work in progress
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Dima wrote:
ps: whats the best way to proceed?

i would re-draw the rivers so that they match virtuositys picture,

then add bridges where there any,

then look how it looks combined with the current territory, regions and bonuses

and then we will see what we get and can make adjustments...
"vorple: the real strategy comes when you cant just win cuz you got lucky and got the big card stack"
Hoodlum wrote:
1. Orientation & Layout
Maintain Current Orientation: Stick with the current view for now. (Did you draw it North/South first then rotate it? then it should be fine to rotate it back if decision is to go North Oriented)

The "North" Question: We need to confirm if the team officially agreed on a fixed North orientation or if this rotation for aesthetic/gameplay fit is acceptable.

Hood vote acceptable with this orientation

2. Terrain & Geography (The "Bendable" Rules)

Rivers: Identify the major arteries based on Virt’s reference. We’ll categorize them into "Visual/Atmospheric" and "Gameplay Impassables."

Mountains: Use placeholder assets to mark the primary ranges. The focus here is on positioning rather than final fidelity.

Balance: Just like the France map, strategically "cherry-pick" these features to ensure the map doesn't feel cluttered or lopsided.

3. Navigation & Chokepoints

Mountain Gaps: You'll need to define where the "passes" are to allow movement through ranges.

Bridges: These will be the primary interaction points for the rivers. We should consider if these are destructible or fixed as we place the rivers.

Wait for Bishop + Virt to comment. If you don't want to waste time. Waiting on activity can be painful lol, or if you don't mind, you can go ahead and tinker with the feedback I've given, just as long as you are prepared that it might be for nothing (except experience)


Example - Where to put Impassables??? GPT drew some cool mountains, but couldn't work out how to get them individually as a mountain pack set to be able to use

Mountains Reference (click to show)

The_Bishop wrote:
@Hoodlum the orientation you propose is off, it's a rotation of something already rotated, the result is odd because the map sheet and the massland don't have the same orientation.

There's no need to add 15 rivers and 3 mountain ranges. @SethHrab's map is well designed and geographically pretty accurate: actual rivers, actual mountains and bonus corresponding to actual states. Rarely seen such a good compromise between gameplay and geo-accuracy without me having to suggest anything. Galapagos Islands alone were a bit weird, that's true, but with the addition of the Falkland Islands proposed by Hoodlum things are more balanced now. Plus, Galapagos have a nice role in gameplay, so I'm against their removal. The layout is good as it is, we just need to remove that brutal vertical compression and improve the graphics. Not so hard, I can do it myself if I want, but for now this map has no priority, I'm still waiting for the original author to come back and take part in this discussion, it's fair. His work got ignored for months, then one day I noticed it, I implemented and tested the map with a minimal change (it plays well) and now everyone wants to change everything! It's a bit weird. As long as SethHrab is absent I'll defend his project.

@Dima, @Virtuosity and @Hoodlum: you all have to look for possible improvements and things to fix or problems to solve on the maps you are currently developping. Me too actually. So let's first finish what we have already started, then I promise we will come back to this map! Otherwise I become crazy trying to follow all maps...
«God doesn't play dice with the World» ~ Albert Einstein
«War is God’s way of teaching us geography» ~ Mark Twain
Hoodlum wrote:
yup its off, it's a reference. i dont know the original rotation - ill leave the sheet and other elements up to Dima, however he ends up doing it, whoever is doing it. i sent the background requested, it's up to the artist whether they use that, and how they cut it to make the rotated look accurate. easy fix
btw.. i am the one that mentioned that we need South America map, and sethrab jumped on it as another project to add to his alexander the great project. i have made several maps of this area but haven't felt they were good enough to my standards to showcase them. the length of the map always the issue. so just to point out. it's not an all of a sudden interest. it's good for sethrab to get some experience and go through the process. i did lose interest in his design cause it's still an eyesore with that compression that i mentioned him to do and regretted it. with still the same issue of dimension presentation, but at least he did a bulk of the gameplay. awesome
if the gameplay is tested and good, thats great to know, and good for sethrab, that's the main thing. i trust it must be good if you tested it. this is one of those projects, i think we are all interested in this area. whether sethrab or dima or yourself does the graphics, im just putting my input in the idea of making the rotation work because i know the fit of the geography is something that was what i've struggled with. when dima rotated it, i played around with rotations and it still looked bad, until the Italy layout came to mind..finally. something that might work. and after some recent research, yes I believe that the rivers are balanced and accurate enough for a game map. mountans too, from what i've seen on other game maps.
also you asked me to comment on this map in particular :)
The_Bishop wrote:
Yep, sorry @Hoodlum if there are some contraddictions in what I have said recently. One day I say "go ahead" and the day after I say "wait please". I know, this is not very clear! This includes also what I said to @Dima, my apologize for that. But the fact is that I am bit worried about the direction this thread is taking. Anyway I think more-or-less we agree on most of the things, especially the method Aeronautic used for Italy. There would be huge things to say about: planar rotation, compression, compression and rotation together, angle view and true tridimensional perspective (and perhaps even axonometry!). Plus another huge things to say about cartographic projections, almost irrilevant when mapping a small area, but crucial when mapping a country or a whole continent like this. I'm not speaking about making Risk maps, I'm speaking about actual cartography, however it is not much different in the end. I'll keep it simple and short: before doing any rotations or perspective views I would like to try it myself and see how the map looks without rotation and without compression, if you allow me to do so. Perhaps you have already tried by yourself, and you noticed it cannot work, I don't know... My point is: first of all let's try the simplest thing, then let's analyse the other options.

As for the geography, the most remarkable 'wrong thing' in my opinion is that the Northern part of the Andes is missing. It's clearly missing because it is not helpful gameplay wise, but perhaps we can attempt a small fix. Interesting fact highlighted by @Virtuosity98 about the Amazon River not having bridges, I didn't know that. But I think that checking were the actual bridges are is a bit beyond our requirements (not totally beyond, just a bit). In a real war bridges are often blown for defensive purpose and provitional bridges are sometimes built for assaults. The Amazon is a giant river in a giant forest with low population density. People living there normally cross the river by boats, so I think it's still some-how militarily passable: at most we will not call them "bridges", but 'crossing points'.
«God doesn't play dice with the World» ~ Albert Einstein
«War is God’s way of teaching us geography» ~ Mark Twain