Vancouver [Quenched]

[oaktown]

For starters, apologies for not being up with the entire thread. Disregard any comments that I make that have already been addressed, and feel free to call me something really insulting.

What I like: super clean looking map. Borders, regions, impassables, and connections are all easy to follow. In terms of gameplay, I also appreciate a straightforward map with no twists that you can only appreciate by losing on the map a few times. And the mountains behind the title are fantastic.

Little tweaks: it'd be nice if the rail lines didn't cross under not station territories - somebody is going to think that Midtown is a part of the line. And I'm unclear as to what territories a station can attack: are Deer Lake and Hastings "adjacent" to the Fraserview Station? Because while the station doesn't lie in Deer Lake, it is adjacent - and touching the border. And what exactly are you calling the stations?

Color blindness is an issue with the legend. I can totally tell the regions apart on the map, i just can't put them together with the circles in the legend. As a colorblind player I don't have trouble with fields of similar color so much as I have trouble with smaller samplings of color. Two remedies would be either a minimap, or region titles on the map itself (which is always my preference). It's nice to have a method of identifying a region that isn't 100% color dependent.

And if you follow my posts in the Foundry you'll know that I'm like a broken record on this issue (and I think I've said it before here): what makes this Vancouver? If you changed the title of the map to "Greater Tampa & St. Pete's" for example only residents of Vancouver or Tampa would know the difference. Again, the mountains are subtle and sublime - I'm hungry for more flavor.

And just for shits and giggles...
http://www.fplfibernet.com/networks/ima ... mpaMap.jpg

[jako]

I think the station description is pretty clear. It states that "stations are named after home territory and attack both it and adjacent stations" so it is only able to attack the terr it lies on as well as the 2 stations connected to it. so with the fraserview station, for example, it is only able to attack fraserview tert and downtown/edmond stations. Deer lake and hastings tert are adjacent but they are adjacent to its home tert, not to the actual station.

I don't see a midtown tert anywhere on the map oaktown.

[Danyael]

yes i agree with oaktown that the legend is very tough when it come to the color
correct me if i'm wrong but is it burnaby vancouver richmond tri-cities and new westminster that are the biggest problem

pastels are tough no matter how little colour blind one might be

shakeycat maybe try some of those different ideas we talked about in Game 4406613

[oaktown]

I think the station description is pretty clear. It states that "stations are named after home territory and attack both it and adjacent stations" so it is only able to attack the terr it lies on as well as the 2 stations connected to it. so with the fraserview station, for example, it is only able to attack fraserview tert and downtown/edmond stations. Deer lake and hastings tert are adjacent but they are adjacent to its home tert, not to the actual station.

Yeah, I wasn't reading that very cearly - it must've been late when i posted that. And I read right over the part about the stations being named after the home terits. I still think it would be good form to get the stations off the borders; the Fraserview station is riding two borders, giving the suggestion that it shares those borders.

I don't see a midtown tert anywhere on the map oaktown.

My bad - I meant Metrotown. I think it's pretty clear which stations have circles and which do not, a la New York map, but it wouldn't hurt to try to keep the metro lines as free as possible from the non-metro station territories. Again, you can't make things too clear for people like me who tend to mis-deploy.

[shakeycat]

[bigimg]http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/apr22.jpg[/bigimg]

Would this be odd?

[General Bradley]

[bigimg]http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/apr22.jpg[/bigimg]

Would this be odd?

Yes, please drop the station names, again it makes it WAY crowded. I like the idea of a minimap with the bonuses instead of names, but I think you have to put the continents in their proper places so colours and names don't matter. Much like this


There should be lots of room to the left of Tsawwassen.

Can we make Edmonds slightly larger to give more room for both circles?

[Danyael]

i think the new legend should be fine it makes it very clear
i can see the metro problem
edmunds and downtown are probably the biggest problem
maybe increase the size of edmunds a little as general bradley suggested
and for downtown
which is not as simple but i'm thinking you could move the downtown army circle a few pixels up and to the left(so it goes over the edge about the same amount that whalley circle does change the wce line so its not covering up the border as much so its easy to see it at a glance

and yes the station names busy it up way too much

[shakeycat]

[bigimg]http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/apr24.jpg[/bigimg]

All that's worrying me now is what Oaktown pointed out about Tampa.

[jako]

Question: Do the mountains start out neutral?

[shakeycat]

Nope, they start like any normal territory. The only neutral start is New Westminster.

[lzrman]

Great progress on this map, I like how you went back to the simple things !

[jako]

Nope, they start like any normal territory. The only neutral start is New Westminster.

If that's the case, aren't the west and north vancouver bonuses a bit low?

[shakeycat]

Ah - I suppose those bonuses need updating! Shall we go with +2 for West and +3 for North Vancouver then? I suppose it's a bit funny to have landlocked territories like the mountains are. To hold total 10 territories (3 attacks from outside) = total bonus +7 then.

[jako]

Which is why I brought it up. The problem lies with the mountains.

[sailorseal]

I am glad to see the sports figures gone. The texture seems to change slightly with each bonus, I would like to see it uniform throughout. I know not the name of the bonuses but the one that is +4 has my favorite texture. I would move the army circle for Kerrisdale to the left or as soon as it hits 100, it will begin to overlap with it's neighbors. Same with Thompson.
I foresee there being a lot of action towards the center but people mainly going for the bonuses around the edge which I kind of like but I just wanted to point out.
Great Map!

[shakeycat]

[bigimg]http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/apr30.jpg[/bigimg]

Updated bonuses, a few other tweaks.

Sailorseal, I don't know what you're looking at, because they all have the same texture, same opacity too. If anything, I should be giving them different opacities to make up for them all looking a little different. Perhaps Delta (+4) just happens to have the colour that looks best with the texture

[gho]

Not really to do with the map, but i thout id post this to show people why a map of Vancouver is needed.

[bigimg]http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/6240/dscf0217uj5.jpg[/bigimg]

[General Bradley]

I think it is as polished as it's going to get. It looks beautiful. I wanna play it now. Please, oh please, cartography admins, let's move this forward!

[sailorseal]

Some of the borders feel unnatural, maybe could you lie about them and put a slight curve on them?

[jako]

Not really to do with the map, but i thout id post this to show people why a map of Vancouver is needed.

[bigimg]http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/6240/dscf0217uj5.jpg[/bigimg]

Hey I can see my house.

[iancanton]

all of the transport bonuses, which need every single station on the line to be defended, are too low. increase them by 1 or 2.

similarly, north vancouver is, on its own, a bit low. however, u've spotted that it has to be like this because north vancouver can be combined with west vancouver and the coast mountains to make a supercontinent that is defended at 3 places. no change needed here.

consider making new westminster a +2 autodeploy to compensate for having to attack 3 neutrals, otherwise it could be ignored in most games.

to prevent players from starting with one of the three 3-region bonuses, code them as start positions in the xml. if u do this, then one region within each bonus will be allocated to each player in 2-player and 3-player games only.

mention the existence of start positions in the first post, so that the ff guys know to look for this in the code.

everyone seems satisfied with the layout of the map now, so i'm happy if no more changes are made to the regions and connections. just tweak those bonuses mentioned above. the gameplay stamp is close!

ian.

[shakeycat]

Updated the XML: http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/vancouver.xml
to go with maps:
[bigimg]http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/may7.jpg[/bigimg]
http://www.atomation.com/~thazzard/fun/gva/may7s.jpg


And there's start positions for all territories in 3-4 territory bonus groups, I hope they work.
Bonuses upped for New West and transit lines.

[iancanton]

And there's start positions for all territories in 3-4 territory bonus groups, I hope they work.

not quite like that. we need exactly 3 sets of 3 start positions, each of which contains 1 west vancouver region, 1 coast mountains region and 1 canada line station only.

ian.

[shakeycat]

I'll try again, I don't quite understand how they work

So you're saying there will be three sets - separated in the code? I close a tag then start a new set? - with each one having a different set, say Dundarave-Southarm Station-Seymour, Ambleside-Downtown St-Cypress etc.? And when the game starts, set 1 goes to player 1, set 2 to player 2, set 3 to neutral or player 3, then players 4-8 just get randoms from all the rest?

[shakeycat]

Code: Select all

<positions>
   <position>
      <territory>Horseshoe Bay</territory>
   </position>
      <position>
      <territory>Cypress Mountain</territory>
   </position>
      <position>
      <territory>Kerrisdale Station</territory>
   </position>
</positions>
<positions>
   <position>
      <territory>Dundarave</territory>
   </position>
         <position>
      <territory>Seymour Mountain</territory>
   </position>
      <position>
      <territory>Southarm Station</territory>
   </position>
</positions>
<positions>
   <position>
      <territory>Ambleside</territory>
   </position>
   <position>
      <territory>Grouse Mountain</territory>
   </position>
      <position>
      <territory>Downtown Station</territory>
   </position>
</positions>

updated