http://imgur.com/LRPch.jpg

Making my first board, trying for a close to "Classic Risk"/generic world-map board, but mixing it up a little bit.

Any input welcome, specially on continent sizes/numbers and bonuses, they are kinda random right now.

ps: great site, design tools are awesome.

Hey kaizert,

A few comments:

1) You can link to the game in the board designer and don't have to upload an image to a third party site. Then, we can check in on your borders and territory names, too. I understand if you don't want to show that much skin, but you can.

2) It's your call, but the East Africa continent seems unnaturally large compared to most others. I, personally, would split it in half north and south-wise so that South Africa, Congo, Mozambique, and Madagascar make a continent and the NE territories make a continent. I think games will flow better. Its a gut feel thing, though, and I repeat: your map, your decision.

3) Move the continent value indicators out near the continents and float them over the ocean instead of the big white 'info-box'. That thing really clashes with the rest of your map.

4) In North America, you have a grouping where the Western US, Midwestern US, and a couple of Canadian territories come together at a corner. This is the only place on the map where it occurs, and so the border is very ambiguous. I don't know by looking if I can attack across the diagonal borders or not. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't admit to doing this same thing on occasion (see Gotham), but even as a guilty party, I think its a poor design mechanic. If you offset the North/South running borders a bit, few people should notice the geographical disparity, especially since there are plenty of liberties taken with borders on the map already. It's not a big deal, but attention to the little things can take a map from good to great.

5a) Graphically, its crisp and clean, but oh so boring. I know its WIP, so I won't go deep into it, but I would suggest finding a way to give a style all your own. It can still be clean and simple, but you asked, so I'm saying: give it a little flair.

5b) Along with adding some interesting graphics, find a way to display the overseas borders a little less obtusely. Those perfectly straight black lines are killer ugly.

Middle East bonus is too high. So is West Africa. Consider splitting North America into more than one continent.

And please, please, please learn to use fill mode.

Oh, I see another 4-corners type border over in Asia that I missed before typing that up. Still, I would at least consider how it works.

5c) Circle mode? Girlfriend, please. Some people insist there is a place for circle mode. Those people are wrong. At least use some kind of Dingbat icon and fill that if you don't want a border-to-border color flood.

Cramchakle wrote: Hey kaizert,

A few comments:

1) You can link to the game in the board designer and don't have to upload an image to a third party site. Then, we can check in on your borders and territory names, too. I understand if you don't want to show that much skin, but you can.

2) It's your call, but the East Africa continent seems unnaturally large compared to most others. I, personally, would split it in half north and south-wise so that South Africa, Congo, Mozambique, and Madagascar make a continent and the NE territories make a continent. I think games will flow better. Its a gut feel thing, though, and I repeat: your map, your decision.

3) Move the continent value indicators out near the continents and float them over the ocean instead of the big white 'info-box'. That thing really clashes with the rest of your map.

4) In North America, you have a grouping where the Western US, Midwestern US, and a couple of Canadian territories come together at a corner. This is the only place on the map where it occurs, and so the border is very ambiguous. I don't know by looking if I can attack across the diagonal borders or not. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't admit to doing this same thing on occasion (see Gotham), but even as a guilty party, I think its a poor design mechanic. If you offset the North/South running borders a bit, few people should notice the geographical disparity, especially since there are plenty of liberties taken with borders on the map already. It's not a big deal, but attention to the little things can take a map from good to great.

5a) Graphically, its crisp and clean, but oh so boring. I know its WIP, so I won't go deep into it, but I would suggest finding a way to give a style all your own. It can still be clean and simple, but you asked, so I'm saying: give it a little flair.

5b) Along with adding some interesting graphics, find a way to display the overseas borders a little less obtusely. Those perfectly straight black lines are killer ugly.

agree with you for the most part.

3) don't know if i necessarily agree with moving them all to singly stand by their own continent, but maybe just remove the white box. i'm fine with having them all clumped together  over on that side...

4) think it would be easier to nudge the SW canada border east a bit, then you're essentially doing the same thing but keeping the straight line on the Can/US border.

5b) agree with those lines NEEDS something different. maybe lines using end caps similar to whats in your bonus box...

Cramchakle wrote: Some people insist there is a place for circle mode. Those people are wrong.

My hero

weathertop wrote:

If you offset the North/South running borders a bit, few people should notice the geographical disparity

4) think it would be easier to nudge the SW canada border east a bit, then you're essentially doing the same thing but keeping the straight line on the Can/US border.

Yeah, that's what I meant; I just wasn't very clear. The borders that run North/South are the ones that you could move from side to side to the east or west.

I will never make a world map so I will give you an idea that I had that is kinda taken from Red Baron's Europe map. Make some counties border countries so that you only get the bonus for controlling. Best example is make Mexico part of N. America and S. America. That way the fight is over that 1 country. If you look over a world map, there is a border/choke point territory that works almost everywhere. Europe to Africa is a little difficult but doable if you change the territories around.

Woah, lots of feedback :)

http://www.wargear.net/boards/designer/335

Does that work?

Critique is noted. I'll be back with an updated version tomorrow.

I left some comments in the game we had going, don't know if you saw them. Unlike others here, I don't have an a priori objection to circle maps (though I think for this board fill mode would look better). To give a little flair, you could employ some sort of floating icon such as Red Baron uses in Medieval Europe.

W. Africa should be +2, Europe should be +6, and Mid. East should be +6 in my opinion.

And, as I said, the sea crossing borders could be displayed, for example, as dotted lines just on the background water color, maybe a deeper blue would look nice.

Kjeld wrote: (though I think for this board fill mode would look better)

You bury the main point here in qualifying language. There is absolutely no debate that this is the case. There is zero reason to put out a simple geographical map using circle mode (aside from laziness or ignorance, which are not good reasons).

EDIT: Kaizer, don't take 'ignorance' as a slam. It is not meant as such.

asm wrote:

Kjeld wrote: (though I think for this board fill mode would look better)

You bury the main point here in qualifying language. There is absolutely no debate that this is the case. There is zero reason to put out a simple geographical map using circle mode (aside from laziness or ignorance, which are not good reasons).

Fair enough. My point might have been better expressed in a separate post. But since we've started, I wanted to clarify that while fill mode is a must for the majority of maps, especially straight geographical maps, there are special cases where circle mode is acceptable.

Take-away message: When designing a new map, ALWAYS try to design it for fill-mode. Only if you've tried all fill-mode options and found that they don't add anything to the map should you resort to circle mode.

Kjeld wrote:

I wanted to clarify that while fill mode is a must for the majority of maps, especially straight geographical maps, there are special cases where circle mode is acceptable.

This is a philosophical debate perhaps better left for another time and place. For the record, I'd mostly like to observe that debate while adding occasional encouragement for Reich, rather than participate fully myself.

At any rate, I think we can all agree to your conclusion.