Melee

@psymon, almost every map has a region with two borders, and Australia in World Modified was even changed to put TWO of them on the classic map (S. America as well.) With 3 borders, you almost have to get it to +3 draft to make it wanted by most players (africa, most territories in Med States)

Awww, not a huge fan of the naming all the territories to have same first letter in the region idea. If you're taking out the lake graphics (which I thought were really good btw) you might as well take out the light blue river too, cause now it looks even more out of place. Don't particularly care for the background either. It doesn't flow well with the map, you can't tell what it is. Glad it's blue though, so tired of brown. Hopefully you guys can come up with a good font that still captures the look of what you want, but is easier to read. Native English reader here and it's STILL hard to read those lol. That's all I got, game play looks solid.

cbt, I think you misunderstood me. I think it's unfair to have only one region with 2 borders. In fact it appears in the Map Making Guide: [quote=DXII Guide to Map Making]There should never be just one region that only has 2 borders to defend and there should never be a region with just one border to defend.[/quote] I don't know if the yellow region computes as a 2 border region, as it's a 2 territory region... but still. The link from cbt didn't work for me, and I only found one font that could be suitable for the job (please notice that I'm normally very optimistic about readability of the labels, I'm trying to redeem myself :P). Medieval fonts are definitely not my favourite, as they are very hard to read. If you want, you could use the capitals from a font, and the rest of them from another. Capital 'C' here is pretty weird indeed. http://www.dafont.com/moderne-fraktur.font

@ Psymon, the Capital letters are the ones that are HARDEST to read. If those could be switched out, I think the lowercase are fine.

Lowercase v in Old English seems a lowercase b. And w, d also cause problems. I don't think they're fine. They need to be absolutely clear. A solution may be making the first letter lowercase but bigger in size.

I have settled on a very mild gothic style font so it will be totally readable and still sort of fitting to the timescale of the map, which incidentally is only in concept, as the fact that it does not look like an 'old hand drawn map of the times' and more of a 'nice to look at as well as play' concept, I don't think it matters that much. There is always a big divide between authenticity and playability in style, aesthetics, colour tone & gameplay so we will never be able to make a map that is realistic looking and playable. That's why maps all end up looking something like this, false in comparison to a real map, but true to risk. I have taken cbt711's & PsymonStark's suggestions and made them both happen, as I would like to keep the 2 border, 2 bonus a centrally contested region, but also make it fair to the other regions of the same value and territories. I have also shuffled all the names to not have regions with the same start letters and named the regions in the mini map. I also removed the river colour to be the same as the lakes, but I am reluctant to change the background as it is purely a contrast and is not important what it is a picture of. This is becoming longer than I spent at work today, but I really want to stay in the flow. Still it has been brought up to the spec that everyone suggested or remarked on in just hours. [spoiler=Melee 8 - Territory & Region names][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee8.png[/img][/spoiler] p.s. I know the boss has to give the okay on a map, I have made maps here before.

Looking great! I can't see anything else that needs doing but the trained eye of PysmonStark will be able to give you a whole list of things that need doing. I think the bridges could be improved but I don't think I could do any better. Good work!

I'm loving the new gameplay! And I too am glad to see the names shuffled.

Lol Carter, there isn't a trained eye of mine :P I only think that numbers in the minimap should be updated to the new italic font, and moved, so the names fit better. Specially Hurst and Ney. And I would make the title more visible. Now it seems too hidden within background. I don't think that neither the minimap border, nor the connection lines are fit for a mild gothic style. But I guess that is more of a personal thing. Overall, it looks very nice. Good job aero. Let's see what others have to say.

I agree that the title needs to stand out more - and make it bigger! Also, I always meant to say that I didn't like the connections, but forgot to say so. I would suggest that they need to be thicker and maybe a different colour.

Counter to Psymon on the two border region - it's SO non linear that it is more than countered by number of borders. So sure, you can get + 2 with 2 borders, but you can be attacked from EVERY CONTINENT but Brown gold or green. That's not only fair for the 2 border region for the sake of balance, it's gameplay we don't have on any other map. I say let it ride. And the yellow is also a two border region :)

Might want to play with some non uniform textures to bring out the background some... like Falkland Islands or Africa 1890, Just to give it some depth outside of just the picture texture. Like take this [spoiler][img]http://designtreasure.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/11/Grunge%20Rust%20Metal%20Texture%20%283%29.jpg[/img][/spoiler] Take ALL the color out of it, blur it about 4-6 pixels motion or gausian. Put it just over your background, under everything else and dodge burn it, then drop the transparency really low to just visible. I just played with it for about 5 minutes and got this [spoiler][img]http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/5131685.jpg[/img][/spoiler] (It's a bit jaged because I don't have your layers and exported to jpg)

How did you do that spray paint inner shadow? Always love to learn new tricks, that's pretty sweet.

@cbt711 The "spray paint inner shadow" was "Inner Glow" using black and the effect was "noise". I have changed most of the things suggested above except an added texture of the map, I may try a few things today. The size, shape and colour of the connection lines has changed. The heading font, colour, effects & texture has changed. The map's 2nd texture overlay opacity has been reduced to see more land contours. All this is on Melee 9 below (main update). I have also created my own hand drawn ancient looking mini map to look like it is a real map that has been passed down through many generations and kept folded in a leather wallet. I put this on Melee Mini Map Test for you to see if it would fit or not. If nothing else it is different! Anyway, feedback please? [spoiler=Melee 9][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee9.png[/img][/spoiler] [spoiler=Melee Mini Map Test][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Melee_minimap.png[/img][/spoiler]

It's looking really good. The mini map is awesome in concept, but should have a tan / paper like background. The blue background with that concept just doesn't work... if it's an old map, make it an old map :) I think the blue of the background and the blue of the north central region are too close, but I know you're going to play with the background when everything else is settled so I'm not worried about that. I like the new connection lines, but they really stick out. Maybe make them 50% opaque? Check the World Classic text, it was too clean cut and bold so they made it a touch transparent. I think that would help with your attack lines. Color is good, but if fading them a bit doesn't work, they might have to be shaved down a pixel or two. The font on the minimap should be maybe 1 or 2 points bigger. You can cut down the black shadow effect to compensate for overall footprint of the font.