150 After Hijrah: The Battle for God

[Raskholnikov]

NP re map. Lets try it your way first. If you post the pic tonight I'll get a version done for tomorrow.

LOL Nah re memory just a momentary retrieval malfunction lol

[natty dread]

and just for future reference: ime = in my experience/estimation

[porkenbeans]

god template 4

Click image to enlarge.

I will add the islands tomorrow.

[natty dread]

Wow, that's nice otherwise, but smooth out that gradient a bit, eh?

[Raskholnikov]

both the city/battle placements and connecting lines can be adjusted within reason to allow coding, Empire names and flags, and best connections between cities.

I think the key thing here would be to so design the city / battle symbols and connections as to make it look (I don't want to sound pretentious here) somewhat artistic rather than just a heap of lines and geometric symbols.

I'd like to use only one symbol for each type of city, including Religious shrines. I dont want to use crosses, semi-moons, jewish stars for obvious reasons.

For connections, please note some key rules: Ports and Religious Shrines connect ONLY to that Empire's Capital. nothing else.

Between two cities of different empires that connect there MUST be a battlefield.

Each battlefield can connect only two empires at a time. Battle sites are pretty much historically accurate.

If you think you need to change some secondary lines between regular cities of the same empire, please feel free.

You will find the coding and titles for the map on the latest image I posted at the top of the thread.

If you want, I can place the empire flags at the very end,

Over to you. Surprise me with something awesome!

Thanks!

R

[captainwalrus]

Pork's symbols were much better, if he were to make them a little smaller.

[Raskholnikov]

Oh I totally agree. This is just a draft for Pork to know where everything goes on THIS map. He will replace my "sticks and stones" with the real graphics. Thanks for noticing!

[snufkin]

The Fatimid caliphate didn´t exist at the time you´re aiming for.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fati/hd_fati.htm
http://www.fatimids.info/
http://i-cias.com/e.o/fatimids.htm
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary. ... +caliphate
http://jis.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/18/3/420
http://journals.cambridge.org/download. ... 003ed21b36
http://books.google.se/books?id=JAca1F3 ... q=&f=false
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.eg/nae/ ... 4113653688


..or maybe cambridge, oxford, metropolitan museum, national gallery of art and the egyptian government and all authorities and historians are all wrong?
Please try to at least make a minimal effort to be historically correct.
If you don´t trust anything on the internet go to a library (not the fiction section).

[Raskholnikov]

Yes, I know. They came slighly later, from about 909 onwards. But they fit in the overall game design and I want to use them.

One might as well argue that I can't have Abbasids and Ummayads together because the former destroyed the latter in 750, that Andalus didnt get to be a Caliphate till much later, and that by 800 Charlemagne had destroyed the Lombards and conquered half of Italy.

Well, yes. But the point of this map is to have a playable fun game not to have the exactly accurate map of one specific date. It wants to illustrate the ebb and flow and evolution of dynasties, not a static snapshot. Each dynasty has a starting point. Some may start as neutral and never exist; some might get destryed early on; that's what the game is all about.

This is a perfectly legitimate tool called alternative hisotory role-play and its purpose is to look at key moments in history and ask what would have happened if that key event would have turned out differenty? How would the region / world have evolved on a differnt pattern than it did? So, instead of lookinh back and thinking that everything that happened in the past was inevitable, I argue that there are many pasts and they could have given rise to a great number of futures very different from our own. So, there is noting inevitable about history and but for some key moments and events our world would be very different today. Anyway, that's the theory behinf it.

More importantly, the game-play is made more fun and functional by having an Egyptian dynasty and the best known and closest to the times is the Fatimid Caliphate. That's why I'm using it.

[natty dread]

To be fair, many other maps here have historical inaccuracies (latest example: see Peloponnesian War) which are sacrified for the sake of gameplay.

I think you're doing good so far, keep up the good work.

[Raskholnikov]

Thanks Natty, still a lot of work to do here but I'm glad you're interested and think it has potential. That's very encouraging.

[porkenbeans]

OK Rask,
Can you pick the 5 icons that you like from the possibles below. And list for which territs they belong. I need to have a decision on this before I can lay it out, as I plan to do a lot of work to distort them as they round the globe. I want to attempt to make them so they do not appear flat, as this will tend to flatten the image of the planet that I worked so hard on. Also I showed them with the yellow 888s' as that color on these icons is the hardest to see.

Click image to enlarge.

[Raskholnikov]

Great to hear from you!

Ok, let;s try these:

Capital: Crown
Port: Ship wheel
Normal city: round sphere
Religious Shrines: Star with black and white parts
Battle: Second stmbol from bottom

They look really great!

I really look forward to seeing the next version!!

Many thanks!

[porkenbeans]

Here is my first attempt on the layout. I nixed 2 of the lines for aesthetic reasons. I can add them back in if you want. I went with a sphere shape in place of the flat circles. I know that pool balls were your first inspiration, and I think that they work well. Like pearls on a string.
Rask, check my connections and territ placements. I had to do a little shifting here and there, so if something needs to be moved, let me know, so then I can lock it down, and get on with cleaning things up a bit.

Click image to enlarge.

first layout.

[Raskholnikov]

Wow Pork, this looks just great! i'm really excited about it!

Yes, I need to make a few changes. I'll do them ASAP.

Thanks for the hard work,

R

[Raskholnikov]

Hi Pork,

I checked the map carefully and I noticed you made a lot of changes both in the position of cities and in the way many of them connect. I can't correct your map directly- it would be incomprehensible.

I suggest you go back to the last map I sent you, and re-place each symbol exactly where I placed them. If yiu need to reduce the symbols a bit, lets say 10 %, that wold I think make it easier.

Once you placed all the symbols, do not connect them. Please post the draft map here and I will do the connections for you to follow easily.

Many thanks,

R

[porkenbeans]

2nd. attempt to lay out territs as close as I can to your specs. The size of the territs can not really be scaled down any smaller, because on the small map the numbers will cover up too much of the icon, and it will become hard to discern them. Since we are trying to make a game, I think that general, and not exact placement is the way to go.
I just noticed that the battle to the far middle left of the map, that is the most off the target, can in fact be moved over closer to where you wanted it, but the city there would need to be moved further up the coast a bit.

I added 4 more cities, as the dogleg lines did not look very good, in the way of continuity sake. If you like them and want to shift there positions slightly to correlate to actual ones, let me know.

Click image to enlarge.

[Raskholnikov]

This looks great! The reason for the few doglegged connections is that I actually need the capitals to connect directly to either ports or religious shrines, If you notice, all ports and religioigious shrines connect only to capitals. So please remove the four cities you placed and go ahead with the connections.

You will note that there is sa capital, Damascus, in the Middle East, next to a battle site connecting to a Religious Shrine, Jerusalem. I need THat capital to connect to that battle site. I know it's a very small distance, but do your best and we'll see later what adjustments we cna make.

Overall, I really like the look of this. THanks again for coming up with it!

R

[natty dread]

Just one thing... don't you think that will look a bit cluttered as the small version?

[Raskholnikov]

I did a check, here it is. I think we can come up with something clear and playable.

[natty dread]

Yeah, but the thing is, the numbers will be larger relative to the map. You should make sure the territories aren't too close to each other, so they can accommodate the numbers clearly. Also you need to be able to fit the territory names somewhere...

[porkenbeans]

Click image to enlarge.

[porkenbeans]

Yeah, but the thing is, the numbers will be larger relative to the map. You should make sure the territories aren't too close to each other, so they can accommodate the numbers clearly. Also you need to be able to fit the territory names somewhere...

Yes I was afraid of this, and anticipated that we might run in to this problem. Here is a mockup of my solution. I put the real size numbers on a test area as you can see. The numbers are indeed overwhelming the icons. It looks like I am going to be forced to enlarge them. The icons in the sea are the size that I need to make them.

So, I have overlayed a bunch of red dots. We need to rearrange the layout so that the dots do not touch. This will give me the needed room for the larger icons, labels and lines.

I know this hurts, but if this stuff were easy, the girl scouts would be doing it.
We are going to be forced to just be general in the way of the placement of the territs. After all, this is a board game, and we are not going to be graded on exact and correct geography. Plus who's to say anyways, The land mass has already been distorted to just a general representation. (aren't you glad that I saw the need for that ?).

Tell me what you think Rask.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

Well, you could also make the troop circles only fit 2 numbers, because in normal play, 3 numbers is very seldom coming to play - except if you use colour codes.

It's a shame the game software doesn't support a way to center the numbers on both 2 and 3 digit numbers. If you center them based on 2-digit figures, then when it gets to 3 digits they will be off center. And vice versa.

So, because 2 digits is a lot more common in most games I'd suggest centering the numbers and designing the circles for 2 digits. Just make sure there's room for the third number on the right side of each number.

[AndyDufresne]

So, because 2 digits is a lot more common in most games I'd suggest centering the numbers and designing the circles for 2 digits. Just make sure there's room for the third number on the right side of each number.

With the advent of color codes, 3 spaces are a lot more common for sure.


--Andy