Map Tags for release 2.6

ubernaut

@thedog never realized it was quite that many ww2 maps i guess that revolutionary makes sense it just kind of threw me off i guess with only 4 maps it doesn't really make sense to split it off between enlightenment and victorian but yeah hopefully it doesn't confuse people trying to find maps

ubernaut

@thedog wait sorry one question so we don't actually have any us revolution maps? i would think someone would have done that by now

TheDog

@ubernaut
Those 2 maps are American civil wars.

The English civil war is in the Renaissance era 1451-1764, I dont have any English civil war maps listed.

ubernaut

@thedog ok now im getting even more confused, what english civil war? if you are referring to the war of us independence from england that definitely belongs in the revolutionary group, not the renaissance.

us civil war is definitely a "revolutionary" war but nobody refers to it as such here in the states. at any rate, if we are putting civil war maps in the revolutionary category and the "revolutionary war" in renaissance we are definitely going to be confusing us players.

TheDog

@ubernaut
Hopefully this is clearer.

Renaissance era English Civil War 1642– 1651

Revolutionary era American War of Independence 1775– 1783
Revolutionary era American Civil War 1861-1865

ubernaut

@thedog yeah that makes sense now i guess i had never heard of the english civil war i think they thought it as cromwell's rebellion or some such here in the states

Cernel

@ubernaut said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

us civil war is definitely a "revolutionary" war but nobody refers to it as such here in the states. at any rate, if we are putting civil war maps in the revolutionary category and the "revolutionary war" in renaissance we are definitely going to be confusing us players.

I think the United States American Civil War is not a revolutionary war. I would call it a (failed) secession war (which is a type of civil war) if we assume that there was no right to secede, so the north was not invading a foreign country but putting down a secessionary attempt within its own country.

I'm not seeing any better term than "Revolutionary" for the period,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Revolution
but, as I said, I'm actually bothered by the term "Reinassance". To take the example, the English Civil War was certainly not in the Reinassance, which was certainly over by 1600, and the Reinassance is usually meant to comprise part of the middle ages, at least if they end in 1492.
As I said, I would change the term to "Early Modern".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period

The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Although the chronological limits of this period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late post-classical or Middle Ages (c. 1400–1500) through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions (c. 1800).

Cernel

@cernel The only decent alternative to "Revolutionary" I can think of would be "Early Industrial" (starting in about 1760 and ending somewhen in the XIX century).

Cernel

@cernel If having a period called "Early Industrial", I think it can be set from 1776 (the commercial introduction of the Watt steam engine) to 1884 (the invention of smokeless powder by Paul Vieille).

ubernaut

@cernel i was actually looking at this a little earlier some possibilities could be:

great age of monarchy, 1648–1789

age of englightment, covers the 1700s more or less

victorian era, covers early to late 1800s

Cernel

@ubernaut said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

@cernel i was actually looking at this a little earlier some possibilities could be:

great age of monarchy, 1648–1789

I've never eard of this age and, from a military standpoint, I don't think that 1789 is a very good dividing point because I don't think any major military revolution happened there: the way of fighting in 1739 was about the same as in 1839. I would rather have an age going from about 1600 or 1650 (when the musketman became the main infantryman) to about mid 1850 (when repeating fire-arms start spreading and the steam engine starts effecting warfare considerably, with steam-ships and trains).

age of englightment, covers the 1700s more or less

victorian era, covers early to late 1800s

I think these ages need to be lumped together because there are too few TripleA maps about any of them. Also, the Victorian is an era in the history of the United Kingdom, not really something widely international like an age.

RogerCooper

Most historians would term 1492-1789 as the Early Modern period. 1789 is not a big break in weaponry, but the Revolutionary & Napoleonic wars involved a major change in the scale of warfare and reasons for conflict.

Note that any tag system is going to be arbitrary. On my wiki, I just assign by starting year. Category:Timeline

TheDog

So the only change is that Renaissance becomes Early Modern?

Era Tag
00-.....................................it is a new upload or not tagged yet
10-Fantasy
20-Ancient-Medieval
30-Early Modern
40-Revolutionary
50-WW1
60-WW2-Alternate
62-WW2-Europe
64-WW2-Global
66-WW2-Pacific
70-Nuclear
80-Future

Cernel

@thedog "Alternate" should probably be a different tag which may apply to any period, instead of only to WW2. It is going to be difficult to apply it, as arguably every TripleA game is alternate history. I really have no idea about what you intend to label as such (How about World At War, a game in which Japan has just started invading China proper (1937) at the same time it attacks pearl harbour (1941) and while Germany hasn't yet invaded Poland (1939) and New Guinea is richer than Canada? Is that alternate history enough?).

I'm doudtful about the convenience of having Global/Europe/Pacific. You can have a Global game or a game displaying any theatre of war. Would "Red Sun Over China" be Pacific as it has very little going on on the sea? If you really want to have them, maybe they should be called "Europe-Atlantic" and "Asia-Pacific". Moreover, since it is geography, that is rather another kind of tag as, for example, you can have WW1 games with only or mostly Europe or global WW1 games.

Cernel

@thedog If there are enough games to justify it, I would divide future between near and far future, meaning games in which you have a technology similar to our own, just some time in the future, and "star wars" kind of games.

However, a game set in the future may be seen as a kind of "fantasy" game. For example, is something like "Warhammer 40,000" fantasy or future?

Probably all historical tags should be always followed by their supposed timeline in brackets, as integral part of the name itself, to make the matter clearer.

TheDog

@cernel
There about 140 downloadable maps, about 70 are WW2.

The eras are loose labels to help the player find the maps they want to play, so a few maps can be put into an era that perhaps could go into another era.

As I am putting the tags on the maps, I get to make the executive decisions. I will get things wrong, but at least the maps will have tags.

Here are my current thoughts, so to specifics.

World At War is WW2-Global, its closer to Global than Alternate
Red Sun Over China is WW2-Pacific, it could be WW2-Alternate, but its closer to Pacific than Alternate and its just one map.
WW2-Europe, can include the Atlantic, can include the North Africa, can include some of the Middle of East, its just a loose label to group maps.
Near future is covered with the Nuclear tag, it goes up to about 2040+ this can and probably will get extended, the public will not see the 2040.
40K is Future
For WW1 there are not enough maps to further divide into say Europe and Global

Note, this table is not up to date, I need to add more maps to be my spreadsheet.

.

RogerCooper

@thedog How about an "Abstract" or "Other" tag for games which have no setting at all, like Mini-map & Capture the Flag.

TheDog

@rogercooper
Currently they are both in the WW2-Alternate, but with only 12 maps in it, I dont think we need to split it.

But we could re-label it to WW2-Other? Im not fussed.

Here is the WW2-Alternate current list of maps.

Capture the Flag
G40_Alt_Universe
Great Lakes War
Hex Globe10
MiniMap
Neuschwabenland
Sleeping Giant
Small Balanced 4 Player
Tactics Campaign
The Grand War
Tutorial

Cernel

@thedog I have two qualms about the fantasy determination.

The first qualm is that I don't agree with the "no spaceships" concept: if a map is fantasy, that should depend from the presence of fantastic elements, not from what the non-fantastic ones are. If you have wizards, that is a fantastic map no matter if the regular infantrymen are wielding spears, muskets, assault-rifles or laser-guns. For example, I would say that a steam-punk map of WW1 is a fantasy game if it really goes out of realism.

The second qualm is that I don't understand why something "fantasy" must have magic elements at all. Fantasy means that it comes out from your own immagination: can't you immagine something that is completely realistic? After all, even a dragon can be realistic (like the biggest dinosaurs were) if it only does things which may be scientifically possible (like spitting acid or gliding, if it has enough wingspan to justify it).

So I think that "fantasy" should capture any fantastic game regardless of what real timeline it resembles (It doesn't have to look Medieval.) and regardless whether or not there are unphysical elements (magic). For example, a game set in the far future (space-ships and such) would be "Future" if it is meant to represent our future ("Star Trek") and would be "Fantasy" if it is not clearly related to us and just appearing showing a civilization more advanced than our own (Cannot think of any.) or is supposed to represent our future but is clearly fantastic ("Dune" and "Warhammer 40,000" if we assume that is our future, not the future of the fantastic medievalish "Warhammer" world).

An example of a game which is possibly non-unphysical (as there is not necessarily any magical elements in it), while being completely fantasy, is "War of the Relics"

Cernel

@thedog said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

@rogercooper
Currently they are both in the WW2-Alternate, but with only 12 maps in it, I dont think we need to split it.

But we could re-label it to WW2-Other? Im not fussed.

Here is the WW2-Alternate current list of maps.

Capture the Flag
G40_Alt_Universe
Great Lakes War
Hex Globe10
MiniMap
Neuschwabenland
Sleeping Giant
Small Balanced 4 Player
Tactics Campaign
The Grand War
Tutorial

I think the "Fantasy" tag may apply as an other kind of tag. This way, most or all of these games would be tagged as both "Fantasy" and "WW2", whereas a fantasy game set in a medieval-like world would be tagged as both "Fantasy" and "Ancient/Medieval".

Games with no correlation to real historic periods would be just "Fantasy".

The next question would be whether or not we want to differentiate between fanta-scientific fantasy (a made-up world which may rest on physic laws) and clearly unscientific fantasy (like fairy tales).