💥 1941 Global Command Decision - Official Thread
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@black_elk
In the next release;
Dont test Germany/Italy too much as the next release will Round 1 +1, ie late 41 start of game, so enemy almost at the gates.I have just changed over 200 TT from forest to no terrain type, this will speed movement of Blitz-ers and make it easier to take said TTs. (My TT template should have been none not forest
)"The Russians just attacked us in Jehol!"
Dont get too excited, I changed the logic on alliances and forgot to change the NAP, so it will be back to NAP. Im just following history for now. Still thinking about your chat suggestions and other options.Black Sea Industry is on the TODO something/nothing list.
I dont think the xml can limit how many unit can move say 3, however we could limit Infantry stacks to say 10 ?
Bombers only one role is strategic Bombing only the Brits and US, can build these and they really need 10 Bombers (1000), so that's a lot of pu investment and commitment over time, only players can do this properly, luckily the AI will not.
Maintenance/Upkeep is one of my things, so is here to stay, sadly in TripleA the only way to retire a unit is to throw it at the enemy to get it killed. Maintenance/Upkeep is realistic(-ish), it stops turtling and building up of super stacks then launching them at the enemy.
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Sounds good! Looking forward to checking out the next starter!
I think those TT terrain changes will have a big impact on the effectiveness of Armor, so it'll be fun to see how that livens things up.
Right on, maintenance it is hehe.
I will reframe then, and say that perhaps the total income for some nations may need a boost in order for them to remain effective through the midgame. Fortunately the solution is relatively simple, since we can always increase the production values of certain tiles if need be (we're not tied to anything specific for that, since it's an original map with an original production spread). Or we could also provide other ways to generate a reliable maintenance boost, whether attached either to factory upgrades as you have, or maybe via the the oil rigs (conceived as stockpiles/strategic reserve maybe?) or also things like generic income bonuses for controlling VCs. Basically simple stuff that can be easy to read at a glance. I think what one would want, is a situation where maintenance is a key factor in the gameplay dynamic, but also where, when the player hits their cap/max hitpoints, that they have some way to address this directly and in the now. Because it may not always be possible/sensible for the player to just throw away units to clear up more space. In that instance, an investment to expand their maintenance limit (effectively raising the cap, but in smaller increments so it's manageable) might be advisable.
To me this might recommend a resource other than the basic PU, so that the ceiling on it can be lifted over time without just giving the player a way to print endless money, which would make taking TTs for income redundant hehe. In Frostion's game, at various points, both Fuel and Steel were used in this way, as maintenance resources, although in that case the effect was restricted to Tanks, Ships and Aircraft. I think what you want here is probably the inverse, where the Infantry fodder unit is the one with the maintenance cap, since those are the units that players will spam in the race to achieve max hitpoints. For now using the PU basic income seems fine for setting the bar, but if the bar proves too low, that's how I would lift it. To me this makes thematic sense, and would increase the relative value of infantry in practical terms by making them harder to just spawn endlessly on the cheap.
For the cap at 10 inf per tile, that might work, but, I worry it may have unintended consequences. Since the infantry unit is the backbone of the gameplay, I fear it may result in strange situations where the map design itself might heavily favor some tiles over others, just based on the number of TT connections. Basically gang ups like 2 tiles vs 1 tile, where the defender cannot achieve the necessary numbers to hold the line vs an attack spread across 2 tiles. Or similarly if the attacker is capped, then you have a situation where there defender may have an insurmountable edge, just owing to the basic defender advantage. My instincts tell me to probably leave it be for now, till we have a better sense of how many hitpoints the endgame battles actually require for each nation, before messing with the fodder unit too much. The DD at 5 PUs has this fodder role on the water, since it's the cheapest hitpoint available there. I believe you have that one capped currently right? Or maybe it's all the ships. I didn't really encounter the issue in the last game with Axis, but I recall a few times in the previous games, where I was having some headaches switching out destroyers for transports, like when the sz would cap out with ships. The other instance where I noticed it was aircraft landings, which could be kind of laborious on non com. I think it's something like 10 aircraft per type, so basically a max of 20 hitpoints from aircraft into a given fight right? I found that this made the order or sequence of non combat moves a lot more important, to ensure that air with the fewest movements remaining could still land effectively (without planes that still have gas in the tank taking up all the runway.) In practical terms this was a lot of move/undo move situations during the non com phase for me.
I'm not a huge fan of the Naval stack limits thus far either, I have to say heheh. I just feel that they make the naval purchasing game too difficult to execute. I don't dislike the general principle that players should be encourage to separate their armadas instead of just stacking one giant fleet to the ceiling, but I feel like this limit is going to make it almost impossible to properly defend the main coastal factory tiles when the numbers start really climbing. Or alternatively, I fear we'll just have players maxing their coastal sz tiles to whatever the cap is, and then slowly lurching along, like one sz tile away from the main production hubs, just to build safely to their max. I'm not saying it couldn't be managed, I'm just not sure how fun it'll be to manage hehe. Cause then it really becomes about building to like half capacity, moving out to make room for more new stuff on the regular, doing that over and over. I don't know, it could be that I'm just having difficulty parsing where the cap is going to be a factor, but it's hard, cause nobody wants to move out at half strength right? lol I'm not sure exactly what to recommend. If anything, I think we'd want to encourage more ship building generally, but the naval cap sorta works against this I feel, so I don't know. Like it's just tough, like you'll want to drop a fleet carrier, only to discover that you're already capped out of the sea zone at the max haha.
Not exactly related, but sorta, is the placement cap for the Large Factories, where the relatively low production (4 hitpoints from the largest factories) makes the order of placement very important sometimes. Particularly with coastal factories, where multiple factory TTs may border a single Sea Zone. Like when you want to place your ships in the right sea zone, and choosing which factory comes first to get the most out the placement there. I noticed that in this map it isn't possible to land existing fighters on a newly built carrier deck, so especially with those, being able to place fighters on deck during the purchase phase can put more demands on that 4 slot coastal factory.
It may be worth allowing the small factory to build a destroyer, so those coastal factories can play a support role for the forward naval game. I would restrict it just the most basic entry level ship, so it's not too crazy, but often I feel the player needs a way to drop a hitpoint in the water to make those island TTs worthwhile. I think right now the Medium factory has this role, but I'm not sure there enough of them, or enough medium factory capable spots, so I might just shift that down to the small, or perhaps put a few medium capable spots at intermediate locations where we know the fleets will be operating. That might be easier actually. Basically a few more 5 spots scattered around the board, for the hurry up purchase. Otherwise it can be very hard to match the opponents air sweeps as the ships move out further from home. I like the dynamic that has only the biggest of factories able to produce stuff like Battleships and Carriers and such, but I'm thinking more for the base fodder ship, which to me is the DD since it's the cheapest hitpoint on the water.
Another thing which might be worth considering is the restriction on non combat movement during the combat phase. This comes into play with transports, where if the player moves the unit during the combat phase, it cannot move during the Non Com phase, even if there would be 1 move left. The player is still able to load into a transport that had been moved during combat, but not to continue the movement if it has 1 remaining. I made a lot of mistakes doing that. TripleA has never been particularly great at putting a hard division between combat and non combat movement. I think allowing non com movements during combat is probably expedient, since it allows the player to make their moves more quickly. Sure there's a downside that you might goof something, making a non com move during the combat phase that you end up regretting and unable to undo once the phase progresses, but I think it's probably worth the trade off. The alternative of hawking on the player and sternly forcing them to abide by the strict phase separation, may be tough for players who are used to TripleA allowing for a fuzzier understanding. The issue really is down to the transports loading/unloading thing, since the player could easily load/move then realize what they wanted to do was really a non com move lol. I find myself undoing a lot of moves, and having to be very careful about knowing which transports/ships not to move during the combat phase, which can wrack the brain a bit, if you're used to it working the way it does on all the World War II maps heheh.
Oh and one last thought, about the Philippines. The factory on Manila definitely made me want to take that spot, but I'm not sure I'd keep pressing to take the rest of the Philippines after that. Like if there was another at Mindanao I'd probably continue the campaign, but 2 PUs doesn't quite seem enough to make the target attractive. The danger of leaving it alone is that this leaves open the possibility of enemy fighter landings on the tiny islands, but I'm not sure the threat is enough to warrant Japan going all gangbusters, when they have so many other immediate priorities that also need to be dealt with. SInce you mentioned reworking the Germans/Italians on the Eastern front, I'll probably just run a bunch of J1s to see what I can come up with on the Pacific focus.
Something tell me that more island groups in the Pacific, or at least the islands that currently have starting bunkers on them, would probably need to be worth 3 PUs or more (eg small factory capable) to give the players enough motivation to actually contest them. Otherwise I just can't see a real reason why Japan would ever attack a spot like Wake or Midway or Corregidor, or where USA attacks a spot like Iwo Jima or Saipan or Okinawa at just 1 or 2 Pus etc. Simply having them as a place for aircraft to land, or for transported units to park it (in the event of a total fleet wipe) just isn't a strong enough motivation to clear those bunkers. For a very quick rule of thumb, I'd say any island territory on the board that isn't worth 3 is effectively out of play. Unless it's along a natural transit route where the player wants to go already, there's no strong reason to go out of the way to take over such spots. Even if they might otherwise add up over time for income, there's just always going to me a more important priority Tile or a contested production center that's overriding that detour for the 1 PU spot that's relatively well defended. So just something to consider. I think if you want to see fighting somewhere, like consistently every game, the easiest way to ensure that happens, is by making the TT at a value of 3 PUs, just given the current state of the board, and how production works here.
Otherwise, all in all, I was definitely enjoying the new one! Fun stuff!
Ace work!Catch ya on the next run
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Whatever, I was going to say something there, but I'll just leave it alone. I don't want to get dispirited by a rogue downvote.
Instead here is a USA2...
2023-1-19-1941-Global-Command-Decision USA2.tsvg
So there's an example of me just going for the jugular and trying to break the set up hehe. I focused only on the USA this time just to see how it panned out.
My first principles out of A&A Classic say basically "go one direction with the USA" and don't split the difference. Meaning that it's almost always better for the USA player to pick a theater focus and send everything, to either break Japan or Germany. Often in the A&A games one direction was deemed more powerful, so you'd get a lot of KGF kill Germany first or KJF kill Japan first general strategies. Here I went with KJF.
In KJF usually the goal is just to kill the Japanese fleet and have USA go major on income/production, and you don't actually have to kill Japan to still pretty much kill Japan's game hehe. But ideally you'd want the kill, so the plan is to funnel as many units across the Pacific as quickly as possible to get the job done along whatever route is most disruptive to Japan's play.
Under the current map/production spread this seemed to recommend a 3 round set up. So 3 rounds for the US Atlantic fleet to move through Panama to San Diego. The shortest route across the Pacific would be Sea Zones 110 A/B to Sea Zone 008 Aleutian islands. And from there to Sea Zone 004 Kamchatka, where the USA can threaten Hokkaido, split the Japanese defense, and pull their attention away from whatever else they'd rather be doing. Like to defend Tokyo and the home islands from invasion. Under the current set up, Russia probably wouldn't be able to help all that much, since they'll have to deal with more pressure coming from the European Axis (who will be more forward if USA ignores them). They might spring for a bunker or two to help cover the landing pad, but mostly it'd be up to USA alone, since they're the only power with enough juice to realistically threaten Japan on their home turf.
The alternative route has USA pushing across the central Pacific from Hawaii. This route is slower, but has more targets and the potential for an Anzac assist. But going this way also telegraphs a bit more than the jump up to Aleutians. My thought would be to use the starting fleet to sort of feign south, but then when the Atlantic fleet arrives to spring north with it. Or perhaps just waiting for Japan to move out whichever direction before comitting to one route or the other.
You can see the rail funnel is basically Michigan to Texas, Texas to California. The units on the Eastern Seaboard and the Atlantic ships could also probably be used for a 1 time assist in Europe, and that might be equally effective just to kind of not show your hand too hard, but in this case I just wanted to go all out, and take the "one direction" thing to it's extreme.
I don't know that there's anything one can do really about the "All one way" dynamic for USA purchasing, but if you want the create at least the semblance of a two Theater war, I think the way to do that is to have the USA Atlantic fleet in a more forward position, with a couple transports. If the unit set up is such that the Atlantic fleet is more useful in the Atlantic (like with a couple transports that can drop into Greenland or Iceland or head towards Africa), then the player is likely to just use their fleet where it's already positioned.
I think a nice set up would have USA with 3 starting transports in the Atlantic (enough to cover the ground units that you have along on the eastern sea board). Because then the player could drop south, feint like they are heading towards Brazil or Africa, or threatening to cross panama just to keep Japan honest, but not having to commit to either until USA 2. Alternatively they might just launch North with those units. Either way if their is some kind of production target that the USA Atlantic fleet could snag either in Europe or Africa, I think it makes the player more inclined to at least use those units to stall the Axis in Europe while concentrating the bulk of their energy vs Japan via purchasing. Or basically vice a verse, if considered from the Pacific side, with those starting units.
I don't know if there's much you can do persuade the player to abandon the focus on one theater, at least in terms of their purchasing, but I think it's still possible to set up a starting unit distribution such that some of those forces will naturally commit to the theater where they begin. Atlantic to Atlantic, Pacific to Pacific. Basically making it more attractive to just press forward than to double around like I did in that game. But as you can see, it's quite potent if the USA is just throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Japan probably. The only hope for Axis under KJF type conditions is that Germany/Italy are able to somehow break Moscow or London before the USA can break Tokyo. So we'll have to see what cracks off haha
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@black_elk for your curiosity why some people get downvotes well some posts are obvious fake troll questions that deserve downvotes but how you spam suggestions while arguing both sides as to why not do what you suggested is such nerd spam to keep in check (not falling for it)
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@captain-crunch Alright, fair enough man.
I was certainly curious about that behavior with the downvotes. Clearly I don't agree with your characterization of what constitutes spam or "fake troll questions" on these boards. If anything I feel like you're the one trolling me here, by just silently knocking my posts without offering any thoughts or further elaboration. I try to be constructive here, and not get too bogged down or dragged off topic. I didn't have any reason to think we were on the outs, but whatever. This doesn't seem relevant to the topic, so I'll just let it go, and if I see a -1, I'll just assume you disagreed, or were having a bad day or something lol
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*the more you know
@black_elk have you made any mods?
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Not sure if you're being serious, but yes. I've been contributing to this project regularly since like 2004 lol.
I did work on the following tripleA games, mostly on the graphics end, but also on the gameplay design side for some of the tripleA custom scenarios.
World War II Revised with Sean
Pact of Steel with Beagle, Madmat and Necro
Big World with Wandering Head
Europe and Pacific 2001 and v3 with Zero Pilot
The Great War and Domination with Surtur
Global 1940 and Pact of Steel 2 with Veq and Bung
Iron War with FrostionSome other stuff as well, more on the casual player feedback side, but those are the ones I had the most direct involvement with. I contribute what I can usually in the form of maps or unit artwork, sometimes with xml grind, but I'm not as good at that part. Invariably it becomes a collaboration where motivated people step up and chip in.
I'm a big A&A enthusiast and this is one of my favorite hobbies. So yes, I am a nerd. Thanks -
@black_elk nerds > geeks!
Ok, so you do help with other mods people made and do graphics so you arent yanking our chains thanks
eased my suspicions -.-
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@Black_Elk
Dont change your style of posts, I enjoy their balanced/both sides, points of view, it helps me as a non A&A come to an informed decision.
(or a cheeky translation is keep on rambling
)I noticed that in this map it isn't possible to land existing fighters on a newly built carrier deck
I thought I had fixed this by having LHTR set, have you tried it in your current release, because I have to admit I did not test it, I ran out of time?.
Unit caps
In not a fan of the unit caps, its the first time I have used, them, it was really to aid the AI in its over production, but it is getting in the way of the player experience.
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Next release will have these caps removed
Destroyers, Subs, Transports, all individually set at 10 and a sea stack of 20 of all types of ships
Fighters, Bomber-Lgt, Bomber, all individually set at 10 and a air stack of 20 of all types of air.Your 3pu insight & Iwo Jima, Saipan & Okinawa
A thought provoking read..
Base
Thoughts on a new unit called Base (forward base/supply depot)
It can "produce" a limited set of units, similar to the Industry-Med, produce 1 unit / turn, can be destroyed, one hit unit. Unit icon looks like a mound of supplies.
Could be limited in number, maybe 3 or unlimited.
Its just the look of Industry-Lgt/chimney stacks sprouting up all over the place does not look right, where there is not the population/infrastructure to support it.
(Sometimes even Im bothered by what graphics look like and that bothers me )
Thoughts on yet another Production unit?.
Painting
Likening what we are doing for the game to a painting a picture, I'm still on the broad brush strokes getting the look and feel sorted, so if I don't fix the finer details its because I'm still looking at the bigger pictures broad brush strokes. -
Right on! Will do haha
I definitely struggle with brevity when typing. It's an issue I have, to just be all chain thinkin my way into something entirely too long winded. Doubtless I need an editor! lol I think I'm also low key dyslexic which can be a challenge, and for sure a confirmed rambler, so I sometimes fret over whether I'm really onto something, or just going off. I'm pretty comfortable thinking about the A&A gameplay and general playpatterns though, like sometimes I can just see it, even if I struggle to explain. Like with the production spread of the map design I mean, that in particular. Like I've just spent way too much time thinking about this stuff, for way too long, and random stuff will jump out at me like a bang.
Sometimes it's tricky to unspool for me though, and I dart around and digress a lot probably. I also always try to keep in mind what it's like to be a new player trying to figure stuff out, cause A&A was a tough game to learn. Often I'll find myself musing on ways to simplify some stuff while still keeping the same charm or same underlying systems, but just kinda riffing on it in a way that makes stuff more accessible. I mean accessible to players who are already into this sort of thing at the baseline, since I know it's niche, but like for Classic players like me, cause that was my era. Or the tail end of that era anyway hehe. My enthusiasm seems to come in waves for tripleA stuff, like twice a year usually. So I try to ride the lightning while I can. I think it's a seasonal holiday thing for me, or some kind of nostalgia that always hits in the lead up to midwinter. Go figure hahah. Anyway that's a ramble and a half, back to the topic at hand!
Yeah, I'm fully on board with the base/supply depot, I think that is the ideal way to do it. I understand the apprehension to introduce another production unit (especially where TT space for housing units is already at a premium) but that unit in particular is one I've been kicking around for a while. I think it has a lot of promise.
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/26089/g40-redesign-currently-taking-suggestions/2?page=1
The first page in that thread has some general ideas, but I think a limited type of "factory" which can spawn a smaller number of units (or units of a specific type, like say Inf) would be good as a forward production buy. Esp. for spots that may need something to jumpstart the action in a region.
Another similar concept was to produce infantry from the VC directly. So not as a unit per se, but just a feature of those territories. In A&A there are fewer of these, but because they're characterized as victory "Cities" this made sense to me. Like the player is just drawing on the key population centers to swell the ranks. This avoids the requirement of another unit on the gameboard, where space can also be at a premium.
I'm like you, I lean really hard into just having a nice aesthetic sweep. So my thought would be to reserve the factory as like an actual factory, where the tanks and such are built, but to treat the infantry fodder differently. Having those spawn either from bases or VCs or a combination of the two.
Sounds good to me, with the caps removed! I think we could probably do a more limited cap at some point, for units that are particularly potent. Like say fleet carriers, or handling some units the way you did with the elites. For the fleet carriers, if they were treated sort of like flag ships, only 1 to a tile, that might be another way to get the player to split fleets up, without making it like a hard limit. Provided the ship is badass enough and players can build a force around it, they'd be more likely to fan out perhaps. Not sure, but there's enough other cool stuff going on here that I really like, so if that one thing is causing it to drag a bit on non com, I'd like to try it without caps just to see how it goes. We can always bring it back, or tweak the concept if things get too hectic otherwise haha. I dig your direction for the broad strokes. Better to block in the major values and such, before hoping into the details too hard. Hopefully if we nail the foundation the rest will just sorta click into place as it grows.
Speaking of which, I was going to dive back in on the Relief if you're cool with how the baseline was looking in that last draft. There were a few SZ lines where I noticed what seemed like a rogue pixel or two, so I was going to clean it up and bang out a new relief from the base with all the correct Texas stuff and such.
Oh damn an LHTR toggle! I didn't even look hehehe. I had just been using the default settings unless you mentioned it like for the sub spawn prompts. I'll click that one next for sure.
Right then, off for the night! I gotta grab some shut eye
You guys take it easy, and I'll hit ya on the next one -
@black_elk
Most gamers/wargamers have varying degrees of aspergers so we all have that in common. Im also a little dyslexic, poor spelling & grammar, lucky for me spell & grammar checkers are everywhere..
Please do a Base/Supply depot icon..
reliefTiles
TT white borders, I noticed when using Tools> Find Territory that I have to turn off the reliefTiles to see the flashing white border I have just found, so what to do?The borders in grey? Can we test it, send me a grey border that you like for my current baseTile and I will see if the find TT flashing white can be seen.
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base & relief Tiles
Yes redo both the the base & reliefs, split the desert into 2 TTs. If its tinkering at the border edges I dont need to know, but TT splitting I do and the new names..
SZ flags
The SZ flags are currently 58px high, we could swap them for 32px high? Which would look better? In places the current ones look too small and in others too big. -
Sounds good, I'll try to come up with something with a look that says "army base" hehe
My first thought was that Frostion's AB might work, but then I was also thinking something with a more compact visual might be good, especially if they end up on islands since those ABs are kinda beefy. I like the design though with the little tents and such. Something along those lines perhaps. I'll sit with it for a night.
Oh interesting, yeah I hadn't thought of it, but there's no way to invert the color of that highlight line, so probably a lighter grey, so the white highlight will show against it. But like not so midrange that we lose the overall light border motif. Fingers crossed, but if that doesn't look good we could always go back to black borders I suppose. Here let me hack something together right quick...
OK this one shows the borders with an amlost 20% grey (hex D6D6D6), so keeping with that lighter borders vibe, but off-white rather than white.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vndy8p710hm1yu6/Domination 1941 relief 25 opacity gray borders.png?dl=0
The borders don't pop quite as hard, but I can still see where they are, so I think that might be enough value to still show the flash of the highlight at 1 px white line. But we'd have to try it on for size to know for sure. In GIMP when I tried it the line still popped for me against that color, but probably would have to double check to see how it holds up when zoomed out a bit, like say 50% to make sure it still reads. It's also possible to play up the lines by changing the blue hue of the sea zones, since perception of color/value is relative, so that might be another option. Not sure if you like the look, or if there's a better way to do it, but just to test it out. It has the newer lines and no beacons yet, but should still display the same in Europe if you want to see what it feels like real quick to see if the highlight thing works. Or it might be an opacity thing, where I need to open the center line to let the base show through maybe? Not entirely sure, but we can play around with it.
Righ on, Flags at 32 px for the next one then. I'll bang that out tomorrow and put em together for the next package
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Your supposed to be in bed
I refuse to comment on the map. (shakes head), but thanks.
I have the Flags already, so done.
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Base-Camp in game for the next release and even better bought by the AI to defend a VC in Borneo on Turn 2 and in production on Turn 3.
Currently its called Base-Camp, so what to call it?
Currently it is 0/1/0 has some AA defence and produce 1 infantry / turn, costs 9pu.
It does not generate, nor does it consume PU (no maintenance/upkeep, no rail links, so no move 3)
Its a base, camp, army training acts as a supply depot, but does not actually supply anything in game. -
I have caught the flashing, you can see it on the image below on the factory, the white "n" shaped arc.
It did not work as hoped. Does it matter? How many players search for a TT ?
I only found out because I wanted to find 200+ forest TT, otherwise I would not of found out, and then I had a work around.
For reference its linked to this file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vndy8p710hm1yu6/Domination 1941 relief 25 opacity gray borders.png?dl=0 -
Right on!
Base-Camp works for me as a name. I also like Army Base, Troop Base, Garrison, or Barracks, but Base-Camp seems fine. I think they're all sufficiently generic and would probably convey the basic meaning/gist of what the unit is meant to do hehe.
Yeah, it's a trip there with the flashing highlight thing. I think tripleA just wasn't really designed with white borders in mind, since it seems to be built around the assumption of black line borders. It also wasn't really designed to support reliefs either, or at least not initially, since that was added along the way hehe, so it might just be that I haven't fully understood the opacity requirements for the border lines and need to iron out the kinks.
It would be better if that flashing highlight was like bright neon green or something, so it'd still show through against either black or white, but not sure if it can be changed. I guess the question is also whether it's just a color thing, or a transparency/opacity thing.
From a usability standpoint, not sure how much it matters. There are a few other instances where that flashing line is helpful though. In the Edit Mode for one, the highlight will indicate which tile is being selected, and I think it's used as well for the "unmoved units" cycler. Might have some other uses as well.
I think I prefer white lines over black lines for a basic visual, but probably black lines over gray if it's a choice between those two. I'm still not sure if it's maybe a relief layer opacity thing.
If that's the case, either color border with the opacity dialed down may yet work, but this would also have the base 1px line borders showing through. Likely displaying as a gray for the interior line. So sort of a 2 tone effect if doing that. Basically skinny black/gray line inside a thicker white/white-ish line at like 50% opacity or whatever. Might look decent, but I'll have to try it to see. Worst case we can just go black borders, since we know that can work, and it's fairly standard on most maps. But I think I might have to tweak it so the black isn't truly black, but more of a transparent black, to show the baseline borders through the thicker relief borders.
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Might a dark silver work like;
Silver Filigree #7f7c81
Sonic Silver #757575
to replace the white line, like I know what I'm talking -
Here is a black border relief which should work, since I carved out the 1 px base and allowed that to line show through the relief at 100% opacity.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/swym3w2j27mr95x/Domination 1941 black line relief 1px open.png?dl=0
The same could be done with a light gray, or a silver although the visual effect there is to make the borders appear somewhat more muted overall. Basically the skinny black line, set against a light or off-white backdrop, will just make the whole border line appear to be a midrange gray when zoomed out. Our eyes doing the blending there.
If it's a choice between black borders that still pop and which have that highlighting functionality vs grayish borders that sort of recede into the midrange, I think I'd go black. Like we'd want to prioritize readability and functionality probably, over the novelty of a white/light border. The prob with doing the same thing with the thicker white borders, is that the 1 px black line from the base will show a harder edge, whereas when set against the thicker black that edge appears softer, cause it just sorta blends into the blur. Like you probably wouldn't even notice the 1 px line, unit it was being highlighted to turn flashing white when the TT is selected. I'd say we just go Black Line for now, until I figure out if there's an optimal way to do a white border motif without losing that highlighting functionality.
Anyhow, give that one a shot and let me know if it worked. I can clean it up and add the canal stuff in once we know if it'll do the trick. I'll keep experimenting with the white/gray/silver combos to see if I can get something clean by playing with opacity of the 1px opening too, cause there might be a way to pull that off.
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Yes that works with find, but visually I have been spoilt with the white border, it looks so much better.
Keep researching the darkish grey/silver/middle ground colour to see if the middle ground works or is just the worst?
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Yeah I'll keep chipping away at it, cause I'm rather partial to the white lines as well, now that I'm all used to them haha.
I can think of a couple options. I'm looking at other maps right now to see how the problem has been approached elsewhere.
I noticed in TWW by Rolff and Hepps that the relief will block the highlight flash in the SZ tiles, so it is only displaying there for the land TTs (where the border lines are yellow/black.)
In Redrum's WAW the highlight effect works, but the borders there are all brown-ish gray and the overall aesthetic of that one is kinda muted for the color scheme.
In the Shogan Advanced I wasn't able to confirm, but I think in that one the highlight doesn't display. I've been using Edit Mode to check the TT selection thing, but that map has the Edit Mode blanked out as an option. I tried the TT finder, but didn't catch a flash.
Frostion's Iron War works as normal, but that's cause it uses the black line.
In Domination NML the highlight effect does not work, as the border lines there are white. I know the original had black lines for everything, cause that's what I drew initially, but I think Imbaked changed it to white lines at some point, or maybe it was Redrum.
Oil and Snow uses the 2 tone thing, black 1 px line set against a lighter gray. That works reasonably well, but again the visual effect is to make all the borders appear rather more subdued compared to the white borders which really pop. In general I think if going Gray or 2 tone for borders, this recommends an ocean Blue with a darker color value so the quick read remains reasonably clean.
There are definitely a few maps floating around which don't use the highlight feature at all, so I'm not sure if it will be missed? I'd hate to bend over backwards and compromise the overall visual for a feature that people don't even notice, but again, it's a bit of a bind. Like ideally you'd want a situation where the highlight was some color other than white for the flash. Or if that's like 1 line in the code to set the color value, it could be just about any bright or neon color with a lot of vibrancy, especially since the highlight appears only briefly. A white highlight flash is problematic, because white may be used elsewhere too, like for text or decorations. But more relevant, the 1px black line of the base is kinda unavoidable. Like you can either cover it entirely, let it show through entirely, or let it show through but tweaking the opacity of the layer that it's riding into. Those are the 3 options I think.
If I open the relief to let it show through then you got that black in the middle. If I change the opacity so that the black appears gray against the white line, then the highlight would also be dampened by the same transparency I think. So it wouldn't really do what it was supposed to. If the lines were 50% gray (black at 50% opacity inside white) you could probably disguise the 1px line but then you're stuck with very midrange gray borders with not much pop. And of course everything will change, if changing the Sea Zone color, since that's so much of what you're seeing at a glance. I think changing the hue on the blue may be necessary if going with light gray relief lines, but you'll instantly notice the change in the overall palette. Like other colors might need to get a tweak to make it look good. But I think I'd try just going up like 5% or 10% in value for the blue. Just a little darker, to see if that works without upending the entire slant of the overall color palette.
Here, real quick, give this one a shot and see how it feels...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/47lqoi54k9bmkn4/Domination 1941 gray line relief 1 px open.png?dl=0
If that one works (like where you can still see the highlight flash) then perhaps a way to do it is simply to expand the relief line by a couple pixels in width, so that when it's zoomed out those 2 tone lines won't appear quite so midrange. Basically using a 7px Gray border line (instead of a 5px border like you're seeing in the relief posted above), so the relief borders would be a bit beefier, but also brighter. Like appearing more white-ish, relative to the 1px black line, when zoomed out. That might do the trick, provided the flash still shows against that color gray.
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