Map Tags for release 2.6

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.

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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).

TheDog

@cernel
We will have to agree to disagree on the use of Fantasy for TripleA tags, as you know my stance.

I will admit that the Steampunk genre, can muddy even my waters/definition, it can have magic, pseudo scientific bull and spaceships, so maps like Steampunk and Steampunk Advanced, currently have the WW1 tag. You would put them, with a Fantasy tag?

Also, I think we are only having one era tag per map.

Anil Yuksel

I think the term "fantasy" definitely should refer to fantastic elements. If you imagine some realistic things and implememt them in your games, it would still be "Fiction" not "Fantasy". All fantasies are basically fiction but not all fictions are fantasy.

No WW1/WW2 game can be called fantasy as long as they do not introduce fantastic elements no matter how many unrealistic elements they have. Because not accepting this definition means just considering all WW2 games ever created fantasy which would be unthinkable.

My suggestion would be simply looking alliances to separate WW1/WW2 games from fictions (alternate).

WaW= WW2
NWO Lebowski= Alternate (fiction)
Steampunk= Fantasy

Cernel

@anil-yuksel Under the commonly understood definition of fiction, virtually every TripleA map (comprising maps like Total World War) is fictional. I don't think it exists a single map in TripleA which is strictly based on history.

The difference between a fictional and a non-fictional work is like the difference between a novel and a history book. Beside maybe "Civil War" (about which I don't know), no map in TripleA, which I'm aware of, can be reasonably used to teach history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction

Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying people, events, or places in imaginary ways that are not strictly based on history or fact.

"Fantasy" is substantially a stronger case of "fiction", in which the setting is largely or completely fictional. "The Three Musketeers" is fiction, "King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table" is fantasy.

I just disagree (like you do too, since you have classified Steampunk as "fantasy") that warriors need to be vielding swords and bows and that the ambience has to resemble the middle ages for something to be considered fantasy. As I said:

If you have wizards, that is a fantastic map no matter if the regular infantrymen are wielding spears, muskets, assault-rifles or laser-guns.

Remaking an example, I consider "Dune" to be fantasy about as much as "The Lord of the Rings".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)

Still, a good question to answer is whether anyone (and especially @TheDog) consider "War of the Relics" to be fantasy or not. That is a very good example of a completely fictional medieval-like world which doesn't necessarily have any unrealistic elements.

TheDog

@cernel said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

Still, a good question to answer is whether anyone (and especially @TheDog) consider "War of the Relics" to be fantasy or not.

Well I have to confess, I had it as a Fantasy era. (At least we both agree on this one.)

LaFayette

@TheDog anything that is ready to go, please send my way.

My understanding of the current situation is that we are looking at 3 tags and are hashing out some of the finer details.

If you log into the 2.6 prerelease lobby with user "test" (password: test), you 'll be able to check out the moderator toolbox and the new maps tab.

After tags are added, they'll be quickly available in prerelease (and then eventually production when 2.6 is lanched). If you pass me any tags that we are 100% on now, I can add those and we can do some early experimentation with at least a couple tags.

I will need to check, but I do not think it would be too difficult to do a bulk copy of map tag data from prerelease to production. Meaning, if we tag up the maps in prerelease, we can potentially do that now and copy it to production in advance of the 2.6 release.

Of note, I'm certainly interested in improving usability, but I do not have capacity to do anything high effort in this regard. Excel like 'filter-by-value' is high effort for the moment : ( On the plus side, sorting by any column should already be available (and once there are tags added to database, additional columns will start to show up).

TheDog

@LaFayette Yes 3 tag headings.

At All Last call for defining the Map Tags.

The only tag change is 30-Renaissance is now 30-Early Modern.

The Era Tag is prefixed with numbers to put the list in chronological order to aid with finding the desired era. the 60s are sub divided into 4 WW2 tags to aid in the type of map/theatre to search for.

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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

Star Tag
Blank/no star...it is a new upload or not tagged yet
*...............................current Experimental tag
**.............................current Good tag
***..........................current Excellent tag

AI Tag
Blank.........................it is a new upload or not tagged yet
Satisfactory...........the AI is exactly that
Hard only................only the Hard AI should be used
Unsatisfactory......the AI copes badly with the maps requirements

Anil Yuksel

@cernel As far as I know these definitions have different meanings in educational and entertainment industries.

I used to study screenwriting (which is basically for entertainment). If there is nothing supernatural, it cannot be classified as fantasy. For example "Inglourious Basterds" cannot be called fantasy when Hitler got shot in a movie theater in France.

Of course no WWII game can be even remotely used to tech history because its not their purpose. Some things would always remain unrealistic even if a map maker does everything to make it even remotely realistic.

Even if we assume somehow is able to implement all realistic elements in a map (attrition, logistics, fuel, food, insurgencies, diplomacy, manpower, simultaneous rounds, fog of war etc...), it would still be unrealistic because realistically nobody can have full informations and control of everything.

That's why I think it doesn't make sense to consider World At War fantasy because at best, a map maker could do is just a bit more realistic but in the end it would be still fantasy and wrongfully share the same category with Lord of the Rings. Putting all maps fantasy category basically means having no category.

RogerCooper

@anil-yuksel I make a distinction between a scenario with a realistic intent and that which is about a hypothetical situation. World at War has many distortions of geography and even alliances, but the distortions are for play balance and interest or our oversimplifications of complex events. On the other hand, Pact of Steel specifically postulates a successful Italian Mediterranean campaign.

The AAG40 game specifically ignores the complexity of Vichy France. That is a simplification of the actual events, as opposed to a hypothetical .

RogerCooper

@thedog said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

Also, I think we are only having one era tag per map.
Where do multi-era mods like Age of Tribes go?

TheDog

@rogercooper
A good question, currently its in Ancient-Medieval, where it starts.
It could be where it ends or maybe classified as Fantasy.

Im not fussed, where would you put it?

RogerCooper

@thedog said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

@rogercooper
A good question, currently its in Ancient-Medieval, where it starts.
It could be where it ends or maybe classified as Fantasy.

Im not fussed, where would you put it?

I am fine with an "Other" category and save WW2-Alternate for WW2 based hypotheticals.

TheDog

@Cernel @rogercooper
You both have me thinking maybe we should have another Tag called 90-Other
It could contain as Roger said Non-WW2-Alternates, so could be;

Age of Tribes
Steampunk
Steampunk Advanced
War of the Relics
Zombieland
Zombies-World War 2 (Maybe WW2-Alternate?)

I was trying to shoehorn all maps into the current Tags, but maybe not.
Thoughts?