Mega New Elk WIP
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Right on looks pretty clean.
I'm trying to get it keyed out at 1440/1600p since I think that would be the most common going forward. My screen is 1200p so trying to key at 1080 is tough, but hopefully lines should hold to max zoom out.
For edits I think just adding maybe a dozen sz in certain spots to accommodate the NBs, or maybe to put more separation for fleets where it makes sense. Could just go old-school style convoys in the contested lanes and add a few there. I can't imagine the ground stuff needing to be any more subdivided, but for the naval game probably makes sense if using the standard G40 style rules/units.
For the ocean blue, I think I got a way to control that now just using a grayscale so hopefully I can make that part a little slimmer when I add the next pass and shore up the trenches in a few spots. I think a little bit of cloud probably looks cool for atmosphere and just the faintest suggestion of stuff going on under the water, but probably deeper in a few spots. The more I look at it the more I think it's probably nice to keep some pop to the blue if France isn't on the board to cover that color just sorta put it into the water. Then go back over along the costlines and fill in the lakes should be decent.
Remind me to relabel Pinsk I keep forgetting hehe. Oh and the Alaska to Marianas stretch, I wanted it to follow the rifts there so I'll have to stitch it back in with a bit of the warp going on so it reads cleaner, but just to have something going down there on the high seas hehe.
I'm pretty sure for the UHD style look on the land, what I did was to make a selection from the baseline then shrink it by 3 or 4 px, copy that part of the relief and paste again on top at like 5% opacity or something. It's still coming a bit loud right now, would be nice to have a bit more contrast with the unit tints and a little more glow just along the borders. I think I remember a way to do that right at the end to carry it over the line, but first just going to do the lakes and such probably. Let me know if any tweaks to the set up, or ideas for the sz subdivisions you guys might want. I'll probably work on it again next weekend when I get some time
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ps. Here is the zip on drive, I didn't make any adjustments since earlier, but has all the tiles broken up. Probably will take me a week or so to figure it all out again hehe. Let me know if the load is alright
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9IuBuPa9QvEKPGsCp7vJZLHk1yA_uzf/view?usp=sharing
Here's how it presented for me at 1600p screen. Seemed pretty decent, will just need to adjust the PU place but otherwise I think not too much to do there.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h35VDh3wL_v-11TBsf80jnwpOByznpXi/view?usp=sharing
I think it's maybe 100 mb for the relief if going for the blue at sea, but I think I can trim that down a bit when I switch it grayscale and just run the blue through the basetiles.
To get map blends to work a bit cleaner, I think I will try a gray in the basetiles rather than a white to blend from there. First I need to check it out doing that opacity thing at 5% though. I'll let you know next time I get a burst of energy.
pps. One last thing, here is how I'd like to approach map blends. It's pretty simple to create an optional baseTiles folder at a much reduced size compared to creating a separate relief. This way the player simply has to substituted a blended baseTiles folder the regular one, and we can then control how that appears for only like 8 mb instead of 100 mb hehe. To test how it would go down, you can slip this in and rename it 'baseTiles' then when you use map blends in the View tab the land or sea can pass through different values of grey to create different aesthetics there just by controlling the value in the baseTiles.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bK9RoVCsuR40C_Jm7rZP5YcRuc5lwGxh/view?usp=sharing
Here is how it presents that way at 1600p with blends on. Just as one example, more muted basically, though you can make it into whatever just by choosing the grays you like best. Using those baseTiles, when the player selects no blend it just looks like the reg image at the head of the thread.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17RVpYtFBV1Ze_BXcw7TWlC_PDvAUttnf/view?usp=sharing
Here's a quick example, just choosing grays at random. That one is a bit chalky for the sea zones, but you can kinda see how it works to create different levels of contrast that way. Could go dark sea zone or light sea zone, lighter or darker on land etc.
So sorta like off/on there, just for a way to work them for either preference.
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@beelee cool map!
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@ubernaut Sweet!
Feel free to play around with it if you got any ideas for scenarios. Victory laid down some starting forces and PU values to get the ball rolling. The xml is based on the G40 and sorta Ozteas vibe for the xml entries and such. Like basically without the politics and a total war start. Cool idea might be to have multiple start dates, perhaps with different production frontiers or tech advances, different unit set ups or whatever. I was going to focus on the more decorative elements, just to fine tune the glows and borderline fades. What I did was to insert real light pass with some underwater terrain features, to mix in with the cloud effects. Needs some tuning on the coastlines, and the part where both sides of the map wrap, but I think I remember what I did last time. Basically using the baseline I made a selection for all the land, shrink by like 3 px, copy/paste the relief back onto itself at like 5-10% opacity to create the border pop and the interior of the tiles so it's not quite as saturated in the final.
For the peeps who use View>Map Blends, I just want to find something a bit more midtone so that the land will be slightly darker when using that option than it is currently in the folder. For the ocean I'm not sure what people like but it should be easy to control. Last time I went too dark for the gray I think, with makes it all look a bit muted and washed out. Also like the arctic ice turned gray too, so I probably need to work on that a bit more before it's ready for prime time hehe. I think if I get it figured though the same could work on basically any map, with map blends working like a Light/Dark button one click sorta thing, so players don't have to open the folders or dig around to quickly make an adjustment between 2 map view looks. That was the idea at any rate. For the actual game scenario it's just sorta to have something down to riff on. I think Victory probably has some ideas there. Right now the VCs are just on the capital TTs and no convoys added yet. Room to grow hopefully
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OK I updated the drive with the Blended folder in the package.
Basically the way it works the blends is the value control which can be reduced like 25% or 50% depending on the grays chosen. I just did a simple gradient along the border. Clocks in like 10 mb compared to 100 to do another relief with different values. Basically a quick edit in image processor for the gray values and you can get a different sort of display. I tried to just ballpark it for now, we can tune it up later on or people can do it to spec for their tastes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9IuBuPa9QvEKPGsCp7vJZLHk1yA_uzf/view?usp=sharing
Here's how it displayed for me with Blends On/Off in Map > View
The current default is just the highest vibrancy I think one would go, since it's easier to subtract or mask that than adding it back in. But you can see how you can sorta make the blue into whatever, and then change the colors on land via Hex or just a quick edit to like one or two colors in the base to get variety that way. Basically just cause the file size is so much smaller approaching it that way.
Anyhow let me know if that works for you. I just wanted to get something there for the quick switch
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sent ya an email regarding setup
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EF looking cool
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@Black_Elk, @beelee, @VictoryFirst
Because the xml is early development, I would suggest that territories be broken down into variable lists, maybe by PUs to start. territoryAttachments can be created using foreach. Territory effects, capitals, victory cities can be added with triggers/foreach. I think it would be easier to manage.
Cheers...
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@Black_Elk, @beelee, @VictoryFirst
If using Notepad++, copy all territory definitions under <map>, to a new page. Replace " water="true" with " and territory with element. Now you have a long list of elements that can be used.
Cheers...
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@wc_sumpton
I cannot open the link/xml please repost it.I get
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. -
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Saw this last night, right before I fell asleep! Very cool! That should make it way easier to go under the hood and tinker.
I haven't had the chance to play with the relief anymore since last time, but the thing I tossed in there the other night should be serviceable for now, since it'd be easier to mark out the sea zones first anyway. Or especially if I have to slide anything around like with islands or coastline contours, though hopefully that won't be needed. I anticipate that the main adjustments would be to the sea zones, like ideally just adding in divisions and keeping the same geometry there.
Since the labels for the sea zones are all alpha-numeric should be easy enough to add in a new sea zone here or there by just changing the alpha part of the label and adding in a new poly with the map tools. So Sea Zone 101 A,B,C,D,E,F,G or whatever. That was the rationale behind adding in the letters, just so it wouldn't require us to rework the full sz count. For most of the standard games the land tiles have the jaggedy contours and curves, while the sea zone tiles have a more stark and angular geometry. It would be possible to change the sea zone shapes completely to have them be more rounded and swoopy, but then to me that would look less axis and allies-ish than I was after. I think it works well enough. I'd say maybe adding a dozen zones, and making those convoy lanes would work to balance out the income once the production is established, since I think the values there are in flux.
The reason to add more sea zones I think would just be to accommodate the base units in the G40 roster with the M3 movement. I can see a few options there - Most extreme would be to nix the bases entirely from the roster and only focus on an M2 map. I can see that working but M3 definitely adds some excitement and dynamism to the play. If keeping the Air and Naval bases, then it might make sense to do some extra vertical divisions in a few spots to add distance per turn at M3.
I think the map would also be entertaining on the ground at M3, in which case a novel Base on land that increases movement +1 is probably optimal. It has graphics available, the little Rail line unit could be used, as I think I have a damaged version of that, or similarly it could be attached to the Factory unit, which already has a damaged variant for each. I think if doing that I would probably restrict the +1 movement on land to only the Tanks and make those the exclusive M3 unit for the ground game. Basically since they are the most expensive land unit, and it sorta fits the vibe. Would give the player an excuse to buy more armor, but also give us a way to control stacking there across the longer distances.
Or again, could just go with M2 like the standard, but I do think M3 has a lot of promise for a very divided up map. It's just that it's not terribly familiar from the other games, so to me it would make sense to introduce the new concept using a single unit type, the tank, which players are already used to having the extra movement. I think it would make the SBR or Tactical Bombing runs more likely, as a way to limit the range of enemy armor stacks. Anyhow just some ideas, I thought it would be fun to have a sandbox map with one of the familiar rulesets that people can tool around with and make scenarios, so it could go in different directions, but essentially like a supped up v3 or v5 or global was sorta what I had in mind, just on a very large map hehe.
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Right Arm
I copied the xml and added it. Game fired up fine
I'm gonna go through Elk's latest additions and make sure I have the right ones, then I'll update everything to git.Edit
Uploaded to git. I'm not real confident I have the right stuff. wc's xml is there and I renamed it to 1.327 now. There's ane extra xml when you open "map". It's 1.32. I thought I had deleted it but it's still there.
So, it can be deleted. It may have been a backup for Victory's changes.The test setup xml in "games' may have been related to those too. I can't remember. It looks different than a normal xml. Anyway, I left it for now.
@Black_Elk can you dl from git and check and see if I got the right stuff. I didn't add the blends one yet but I still have it.
@VictoryFirst can you check and see if that looks right for your placements ? From what I remember they are.
At 50%
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Looked good to me. It's easy to set the blue or how light the land goes when blended via the base, so we can always tinker with that later. I'm sure right now the set up is mostly experimental and only just taking shape.
As I recall, if using the Export xml (beta) feature, it will save that xml into the main tripleA folder of the directory next to downloaded maps and saved games, unless the user clicks a different location. So probably if there was an extra xml somewhere or a backup that seemed reduntant might have been from experimenting with that feature.
Once the production values are established, should be easy to tweak the starting unit set up just by tooling around in edit mode and then saving out the adjustments in various drafts till it looks/feels right.
For example, I just messed around adding a couple ships to the Regia marina and to set up a little 3 point focus for the Brits, with NBs and Gibraltar, Malta and Suez then saving it out via edit mode. Seems to work nicely and fairly convenient.
PU place is a little off in many places like you noted before. Also a couple labels may have clips, Pinsk still mispelled Prinsk etc. I think a nice convention would be to have the quick click spot for each tile right on top of the PU graphic and then to avoid having a unit place in that spot. Idea being that the player knows exactly where to click the tile if they want to bring up the full list of units quickly rather than an individual unit selection. Otherwise sometimes it can be tough for some of the smaller spots to bring up the list. Just anticipating that a spot like Malta might need an obvious click spot to bring up the unit list, since it's likely to use an overflow line with anything there.
Anyhow sorta tit for tat I think once the PU values are all sorted, to add in TUV, and highball those for Axis a bit for parity by sides. Then see where it falls in the totals. I think to make up the difference income can go into convoys Europe 2000 style and that's an easy way to even things out. Once the totals are more or less in place for starting production, it probably makes sense to just add a few extra PUs here and then until we get some nice round numbers so it's simple for the player to parse the stats screen in the opener. Like to ballpark the smaller powers so they're viable, and then sorta build out the larger factions till you get the desired opener for the start date. I think should be straight forward enough to develop two start dates simultaneously and just keep a couple draft xmls, maybe by year or season. Whatever makes sense or seems entertaining.
Nice work!
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ps. Just realized I forgot to attach the xml lol
xml_2025_02_14_Mega New Elk_wip.xml
Basically I just went around the board adding in a couple bases and some naval/air units for the Brits to keep the ball rolling.
It's debatable whether every spot really needs an AB or NB, depends on the purchasing power of the player over the course of the game, but one would expect players might add to what's available at the start. I think it makes sense though for some thematic spots to get a vibe going. For example to have the Air transits across the Atlantic out of Canada north towards UK, or fighters sent from West Africa towards Suez, I think those could be represented by ABs. Malta I think it makes sense to have an NB there for the Brits since it was such a linchpin. Axis main prob was that they didn't have sufficient capacity at their North African ports (for example in Tripoli) to fully resupply their forces. So for places like that might make more sense to leave spots light on infrastructure and if the player opts to, they'd have to invest a bit to set that up.
I think for first round combats, it can be helpful to use Transports or the Transport/DD combo, since DDs alone aren't necessarily top targets, but a transport is almost always worth trying to shut down. I just lowballed figuring more could be added once we got some pocket forces going, add in a carrier or two later maybe depending on what the Axis end up with. Didn't want to get too ahead of myself in case Victory had laid down some more stuff in the interim hehe.
Anyhow, just for a gist, that's where I got before the power went out earlier... I added WIP to the end for 'work in progress' since that's clearly the deal
Probably there are quite a few different approaches for how to set up the Commonwealth and the Allies.
I think what I would try to achieve is just a general thrust where the first round combats suggest the main timeline of the opener. For example to avoid a big round 1 Naval attack by Britain vs Japan at Sumatra which we see on some boards, since that never really happened. Instead a situation where they pull back towards Ceylon, which is what did happen hehe. I think it's probably helpful to use DD blockers to limit Japan's range for a J2 set up on India. Or at least to force some fighting and a stall at Singapore, so Britain has a chance to regroup. Also I think for anything like that to keep the KJF type press in mind, where we probably don't want the Allies going too insane in the first round for a Japan stomp type thing. But yeah probably much is up in the air, or floating around and subject to change.
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OK I was able to reduce the size of the relief down to about 69 mb using a series of grays.
The difference between mixing 2 blues in full color, and mixing a 1 blue with gray cuts the file size in half, down from about 120 mb. I think it's probably serviceable for a match closer to the UHD vibe. Or for now while it's still being worked up. The hue of the blue can be controlled from the base with a single color edit. So we can do a simple value change easily that way, or make adjustments at the very end when I drop the lakes on top.
Here are the Relief_Tiles if you guys like it lighter footprint on the file size.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgPTmrBkbfPKCq_lWJxNEP3BpdVzqVxR/view?usp=sharing
Looks like so for the quick view
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Did a quick strongarm for the color grading to get it closer. I think it's in the range now for sure. Extended Dutch harbor a bit to more closely match the UHD. Here's a quick update for the tiles and new base/polys for that. You can ditch the older base if you like so we don't mix em up, I'll use this one going forward since it keys up the blue. You can just replace the base tiles, relief tiles and polygons.txt and should be good to go.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lozx7HCKZHIewSVtarDyTKxsQJsFByZE/view?usp=sharing
For the relief I just cranked the brightness and saturation like 10% as that last step to get in line with the UHD G40 look. Pretty close, last element I think was just adding a tiny bit of noise to the sea zones to get a little more contrast there, but that's a pretty easy edit to isolate only the sea zones for a tiny bit more texture, which will create a slightly darker value like we see in the other one, but scattered using that cloud effect. The hue on the blue is very close though, I handled that through an edit to the baseTiles color. Didn't do any base fancy for the blends this round, since I just wanted to match that blue or get a bit closer first, so when I insert the smaller lakes the colors there will be ok. Pretty close though. Let me know if that seems ok for now.
Looks like this at the moment... pretty subtle compared to the last iteration, but closer to what I had going for the Global, which used a bit more blue and bit less cyan.
Catch ya next round!
