Map in progress... suggestions?

[Zuppa]

I'm working on a map that will be two continents with some islands, 179 land provinces in all. I haven't included sea zones, so the lands will be connected by ports.

The goal is just a land with more strategic decisions inherent in the geography. I want a good distribution of land types that allow for multiple starting areas to have strong regional expansion possibilities... and choke points between the regions.

Any thoughts... suggestions would be appreciated. I know that it is aesthetically not much to look at... any comments on that would be good as well.

Thanks.


http://img471.imageshack.us/img471/8736/sidhebt3.png

[Sombre]

Can we get versions based on each island on its own?

I mean 179 provinces is too big for me, but 80 or so plus some sea is perfect and all you'd have to do is chop the map in half, right? Then we'd get two new maps of about that size.

[Gandalf Parker]

If it is surrounded by ocean then it should be fairly easy to make it a wrapped map. There arent too many of those and they are pretty popular.

[Kristoffer O]

I'd say it looks nice. I like the hand-drawn touch.

You could add a few special things, like a tower, pyramid or a little lake and have those provinces have an increased site chance.

[llamabeast]

Ooh ooh, cool! This will be a very useful size of map indeed. There's a bit of a lack of maps of this size.

It'd be good if you had a couple of "port" provinces (see Cradle of Dominion as an example), which connect to each other. These would allow non-sailing non-water nations to travel between the islands - but only if they can get their hands on the port provinces. On Cradle many of the ports also look like cities, and have high incomes (maybe the #large tag or something?).

I also really like the hand-drawn look. It looks really nice. Thanks for working on this.

[Zuppa]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was intending to make the drawing a little better... but thanks for the comments that it doesn't look too bad now.. ha ha...

There are ports as the only way to get back and forth now. And there will be some icons for special provinces...

It would be easy to make two maps as well one for each of the islands. And a wrap around option would be possible, though wouldn't mean anything if there aren't any underwater regions (something I am still thinking about).

Thanks much.

[llamabeast]

You could perhaps make a watery version and a "dead seas" version (with no water provinces). If you were to have water provinces they should be much bigger than the land provinces, so there'd just be room for 2 water nations or so.

Apologies if I keep saying things you've already thought of by the way!

[Gandalf Parker]

Personally I love it when a map zip file includes one image file and multiple .map files. The .map files zip down so small that it really doesnt add much to the zip, and it gives the player many maps without taking up a ton of extra space. I used to offer my zips with vanilla and chaotic (which is the opposite of things like dead-sea or no-indept maps). If I do downloadable maps where I put much time on the image then Im considering doing them with one image and an entire range of NoIndept, DeadSeas, Vanilla, SemiRand'd, full randomed (chaotic), and Extreme Fill .map files. Possibly some themed and scenario ones also.

A lot could be done by using the same map over and over, and updating the zip to include new map variants of it.

[Ballbarian]

I really like the look of this map so far. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
Special site locations marked by some graphical touches and ports would be my only suggestions.

[lch]

It's certainly looking very nice. You should clean up the line art a little bit, there are tutorials from comic/manga scanning groups or related people on the net about that. I second the wraparound thing, it's what immediately comes into mind. The dotted province borders seem to have been added via CG, could you tell me how exactly you did those and what graphics program you are using?

[Zuppa]

Ich,

Thanks. I intend to clean it up a bit more. A wraparound version (if there are sea provinces) would make sense.

As for how it was done... very low-tech obviously. It's just hand drawn with the fills, textures, and such (and the province lines) done in photoshop and gimp. The lines are just a custom pencil with spacing expanded in the custom brush tips part of photoshop to make the dots. Is that what you meant?

[PvK]

It looks really nice! I would definitely play on this map.

For the underwater question, I just posted a Deadly Seas mod and am about to post another that I think will successfully remove all underwater stuff, so map-makers won't need to make "no seas" versions.

[jutetrea]

looks great, tagging to keep up with progress. I'm all for the multiple .map files with one image and I'm always good with new maps. I'm sick of Aran and Cradle.

[Zuppa]

Thanks for the heads up about the mod PvK.

I like the idea of multiple map files as well... there should be good options. I will also make separate maps for each of the islands alone definitely.

Thanks folks for the comments.

[PvK]

In case you didn't see it, the first such mod is here. (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=534965)

The second one (which totally removes all underwater units and abilities) is taking longer than I hoped to perfect, but should be done before too long.

[Zuppa]

PvK, thanks for the heads up.

As for this map... still working on it... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[PashaDawg]

Yes! Very nice map style. I agree with some that it would be great to have a smaller version (e.g., the single island map idea). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zuppa]

This map isn't dead... I just haven't had much time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I'll fix it up someday... anyone else should feel free... Let me know if you are interested.

[Zylithan]

Hey. I just saw this for the first time because it was bumped, and I've got to say, it looks pretty to me. Could be a fun one to add to the collection. Good luck finishing it when you have time.