Working on a New Map 40/41: Seeking Suggestions

Sounds rad! Just tried to work up some sea zones and clean up a few tiles. I think it’s coming along now.

Here it is with some quickie naval units for the vibe…

The hope is to get something looking good with Frostion’s units since they’re a bit larger

Ships there are around 72 px.

With some extra fighter aircraft I threw together showing tech tech advances for LR and such. Just to get a sense for how it would fill out there with a bunch of units at once.

Ideally the units could be upscaled a bit, but my goal is to avoid a bunch of clipping and to have stuff fit nice and comfy.

Here’s the larger map with some more of the Atlantic added in, and the tiles in Central and Eastern Europe cleaned up a bit…

Here’s the big bitmap showing the same at 100%, before I hit the hay lol

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6wdj4i1rcka8y99/TripleA_4k_baseline_G40_subdivisions_sz.png?dl=0

Anyhow, that’s where we’re at right now. Will crack into it some more tomorrow. Catch ya in a few!

Best Elk

With a G40 style blocking

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1j7omf0s69t1r3k/TripleA_4k_G40.png?dl=0

@the-captain Thanks!

I’ll get back in the kitchen on it tomorrow to make sure the connections are all correct haha. I think my eyes were starting to blur over towards the end there, as I nearly entered the matrix and all the sea zones started looking like skynet circuits heheh

Great ideas!

I got Barney making the list for stuff to fix up for the next pass. All the tricks and treats lol. Keep em coming!

Catch ya next round!

ps. Tried to work the lines, but I might have missed a few. Will take another pass over the weekend.

Still needs some clean up in a few spots. Was thinking for the sea zones to have those subdivision bisecting islands when possible to make them more interesting. So for say for the costal sz off Morocco maybe get broken into 2 or 3 tiles so it can hit across Canaries or Azores. Have Bermuda riding a line and Malta, stuff like that. Basically the smaller tiles in either ocean can fit about 18-24 units at 54px, so that could be the scale I think. Playing the regular global game those units could probably upscale a bit more.

Just did laid down lines where I thought they might be interest. In general the idea was to create some interesting around the islands and to give more places for ships to go, line if including sz cash in the form of convoys for transit lanes and such. The smallest sz tiles here can fit about 18-24 units with the digital sculpts at 54 px, so just to give a sense. I got about half way around the board, before trying to decide whether to split Celebs on the vertical or the horizontal, so I thought I’d pause and take stock heheh

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tugjcvsb5y106rl/TripleA_4k_Domination_1941_painted_more_sz.png?dl=0

Here it is with white borders…

Here it is with oceans in darker blue, with the white border lines. In case people prefer a more revised style presentation for the ocean/sz color

The perception of any given color will change quite a bit, just based on the value/vibrancy of colors surrounding it, which going from light blue oceans to dark blue oceans highlights pretty clearly. I only changed one color in isolation there, between those two images, but of course doing that, our perception of everything changes in relation haha. So one might prefer a few different shades/HEX colors for the various player-nations, depending on whether they like a lighter read or a darker read, overall, for their map aesthetic. But just to give an example

Best Elk

Here’s an idea for how to do Germany…

So the dark strip TT there maybe allows aircraft to pass over, or for ships to be produced into the adjacent sz, but prevents amphibious landings directly into Saxony and such?

Or not heheh
This is probably simpler…

Here it is at 16000px

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc3xgrbtqp55gt6/TripleA_4k_Domination_1941_draft_1px_borders.png?dl=0

Some example German digi-sculpts using the Frostion units.

That detail shows the digital sculpts at at various scales. So like Saxony is displaying units at 100%, Berlin at 110%, Belgium 75% etc. Just to give a sense for the possible playscales.

I like 75%-87.5% for the units/centers with a map at this size and all super divided up lol. 110% or larger would be better for Global.

@imperious-leader

Thanks for the feedback. I think you’re mixing up the digital draft templet with what it’s intended to turn into lol.

The idea was to provide a bunch of lines that could be erased for that.

I mean did you see the G40 one?

The crazy TT SZ subdivisions of the other baseline draft obviously would not work for a physical A&A game, or for anything outside of tripleA really. It’s meant to be broken down with smaller tiles collapsing into larger tiles. Or with those smaller divisions being retained purely as design elements. In tripleA the player/designer may wish to create a scenario that is more like a total war game or intended for a single player vs an AI and stuff like that, but that’s more for digital games where the unit sculpts can be scaled and the map view changed dynamically. For a physical mapboard you’d need to prioritize a more normal playscale with normal sized sculpts and normal TT sizes to house them. But even there, if one wanted to say split a particular TT or SZ in half or change it’s shape, that there would be some lines and contours in place to serve as guides for that. So the map creator could choose what to include and (more importantly) what to omit haha.

Here is a quickie visual to help clarify the gist of what’s going on…

The white lines there show an example of some actual TT divisions, like for an actual game at a G40 scale. The black lines simply provide guides for how those territories could be drawn, or further subdivided, if one wanted to say add another tile in France or on the Eastern Front or wherever, or include another sz or convoy zone somewhere, to recast the shapes and make a given spot larger, or simply for flavor to provide some visual design interest when creating reliefs from them hehe.

You know like where the black lines would be knocked back or made less opaque as a transparency, or removed entirely where extraneous, stuff of that sort.

Part of the reason I approached it in the way that I did, was to give a templet that could service different timelines or start dates as well as different playscales, which might recommend different TTs or differently shaped TTs, so it could be more adaptive in that way.

But the actual look of the thing, when all is said and done, may look less like that, and much more like this… Just cleaned up, and at 16000px, for a G40 scale - rather than AA50 at 3700px, which is what you’re seeing below.
:)

ps. Thanks for the Greenland Godzilla dig too! lol
I’m sure I’ll get around to fixing it eventually hehe

Happy Halloween!!!
;)

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.

Started in on the terrain map. This is a quickie G40 blocking showing like halfway there. I was able to get pretty close just cause of remembering how I drew the baseline when back when lol. At this step it’s mainly about tweaking the terrain/borders shifting the flow of some rivers and mountains, knocking stuff back and painting it out, just so that the lines will all play nicely together given the general distortions of the globe we got going. This would be like the underlayer or relief skin before we clean it up and add in the fancy colored borders and such.

ps. Almost there lol
here is a preview indexed, just gotta bang out those last couple islands and clean house a bit. Shouldn’t be too much longer

OK here’s a quick draft relief in case anyone wants to tool around with it…

RGB

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hv8l6j6cntfncxp/Terrain World.png?dl=0

Indexed

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gvotomlf59xg9ko/terrain world indexed.png?dl=0

Base

https://www.dropbox.com/s/27efkxfqbil6od0/G40_base.png?dl=0

See ya on the next one!
All the best

Elk

ps. I guess much of this thread is more Customization oriented now than HRs. If a mod wants to move it to that section that’d be cool. Or here I’ll just make a quick topic for the G40 stuff there, so my other ideas don’t overshadow that stuff too much lol.

I’ll probably paint the terrain up a little a bit more and just update the dropbox as I go so as not to spam the boards too hard. Basically just needs some colored borders though, and I think it could probably get a dry run lol.
:)

Sounds good. The way I’ve been trying to work it up, the basic map material could be used to just play G40 if one wanted. Which is why I included that in the title. My goal is for this to be the standard Global map in tripleA and to be functional with that ruleset as well.

The enlarged and more subdivided map, is I guess for a scenario as yet to be determined really.

At tripleA there were requests for a new game map on the scale of the Domination game I made way back when, or which could also work with the HardAI, so I was that was sort of the aim there.

I guess it could probably just be called Pact of Steel 3 or Pact of Steel Global or whatever, for a tripleA game, perhaps with some map making type tutorials in the same way that Pact of Steel 2 taught how to create an xml and such lol.

Ideally the same world projection could service Classic or AA50 as well as Global, or any new riffs on those. Just with a different baseline for the borders. That’d be cool

Here was the thread at tripleA where people were kicking around their ideas for a digital version initially. I said I’d take it on, but only if I could do a G40 version too, just so we could revamp that stuff hehe.

I post there a bit more regularly and off the cuff.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3315/proposed-map-domination-1941

This thread I guess has pretty much run it’s course in this section. We can move it with a subject change or something if that makes sense.

Thanks again!
Best

Elk