[Abandoned] - Lorn Empire

[Victor Sullivan]

IMO, now that I look further into the structure of the map, you need more movement, or at least make the Empire lands more accessible by other Empire lands. My suggestion would be to drop the autodeploy on the Barracks and instead make it able to bombard adjacent Empire lands (NOT including the castles). I also suggest a bombarding killer neutral in the middle area that bombards all Empire lands (again, not including castles). This will allow the map to stride away from Feudal and it will open up the map more.

[natty dread]

IMO, now that I look further into the structure of the map, you need more movement, or at least make the Empire lands more accessible by other Empire lands. My suggestion would be to drop the autodeploy on the Barracks and instead make it able to bombard adjacent Empire lands (NOT including the castles). I also suggest a bombarding killer neutral in the middle area that bombards all Empire lands (again, not including castles). This will allow the map to stride away from Feudal and it will open up the map more.

Victor, what's with this late obsession with movement?

Giving bombardment for Barracks wouldn't be a good idea - it would allow players to take Barracks and then just stack & bombard for spoils in spoil games.

The other bombardment, ok I guess, but I don't really see what it is supposed to accomplish? Care to elaborate?

[Teflon Kris]

Victor, what's with this late obsession with movement?

If the farms lands are accessible from the outskirts of all empires then surely victor would have to take his obsession to another map?

[MrBenn]

Quick question - what graphics software are you using to develop your map?

Oh, and [moved] into the drafting room for now

[isaiah40]

your map will look 156.2% better.

Can you please pm (or post it here) me the formula you used to arrive at this result?

[Victor Sullivan]

IMO, now that I look further into the structure of the map, you need more movement, or at least make the Empire lands more accessible by other Empire lands. My suggestion would be to drop the autodeploy on the Barracks and instead make it able to bombard adjacent Empire lands (NOT including the castles). I also suggest a bombarding killer neutral in the middle area that bombards all Empire lands (again, not including castles). This will allow the map to stride away from Feudal and it will open up the map more.

Victor, what's with this late obsession with movement?

It's two maps, including this one, dear. And my reasoning is sound for both cases, Mr. Stiff-Britches. I feel like you're the old man stuck in his ways

Giving bombardment for Barracks wouldn't be a good idea - it would allow players to take Barracks and then just stack & bombard for spoils in spoil games.

I suppose, but that's certainly not conducive to taking out your opponents - you still have to move across the board to conquer your opponents' castles.

The other bombardment, ok I guess, but I don't really see what it is supposed to accomplish? Care to elaborate?

More openness. I figure more bombardment powers for the center one, maybe allow it to bombard all non-special territories, or something. Basically I want to get the gameplay moving away from Feudal and make it more its own map.

-Sully

[natty dread]

Victor, what's with this late obsession with movement?

It's two maps, including this one, dear. And my reasoning is sound for both cases, Mr. Stiff-Britches. I feel like you're the old man stuck in his ways [/quote]

f*ck that... I'm younger than you old fogey

Giving bombardment for Barracks wouldn't be a good idea - it would allow players to take Barracks and then just stack & bombard for spoils in spoil games.

I suppose, but that's certainly not conducive to taking out your opponents - you still have to move across the board to conquer your opponents' castles.

Have you ever played feudal war with flat rate spoils?
Bombardment in a conquest map makes for stagnant gameplay. People sit in their starting castles, bombarding for cards and building their stacks. Sure you can move out, but unless you do it at the right moment, it's not a good move. So it becomes a game of waiting, which is boring.

The other bombardment, ok I guess, but I don't really see what it is supposed to accomplish? Care to elaborate?

More openness. I figure more bombardment powers for the center one, maybe allow it to bombard all non-special territories, or something. Basically I want to get the gameplay moving away from Feudal and make it more its own map.

If you want the map to move away from feudal, why do you suggest bombardment for the barracks, allowing for the same kind of stagnant stacking gameplay as in feudal?
Also, how do you think bombardment allows for open movement? I don't think it's much of an incentive to go for the center if all it does it allows you to bombard all over the map. Yeah, let's waste troops getting to center - we get such a nice reward: we get to annoy other players and waste more troops at it!
Besides, this map is pretty much wide open already.

You have good ideas behind your ideas, but the ideas themselves don't quite work.
I do agree that some twist to the gameplay is needed to bring it apart from Feudal though. Perhaps losing conditions could be utilized? Or maybe some innovative bonuses.

[ISN2]

The links between kingdoms look good to me, although it will take some work to make the routes and impassables clear.

I'm guessing each kingdom will have equal access to the farm-lands? (this area would also be a route to attack other kingdoms, although a long-ish route).

In next update I may add those links.

You don't have that dark parts in there. Most of your territories are pretty light.

The army circles do not fit the semi-realistic style of your map. They clutter it up, and cover up the nice graphics you have. If you remove them, your map will look 156.2% better.

OK, here is the map when armies are on it, this is without circles:

Click image to enlarge.

And this is with circles:

Click image to enlarge.

Obviously in the one without circles you can not see Green and Gray armies on territories that are colored green!
And in the one with circles, if armies are 3 digits, then it will look bad, like F21 ...

So any suggestions now? I remove circles and do some kind of glow under armies or I change the green areas color (That will make map's beauty's lower) or still work with circles?

[ISN2]

IMO, now that I look further into the structure of the map, you need more movement, or at least make the Empire lands more accessible by other Empire lands. My suggestion would be to drop the autodeploy on the Barracks and instead make it able to bombard adjacent Empire lands (NOT including the castles). I also suggest a bombarding killer neutral in the middle area that bombards all Empire lands (again, not including castles). This will allow the map to stride away from Feudal and it will open up the map more.

I'm not going to add any bombard feature to this map, if a player wants card, then he must move out, but I'm going to add links to bordering empires, so it may add more ways for going out.

Quick question - what graphics software are you using to develop your map?

Oh, and [moved] into the drafting room for now

Quick answer - Photoshop

And thanks for moving to the "drafting room" : )

[ISN2]

I do agree that some twist to the gameplay is needed to bring it apart from Feudal though. Perhaps losing conditions could be utilized? Or maybe some innovative bonuses.

I already added losing conditions to it, look at first post where I wrote:

4. Every player must have at least 1 castle or he will be eliminated.

But about bonuses as I said I don't want to make it a complex bounces map, like Age Of Realms maps that I still could not realize them!

I want it be somehow that everybody learns it with 2 or 3 times playing and then playing of the map would goes for experiences and strategies, not complexity ...

[natty dread]

Obviously in the one without circles you can not see Green and Gray armies on territories that are colored green!
And in the one with circles, if armies are 3 digits, then it will look bad, like F21 ...

So any suggestions now? I remove circles and do some kind of glow under armies or I change the green areas color (That will make map's beauty's lower) or still work with circles?

Remove the circles, and make the green a bit lighter and less saturated.

While you're at it, try making the sand area more of a light brown instead of bright yellow.

Something like this:

Click image to enlarge.

[ISN2]

Update 3:
1. Added 2 new borders for each empire, so every empire will be connected to 2 other empires directly, those 2 new borders in each empire will be protected with bigger naturals.
2. Some border, territories and barracks places has been changed.
3. Position of all territory names and armies are changed.
4. All army circles are now removed and a little white glow is replaced with them.
5. Middle green area color has been changed a little in order to let armies be seen better without circles ...
6. All territory names are now black with a white glow, this is because most of territories are named with numbers and as there aren't army circles anymore, white territory names could be seen as natural armies.
7. Sample armies with Green and Gray color are added to make sure that they can be seen well.
8. Some map rules are changed (See blow the image).

Click image to enlarge.

Updated Map Rules:

1. Each player starts the game on 1 or 2 castles depending on number of players.

2. Each castle has 4 armies at start and has a +1 deployment bonus.

3. Players get 1 army per every 3 territories. The minimum army getting is 3 armies (Like normal maps).

4. There is a barracks territory in each empire bordering the castle with 4 naturals on it. The barracks territory has an auto deploy bonus of 4 per turn.

5. All other empire territories will start with 2 naturals on them except 2 bordering territories with other empires that will start with 12 naturals.

6. Having every 3 empire territories will have a +2 bonus.

7. Having every 5 empire territories will have a +4 bonus.

8. Having every 6 empire territories will have a +5 bonus.

Note: castle and barracks are counted as empire territories too.

9. Every player must have at least 1 castle or will be eliminated.

10. The farmlands in middle of map will have low number of naturals on them, 2 or 4 except some important ones that will have more naturals.

11. There are territories in farmlands named "Grail Caravan", "Silk Villages", "Viller Camp" and "Tent" that will start with 12 naturals on each and will have an auto deploy of 8 each turn.

12. Out ways of each empire will start with 12 naturals at start.

[MrBenn]

Quick question - what graphics software are you using to develop your map?

Oh, and [moved] into the drafting room for now

Quick answer - Photoshop

And thanks for moving to the "drafting room" : )

No problem

I'm intrigued to know how you've drawn your trees and mountains... can you assure me that you've not just copied and pasted them from somewhere else? If you've drawn them yourself, then I'd really appreciate knowing how you've done it as they're really well drawn

[ISN2]

Quick question - what graphics software are you using to develop your map?

Oh, and [moved] into the drafting room for now

Quick answer - Photoshop

And thanks for moving to the "drafting room" : )

No problem

I'm intrigued to know how you've drawn your trees and mountains... can you assure me that you've not just copied and pasted them from somewhere else? If you've drawn them yourself, then I'd really appreciate knowing how you've done it as they're really well drawn

I didn't draw mountains, hills, trees, the small water hole, castles and tents in the map myself, their base draw are from one of "Ubi Soft" and "Infinite Interactive" games "Warlords IV" that "Ubi Soft" has no longer copyright over them and 4 or 3 years ago I asked for permission from "Infinite Interactive" by email to use them and they accepted if I use them for "Non-Commercial Use", and I did a lot of changes in them in these years and they are my versions actually ...

The backgrounds like sea, sands, grasses and snows are simple patterns with some work of Photoshop tools on them and some times patterns on patterns with masks (for example sea waves).

[natty dread]

I didn't draw mountains, hills, trees, the small water hole, castles and tents in the map myself, their base draw are from one of "Ubi Soft" and "Infinite Interactive" games "Warlords IV" that "Ubi Soft" has no longer copyright over them and 4 or 3 years ago I asked for permission from "Infinite Interactive" by email to use them and they accepted if I use them for "Non-Commercial Use", and I did a lot of changes in them in these years and they are my versions actually ...

CC maps are not "non-commercial use". Making some changes to them doesn't make them your property, either.

It will be better for your personal development as an artist/graphic designer to draw everything from scratch, anyway.

[ISN2]

I didn't draw mountains, hills, trees, the small water hole, castles and tents in the map myself, their base draw are from one of "Ubi Soft" and "Infinite Interactive" games "Warlords IV" that "Ubi Soft" has no longer copyright over them and 4 or 3 years ago I asked for permission from "Infinite Interactive" by email to use them and they accepted if I use them for "Non-Commercial Use", and I did a lot of changes in them in these years and they are my versions actually ...

CC maps are not "non-commercial use". Making some changes to them doesn't make them your property, either.

It will be better for your personal development as an artist/graphic designer to draw everything from scratch, anyway.

So you are saying a map that I'm making for here that I have no profit in it is not "Non-Commercial"?
If answer is yes then I think I need to redraw it all from first ...

[MrBenn]

I didn't draw mountains, hills, trees, the small water hole, castles and tents in the map myself, their base draw are from one of "Ubi Soft" and "Infinite Interactive" games "Warlords IV" that "Ubi Soft" has no longer copyright over them and 4 or 3 years ago I asked for permission from "Infinite Interactive" by email to use them and they accepted if I use them for "Non-Commercial Use", and I did a lot of changes in them in these years and they are my versions actually ...

CC maps are not "non-commercial use". Making some changes to them doesn't make them your property, either.

It will be better for your personal development as an artist/graphic designer to draw everything from scratch, anyway.

This is indeed true - the issue is that CC is a commercial site, and that by association map images may also be used for commercial purposes

We had similar issues with the Castle Lands Map which originally used sprites from elsewhere - all the features on that map had to be completely redrawn before we published it

[natty dread]

So you are saying a map that I'm making for here that I have no profit in it is not "Non-Commercial"?
If answer is yes then I think I need to redraw it all from first ...

You do profit from making the map... you get a years worth of premium, $25 in value.

That aside, CC uses the maps for profit, so the usage is not non-commercial, no matter if the mapmaker profits from it or not.


edit. fastposted by Mr B

[ISN2]

I didn't draw mountains, hills, trees, the small water hole, castles and tents in the map myself, their base draw are from one of "Ubi Soft" and "Infinite Interactive" games "Warlords IV" that "Ubi Soft" has no longer copyright over them and 4 or 3 years ago I asked for permission from "Infinite Interactive" by email to use them and they accepted if I use them for "Non-Commercial Use", and I did a lot of changes in them in these years and they are my versions actually ...

CC maps are not "non-commercial use". Making some changes to them doesn't make them your property, either.

It will be better for your personal development as an artist/graphic designer to draw everything from scratch, anyway.

This is indeed true - the issue is that CC is a commercial site, and that by association map images may also be used for commercial purposes

We had similar issues with the Castle Lands Map which originally used sprites from elsewhere - all the features on that map had to be completely redrawn before we published it

Ah It's bad news, OK, I will put some time tomorrow on this and remove all of the "Infinite Interactive" objects and will draw them by myself. Not a big deal at all

[ISN2]

So you are saying a map that I'm making for here that I have no profit in it is not "Non-Commercial"?
If answer is yes then I think I need to redraw it all from first ...

You do profit from making the map... you get a years worth of premium, $25 in value.

That aside, CC uses the maps for profit, so the usage is not non-commercial, no matter if the mapmaker profits from it or not.


edit. fastposted by Mr B

1. I didn't see anywhere telling if someone makes a map, they get premium ...
2. Yes now I see it's right, as the map is for CC and CC is commercial, then they will be used for commercial.

[ISN2]

Update 4:
1. All trees, mountains, hills, castles, barracks, posts and any other image that was not drawn by myself has been removed due the copyright matters.

2. Drawed mountains using relief shading technique (I did try many ways and could not do something better than this).

3. Drawed 7 different type of trees from first (I have my layered PSD files for your concern MrBenn, and will later make a guide on forums on how to draw these trees).

4. Drawed 4 different type of tents, 1 of them used for posts and 3 other used for barracks.

5. Drawed a new similar castle with flags on it to show colors.

6. In some places trees got replaced for mountains and hills and a lake.

7. Some border drawings got changed due the above updates.

8. Added map title, story and legend under the map.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

Don't worry about the mountains... mountains are the hardest part of a map, ask any mapmaker.

You'll have plenty of time to hone them into perfection in the graphics workshop. Gameplay should be the main focus now.

Btw, that one river with three bridges on it... which territory does that bridge from F04 lead to? It's a bit ambiguous.

[ISN2]

Don't worry about the mountains... mountains are the hardest part of a map, ask any mapmaker.

You'll have plenty of time to hone them into perfection in the graphics workshop. Gameplay should be the main focus now.

Btw, that one river with three bridges on it... which territory does that bridge from F04 lead to? It's a bit ambiguous.

It leads to both, like all other empires connections to outside, that's why I placed the bridge in middle of border line ...

And I got a question, what should I exactly do for my map in "Drafting Room" to proceed into next level?

I read Map Foundry Guides, but they don't really give me a clear idea about my own map!

[isaiah40]

The next step is to submit a Design Brief.

[natty dread]

It leads to both, like all other empires connections to outside, that's why I placed the bridge in middle of border line ...

Ok... 1) it is unclear, because usually bridges only connect 2 territories to each other, so it would probably confuse players and 2) what's the point of having that river in the first place, since those bridges make it the same as not having a river there at all?