Download Maps has map Tags

TheDog

@Cernel
Thanks!
I will give it a few days to see other opinions
&&& Basic Original EDIT
&&& Basic Variant

Could we shorten it to ?
&&& Original
&&& Variant

If there is an Original & a Variant in one map, then I would put it in the 1st group, yes? (if there is only one map that does this)

@ All
Genre, currently Im going for these
1946+ Atomic (for near our current tech levels)
Futuristic (includes Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek etc)
Again, I will give it a few days to see other opinions

Thanks all

Cernel

To account for global (and maybe others) having variants, the category could be called "Basic Original/Variant" instead of just "Basic" (to warn the user that he/she may or may not get variants together with the originals).

Cernel

@TheDog said:

Could we shorten it to ?
A&A Original
A&A Variant

That is not what I proposed. There is no "A&A" in my proposal.

"Original" alone does not imply it is a basic game. Any new map is an original if it is not a variant.

As I see it, for example, "World At War" is the original and "WAW 1940" is a variant of it. Neither is basic though.

Cernel

@TheDog said:

Genre, currently Im going for these
1946+ Atomic (for near our current tech levels)
Futuristic (includes Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek etc)
Again, I will give it a few days to see other opinions

Yes, I would agree that, if we do not want to have a "Near Future" category, better to have it as part of 1946+ than Futuristical. For example, if I now make a map for a World War in 2050, I think that would be better as 1946+ than staying together with Star Trek and such. However, this has the risk of the distinction being lost over time: without a "Near Future" category, every time a new map in the near future would be released, it may end up going one way or the other. Thereby, if not having a "Near Future" category, I suggest that the "Futuristical" category is named either "Far Future" or "Hyperfuturistical" to make that clear enough.

Ondis

@TheDog

I know I can search for them but the whole point of a category system is to not need to search for them and for people to be able to find things that they want to play in the same style. As map variety expands you'd want to be able to make to filter for category.

So for example someone looking for Domination maps might stumble on the "Steampunk" one which they otherwise wouldn't. Or if Im a fan of Total War I might stumble upon Total Ancient War. There are currently dozens of maps that are not searchable based on common map packs and these would benefit from a categorization system immediately.

For example Battle For Arda is a Middle-Earth variant, Operation Unthinkable and Ozeta's maps are Global variants, Steampunk is a Domination variant. These categories have actual utility.

Year just doesn't make any sense, it's not related to the actual thing people are searching for. There's for example 100 WW2 maps. What is "Year" going to do for anyone looking thorugh 1939-1945? Does a player playing Revised care about Total War?

Edit: An other variant instead of either of these two would be to simply have it be "Complexity". So Total War goes into 5 (most complex) Domination 4, Global/NWO 3, Revised 2, Classic 1. Non A&A would go into "Unclassified" category. Like Relic or Chess.

This would automatically group maps of the same style at least somewhat.

Regarding ratings Im fine either way, but I thought the whole reason you removed them was that people did complain. You've already rated some maps that are finished as 2. What would you rate the Capture the Flag map for example? Its (Approved/Finished) but you're rating it a 3. So its not really an equivalent of what I suggested, though it may have its own merit.

Never had a problem with the old system personally. But it was useful partly because it was so stringent So it depends on if people like that or not.

Cernel

To be clear, my starting suggestion was to have "Basic" instead of "A&A Style". Whether or not then also divide between originals and variants was merely an added item and maybe not worth it. There can be just the "Basic" category only and forget about the variants, let them be normal non-Basic maps like anything else.

xxXEddieXxx

@cernel
Grouping the same map with different versions can also be a solution, I do it in my mobile port.

TheDog

@ All
I have finished my first pass of the 300+ maps

As these are pull down menu selections, choices are limited in style.

Quality
4=Excellent, a few maps, well 30ish
3=Good, most maps are rated this
2=Experimental, all new maps will be Experimental, after a revision or two, will be Good
1=Unplayable for one reason or another

Year,Genre
Basic Original=that famous boxed version
Basic Variant= is a variant of the boxed version
I will need help moving the maps into these two, please advise

Historic year bands
Futuristic=Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars
Fantasy=Dragons & Magic
Abstract-Alternate=catch all, if it does not easily fit into the above

Solo/PvP
Solo=Designed/best for Solo play
PvP=too complex for AI to handle, so only PvP
Blank=can be played Solo or PvP

What needs to change or improve ?

xxXEddieXxx

@TheDog great work!

I really like the overall structure.

A map can have multiple categories right?
Wouldn't it be good to not only have categories for what these maps are but for who?

I'm thinking for simple maps maybe "beginner friendly" or "deep gameplay" for some of the harder ones. And the most played could also get something like "recommended".

Also the pull down menu should be reworked in a multiple selection menu.

TheDog

@xxXEddieXxx

A map can have multiple categories right?

Sadly no, One pulldown = only one choice

.

Wouldn't it be good to not only have categories for what these maps are but for who? I'm thinking for simple maps maybe "beginner friendly" or "deep gameplay" for some of the harder ones. And the most played could also get something like "recommended".

Recommended is 4=Excellent I guess

.

Also the pull down menu should be reworked in a multiple selection menu.

IFAIK cannot be done.

.
The system must be easy to maintain. Compared to what this replaces, this is so much easier to maintain.

Also being a thankless task and people cannot agree its hard to get something useable.
So something is better than nothing.

RogerCooper

@TheDog There is a useful piece of information that is completely objective, the number of territories. I have this information on https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Axis_%26_Allies_Wikipedia

Cernel

@RogerCooper Number of territories? I assume you mean number of zones? I mean, are you excluding sea zones without a territory attachment? I guess not: that makes the map bigger too.

Assuming we are talking of zones (and it would be better to exclude impassable territories from the total), that is an important information to be sure to gauge if that is a big map or a small map.

However, this is a map list, so how do you get the information?

If you get it in the game-file, how about if the map has multiple game-files? My suggestion, in this case, would be to check every game file, and to give the one having the biggest number of territories if not the same for all.

Alternatively, you could simply look at the number of territories in something like the centers.txt in the map folder, but, in this case, there may be games having unused such references, for example "World At War" and "WAW 1940" having more zones in the original skin (meaning the main map folder) than in either game because some territories are called differently in one and the other one and the original skin has both to support both games.

Moreover, I can have a map like "Civil War", in which one of the two games use only a small part of the total territories.

My conclusion is that it would be better to reserve such information in the "Select Game" menu that you get after having downloaded the map (preferably subtracting impassable territories), as such information is better given per game rather than per map.

Vendetta

Why not just put year and genre in separate columns so people can sort by either?

RogerCooper

@Cernel I got the information by looking in the XML file for each mod and classifying mods by map (unique geographic information). I include the impassable territories and sea zones.

Look at https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Category:TripleA_Maps. Scroll down to see the links.

Cernel

@TheDog said:

Year,Genre
Basic Original=that famous boxed version
Basic Variant= is a variant of the boxed version
I will need help moving the maps into these two, please advise

I'm considering a tripartite distinction:

Basic Original
Basic Game Variant: the map is the same or functionally the same or possibly the same as the original, meaning that all its games could be made working just as well if added inside the original map. (Units are part of the map too.)
Basic Map Variant: the map is neither the same nor functionally the same nor possibly the same as the original, meaning that something in the map has been changed to make the game playable and the game would not work inside the original map at all or unless some changes are made to it.

To be clear, for example, if I add 1 unit to a game, that would be a Map Variant not a Game Variant, because I would need to add that unit's image or images in the "units" folder, thus changing the map itself, not just the game. However, an exception can be arguably made in case that unit is fully supported via the TripleA assets.

An example of Basic Game Variant would be "ww2v3_variants", and an example of Basic Map Variant would be "ww2v3_11n". (Take a look at those: I think the difference is fairly clear.)

Alternatively, one may well argue that what I called a Basic Map Variant is not actually a variant, but only what I defined a Basic Game Variant is an actual "Basic Variant", so all the ones which I've defined as Basic Map Variants should simply not be considered variants at all.

It is a disputable matter to set guidelines for when a map has been modified "enough" that it is not any longer a variant but just a new (original) map. For example, in my opinion, Pact of Steel is an original map, but someone might argue that it is a variant of Revised.

Opinions?

Cernel

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel I got the information by looking in the XML file for each mod and classifying mods by map (unique geographic information). I include the impassable territories and sea zones.

Look at https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Category:TripleA_Maps. Scroll down to see the links.

So you looked at every game of the map and took the one having the highest number of total zones as the reference for the map (example: the Civil War map)? I still think that would make more sense as a per game information (rather than per map).

Cernel

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel I got the information by looking in the XML file for each mod and classifying mods by map (unique geographic information). I include the impassable territories and sea zones.

Look at https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Category:TripleA_Maps. Scroll down to see the links.

Anyway, yes, that is some very helpful very interesting information to know which are the big maps. However, I would argue that knowing the number of sides having at least one playable human player and the number of playable human players would maybe be even more important. For example, that would respectively be 2 and 5 in Classic and Revised.

RogerCooper

@Cernel said:

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel I got the information by looking in the XML file for each mod and classifying mods by map (unique geographic information). I include the impassable territories and sea zones.

Look at https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Category:TripleA_Maps. Scroll down to see the links.

So you looked at every game of the map and took the one having the highest number of total zones as the reference for the map (example: the Civil War map)? I still think that would make more sense as a per game information (rather than per map).

If there are a different number of territories, it is a different map. If the territories in the XML file don't match exactly the territories in centers.txt etc., there would be an error on loading. As I am not excluding impassable territories, there is no need to check xml file.

Cernel

@TheDog Overall, it looks great to me, and a much needed addition.

Now the TripleA DL looks like an actual cool list, whereas before it looked like some random packrat garage sale.

Personally, I would merge all "1931-1945 WW2" into a single group. There is no split in case of the Basic Originals, which are arguably more popular. Alternatively, maybe "Global", "Europe" and "Pacific" sub-genres (I mean an other column only for such optional things.) (which can be applied to the Basic ones as well)?

Cernel

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel said:

@RogerCooper said:

@Cernel I got the information by looking in the XML file for each mod and classifying mods by map (unique geographic information). I include the impassable territories and sea zones.

Look at https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Category:TripleA_Maps. Scroll down to see the links.

So you looked at every game of the map and took the one having the highest number of total zones as the reference for the map (example: the Civil War map)? I still think that would make more sense as a per game information (rather than per map).

If there are a different number of territories, it is a different map. If the territories in the XML file don't match exactly the territories in centers.txt etc., there would be an error on loading. As I am not excluding impassable territories, there is no need to check xml file.

Not true in every case, but can you just tell me what are you checking then? The center.txt? If not, what else?

I mean, I'm confused because you first said

I got the information by looking in the XML file for each mod

and then

there is no need to check xml file.

?