The Grand War
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@Frostion I am not sure why you would have version 1. Do I have to also update the version number in the xml? I haven't done that, I figured it was only necessary to do so for the yaml.
Regarding the territory names, I think that might be because of how thick those two fonts are that they stand out so much. Ironicly, it was my belief that all the other fonts looked bad because they are too thin! Doing something to the territory names like that could be tricky, since the relief map has the fonts and names incorporated into it. But I'll try a few things and see how it turns out.
Denmark is distorted because of a style choice while making the map, wherein I connected all of the islands in many provinces (like Ireland/Britain, Japan, Borneo/Sulawesi, etc.). Denmark came out as a blob as a result.
Unit graphics were not my own design, they were drawn by Fairline on the CivFanatics forum. (Link below.) Most of his naval units look like this, but I could potentially find alternative artists to borrow pixel art from. Early on I had wanted separate styles of naval units for each faction, but I couldn't find a nice looking way to differentiate them and I just settled for that. I'll revisit them though, and see what can be done about that.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ww2-unit-graphics.409277/
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@elreigh The version in the XML is the 'real' map version that players would reference and such to version changes you make. The yaml version is just a way so the engine knows for players that already have the map that there is a new version that it should allow them to download.
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@Elreigh
I was thinking about what to do if you would like to make the territory names stand out less. I have made this little test picture for you to see.

The territory name file Turkestan is reduced from 100% opacity (your original file) to 50% opacity in Photoshop. The โ2โ PUs marker is reduced from 100% to 75%.
I donโt know if this is a way you want to go. If you are satisfied with the current name and PU pictures, then forget this proposal
"Do I have to also update the version number in the xml?" - Yes, and it does not have to correspond with the version in the yaml file.
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@redrum Thanks. And regarding version numbers, is there any reason why I should or should not use integers (version1, version2, etc.) as opposed to decimals (version1.1, version1.0.1, etc.)?
@frostion Hm, yeah I can see the appeal in that, it does look nicer... would take a while to change every single one, though, so I may take a while to update everything.
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@elreigh For the yaml we always just use integers as the number doesn't really mean anything and that's just simpler/consistent. For the XML, its really up to each map maker how they'd like to version the XML. Most I'd say use either 2 or 3 numbers (x.x or x.x.x) but some use just 1 and some even have 4 (x.x.x.x). I'm sure @Frostion and @Hepps have opinions on the matter.
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@Elreigh If you use Photoshop, that program has a โbatchโ feature. With that you can โrecordโ what you do with one picture and give the same treatment to a batch of pictures. It takes some time to learn, but it is very useful. I have actually forgotten the details, so donโt expect me to explain the process, but we can probably find a guide on youtube or somewhere.
EDIT: I have the feature at: File --> Automate --> Batch...
@redrum I have not been consistent with how I do version numbers, but I think I have finally settled with a three digit system, like v1.0.1 updates to v1.0.2 and v1.0.9 updates to v1.1.0.
This is partly because going from v1.9 to v1.10 results in TripleA displaying v1.10 as v1.1. TripleA does not want to display the 0.
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Alright, I did edit all of the territory names to half opacity, but I do not like the way most of them look on the map. Arcadia and India look great, but only because they are bold fonts. Grands is barely legible because of how thin it is, and it does need that extra opacity to be readable. I may wind up changing some of these fonts to make it look better, since I have always thought the Grands font was especially difficult to make out.
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@elreigh Maybe only make the Arcadia and India be half opacity then and leave the rest?
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Version 3 Update is out now, changing relief tiles to make territory names stand out less. I've also reduced fighter defense from 4 to 3, after some consideration on balance concerns.
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@elreigh All bot servers will require a restart to accept your new version. (which I don't mind slowly doing as they empty) Are you planning any more revisions soon?
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@prastle No I'm not planning on any more revisions at the moment; I'm pretty happy with the way things look at the moment, and I'd like to work on some other projects for the time being.
Is there a common courtesy standard for releasing versions so they don't mess with all bot servers? When I need to make updates in the future I could stall them out to bundle many into a single version. I would've done so with these changes if I knew it was a hassle for others.
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@elreigh No hassle we needed an update anyways. I just was mentioning so i could time it with your new stuff as well as frosti's
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Regarding version numbers, for some reason changing the xml version to "3.0" disables the map in the "Select Map" screen, so until that mystery is solved I'm going to leave the xml version as "1.0"
EDIT: Scratch that, I was changing the wrong version number in the xml. I've got it working now.
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@prastle FYI ... I have no planned updates to any maps right now or in the near future. If I got some time, it will probably be spent on some new map project. All those new maps being developed by other mapmakers inspire me to also make something new

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@frostion kk

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@elreigh Changes look good. Just forgot a small update to the notes: https://github.com/triplea-maps/the_grand_war/pull/1
The unmentioned new naval unit images are definitely an improvement as well

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@redrum Ah, yeah I forgot to mention that, and I didn't know the pull request had to have the details of my updates in them. I'll be more specific in the future.
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@elreigh Oh I meant your post above. You can take a look at merging my pull request if you agree with the notes update

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