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Jace11 -> RE: Just Another Topo Map Project (9/16/2014 1:56:31 AM)
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Having spent a bit of time looking at the new map I going to try and give a bit more feedback:
Being pretty anal about in game graphics I've listed the kind of things I'd maybe change - most are very minor. Don't get me wrong, I still love the map and am already using it. I think it's fantastic and can't imagine the amount of work you put into it (particularly tracing the paths for the new road / rail network which must have been painful and laborious). I hope people appreciate how much effort goes into something like this and what you're trying to do here.
Colours: I think they are generally nice, less harsh and busy in appearance than the original topo map. It's easier on the eye but less detailed / colorful - which is fine I think, and also important as people who play the game spend a long time staring at the map so lower saturation makes things more gentle.
The green / orange can appear strong in areas but I expect this is a result of your source map. However, they do fit well with the shallow and deep sea colours.
The map border is a nice colour choice. All together, it's achieving a similar effect to the War in the East style map, which I was impressed with.
Oceans: Shallow ocean hexes are all pretty clear in this map. In your previous topo map, it was a bit hit and miss. Some ocean shading effects around islands and land masses made it difficult to spot some, while others were misrepresented. Rectifying that was an important functional addition to your new map.
The new ocean topography effects I think are unnecessary though, or should perhaps be toned down. I would consider this irrelevant information, but I understand you might be concerned that the vast open spaces of ocean might appear bland without it. Your diagonal shading of oceans will offset this somewhat. I think in some areas the ocean topography is nice, these are areas were it has an acceptably minor effect, but in others it is very strong and looks out of place. The best example would be the ridge or trench NE from New Zealand past Raoul Island. In this case, when I look at it, it appears like the Tonga Island are more elevated than Raoul. It's just a bit awkward. Shallow and Deep ocean is already presented accurately by your map, this extra topology isn't needed by the player and can in places look weird. Having quoted that example though, I have to admit areas like those around Malaya, Borneo, New Guinea and the DEI look pretty nice with minor shading - so I don't know. I'm in two minds I guess. Maybe just tone down that New Zealand ridge.. hmmm, I honestly don't know without seeing what the map would like without it.
Ocean dots: Fine, I personally prefer hexes but these dots work well, I will probably warm to them. Whether you want to remove ocean dots from some of the inland lakes is up to you. There a few cases where dots in lakes actually signify a legitimate OS hex, but I spotted a few which are present in lakes where they could be removed with no loss of information. Minor issue I guess.
Text: I think black and white is fine. I miss colored names of nations / island groups etc, but I'm sure you've experimented with different combinations and found black with a highlight around it to work best with your terrain colours.
However, there are a number of location names that are overlapping the new road / rail network (also black and white). eg Edmonton, Vancouver (Canada), these map labels could perhaps do with a nudge.
Others that overlap road/rail and could be nudged slightly I found include: Launceston (Tasmania), Delhi, Hyderabad (Southern one), Cawnpore, Armadabad, Bangalore, Palembang.
There are others too, several in China etc.
The obvious solution is to just nudge the labels around into clear space so they dont touch the roads etc but as close to the hex as possible and also without confusing them with any other nearby dot hexes etc. If that's not possible with all of them, not sure.
I wouldn't worry about ship covering map labels too much - ships move, are often disbanded in port etc. Icon bitmaps obscuring stuff is perfectly acceptable imo.
New rail / road network: Awesome! So like the ones from I remember seeing on maps from that era. - Interaction with map labels etc.
New urban center markings: Nice, subtle. Centered to each hex? The base flags in game must be slightly higher, because the two together look very slightly off center - very minor issue I think. The offmap Liverpool hex is Urban Heavy I think too - again very minor omission.
Er I think that's it...
for now...
Tagula Island typo - you have it as Taluga (near milne bay)
For your off map area at the top right, just fill it in with green hexes I reckon, leaving ocean there conflicts with the game data and would look odd with LCUs moving across.
e.g
[image]local://upfiles/42898/4DBE4D5759254569803E2F00EE77C3BE.jpg[/image]
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