Map Tags for release 2.6

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.

.
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?

Cernel

@thedog said in Map Tags for release 2.6:

@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?

Well, obviously, since I see no reason why something should stop being "fantasy" just because the common soldiers dump spears and take up rifles (while wizards and whatever actually fantasy are still there), at least Steampunk and Zombieland are clearly fantasy to me, even though you could classify Zombieland as alternate history on the concept that there is nothing supernatural about the zombies because they are the result of a virus or some sort of speculative yet realistic occurrence (but many medieval fantasy settings do about the same, postulating some forces like "mana" or whatever to give a pseudo-scientific basis even to the most extreme fantasies, much like futuristic science-fiction does).

I really see absolutely no reason of existence for this requirement that the ambiance has to look like an ancient/medieval world for the game to be "fantasy". The concept (by which I understand you go) that "if it doesn't look ancient/medieval, it ain't fantasy" is completely meaningless to me. The fact that "fantasy" settings are typically medieval-like worlds is just a trend, nothing more.

I'm not a fan of the "other" solution. It looks to me like solving classification problems by not solving them.

LaFayette

(1) We need proper names for the tags. "Era", "Star Rating" and "AI Rating" seem like the obious choices.

(2) Are we sure we want the '00' uncategorized maps? And if so, are sure we want it to also sort first? Tags are not strictly required, by default new maps will have empty tags, and the lack of a tag means 'uncategorized' on that dimension.

(3) Early modern & nuclear seems off as an era. My impression of modern is relative to the technology of the battlefield. 'Modern' to me means conflicts like Vietnam and the first or second US-Iraq wars. Those conflicts contained 'modern' tanks (sloped armor, counter-measures like smoke, re-active armor, etc), modern long range rifles, modern helicopters with laser guided munitions, satellites, etc.. The 'early' modern is therefore when there were early tanks, early or no helicopters, unguided munitions. Often the very end of WWII is considered early modern, the jet fighters of that war were flown in the later conflicts, tanks were starting to become much more capable and started to incorporate more modern features.

I would call this era 'pre-industrial' & 'industrial'. 'pre-industrial' is before replaceable parts, when guns were smooth-bore, and all bullets and guns were essentially made at home by artisans. 'Industrial' is when this process began to be industrialized, factories, steam power, ironclads, replaceable parts, mass manufacturing of artillery (cannon) guns and bullets.

So, I would rename 'early modern' to be 'pre-industrial', add an 'industrial' age, and rename 'nuclear' to be 'modern'. Our 'early modern' is already broken up across the different WW2 and WW1 maps, so there is no need for an 'early modern'

(4) RE: fantasy - fantasy is not an era, it is more a genre. You can have fantasy taking place in a medieval period, or earlier, or later. Basically throw 'spell casters' into any era and it becomes fantasy.

Fantasy = something that could never exist, exists (magic, grpyhons, unicorns, super-heroes), the existence of the impossible thing is beyond science
Sci Fi = something that could maybe exist, exists (starships, teleportation), a science backed explanation is plausible
Alt History = something different happened

Those three genres can be combined. 'Abe Lincoln vs Zombies' is fantasy alt-history. "Dies the Fire" is sci-fi alt-history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_the_Fire), and "Guns of the South" is alt-history, arguably sci-fi alt-history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_the_South)

So all in all, I would classify era regarding the weopon types and materials. Pre-historic means primitive weopons, flints, sharpened stones & sticks, hand axes. Bronze & Iron ages are later where you get primitive armor and swords. etc..

LaFayette

More concretely, I would have the following 'era'values and would focus on having 'era' only answer "when" does the map take place.

Era:

Pre-Historic (Before 5000 BCE AKA, stone age)
Bronze & Iron Age (5000 BCE - 1000 CE)
Early Medieval & Medieval (1000 CE - 1700 CE)
Pre-Industrial (1700 CE - 1850 CE)
Industrial (1850- 1920)
WW1
WW2
Early Modern (1946 - 1980)
Modern (1980-2100)
Future & Sci-Fi (2100+)

Perhaps we should consider a 'theatre' tag. For exampel "WW2-Europe" is both an era and a theatre. If we had a theatre tag, some possible values
would be:

Pacific
Europe
Global