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Thread: April 2013 Challenge Entry -- Bagsnubxesorosmlo

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    Default April 2013 Challenge Entry -- Bagsnubxesorosmlo

    For this challenge, I chose the first randomly generated world DF gave me, Bagsnubxesorosmlo (try making the x a voicless velar fricative). I have made a few maps, but never entered a challenge before this. For this round, I wanted to make it a little bit more exciting. Everything on the map is randomly generated using DF. I have not and will not add anything if I can help it. This means no changing names, no adding civilizations, and most of all no messing with the terrain.

    April 29th Update: Changed the borders to accommodate the Goblins (the small text Isolated regions). I also named a few large terrains and added a few important cities where battles or other events had taken place. Also, I changed the Ocean a bit, to hide the brush strokes and make the depth ratio a bit more realistic (I still adhered to the terrain of the world gen, but I changed the tolerances for my color scheme)
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    April 26th Update: I added forests and marshes. Its starting to get a bit detail-heavy, but it still understandable.
     
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    April 24th Update: I finally figured out borders and countries, but I'm not too happy with it yet. I posted two maps, one with the borders marked along with a political overlay, and one with just the overlay.
    [spoiler]
     

    With the borders:
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    Without the border:
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    For anyone interested, they way I did the political overlay was take the name of the country in the tongue of the race that lived there. Sometimes two or three countries were so intermixed that I just joined them together, and the countries became regions in a larger state. Occasionally, I would run into an exclave, and in those cases I either gave it the name of the largest city (or, if the excalve was a forest, the name of the forest) and then chose to use either the ethnic name or the English name depending on what sounded cooler. Personally, I think Hammerfrogs sounds way better than Onguihhi.


    First update
     

    Here is the world as it stands:
     

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    And here is what I've done with it. I've stuck with a minimalist style. I've done only the rivers categorized as 'streams' or larger, but they are still a bit heavy. I have only the major cities done, and I'm not perfectly happy with the look of it all, but it works.
     

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    I know the names are a bit funny, and I haven't figured out how to do them yet. Should I put them in English? Or should I keep the foreign language that DF gives me? Any ideas?

    Next I'm going to try and flesh out the towns and country borders, and maybe add a bit of terrain.[/SIZE]



    April 16th Update: (I added the terrain, but I'm still trying to figure out borders)
     
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    Last edited by Javert; 04-30-2013 at 05:02 AM. Reason: And fixed the Water

  2. #2
    Guild Novice Facebook Connected Khamero's Avatar
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    Nation borders in Dwarf Fortress basically dont exist, so it's all up to checking where they have a majority of their settlements and just make it up yourself where the borders logically would be, or go without national borders alltogether. =)

    If you are not using the legends viewer, I would highly recommend it, since it can show exactly where the clusters of settlements are for each civilization.

    Looks very nice overall, definitly looking forward to the final result.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khamero View Post
    Nation borders in Dwarf Fortress basically dont exist, so it's all up to checking where they have a majority of their settlements and just make it up yourself where the borders logically would be, or go without national borders alltogether. =)

    If you are not using the legends viewer, I would highly recommend it, since it can show exactly where the clusters of settlements are for each civilization.

    Looks very nice overall, definitly looking forward to the final result.
    Great suggestion. Made it totally possible.

    Well that took long than expected. There are so many exclaves and enclaves that it was a nightmare. Borders are largely based on terrain (forest, mountain boundaries) with a few thrown in just because. This is what my mask looks like after I finished mapping all that (and by the way, I chose not to include savage goblins as 'civilizations')

     
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    Last edited by Javert; 04-25-2013 at 04:27 PM.

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    New update. I added the trade cities (as Marked by the game).
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    Last edited by Javert; 04-27-2013 at 07:07 AM.

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    So I think I'll put this up in the gallery. I still want to add terrain names, and I have to add a few polished-looking things, but I think its far enough along by now.

    ### LATEST WIP ###

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    Last edited by Javert; 04-27-2013 at 07:11 AM.

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    Guild Novice Facebook Connected Khamero's Avatar
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    Yea, Goblins are a civilization, so they should be in it. I noticed distinct "goblin areas" in my map as well. Kobolds only have caves though and dont really claim land, so they dont have borders as such.

    Also, the map looks really good, and especially easy to understand and use. The areas of deep sea looks different from the coastline somehow though, like you could see the brushstrokes. If you want them in the same "style" or feel, you could use landmasses and land areas as templates. (resized, different parts overlaying each other to make a new outer shape and so on)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Khamero View Post
    Yea, Goblins are a civilization, so they should be in it. I noticed distinct "goblin areas" in my map as well. Kobolds only have caves though and dont really claim land, so they dont have borders as such.

    Also, the map looks really good, and especially easy to understand and use. The areas of deep sea looks different from the coastline somehow though, like you could see the brushstrokes. If you want them in the same "style" or feel, you could use landmasses and land areas as templates. (resized, different parts overlaying each other to make a new outer shape and so on)
    I agree with this last part. The brushstrokes are way too obvious. What I did to achieve them was to take an exported height map of the world and selected different ranges of pixels. I can redo that part easily, and try to get a finer edge. I also want to increase the area of deep-water, and make it look more connected.

    As for Goblins, I marked their cities and countries on the map, but did so as regions not marking specific territory. My reasoning behind this is that the main three races traditionally band together to wipe out Goblin civilizations, and Goblin territory is not usually recognized by the main 3 races. But you are right, I should mark their presence a little better. Maybe I can make a special category of 'goblin-infested wilds' or something like that. Let me look at it.

    My biggest concern right now is that the map isn't big enough to show the detail I am trying to show. It seems a bit ... cluttered to me. I will try and clean that up a bit as well, especially if I go ahead with adding terrain names.

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    Guild Novice Facebook Connected Khamero's Avatar
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    Yea, Goblins are the most warlike of the races, they very often follow demons as their lords ingame, as well as kidnapping and brainwashing children of other civilizations to join their culture. Sometimes you can even get goblin civs without any goblins, because they all died and now have an elf king or something because of this. However, ingame, all the races wage war indiscriminatly against each other and hold no common spite agains goblins. I think Toady is working on the game mechanics for that still, but right now they seem to wage war mostly for fun. Goblins are the most warlike though, that is very much true.

    As for the size, just remember to put stuff there that is for the map, so to speak. If its not intresting or gives anything to the map as a whole, then I'd drop it.
    The fine line between cluttered and detailed.

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    I have ceded them a few pieces of land in the game, and labeled them (albeit with smaller text than the powerful countries). They seem to all be concentrated in the north-west, save for one lone group in the south-east. And you're right, they do seem to be just as numerous as the others.

    And I will keep that pro-tip in mind. Here is what I changed, and I put a key on to explain a few things.

    ### LATEST WIP ###

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    Last edited by Javert; 04-30-2013 at 05:30 AM. Reason: Water Update

  10. #10

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    I really like the way this has turned out. It's very evocative of the world too.

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