interesting. I think the composition of Europe with proportionately more "neutrals" than any other makes the continent interesting as well.
3) Finally, changing the sub-continental structure of Europe probably would have ripple effects in those adjacent regions and I'm not up for a major rethink at this stage.

if you still can, could you please change Scandinavia colour?
In fact, the sum of the colours of Western Europe and its white circles is too similar to the one of Scandinavia. (you could also change western europe colour, instead)

Lupo, I'm not thrilled with the degree of colour seperation amongst the greens of Europe but this is the widest spread I've been able to attain while keeping the text legible and the grey borders visible.

Still a few things that are not really clear (sorry if some might have been reported earlier, I haven't read the entire thread):

-Can Prairies attack Western USA or can B.C. attack Midwest USA or neither?
-Can Norway attack Moskva (in reality Norway has a border with Russia, does it have here)?
-Is there a line between Ethiopia and Yemen? It’s a bit unclear due to the circle of Ethiopia?
-Can Mongolia attack Kazakhstan or can China attack Evenkia or neither?
-Can Irkutsk attack Korea?
-Is there a line from Papua New Guinea to East Australia?

- Prairies cannot attack Western USA.
- Norway cannot attack Moskva.
- Ethiopia does not connect to Yemem though Somalia does.
- As it currently stands in the XML Mongolia and Kazakhstan cannot attack each other nor can China attack Evenkia. In looking at it I agree this is unclear. I've updated the map and the XML so that Kazak and Mongolia do NOT meet but China and Evenkia do.
- Irkutsk does not border Korea though moving the Korea label makes this unclear. I've moved the label and tweaked the border to try and make this clearer.
- Paua and East Oz do connect but the line was in a bad place. I've moved it to make things clearer.

Cheers,

Zim

Updated large:


Updated small:


Updated XML:
http://www.zims.com/blog/images/wmapxml5.xml

[MTA-M]

- Prairies cannot attack Western USA.

But B.C. and Midwest can? It looks like a 4-way border on the map. Maybe you can shift the border a bit here also to make clear which can attack each other and which not.

[tals]

sully, don't shut up!

To the others:
The map making process is a long one. That is, the map shouldn't be released til it's done. No one has advantages if a almost complete map gets released too early and then isa only almost complete for years. Wait a few days or weeks til it's finally done and we'll be happy forever...

Agreed - very impressed with Zim as well, very active in nailing concerns as they appear. Nothing worse than a question appearing and then waiting weeks for the map creator to answer.

Tals

[Lupo]

Does Cuba border with Mexico or Guatemala? If it does, could make the linking line straighter?

[sully800]

sully, don't shut up!

To the others:
The map making process is a long one. That is, the map shouldn't be released til it's done. No one has advantages if a almost complete map gets released too early and then isa only almost complete for years. Wait a few days or weeks til it's finally done and we'll be happy forever...

Agreed - very impressed with Zim as well, very active in nailing concerns as they appear. Nothing worse than a question appearing and then waiting weeks for the map creator to answer.

Tals

Exactly. Zim is doing a great job of answering questions and fixing problems. These 4 corner borders are indeed a problem, especially on this map because the border lines are so thick you can't actually tell which countries are meant to border. In cases such as the new China-Evenkia border I think it needs to be made more obvious that they attach. At the same time that makes it more obvious that Mongolia and Kazakhstan are not attached. As it currently stands, I wouldn't be able to guess which two are connected without you telling me (or looking it up in the XML). The same holds true for the 4 corner corder above the US.

If you want 2 of the diagonal countries to border, shift it around a bit so its more clearly. If you don't want any of them to border, its often helpful to put a lake or something in the middle of the 4 corners.

Also, is there any reason you've chosen such thick border lines? I think that's one of the main causes of all the boundary confusion- the borders in many cases are as thick as the parts of the country they are surrounding. This is especially true in the islands (just look at Japan- it's mostly gray, not blue because of the thick borders). I think reducing the lineweight just a bit would help clear up some confusion about playability, and make the graph aesthetically better. (If you want an example, I think the Middle Earth map is a great example of thin but bold lines clearly seperating areas- the difference might be different border colors for different color continents which makes the lines stand out a lot more.)

[zim]

But B.C. and Midwest can? It looks like a 4-way border on the map. Maybe you can shift the border a bit here also to make clear which can attack each other and which not.

MTA-M, this is a bit of a catch 22. The way I intended it to be was that the two Canadian territories could attack each other, the two US could attack each other but the Canadian and US territories could only attack straight north or straight south not north east, north west, south east, south west. To depict this I made the BC/Prairies and WUS/MWUSA a vertical line as shown in the current version of the map. I could modify it to make this less ambigous but this would require creating either a SE/NW or a SW/NE pairing, i.e.,



which opens the WUSA/Prairies route but makes it clear that there is not a BC/MWUSA route. The impact on game play is pretty minor either way so I'm cool with whichever approach meets with general approval.

Does Cuba border with Mexico or Guatemala? If it does, could make the linking line straighter?

Cuba borders Mexico (attaching in the Yucatan) I think this is fairly clear when the circles are on but let me know if you think it questionable in the image below and I'll adjust.

Exactly. Zim is doing a great job of answering questions and fixing problems. These 4 corner borders are indeed a problem, especially on this map because the border lines are so thick you can't actually tell which countries are meant to border. In cases such as the new China-Evenkia border I think it needs to be made more obvious that they attach. At the same time that makes it more obvious that Mongolia and Kazakhstan are not attached. As it currently stands, I wouldn't be able to guess which two are connected without you telling me (or looking it up in the XML). The same holds true for the 4 corner corder above the US.

If you want 2 of the diagonal countries to border, shift it around a bit so its more clearly. If you don't want any of them to border, its often helpful to put a lake or something in the middle of the 4 corners.

Sully, let me know what you think in terms of the "slide" approach for North America shown above. I've also moved Mongolia further east to make that two three ways rather than a four way corner, I think it's unambiguous now. I could put lakes/mountains etc., but I've been trying not to resort to those as I don't think they fit the aesthetic of the map.

Also, is there any reason you've chosen such thick border lines? I think that's one of the main causes of all the boundary confusion- the borders in many cases are as thick as the parts of the country they are surrounding. This is especially true in the islands (just look at Japan- it's mostly gray, not blue because of the thick borders). I think reducing the lineweight just a bit would help clear up some confusion about playability, and make the graph aesthetically better. (If you want an example, I think the Middle Earth map is a great example of thin but bold lines clearly separating areas- the difference might be different border colors for different color continents which makes the lines stand out a lot more.)

Took a look at Middle Earth and tried (briefly) to apply the highlight colour for borders approach to my map. Didn't work given the range of base shades in each continent, perhaps chosing a highlight colour for each sub would but that would be a substantial piece of work as I've often drawn a border between a country as a single shared line rather than two overlapped paths. As to thinner lines the main problem is that it would mean a significant rework of the map as in the interest of speed (and my limited graphic/mouse skills) I used thick lines to cover a number of sins which can be seen in the close up below.



I really like the "hand drawn with a marker" kind of look that the thicker lines give it but I'm aligned with you that they do decrease clarity versus 1 or 2 pixel "pencil" lines. If someone wants to attempt to clean these up I'm happy to post the Illustrator file but it's more (tedious) work than I'm prepared to invest in it at this stage.

I will of course clean up any particular ambiguous spots suggested by the forge and welcome further suggestions; just not up for the big redo

Cheers,

Zim

[Ninja Kid]

Hey Sully....... we Know that it is a process we are just eager to play it so you do need to shut up!!!!

[Enigma]

if you still can, could you please change Scandinavia colour?
In fact, the sum of the colours of Western Europe and its white circles is too similar to the one of Scandinavia. (you could also change western europe colour, instead)

Lupo, I'm not thrilled with the degree of colour seperation amongst the greens of Europe but this is the widest spread I've been able to attain while keeping the text legible and the grey borders visible.

ive been thinking the same thing, and so i tried to work out a colour myself. this is just a suggestion, ur obviously welcome to take it or leave it as you choose. it might help to clear the confusion.

(sorry bout the pic quality, i was doing it fast)
the clean cut marker lines are one of the prettiest things about the map, please dont change them. you may consider making the northern border of the "far east" subcontinent a little thinner however, that may be adding to the confusion between mongolia, china, kaza, and evenkia.
as to the 4 corners in north america, as the map is now i did not expect bc to be able to attack midwest, or prairies to attack western. are these paths supossed to exist?

Mali and Nigeria do not connect, Cote and Niger do.

is it possible to move mali's right border a little bit to the left to clarify this connection? it is hard to see because of the marker lines.

[P Gizzle]

when's this ready???

[OnlyAmbrose]

when's this ready???

Given the amount of times this question has been asked in the past week, I'm going to make the assumption that the answer is as follows-

When it's ready.

[P Gizzle]

sorry, i haven't any patience

[sully800]

Also, is there any reason you've chosen such thick border lines? I think that's one of the main causes of all the boundary confusion- the borders in many cases are as thick as the parts of the country they are surrounding. This is especially true in the islands (just look at Japan- it's mostly gray, not blue because of the thick borders). I think reducing the lineweight just a bit would help clear up some confusion about playability, and make the graph aesthetically better. (If you want an example, I think the Middle Earth map is a great example of thin but bold lines clearly separating areas- the difference might be different border colors for different color continents which makes the lines stand out a lot more.)

Took a look at Middle Earth and tried (briefly) to apply the highlight colour for borders approach to my map. Didn't work given the range of base shades in each continent, perhaps chosing a highlight colour for each sub would but that would be a substantial piece of work as I've often drawn a border between a country as a single shared line rather than two overlapped paths. As to thinner lines the main problem is that it would mean a significant rework of the map as in the interest of speed (and my limited graphic/mouse skills) I used thick lines to cover a number of sins which can be seen in the close up below.



I really like the "hand drawn with a marker" kind of look that the thicker lines give it but I'm aligned with you that they do decrease clarity versus 1 or 2 pixel "pencil" lines. If someone wants to attempt to clean these up I'm happy to post the Illustrator file but it's more (tedious) work than I'm prepared to invest in it at this stage.

I will of course clean up any particular ambiguous spots suggested by the forge and welcome further suggestions; just not up for the big redo

Cheers,

Zim

If you don't mind I think I'd like to look at the file and play around with it a bit because I really believe thinner lines would be better. I'm not making any promises because as you said, its probably a lot of work to change all that not. I just think it would be very beneficial to the map.

[sfhbballnut]

I'm willing to wait, I want this to be good and I know its a complicted map. **dies of thirst**

[zim]

if you still can, could you please change Scandinavia colour?
In fact, the sum of the colours of Western Europe and its white circles is too similar to the one of Scandinavia. (you could also change western europe colour, instead)

Lupo, I'm not thrilled with the degree of colour seperation amongst the greens of Europe but this is the widest spread I've been able to attain while keeping the text legible and the grey borders visible.

ive been thinking the same thing, and so i tried to work out a colour myself. this is just a suggestion, ur obviously welcome to take it or leave it as you choose. it might help to clear the confusion.

(sorry bout the pic quality, i was doing it fast)
the clean cut marker lines are one of the prettiest things about the map, please dont change them. you may consider making the northern border of the "far east" subcontinent a little thinner however, that may be adding to the confusion between mongolia, china, kaza, and evenkia.
as to the 4 corners in north america, as the map is now i did not expect bc to be able to attack midwest, or prairies to attack western. are these paths supossed to exist?

Mali and Nigeria do not connect, Cote and Niger do.

is it possible to move mali's right border a little bit to the left to clarify this connection? it is hard to see because of the marker lines.

Thanks for the colour palette suggestion for Europe. I've made the change and it is clearer.

I've moved mongolia even further east and given the revealed territory to China I think it's clear now.

The intent for NA was that the diagonals are not attack lanes. I think this is fairly clear as is but if there is confusion I'm OK moving the US vertical border slightly west or east, I'll wait for further comments but if there are none my intent is to leave it as is.

I've moved Mali's eastern border left as you suggest it does make things clearer.

Cheers,

Zim

Updated large:


Updated small:


P.S. Sully don't mind a bit, would love to see what you can do with it I want it to be the best it can be... http://www.zims.com/blog/images/wmapvfv5ill.ai

P.P.S. The file is 14 MB or so. I've been saving it as a 300 DPI PNG and then scaling to 900 pixels wide and 700 pixels wide in Image Ready using bicubic sharp & maintain aspect ratio to create the Large and Small sizes respectively.

P.P.P.S. OnlyAmbrose nails the "when will it be ready" question. I promise I'm the guy most eager to play but it'll be ready when it's the best it can be.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Personally I like the border art the way it is, I think it gives the map a unique aesthetic feel, but that's just me

[sully800]

P.S. Sully don't mind a bit, would love to see what you can do with it I want it to be the best it can be... http://www.zims.com/blog/images/wmapvfv5ill.ai

P.P.S. The file is 14 MB or so. I've been saving it as a 300 DPI PNG and then scaling to 900 pixels wide and 700 pixels wide in Image Ready using bicubic sharp & maintain aspect ratio to create the Large and Small sizes respectively.

Actually, I don't have a program that can open that image type. I thought about recreating it in Inkscape which I have, but that would be even more work. I understand the concept of making borders thicker to hide imperfections though- its very tough to get everything exact.

Anyway, no big arguments from me then- I thought I would tinker with a few changes if I could, but I do like the way its come together overall. So I guess we'll see what Andy has to say about your latest changes.

[MTA-M]

The intent for NA was that the diagonals are not attack lanes. I think this is fairly clear as is but if there is confusion I'm OK moving the US vertical border slightly west or east, I'll wait for further comments but if there are none my intent is to leave it as is.

OK, no diagonal attacks also, but it stays unclear on the map. I think the idea of a small lake at the 4-way border is the best solution. You say it doesn't fit on the map, but you already have lakes in N-America, so 1 more is not disturbing I think(?).

By the way, talking about these lakes. Can Midwest USA attack Upper Canada? If they can it might be a good idea to shift the west border of Upper Canada a bit to the west.

[zim]

The intent for NA was that the diagonals are not attack lanes. I think this is fairly clear as is but if there is confusion I'm OK moving the US vertical border slightly west or east, I'll wait for further comments but if there are none my intent is to leave it as is.

OK, no diagonal attacks also, but it stays unclear on the map. I think the idea of a small lake at the 4-way border is the best solution. You say it doesn't fit on the map, but you already have lakes in N-America, so 1 more is not disturbing I think(?).

By the way, talking about these lakes. Can Midwest USA attack Upper Canada? If they can it might be a good idea to shift the west border of Upper Canada a bit to the west.

MTA-M, the big lakes in North America are really there (they are the Great Lakes which we Canadians are very proud of).

I will explore moving the border of Upper Canada west (which will bend my friends from Manitoba but so be it) and either changing the alignment of the vertical border in the west or seeing if I can fake a lake that I'm OK with aesthetically and accuracy wise.

Cheers
Zim

[SargentFluffy]

I'm liking the look of this map.

[MTA-M]

MTA-M, the big lakes in North America are really there (they are the Great Lakes which we Canadians are very proud of).

I will explore moving the border of Upper Canada west (which will bend my friends from Manitoba but so be it) and either changing the alignment of the vertical border in the west or seeing if I can fake a lake that I'm OK with aesthetically and accuracy wise.

Cheers
Zim

Yes, I know there is no lake there in reality, but the map should also be clear to everybody, so you might have to bend the reality a bit for that.

[zim]

Adjusted Upper Canada and Western USA to remove any ambiguity about the attack paths available. Note to self: Update XML to reflect new diagonal path in Western NA, also check Upper Canada-Midwest route.

Also moved Afghanistan label into China to make sure that the Pakistan-Turkmenistan connection was visible.

Large:


Small:



Zim