Brethren Coast

Hi map peeps! I have been toying with a completely (computer based) hand drawn paper effect map. Give me your thoughts and suggestions so far? My reasons for the map design: I have had quite a lot of thought about game play and I think it may suit any game type from 3 player to 6 player. Multiples of 3 players will work best on this map due to its triad uniformity. Particular attention has been given to make it mostly a 3 player Capitals map and it could have similar off-Cap defenses to Caribbean, but with more bonuses behind the main troops, but also much more difficult to control and allowing less chance of lucky drops. It should also allow for more strategy to control regions and to block control. It offers the same steps and territory border patterns for each region and to each region. Ancient maps often had not-to-scale drawings to denote terrain features, structures, forests and many other features at a suggested 3D viewing angle on a flat 2D map, which is what I have tried to achieve here. I have of course omitted ancient drawing techniques of shore lines etc and used strong boundary lines for the purpose of the game. [spoiler=Brethren Coast 1][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Brethren1.png[/img][/spoiler] There are still some background images to make for some territories and these images act as the land texture.

WOW Aeronatic, really nice job man, this map is beautiful. It also reminds me of the one I made which got trashed :P. More thoughts later but it looks amazing.

I'm pretty impressed. I apologize for not having time to evaluate the gameplay. My main graphics concern is the glow around the region boundaries. It looks kinda ugly on some colors, most notably between the purple and maroon regions. I assume that the glow color is tied to the paper color? The paper is also kind of ugly, too much yellow. I added a hue/saturation adjustment layer with -3 hue and it looked much better to me. Would changing the glow to a black and white overlay ruin the look of the map? If not I think it would look prettier that way. Is the map a non standard size for a reason? I noticed it's 1060 pixels wide instead of 1024. I guess you added the border as an afterthought. It's not that big of a deal, you don't have to fix it if it's too much work. It's just easier when designing the site interface to have standards so you know how things are going to fit. It's close enough to the standard to work but I just get annoyed when things aren't exact. Nice work on the background images, the text, the lines and the border.

Looks good but the only way of properly moving is through the middle. Maybe you could add airports on Druids seat, Priory Torre and Deep plough.

I like the look of this map, both appearance and gameplay. I agree with most of Vexer's comments. The gameplay looks, as you say, almost exactly equal for all three players. [quote=Madagascarter said:]Looks good but the only way of properly moving is through the middle. Maybe you could add airports on Druids seat, Priory Torre and Deep plough. [/quote] That's like in Caribbean, where everyone has to move through Cuba. It's not a bad thing. Also, this map is supposed to be old-looking. We cannot have airports!! To be honest I think there's nothing wrong with the connectivity.

Sorry, but only being able to move through the center territory [i]is[/i] a bad thing. You can get both regions on one of the islands with only defending a single territory. I feel this game needs more connections, but I am unhappy about the fact that "ports" is the first solution being looked at. I think adding connections between Wasteland and Burial Gates and between Deer Plateau and Shore Farm would already help a lot, and by connecting Blye (blue?) Abbey with Black Forest, you would make sure no region is completely encapsulated by another. Regarding the graphics: very interesting. I have been waiting to see something like this for a while. I am not really a fan of the whole yellow-ish glow over the map, but I like where you are going with all the small details.

Interesting design Aeronautic! Usually I ask to the new map makers to try to create a "normal" gameplay. This is an "extreme" one! Nothing is right or wrong in my opinion. Reading the creator's words it looks he is conscious of the special gameplay he is giving to the map. This is a 30 territories map (please specify always): good size for its divisibility, specially good for 3 players; as well as the shape, by the way I don't think to have problems to place the capitals for any numbers of players from 2 to 6 (if needed). The "Australian fringes" in this case are formed by 2 regions of 3 territories each, not so easy to be conquered as in the Caribbean map and so more interesting in my opinion. It's true that the low connectivity of the Carribean map falls into the saturation of non-conquerable territories creating special strategies in the 3 players endings. This is missing here. By the way I don't think Caribbean should be taken as an example map. I definitely support this special gameplay. Eventually if we meet problems during the beta test we can easy turn this map in a standard gameplay making 3 sea connections like: Shore Farm - Dear Plateau, Burial Gates - Wasteland, Blye Abbey - Black Forest. But I don't think it will be the case. I would be glad to calculate bonuses for this map. [url=http://www.dominating12.com/forum/?cmd=topic&id=1858]Vexer's formula[/url] gives +2 to every regions. I think that formula works fine in most of the maps but it gives the best results in my opinion in average/high connectivity maps. I know another formula that is a bit more complex and keeps into account the whole shape of the map and the comparison between regions. But it requires time (especially for large maps) being calculated by repeated approximations. In this case my formula fall into a recursive loop. Dang! By the way it swings between a minimum of +13 and a maximum of +21 as total amount of bonuses. Since I am proposing a middle way with a total of +17. Here the images (min-MAX and Mid): [spoiler][img]http://oi62.tinypic.com/j90ett.jpg[/img][/spoiler] [spoiler][img]http://oi59.tinypic.com/167p7h2.jpg[/img][/spoiler] As for graphics... It looks amazingly good. It's a style that I like. If I can give my 2 cents... I suppose "Deep Waters" would be better to be wrote in two horizontal lines, instead of a vertical one. I think there is room enough for that. Considering the text is highly italic it looks weird to me to see it vertical. Just a little suggestion. ;) Nice job Hero!

Thank you everyone for your feedback and suggestions. Working downward: @Votazap. Yes, your map idea was my inspiration for gameplay and my paper effect mini map on Melee was what inspired this paper effect map, plus I've always imagined it was possible as long as it was drawn on a computer and not scanned, imagine having to redraw and re-colour a real paper map time and time again! @Vexer. I have removed the glow around the region boundaries, changed an effect overlay I had on the paper (sea) as well as opacities, I have reduced saturation & hue for all the land so as to make the colours less vivid and so making the map closer to an old paper map. I have cropped it to 1024, point taken... I don't know why I chose 1060 originally, there was a reason, but it escapes me now. @Madagascarter. My whole intention was for the only attack routes to be through the central island (3P - 6P Capitals), also this map is dated pre air travel and so would not suit the use of airports. @Virtuosity98. Thanks, you basically said everything I said above and more, how very astute of you. @Cireon. The game play is exactly as I intended through the central island, however if it is decided that this does not work for the majority of games, I would indeed prefer to use connections rather than ports as you suggested. I have also eliminated the yellowish tint to the map caused by the paper colour, as you will see from the update below. @The_Bishop. As usual, very constructive. Forgot to mention the 30 territories I am sorry. I would like to know your thoughts on the position of the Capitals as I can see no problems with 2, 3, 6 or 9 player, but can't see a balanced placement for the other quantities. I agree, I don't think Caribbean is a good example of a 3 player Capitals map or a reference to game play that this map offers. I also agree that we should Beta test it with its current game play and if required, make connections to turn it into a standard map. Thank you for the Bonus calculations, I have chosen your Mid suggestion, see what you think? I think the recursive loop is due to the three way uniformity of the map. Well spotted with the Italic vertical writing not sitting well. I have typed it horizontal as suggested, but have also altered the wording to "Still Waters" as there is already a "Deep Plough". There have also been a lot of changes to the map to try to make it look more of an authentic paper map. Here are the 1st & 2nd versions for comparison. [spoiler=Brethren1][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Brethren1.png[/img][/spoiler] [spoiler=Brethren2][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Brethren2.png[/img][/spoiler]

Very nice! The only criticism I would have is that the minimap is slightly too large. It seems to be intruding slightly on the Black Forest territory. If you shrunk it slightly (only a tiny bit) and moved it up a tiny amount, it would look much better. I also think it would be cool to have a shipwreck in the sea of wrecks. :)

I like it very much! I only have one problem, the text labels. Apart from the fact that I don't like common fonts for maps (I'm not sure, but think this is some Lucida or very similar), as they make them 'cheap', I find somewhat difficult to read some labels, like the one in Black Forest, Peat Boy or Deep Plough because of the background drawings. I like them a lot though! Also I think the sea labels draw too much attention. But nothing else to say but good job ^^

I did the whole evening on Italia, so will make the changes to this map tomorrow.

So, where the colours went? Just joking but maybe a bit more of saturation isn't that bad. @Cireon - Sorry, I just repeted exactly the connections that you proposed. I didn't read carefully.

Thanks Aeronautic for giving priority to the Italian map! :) So here my suggestion about capitals: [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/Brethren1-caps234_zpsb48f0284.png]2-3-4 Caps[/url] [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/Brethren1-caps567_zps9720c43a.png]5-6-7 Caps[/url] [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/Brethren1-caps89_zpsf1369677.png]8-9 Caps[/url] For 2 or 3 capitals there are many perfectly equal solutions. In case of 4 capitals one must be in the middle and 3 in the fringes. It needs to be evaluated carefully, so that the game can be equal for everybody. Similar in case of 5, but 2 are the caps in the middle. 2 different feelings are in my mind about this map. In one side I am asking "aeronautic are you sure you want to make a map so starnge?". In the opposite side I think "what is the utility of having another small map?". I mean, we have plenty of small maps, from the super-closed Carribean to the super-connected Saturn, passing trough Ancient Realm, standard game-play with temples and the Isthmus of Panama, pretty high in connectivity with ports. And now even the Anchor Bay, standard game-play with equalized regions. That is way I support this special one, being a map with tri-lateral symmetry with "Australian" super-regions... something different! This map deserve my interest! It doeasn't mean I am sure the game-play will be absolutly perfect, but in my opinion it's worth a try! Things should be studied carefully, because little changes on bonuses or capitals placements can produce high differences in game-play. I tried to input my best suggestions about that. I hope they will be right. Looking at the map you can see the 3 fringes having identical shapes (speaking about borders and connections). Capitals can be placed on the bottom, or in the middle, or in the top, so giving different effects on the possibility to conquer the whole fringe, but also giving different possibility to reach the opponents' caps. Here is my evaluation about it: [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/evaluation_regions_zpsca0a1a80.png]Possibility to conquer the super-region,[/url] [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/evaluation_paths_zpsc7cb6f80.png]Possibility to stroke opponents (obvious).[/url] That's all. Good luck Aeronautic with this map!

Thanks The_Bishop, for the review, feedback and assistance with Caps and gameplay. This gives me lots to think about. LOL I will be putting more colour into it again..... just for you. I will do some more on this when we have progressed more on the Italia map.

Okay, Italia seems to be working fine with no suggested graphical changes, so it's time to get Brethren paper style map back on the drawing board. I have changed those things suggested, such as label text readability, mini map position, more wrecks in Sea of Wrecks, Less desaturation of regions, decreased opacity of sea labels and I have also made more background graphics, a special effect mini map (looking like an old folded map), made text on mini map all same colour and effect, added circles, decreased opacity of Border & Boundary lines, added an extra old style Land Outline on the sea & a few little tweaks. [spoiler=Brethren 3][img]http://www.the-inkstore.co.uk/frame/Brethren3.png[/img][/spoiler]