New Zealand

I have discussed with Hoodlum who started a new version of New Zealand, about taking over on the graphics and he has agreed to become the author and adviser on this map.

It is still a 44 territory map, which he originally created, set out in the way the community voted.
I kept all the same territories and connections (no port symbols added yet) and made a graphic demo to see what the community has to say about the overall look and feel of the Background, Outlines, Land to Sea Effect (Transition), Textures, Tones, Snow Capped Mountains (essential in the south island, as they can be seen from everywhere & have been utilised for game-play) & Region Colours.

The map is exactly the same dimensions that Hoodlum created and all the circles are in place, but not shown here.

With the benefit of looking at it uploaded, I see that a couple of territory dividers can be moved slightly to follow the topography terrain. I also wish I was able to make the mountains bigger, but they would wipe out the space of the west territory.

The 'Farewell Spit' thing I mentioned privately looks already way better.
I notice the lakes are gone, just wondering if they will be added at any
time or you opted not to add them. I think at least Lake Taupo should be
there in the North Island. Most nzer's refer or know Taupo as Lake Taupo.
I think the mountains do need at least a bit more width, The South Island
is a mostly mountainous land because it is located on a major fault
line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_Fault
Also a mention about the region colours chosen. perhaps it's a good idea
to make a difference between the top of the South Island (left) and the
bottom of the North Island (right). If NZ was displayed in it's natural
geography it may seem like those areas are the same region. Thanks for
taking it on aero, I've been hinting ever since you and bishop introduced
italia

Yes I felt the mountains needed to be wider, they are too vertical in this cramped way.
The lakes are still there on the topography and I opted to remove them, as none of them played any part in game-play and may have been unnecessary distractions.
I will put Lake Taupo back on to see how it looks, if that is the big one on the North Island?
Very good spot with the two colours that will be next to each other in the mini map, I will move these around.

Oh man, it's beautiful! Has such an epic feeling, almost like you're in the space station looking down. That background is such an awesome, deep blue sea color.

For the mountains, why don't you move them into the yellow and blue regions where there's more room to play? Just half a cm, a whole cm down should give you plenty of room to expand.

Awesome work.

This looks really good. I agree that the mountains should be bigger. The colours on this map are amazing! The background especially reminds me of the Southern Ocean (I don't know why), great deep blue colour.

I have redone the mountains, moved a few territory dividers to suit the terrain, moved some colours of regions around to eliminate the 2 the same next to each other in the mini map (when it's added), touched up some of the land topography texture and opened up the lake in the North Island.

I like the change in the mountains much better!. Perhaps the lake isn't necessary but it looks right to
be there for me. I wouldn't mind another kiwi's feedback on that.

Great work. The colours are just the right shade, not too fade out and not too distracting. The deep blue ocean and the texture really compliment each other and the transition between the land and sea is really nice. And I really like how you did the mountains. They don't look cramped and gravel like and they take up space, but not too much.

Can't wait to see with everything else.

This... Is meant to be New Zealand?

Yes NightNight, it's what you get when you move the islands one next to the other. We have concluded that it's the most favourable layout for the game, because the original one has too much empty space. The minimap will have the original NZ shape.

On the map, I'm unsure on the topographical texture. It's just me or the north part of the south island seems like sea foam? Also, I'd say that the mountains stick out a bit too much from the general tone of the map.

Thanks for explaining the island split Psymon.

With regard to the sea foam effect, I think you mean the white topped mountains in the Yellow region. I have put a de-toner over these to make them less white, but I shall strengthen that to make them into neutral texture.

With regard to the mountains standing out from the general tone of the map. I do agree that they contrast highly (apart from where blended at their bases), but must stress that I had discussions with a couple of people about their best suitability for this map regarding realism, quality, but most importantly "snow capped". There were suggestions and examples given to me that utilised a brownish look, which could have helped with the colour contrast, but there were concerns that I had, which were that brown and / or green contrasted well with the natural topography, but not with the coloured regions of the game-map. They would almost certainly have stood out even more against the map colours. Therefore, I opted to blend a realistic rock effect so that it looked like the colours of the land (regions) were growing into the rock.

If I could see another example of a better colour / tone alternative, I can amend them to be less contrasting?
I have one idea that might help, if I was to delete the hidden region lines below them, I could drop the opacity without worrying about the lines showing through and make more of the region colours come through.

Do you think this would help with this?
Would it affect the non passable intuitiveness?

I think they'll be fine as long as those aren't the region/territory colors you're actually going with.

I think part of the clash is the rest of the map looks so plain/unfinished. Once you get troops circles and good looking colors on those territories they won't stand out nearly so much.

I'd add some mountains on the North Island too. They don't have to effect gameplay, but it would diversify the look a bit. Again, it's very planar and flat looking. I'd say run them all the way from the tip of the lake territory clear right along the edges of the blue/yellow/green regions to the coast. Provide some blocking, add a bit of symmetry. And it's geographically semi-accurate.

I'd also, if it's possible, and I don't know that it is, punch up the texture on the north island. I think it's awesome that you're using a physical map of the NZ for the actual texture. But just how it runs naturally, gives a bigger boost to the south island more than the north, since it has rougher terrain/more mountains.

Here is the problem with the difference in the 2 islands, the south island is on a fault line, but it goes to the right of the north island under the sea and therefore the natural terrain of the 2 islands is very different. There are a lot of plains on the north island where as mountains are rife in the south island.
The reason Hoodlum chose that place for the mountains is that they are the most prominent mountains there and are so high that they can be seen from every point of the island.
Please see Hoodlums link in Post #3.

We can of course utilise the use of false mountains for the purpose of game play at any time, but as it stands we are geographically accurate. I would like to hear from Hoodlum about these proposals before undertaking work that might well be overruled and scrapped.

I can change the colours in minutes, however I am risking creating a new concern for everyone else who has either not mentioned any concern about them yet or has expressed specific details of suitability of their current colours. Please remind me about the colours again after we sort out the mountain contrast & topography concerns and hopefully by then, others may share your views on this, justifying an alternative.

I also thought adding some mountains in the North Island would balance the map in looks. Ones that come to mind for me are, Mt Ruapehu which is the biggest and known for it's recent
volcanic activity and also Mt Taranaki.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/interactive/14303/mountains-of-the-north-island