Alexander's Conquests

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Enokrad
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Alexander's Conquests

Post by Enokrad » Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:49 am

Alexander's Conquests

Starting Scenario (Black Is Empty)
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Alexander's Conquests Mini

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Last edited by Enokrad on Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:49 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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n00less cluebie
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Post by n00less cluebie » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:32 am

lookin good Eno

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dustin
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Post by dustin » Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:12 pm

Looks cool. Some small suggestions:
- Alter the color of the text "Alexander's Conquest" so it sticks out a little more.
- Make the smallest countries bigger if at all possible. Even if it's not 100% historically accurate, it will make for better gameplay.

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Odelay
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Post by Odelay » Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:42 pm

Looks nice! :smt023

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:03 am

thnx odes/n00l/Dustin

You're right about the coloring of the title, that will be changed in the next version.
the countries seem to play well on a 17" screen (the picture is smaller than the actual which is 1200x700)

another change (or correction) will be to take off (or reduce) the beveled part on boarders. (put it on by accident without realizing it due to transparent background).

I was trying to have a ROME II feel to it but i can't seem to get the foreground to the point i want it. any suggestions?

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Post by crimsonhosking » Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:32 am

can I ask how you, and others make such neat and tidy border lines?
I tried making all my country borders exactly the same, and well it ain't working so well.
This map is lookin pretty good so far Enok!
Keep it up.

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:32 am

The trick is to build the entire map & boarders on a photo editor (photoshop etc)
after that export that image to an image mapper, with the magic wand tool select all the areas that will be your countries and you "create an image map from selection" (adobe Imageready is the only software i know capable of doing this, and believe me i looked)
then you just save the file in xhtml and go in it with notepad and extract the vector image coordinates one by one and place them in your luxb file.

if you need more help with anything you can always pm me

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crimsonhosking
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Post by crimsonhosking » Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:38 am

Enokrad wrote:The trick is to build the entire map & boarders on a photo editor (photoshop etc)
after that export that image to an image mapper, with the magic wand tool select all the areas that will be your countries and you "create an image map from selection" (adobe Imageready is the only software i know capable of doing this, and believe me i looked)
then you just save the file in xhtml and go in it with notepad and extract the vector image coordinates one by one and place them in your luxb file.

if you need more help with anything you can always pm me
Ahh, no way!
I did my stuff up in PS and then traced the countries out over that image as best I could... LOL this could have save a lot of hassle! I shall give it a try and let you know how it works, otherwise PM's be a comin.
Thank you so much!

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Post by mbauer » Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:37 am

Great map Eno! I just got done testing it. I think Rome II players might really enjoy this one as well.

Some comments/suggestions:

The impassable areas (ie. Crete, Athens, Western Greece, and Istanbul) get a little lost because the color almost looks like a player color. I found myself trying to attack them on several instances. And in the case of the Istanbul area, when I realized that wasn't an open country I thought it was a dead end, I didn't realize it connected to "Free Uzéc." I'd suggest making those areas stand out a little more as impassable. Maybe try making their texture more contrasty or give them an entirely different look than the standard foreground of the rest of the countries. I think you also need a connection line from Eléc to Free Uzéc.

I found the map to be easier to win starting from the left side. I think this is because there are smaller, more powerful, more numerous continents to gain a foothold, as well as more choke points. The right side really only has 1 viable starting position, Persepolis. But because it is so isolated and has so much ground to conquer before it can gain any extra income it makes it weaker. Some possible solutions to this would be to, increase the value of the right side continents, and/or add more "cities" in Persia that can provide extra income.

Since you posted this thread I decided to respond in here instead of the standard mapLAB reply.
:)

MB

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:49 pm

Thanks MB

well, i updated the theme
added country names and starting scenario

enjoy!

Any feedback is always welcome :D

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Post by mbauer » Tue Nov 04, 2008 10:34 am

Awesome! I especially like the starting scenario. Nice work.

Looks like all you need now is a nice juicy description. Or at least one that doesn't say "beta map of..."


:P

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:41 am

yeah, should have one pretty soon.
Only other change before final version would be, on the starting scenario, increasing Athens initial armies from 2 to 4 or 5.
I've noticed that bots some times go for it going through Athens and invade Egypt or Macedonia on round 1. most times they fail but there have been a few occasions that they succeeded.
I want to balance it so on round 1 nobody can invade another persons army regardless how lucky the dice are.

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Post by C-Rex » Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:45 pm

I realized today how much effort you map makers put into your work. I have already pm'ed Enokrad but I would like to say thanks here in the forums for a great map!

(And I wish I had the time and the skill to make cool maps too...maybe when I retire... :) )

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Post by Enokrad » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:29 pm

Thanks again C-Rex :)

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Post by n00less cluebie » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:22 am

Notes:

Babtlon meant to be "Babylon"?

Judaia also spelled "Judea"

and at this period wouldn't Jerusalem have still been the city of more note rather than Gaza in Judea?

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Post by nimrod7 » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:52 am

As my daddy always says, those legalists will get you every time.

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:55 am

n00less cluebie wrote:Notes:

Babtlon meant to be "Babylon"?

Judaia also spelled "Judea"

and at this period wouldn't Jerusalem have still been the city of more note rather than Gaza in Judea?
Babylon was a typo (will be fixed in the next version)

Judaia was taken off an old map of Alexanders conquests that had the spelling i used for most countries. (i will also rename it to reflect current day spelling)

According to http://ancientegypt.wikia.com/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
Proceeding down the Mediterranean coast, he took Tyre and Gaza after famous sieges. Alexander passed through Judea near Jerusalem but probably did not visit the city.
also wikipedia has a page for the Siege of Gaza

With the fall of the Persian empire as well as the cities of Gaza and Tyre, Jerusalem submitted to Alexander without a fight.

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Post by n00less cluebie » Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:15 pm

well, true, but Gaza was a smaller city than Jerusalem, but hey if you're going for Conquest, I guess that makes sense :-)

Also, I wonder if you had considered adding the Eastern fringe of Alexander's conquests in Western India.

Overall, it's a nice map, though it seems to play a bit marathonny, much like my Octagons, and MesoAmerica did; though whether that's the fault of the MOTW crew is open for debate.

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Post by Enokrad » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:21 pm

n00less cluebie wrote:Also, I wonder if you had considered adding the Eastern fringe of Alexander's conquests in Western India.
i had but it required me to shrink the map more, which ended up making area such as Greece to small to gameplay. The east side is already shrinked (as opposed to the west which was left in its original aspect ratio) as far as i could go without making the map look too distorted.
n00less cluebie wrote:Overall, it's a nice map, though it seems to play a bit marathonny, much like my Octagons, and MesoAmerica did; though whether that's the fault of the MOTW crew is open for debate.
you call that marathony?
it took Alexander the Great 13 years to conquer :wink:

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Post by nimrod7 » Sat Dec 06, 2008 8:31 am

n00less cluebie wrote:Overall, it's a nice map, though it seems to play a bit marathonny, much like my Octagons, and MesoAmerica did; though whether that's the fault of the MOTW crew is open for debate.
Depends on the settings. Crawford hosted 5,10,15 card progression and 20% cont. increase and the games moved right along.

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Post by Enokrad » Fri Apr 10, 2009 7:51 am

Just came out with the mini version

Image

Having the chance to redo the map with new boarders, i found the reason the larger version kept crashing during the motw run.

Using 100 % polygon detail for the countries would eventually create way more vector coordinates than needed and would bloat the map.luxb file.

The original alexander's .luxb file surpassed in size even that of Dark Ages :shock:
142 KB might not seem much these days, but apparently are capable of bring online lux gameplay to its knees.
This new map was done at 99% quality and resulted in a filesize of just 18 KB

that is 8 times smaller. 8 times less vectors for lux to calculate.

all that because of a single 1% in quality difference (i blame ImageReady).

still, at 99% quality means that any map created with sharp or rounded angles still requires you to go to the Lux map editor and shift A LOT of pointers to their right position. at 100% no manual editing was required at all :(

It adds another hour of doing it by hand by avoids creating a bloated luxb file and in the end less crashes online :D

/me apologizes for all the crashed games people had to suffer because of his negligence :oops:

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Post by blackj3sus » Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:54 pm

enokard wrote:
bla bla bla...
when can i play it!

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Post by Odelay » Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:11 pm

its already out BJ, it was MOTW in December of last year.

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Post by blackj3sus » Fri Apr 10, 2009 10:43 pm

i mean the mini

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:23 am

It's out V 1.0 in beta waiting approval

for ways to access beta visit here

http://sillysoft.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10559

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:44 pm

Version 2 Change Log
-------------------------

Re-Drew the whole map from scratch.
Old version was done using Image Ready which added 10 times more
vector points than needed and was causing crashes during its MOTW run.
New file size is 5 times smaller.

Changed Bonus name Greek City States - > Hellenic City States

Changed Bonus of Hellenic City States from 2 - > 3
Changed Bonus of Egypt from 2 - > 3
Changed Bonus of Armenia from 2 - > 3
Changed Bonus of Persia from 6 - > 7
Changed Bonus of Parthia from 1 - > 2
Changed Bonus of Mesopotamia from 4 - > 5

Made some small changes to the starting scenario
Changed some minor aesthetic things on the theme.

Changed spelling of Judaia to the more commonly used Judea
Corrected typo for the Babylon territory

Image

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Post by nimrod7 » Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:56 pm

Any special reason for the bonus changes?

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Enokrad
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Post by Enokrad » Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:59 pm

some people had complained that it was marathony.
after doing a few test with bots it felt that those small increases made the map more balanced.
I'm going to set up a dedicated host for this and if people don't like the increases i might revert some of those bonuses back to their original

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Post by Behemoth » Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:15 pm

Marathony! :smt017 Bah! I thought the opposite. Games were over in the blink of an eye. Maybe it marathoned as the weekend drew near, but i don't think the map's at fault there.

Changes look good - clearer/neater than before. Tidy work :!:

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Post by Enokrad » Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:35 pm

Behe the one you are talking about the regular version or the mini?
The mini is like that.

The regular version was MOTW prior to you joining Lux.
And even though it got a lot of plays during its motw run, asides all the crashes, it also led to a lot of marathons. I witnessed quite a few of them.

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