Ok I gave Greenland another quick pass lol. It could probably be cleaned up more, but this is a draft blocking.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fwyake8wqyunco/TripleA_4k_working.png?dl=0
The basic idea here is to build into a standard gamemap a certain degree of HR flexibility, beyond what we typically get, but for HR stuff that is more map oriented. You know making it somewhat easier for the player to adapt the map along different lines. Like for different start dates, or to add convoys, split a TT, make a spot impassible, or things of that sort. To make that sort of thing a bit more convenient to execute, without needing sharpies, or dry erase markers and laminate, or a background in design lol.
The extra visual information is sort of just that, extra. Or at least for the normal A&A playscale. So it’s not like trying to make a new game that takes a month finish here, but rather to just give the player some options to build on, especially for the computer play. Whether they choose to utilize them, or how exactly, I don’t quite know, or at least not yet, which is why I posted it in this section.
I just liked the way it carried as a visual design, because having some smaller regional tiles displayed in a subdued way seemed to reinforce what’s going on with the larger tiles, and I thought it looked cool hehe. But the germ of the idea was that it would be cool to have a mapboard that could do double duty in some fashion. I’ve been building thus far with tripleA in mind, because the concept is somewhat more versatile there and fills a certain niche, but I thought it might have promise for a physical game as well. Clearly it’s a WIP, but I wanted to share in case anyone has some ideas.
Here’s a more ‘Revised’ looking one, with the super dark oceans… lol
I like to switch the SZ colors like that between the two extremes while working, to hunt down rogue floating pixels that got left behind while I tooling around with the pencil. For the subdivisions the thought would be to reduce the opacity there, so that they’re still visible, but more backgrounded. It’s just easier for me to work with Black and White in the draft, and also because that’s how tripleA parses the bitmap before loading the reliefs, which is why the look is more basic here.
I cropped the Antarctic, and slightly widened the Atlantic and Pacific oceans so the aspect ratio would be closer to 2:1. I think that should give better room for the G40 division which could be slightly reshaped now, so that would be my next step. Like up in the North Atlantic around Greenland, since I won’t be able stop thinking about that forever now lol.
The arctic ice sheet is just sorta an expedient for my quick paint bucket, but an idea for tripleA would be to draw it such a way that certain sz tiles get painted over in ice every other round say. Like so you can only get to Murmansk when the weather permits or stuff of that sort. Again, rough blocking, I think it could certainly be cleaned up hehe, but that was sort of the idea behind extending those sz tiles at the top of the board.
Of course we still get that dead space in the southwest Atlantic and southeast Pacific, but I guess that’s where you’d stick a compass rose or key or whatever right hehe.
For reliefs, I’d like to try one that is more topographical and one more political/balance of power painted colors, that could be changed on the fly.
Or in the physical analog to have the Front side of the board show one type of relief and the Reverse side of the board show another. So one could have a display that’s more modern terrain style, and another that’s more classic mappy. Just seemed like that would be trick. For the digital game you do more than 2 options there, with map relief skins loaded up to service different styles or gameplay ideas.
In tripleA if you turn off all the map reliefs/details, you get something more barebones in the look, sorta like this. But I’d like to still look at least halfway decent that way, for the ultra stripped down skeleton hehe.
So far I’ve been just kinda winging it with the sea zone subdivisions, but an idea I thought might be cool was to divide each SZ tile in half, or at most 4 quadrants maybe. Say Alpha Beta Gamma Delta, just cause that sounds cool and reminds me of Star Trek lol, like for a tripleA game that’s all super zoomed in that way. But perhaps it could be used to explore a different kind of naval game on the actual board too? Like if you could use the same larger G40 tile, but maybe put a chip or roundel to indicate the exact Quadrant for different stuff. Maybe a convoy system more like the older Europe and Pacific games added back into it somehow, or some new thing with subs, or some kind of staged carrier battle. I don’t really know honestly, still kinda hazy there, but it seemed like it might be worth exploring. So that’s sorta where I’m at with it.
Here it is with some more of the micromachines at various scales…
The idea is to have the national painted units that Frostion created which are larger at 54px than the standard units at 48px - But then also a colorized tint version of the same.
Basically so the player can choose their own colors for Units the same way they can for the map ownership colors, by just selecting a HEX color code in the map.properties. This would be cool I think for people who have different aesthetics preferences or also for the colorblind, where you could assign the color values based what’s easier to see, or just more pleasing to the eye. Which tends to very person to person.
I’ll post again in a week or two when it’s further along.
Catch ya next round!
ps. here it is with some more corrections and enlarged G40 sea zones. I changed the geometry where I thought I could away with it, to prioritize the coastal sz tiles over the transit sz tiles. Hopefully should work a bit better for housing the ships.
