Melee

Wow, those bonus are too high Vir... I think Carter is more accurate, still, I'd make the pink region worth 1, the western green one worth 4 or 5, and the red one worth 2. The purple region could be also a 2 or a 3 because of its position.

Psymon: You're absolutely right! Thank you for awakening me to my absolutely overpowered regions, I didn't realise it at the time! Realising this, I see that my bonuses were poor. Please ignore them. Sorry! But everyone's entitled to a mistake now and then, no? ^^ The only thing I would say about your proposal, Psymon, is that it makes the small yellow region [i]so[/i] much better than the small pink one. To make it better, another connection could be made to the other territory in the yellow region.

Yes, I would link the green region with the southern yellow territory. I forgot about that. And Vir, don't worry :) I make more mistakes than you do, but I usually am able to correct them on time :P

Melee is right! It looks good. Love the lake/water graphic. Does the top left brown region need another border? Maybe a vertical N-S connection line to the bottom left blue green region (maybe to the territory that's already connected to the center green region?). Or I suppose you could balance it with bonuses.

When I first made this map version, I had two western green territories in the north, but felt it was too many borders for green to defend, but naathim's suggestion makes the perfect solution for this. I will extend the green territory with the bridge northward to meet the brown border too. This should help with your bonus proposals. I will do this before adding a connection to the other yellow territory, as there may be a way to perhaps remove a connection somewhere or link territories to help other regions become more defendable?? I will do this now and post the next version with your proposed bonuses so that you can get a better picture of defendable borders and bonus values. Also please all note that the west green region is connected to the east light brown region.

Amazing looks and crispness like a pro, as I would expect from you Aero. That wasn't supposed to rhyme. :) Anyway, I love the quality here in the work. I would try a few things to make it a bit more dramatic, and or colorful because it seems a bit on the pastel / washed out color palette right now. Which is fine for a few regions, but not all of them. Look at Psymon's Balkan map from like 30 posts back to the final version. Fendi liked it, but didn't love it until he got those colors to jump off the screen at you. So I'd personally get each region selected one at a time and play with color balance / hue / and intensity especially. As for gameplay, top blue/purple region and the top left brown region both are too crowded. I think a several people have brought that up. Easy fix for the blue/purple region. Move the title to the bottom, and then just expand the blue/purple region up and left a bit to give it the same feel as the other regions with slightly larger territories. As for brown, I'm not sure how to spread that out, so you might consider combining some regions there, and splitting some larger ones elsewhere. Like expanding Pink another region to the south (for example, add an island ONLY connected to the pink southern pink region to keep borders the same) to make it a true 2 bonus region (now it could be 2 or 1). And possibly splitting red region into 5 territories somehow keeping the border number the same.

I have a complain... The outlines look double in many places, and many colored pixels are out of their region :) But this can be fixed later.

I have read all the bonus proposals and border suggestions since the last upload of the map and I have made the changes according to the general discussion. First let me say, cbt711 it is good to talk and work with you again and the opinions and suggestions of all who comment here are highly valued and well considered. p.s. I hear the Solar System was a success, I am so relieved. I took into account naathim's suggestion of an extra border and made it happen on version 4, along with a mini map with bonuses considered by the suggestions. I then returned here to add it to this post and saw that a couple of other suggestions and observations were posted, so I returned to photoshop and did further amendments. In making this version 4, I was already aware of the double lining and overspill of outlines and fill colour and spent the vast amount of time on this to make the map crisp, which was also an observation PsymonStark posted above. I also realised the battle you were all having with the bonuses and territories so I intended to put this version up and debate what could be done to solve them. I took on board cbt711's suggestions of territories & colour and although not touched the left brown region territories yet due to a border being added, I think I solved the overcrowding of the upper blue region with the removal of 1 territory and adding it to the middle pink region as was suggested. I also made the colours of the territories as bright / vibrant as currently possible whilst having to drop the opacity enough to see the real land texture on the layer below. I played with this opacity a lot and for every increase in colour vibrancy, I got a decrease in texture clarity. If I come up with a better way to use this type of texture, I will increase the region colour vibrancy further, but there is a limit to when it becomes glaring and overwhelming, plus interfering with the circle colours. I also changed the colour of the right hand green region as the two large green regions made the map too much of one colour. Below are the three versions 3, 4 & 5, so you can see the difference in the amendments you all requested as they progressed tonight. Let me know if there are still gameplay issues with territories / borders / bonuses and if the colours and crispness are now acceptable to personal tastes and which you'd expect to see when playing a map? They will open in new windows: http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee%20Textured%203.jpg http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee%20Textured%204.jpg http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee%20Textured%205.jpg

I think everything's fine, maybe that red is too intense... If you want, try and swap the colors of the red/pink regions, so there is a smaller red territory, and pink and purple regions are not together (which are very similar). In this image I have marked with a red circle some places where outlines are not perfect: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kj3wz379hjs8lu7/meleeredspots.png But overall, I like the update very much ^^

I like this update! I like the third version the best (205) - with three regions worth a +2 bonus. I would make the red less bright and also the green slightly more pale. Also, I think that the +1 region should have an extra connection made to it to give it 2 borders - it's too easy to hold, even for a +1 region. I know this will be difficult and time-consuming, but can we have territory names soon, or just temporary numbers to refer to territories?

I like the colours in the second one and the gameplay in the 3rd one. This is going to be a good map when they finally decide it's ready to become public. Good work.

I see how the texture got bled out a bit with the more intense coloring. I like the coloring and miss the texture. Might want to duplicate you texture layers on top of everything, then play with brightness/contrast. Then change the layer properties to overlay or dodge burn (will look VERY intense at first), then obviously drag opacity down until it looks good again. For gameplay, maybe just delete the attack line from the south most pink to light blue so pink doesn't have 3 borders for a 2 bonus region. It doesn't change too much gameplay - as there are still 3 or 4 paths east to west. I guess if you want those two territories bordering, then you can move the attack line east to west down to the south territory of pink so it's still just two borders with all the connectivity you have now. Looking good so far, just get more space in those little brown territories.

I have noted all points raised and have amended where appropriate. @PsymonStark I have fixed the territory line weaknesses / gaps, changed the red colour saturation and swapped it with the pink region. @Virtuosity98 I have changed the red as above, made the green paler & made an extra connection to the +1 bonus region. I have also added some temporary region names for ease of editing. @Madagascarter I have made the regions more like the colours of the version 4 you referred to and kept the bonuses the same as version 5 as requested (with further amendments due to next alterations below). @cbt711, I put the texture above and below the main map layer so as to benefit from its clarity and colour tone change from a more balanced approach. I have played with everything to find the right balance. I haven't yet deleted the connection from the old pink region to the light blue region as some territories have been added and removed from some regions and all the +2 regions have 3 borders to protect, so I need you and others to relook at it first with its new uncluttered look and new connections & borders and therefore, new bonuses, so that I can amend all, where required. More space achieved in brown region. To all I have made all the changes based solely on what has been written in the posts + where I noticed problems myself. Due to territory & border changes for some regions, I have of course changed the bonuses to suit. You can now refer to the regions by name instead of colour. Please all look at what I have now and give me your views and suggestions / recommendations? last 3: http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee%20Textured%203.jpg http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee%20Textured%204.jpg http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee%20Textured%205.jpg latest: http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee6.png (This png file is interlaced, so don't panic when it first opens and is all pixelated, it takes a few seconds to increase definition). p.s. I intended Region 9 to be +4 bonus now that territory borders have changed, but forgot to do it. It will appear on the next version.

This is good as far as I can see! Some suggestions: Region 9: You said you meant to change it to +4 but forgot to do so. If you wanted it as a +5 region you could add a connection from its most South-Eastern territory to the most Western territory of Region 7. This would give Region 9 5 borders again thus preserving its +5 bonus. Also, it would improve the connectivity of the map. However, if you actually prefer it as a +4 region, don't change anything. This change is only a proposal in case you wanted it to be a +5 region. Lake texture: Despite the fact that I love the texture of the lakes, I don't think that it fits with the map, for this reason: Whilst the rest of the map is viewed from a bird's-eye/vertical perspective, the lake texture is at an angled perspective - it is looking out across the surface of the water. With the current lake texture, the lakes are viewed at a different perspective to the rest of the map. The lakes don't actually need a different texture to the sea - take a look at Ancient Realm: [spoiler=Ancient Realm][img]http://www.dominating12.com/image/map/44.large.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

It's looking much better! Region 1 still seems crowded. Can you give the territories names or at least numbers then we will be able to talk about individual territories.