ROME: CIVIL WAR v31

[TaCktiX]

Sorry Minister, I was tossing in a parenthetical comment there for humor's sake. IF YOU INSIST on constructive criticism...you know my opinion about your bridges going into the map when nearly every other symbol is on the map or slightly above it perspective-wise.

[Minister X]

Cool. I've changed the bridges, as noted above.

I thought there was a chance your comment was for laughs but remember that sarcasm is VERY hard to get across in this medium. It's almost worth using the [sarcasm]tags[/sarcasm]! (Or at least adding a smilie.)

[AndyDufresne]

I can't stand this map.

And by I can't stand this map, I mean, I really like this map.

In regards to comments,are some region names deliberately left less bold than others?


--Andy

[Minister X]

Here are both large and small maps with new bridges and some very minor changes. Also: the outer frame is less dark. This is for comparison purposes - I'd appreciate any comments about preferences for a lighter/darker outside frame.

17th Draft:

superseded

Click image to enlarge.

superseded

Click image to enlarge.

[Teflon Kris]

All very good progress - does Cornellian Gate link with Ship Yards then?

[Minister X]

Yes, and with Janiculum Hills but nothing else. Should I move the gate closer to the bridge? Probably, huh? I'll do it. The bridge means it links with something on the east bank and Shipyards is the only obvious candidate, but it couldn't hurt to make that a bit clearer. Thanks.

EDIT: Yup. I moved it and it looks much more sensible.

[Flapcake]

shame to see you have gone away from the Roman bridge design, the frame looks good

[TaCktiX]

Yes, I liked the roman bridges, it was only their perspective I didn't like. If you'd rather not engineer a different perspective (flat-on), then the present ones are fine. Also, I agree with Andy's comment about certain territories looking less bold than others (Baths of Agrippa and Temple to Neptune are dissimilar despite being right next to each other).

[Minister X]

I tried to make a bridge from a more top-down perspective but it looked awful. Frankly, I don't understand the suggestion since both forms of archway are seen side-on (without complaint), but I agree that the old bridges needed fixing - they made for too much clutter.

I'm not a great artist. If someone will draw me a bridge I'll gladly give it a try.

[Gillipig]

I haven't looked at this map for a while and wow it's improved a lot!! It looks much better now. There's still some confusion with the gates. There are two different types of gates but I think it's not too confusing. Really like the coloured bonuses.

[Minister X]

Maybe I should get rid of the "major" gates??

[koontz1973]

Maybe I should get rid of the "major" gates??

Both gates are explained in the legends. So keep both, but it might be wise to change the names of the smaller ones to arches, entrances, gates or keeps (this is an old English word for the arches to castles so not in keeping with the map).

[Minister X]

No, both gates are not explained. In the lower left legend only the minor gate is shown; in the upper right there's no reference to "gate"; and the lower right is no help. I should either show both types of gate in the lower left or use only one type.* Either way would be okay with me.

It won't be so bad to lose the big gates. The walls will look cleaner. And if we want to replace them with a different bonus that's easy enough to do: just come up with an icon for temples and pick three temples, such as Venus, Neptune and Jupiter.

A temple icon: facade of four columns and a triangular frieze above.

*Granted, the two types of gate are similar enough to be non-confusing to 97% of players, but that's not good enough, is it? I'm not being sarcastic - the standard for ambiguity deserves to be set VERY low.

[Minister X]

I've made a temple icon and it looks great; replacing the big gate-arches with these will NOT reduce the Rome imagery/feeling of the map at all. Does anyone want to try to talk me out of the switch? My thinking is that besides the issue of ambiguity on what is or is not a gate, gates already have importance without three of them being singled out as "main" gates. Also, there's really nothing all that special about those three - the choice was more geographic than historic. Replacing the "main" gate bonus with one for three temples is a lot of work for me but should be an overall positive.

I bet someone will say "Why not use both - the more the merrier". The fact is I could add room for another symbol in the legend, so there's nothing in the way of this. The only question is: at what point does the map look so cluttered that it turns potential players away?

[MarshalNey]

I've made a temple icon and it looks great; replacing the big gate-arches with these will NOT reduce the Rome imagery/feeling of the map at all. Does anyone want to try to talk me out of the switch? My thinking is that besides the issue of ambiguity on what is or is not a gate, gates already have importance without three of them being singled out as "main" gates. Also, there's really nothing all that special about those three - the choice was more geographic than historic. Replacing the "main" gate bonus with one for three temples is a lot of work for me but should be an overall positive.

If there's no history behind it, and you already have the temple icon handy, I say go for it.

I bet someone will say "Why not use both - the more the merrier". The fact is I could add room for another symbol in the legend, so there's nothing in the way of this. The only question is: at what point does the map look so cluttered that it turns potential players away?

Probably at this point. I like the number of bonuses that you have, plus if the whole impetus is to get rid of minor confusion surrounding the gates, then why keep them?

-- Marshal Ney

[General Raven]

Awesome map looks like a great strategic challenge (also very "Roman"). People trying to gain control of gates + special zones (:
Hehe and the bloody argument made me laugh lol


P.S. to whoever said (im to lazy to look) arches shouldnt be on bridges arches were a staple of Roman architecture from which we get domes and numerous other cool stuff today (:

[Minister X]

I'm about to post the next draft but first wanted to comment on something said somewhere above (I searched but can't find it - I thank the author). I comment at length because there's an important lesson in here about graphic design in general. Someone commented that some tert name labels appear darker than others, as if some were set in semi-bold and the others in normal. (I'm paraphrasing.) A quick look at the finished map revealed that he was right - some did appear just a tad denser or darker.

To check this out I isolated (in Photoshop CS5) the layer of the name labels with the base layers below - no borders or shadings or anything else. This allowed me to eliminate those outside influences as the cause of the perception - some still seemed denser than others. I zoomed in close and compared letters and individual words and doing this the differences disappeared. Fact: no tert name is any denser or darker (on a word-by-word basis) than any other. But also fact: they still appear to be so. The reason gets obvious when you can look at them all in isolation: those with three lines of text often appear denser than those with only two lines of text. Those with letters that cover a lot of white space, such as 'm' or 'k', appear darker than those with letters like 'i' and 'v' that are less dense as letters.

What to do? The answer is simple enough: I reduced the opacity of the dense-seeming titles* so they would seem to be of equal density with the others. (5% to 10% was plenty.)

The lesson: the eye-brain system interprets what it sees and constructs a simulacrum of reality. Optical illusions are everywhere. In graphic design, if two parallel lines don't look parallel because of some angled lines near them, alter the lines so they look parallel, don't whine and moan about how they really are parallel.

The eye-brain often doesn't care or can't deal with the way things "really are". We construct our visual world to meet a strange assortment of priorities and manage to put together a cohesive picture despite some serious gaps and deficits in our optical sensory system. I've been a student of this phenomenon for decades but only occasionally find practical uses for what I've learned; it's always nice to bump into another instance.

* I probably missed some - I'm too familiar with the map and have been staring at it for hours. Please scan the text bits and let me know if any still look darker/denser than average. Thanks.

[Minister X]

I'm about to post the next draft...

No I'm not. I forgot about the small version, which is going to take another day or two to complete.

[gimil]

For the most part I am liking what I see. There is one thing that is bugging me thought. The grey background around the map. It is very plain, jut a flat grey colour. I know the map itself doesn't use textures as it uses glows to break up the flat colours. I think the background needs a subtle something like map territories to try and break that flat greyness. Just something subtle like a glow or a gradient.

[Minister X]

I just played around a bit based on the above suggestion and have made some changes. There's now a very subtle canvas texture to that area you mentioned and colors/contrast have changed a bit. I think you'll like it.

[Flapcake]

Bridges yes still they need something, let them cast a shadow under, (it makes a 3d effect) i think they will be more viseble if you let them have same colur all the way over, brown like wood or gray like stone

i cant wait to play your map, its awsome

[Minister X]

Draft #18

• "Major" gates replaced with normal gates.
• Temples added to types of special icon-based +4 bonuses (instead of Major gates) - see yellow shaded terts
• Bridge changes: shadow added and "surfaces" recolored (and one redrawn from scratch
• the area between the inner border of faux mosiac and the outer border has had a texture added and colors/contrasts adjusted
• The tert "Temple to Diana" was removed. When the three other temples became special bonus terts they went from freely deployable to having neutral starters. That reduced the number of initial deployables from 33 to 30. Thirty is included as a golden number but in a two-player game the first player gets a big advantage; in my opinion it should not be a golden number. I needed more space for the temple icon at Temple to Jupiter anyway, so I removed the neighboring tert so I'd have 29, which is a true golden number. (Just coincidence that the removed one was also a temple.)
• Reduced the opacity of a handful of tert names so they wouldn't appear to be more dark/dense than others.
• Full-color army numbers on the large map, 3-digit numbers all over the small one.
• Misc. minor clean-ups not worth itemizing.

superdesed

Click image to enlarge.

Spoiler

Click image to enlarge.

[Gillipig]

Draft #18

• "Major" gates replaced with normal gates.
• Temples added to types of special icon-based +4 bonuses (instead of Major gates) - see yellow shaded terts
• Bridge changes: shadow added and "surfaces" recolored (and one redrawn from scratch
• the area between the inner border of faux mosiac and the outer border has had a texture added and colors/contrasts adjusted
• The tert "Temple to Diana" was removed. When the three other temples became special bonus terts they went from freely deployable to having neutral starters. That reduced the number of initial deployables from 33 to 30. Thirty is included as a golden number but in a two-player game the first player gets a big advantage; in my opinion it should not be a golden number. I needed more space for the temple icon at Temple to Jupiter anyway, so I removed the neighboring tert so I'd have 29, which is a true golden number. (Just coincidence that the removed one was also a temple.)
• Reduced the opacity of a handful of tert names so they wouldn't appear to be more dark/dense than others.
• Full-color army numbers on the large map, 3-digit numbers all over the small one.
• Misc. minor clean-ups not worth itemizing.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

Less confusion now that there's only 1 gate bonus. I like the yellow colour on the temple bonus.

[gimil]

The background texture is perfect mate, well done.

I have a fair few minor aesthetic issues but I don't have the time to write them up just now. I shall swing by later to list them.

[Flapcake]

remember to add shadows to bridges on mini map to. it looks super nice