The Dawn Of Ages - Quenched

[Kabanellas]

Patience.

Everyone will keep looking at the maps and find those little things to quick fix.... like the "L" in Tower of Control on the small map is partially missing, I think it's just blended with the border or was typed lower case by accident. And any other nitpicks like... the burntish looking part is very close to the dwarves tunnel path in the Tower of Doom territory and blending together. The dwarves path going under the mountains in the same area could be little brighter and more noticeable. And perhaps the background on the bottom of the map is smidgen too dark making the text kinda hard to read, especially on the smaller map.

Just some quick fixes, nothing major.

some good points there Baron

I'll fix the 'L' and probably give a glow to the path. As for the darker background at the bottom, hummm... I really like it (even so I'll take a look at it)

[RedBaron0]

Maybe just a bit of glow to the text in the legend then? I figured it might be better to lighten the bottom a little bit. You're losing the detail of the outer border in the corner as well.

[porkenbeans]

I have a concern about the circles. They were originally conceived to help make the armies easier to read on lands that were dark or very textured. But I notice that here they are darker, not lighter. Also, are they large enough ?

[natty dread]

The mountains look a bit pixelated. I think something should be done to the mountains.

Other than that this map is just amazing.

[Kabanellas]

Porken, those army circles are the same I used in my TTC map... though it crossed my mind to make them more like in the Napoleon map. Not sure about it...

Thanks natty! Well, those mountains were hand/mouse drawn directly on Fireworks/PC..... I could try to vector them and smoother them... but I kinda like them as they are .

[porkenbeans]

Hey Kab,
About those mountains. I have got an idea on that. They are the only thing on the map that has a textured effect. Why don't you try loosing the texture, it really doesn't go with the rest of the map. You can just draw in some shading. I think that they will just match the rest of the map if they were hand drawn like everything else.

[fumandomuerte]

the continental relief is awesome but I agree that the mountains looks very pixelated.

[Kabanellas]

ok! I'll try to vectorize them... but you could try some ideas too Porken, if you feel in the mood for it

[porkenbeans]

ok! I'll try to vectorize them... but you could try some ideas too Porken, if you feel in the mood for it

I would be happy to help, but I am very busy at the moment. I am working on 4 maps, and it is zapping all of my time.
I'll tell ya what, If you can post just the mountain layer, without the texture, I will be able to quickly produce something that I think you will like.

[Kabanellas]

Thanks Porken!

I'll do it tomorrow, I hope... I'm having an hell of a time at the office!

[Kabanellas]

Here are the mountains in PNG files - they have the alpha channels open. Sadly I couldn't find the background free of mountains...... those lines are attached to the image (in the 3rd file).

Click image to enlarge.

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[porkenbeans]

edit: This map has been corrupted just like a bunch of other posts of mine. The colors have changed a bit, along with an added blurriness.

Well Kab,
started working on the mountains, and you can say that I got a little carried away.
It seemed to me that some of the elements just seemed to be fighting each other, in the way of style. My thought was to just make the whole thing seem a million years old. Like some ancient, and holy relic, that would just disintegrate if you tried to pick it up. I know that you probably wont like it at all, but I thought I would show it to you anyways. Maybe it will give you some good ideas at least.

Click image to enlarge.

[Kabanellas]

I like it very much…. Though, conceptually is quite different from what we have right now.

But that gave me an idea, we could team up when this map is over to start a Dawn of Ages II – a Zone bonus based map using that different legend colour to distinguish one zone from another. Good Work!!

[porkenbeans]

Kab,
Do you think that we could make a Dawn of Ages map from something like this, or do you want to keep to the same original scene ?

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version 1

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version 2

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version 3

[Kabanellas]

yes it could be that way, I don't think we necessarily have to use the same map. Do you know the map from the Silmarillion? (a pre Lord Of The Rings era book from Tolkien? I'd like to approach that ....

[porkenbeans]

yes it could be that way, I don't think we necessarily have to use the same map. Do you know the map from the Silmarillion? (a pre Lord Of The Rings era book from Tolkien? I'd like to approach that ....

Nope, can you post it ?

[MrBenn]

Posting the latest image for reference:

Click image to enlarge.

I think this map is visually appealing, and is a veritable tribute to the creator of the One Ring

1. The mountains have already been flagged as not quite fitting the style of the map, and I would echo that. Everything else is smooth and clean, whereas the texture and pixellation doesn't do justice to your ability.

2. The mine entrances would be better place actually touching the mountains (particularly in Khnum).

3. I'm actually a little confused by the mines - they can one-way attack out (the regions they're built in); how do you get into the mine? I'm assuming that you go in through the entrances, and then attack along (or out) by the red dotted line. Can the big gateways also attack outwardly? If so, the arrows would appear to indicate otherwise... If the gateways are two-way, then it would be worth having a two-headed arrow. It might also be worth adding an outward-arrow on the outward-attacking mines (it could be black instead of red if you need to keep the difference more obvious).

4. The legend explanation of the mines bonus feels a little clumsy. The abbreviation "tr." is not commonly used to indicate bonus armies. qwert illustrated these bonuses nicely on Peloponnesian War, by representing it like this:
<symbol> = +1
<symbol><symbol> = +2
<symbol><symbol><symbol> = +3

5. It needs to be clearer how you attack the Sea Dragon and House of Gods - you've got text next to the Sea Dragon which makes it sound unconquerable, and the text about the ports doesn't naturally associate with the additional text about Sea Dragon/Hellnor

Don't get me wrong - I think this is a beautiful map. My concern has always been that the instructions are (necessarily) complicated - and it bothers me that there isn't a great deal of coherence about how/why instructions are where they are. To a certain degree I think that this is par-for-the-course with complicated maps; but it would be nice to see if there is any way that things could be simplified without sacrificing the stunning style that you have achieved.

For the most part, I think you are only a few tweaks away from the endgame now

[Kabanellas]

Thanks a lot Benn for the critics. I'm away at this moment spending my weekend in the countryside (but keeping in touch with my laptop). I'll answer (and try to resolve) all your questions when I get back home.

Porken, I'll try to find it and send it to you, the Silmarillion map.

[Kabanellas]

Alright, checking your critics now:

1.I’m with a problem here. I just can’t find the background work without the mountains attached to it (drawn on it). And I would hate to lose all that work.
I’m not giving up though, I’ll try to figure out something…..

2.I’ll move Khnum gate closer to the mountain. Again, I can’t make them merge with the mountains because they are out of scale, they are intended to be seen as a representation of the gates which in reality would be a lot smaller

3.The legend has been changed. You can now read:

‘-can one way assault the surrounding region’ (see first post – version 14)

You enter in the mines by the ‘Gateway entries’ – a gate with 2 arrows, as see in the legend. In the others you’ll just be able to get out from the mines. Note the difference between ‘Gateway Entry’ and ‘Gateway’

4.We don’t have tr any more – see version 14

5. Well, that was the best way I could find to fit all that info. But like in many other maps people will make some bad judgments in the first time playing it till they get the hand of it.

I’m quite sure that this will be a very fun map to play, and in the end not that complicated

[Kabanellas]

Sorry for the delay, I've been overwhelmed with stuff to do!!

I've done some work on the mountains. What do you guys think?:

Version 15

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

It looks real nice, but IMO the lines still need some anti-aliasing.

[MrBenn]

If you could get the background colour of the mountains to match the neighbouring parchment background, then it would look a lot more natural and drawn-on. I'm not convinced that changing the background colour of the mountains has worked - in order to keep the style consistent, you should only be looking to add black lines/shading

[The Neon Peon]

I agree with Mr. Benn. I can't think of the mountains as anything else than some other image that was pasted over this one.

[Kabanellas]

Guys, I'm running out of ideas here.... this is my last stream I'm afraid

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with some shades

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[natty dread]

Well, the black lines certainly look much better now. Only thing left now is, you could reduce the colour saturation on the texture of the mountain a small bit. Other than that it's perfect.