After a long time on vacation, I've returned and now have finished with drawing my map. Let me know what you think! Rate 1-10: 10 being the best
http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=34821

The colored areas don't mean anything yet, they could be the large bonuses, or certain countries for Diplomacy Games. Should I continue on this map?

Edited 7/22/2014 20:01:31

Due to the overall larger territory size, the northern continent looks about 50% too large compared to the rest of the map.

I recommend you to redraw the map while there is not yet that much work lost. It's much easier to draw maps with good borders while the appearance improves dramatically. What I would do is select every territory, group them (by pressing ctrl+g), press ctrl+d, ungroup what you have now selected (ctrl+shift+g), set the opacity at 50%, press ctrl++, ctrl+) a few times until all gaps between territories are filled, then ctrl+( the same number of times, and then http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread?ThreadID=10806 starting at step Dos. Afterwards set the opacity to 100% again and delete the original territories (just move one of the ones you duplicated away and click the one under it, that selects them all because they were grouped).

There is nothing to rate. From what i can see this is a fantasy map and fantasy maps have to offer something to draw you in. It needs history, background, flair, attraction, identity. History maps are always easier because all those things already exist. I think it's too early to judge yet.

I didn't mean for this to sound discouraging, just to offer my insight on what a fantasy map needs to look like. :D

Cheers and keep on designing :D

@Moros-
Why redraw it, is the appearance bad? I can reduce the size of the northern continent territories as well, would that be good enough? Maybe add more islands to connect the continents.

@Incaman-
I can create a story for the map, and I'm trying to achieve a fun, strategic map. I'm not as good as you guys but I do enjoy designing. IF not this could be a diplomacy map, there's enough territories to do it, I got a good amount of stories to make the diplomacy game better.


Question: is there a faster way to id objects as territory_# than just doing one after one. It takes ages for me.

Thanks!!

Also I started working on a map of Florida. Right now I'm just drawing the different counties but later I will divide the counties into cities, at least the major cities.
http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=34840
not done since its all going to be handmade

Edited 7/23/2014 19:21:21

I'm sorry, I think I have not made myself clear enough and possibly sounded rude. Allow me to clarify myself.

There's in general two types of mapmakerss on Warlight, those who pay attention to clean borders in a systematic way (there's multiple methods), and those who don't. The latter kind either does not know of a better way besides doing it by hand (as in moving individual nodes manually, which takes lots and lots of time and does not produce the best results), or chooses to ignore aesthetics altogether.

Here's two close-ups of two different maps, made by mapmakers from two different categories:


I saw from your map(s) that you belong to the latter category (on the left in this picture), but you don't drop aesthetics altogether, as I can see that the nodes were placed next to each other by hand. That's exactly started out making my maps, until I found a better way to make better borders. They may not affect game-play in any way but are still much better on the eye.
In my reply I hurriedly started providing you with a tutorial on how to make the borders better, because in this beginning stage of the map (i.e. before adding territory names, connections, centerpoints and bonuslinks) it will be easier to adjust while not too much work is lost. I hope you understand me now.

PS: You're right, this is what I was getting at. This would make the territory size more uniform:


PPS: There is certainly a useful tool for adding territory ID's (in fact there's two!), here's a link to a page with that along with some other mapmaking programs: http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Automating_the_map_creation_process

Edited 7/23/2014 19:48:39

nah you didn't sound rude, thanks for everything, those links are very helpful, mostly the automated id maker link!!! Thanks!
Will update you once done, and when its done, can you help me test it?

Of course! :-)

Awesome!

update, now in the longest steps:(
http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=34886
is there any way to name all territories quickly, connect all territories immediately, make all bonus appear, or have someone or something else do all of it lol?

Edited 7/24/2014 19:58:05

Nice!
I want to play that map! invite me if you need testers ;)

Naming: no
Bonuses: no
Connections: somewhat, there's a tool for that on the link I gave you, but it's not perfect and does not connect islands that don't physically touch.

Ok thanks Moros and thank you Willem, I will invite you once its done.

Update
Just need to name the territories, and place center points on two missing territories that I cant find.
http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=34886

There's still a few things wrong with the map:

Typos: "Majectic Ocean", "Northen Ocean"

Useless superbonuses: Deserts, Island, SunBays, LandsOfTheDeep.

Your bonuslinks don't have the same size: to fix make one the right size (by entering how many pixels large you want in the top-left corner while selected, 16 by 16 is a good number), and duplicate it, while changing the ID's of the duplicates afterwards.

The bonuslinks in the center are not aligned. You can do that by adding a grid to the map and placing them on the intersections.


The superbonuslinks ought to be next to their allocated territories like the normal ones, right now it's very confusing what belongs to where. You could give them a different shape or size to distinguish from the regular bonuslinks though.

Edited 7/26/2014 17:10:01

How do you use the automatic ID on your maps? It doesn't explain on the page and I'm not sure how...

download the extension: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/89026778/WLExtension.zip
Once done, go to downloads and find WLExtension file(zipped folder)
Open and then open WLExtension file in it, then open Readme.
The instructions will be there, if you need help let me know or Moros.

Also thank you Moros, I will do that now

My computer says it's "malicious" and blocks it?

ignore the alert, download it, no virus for me.