Posts made by Tjoek

@Imperious-Leader said in Tjoek's A&A 1914 OOB Map file:

I like what i see, but i still like my file better because all the artwork is VECTOR BASED and not an image or scan of an image. Don’t like the OOB sea color or lines either but that’s subjective

Thanks IL, everyone their own preferences. Vector images do have the advantage of scaling indefinitely and still be crisp and clear but they often lack the depth of texture and dynamic colors that I personally find far more pleasing to the eye. And in my experience you don’t need that scalability when you print your maps for decent gaming tables. Unless off-course you want a wall-size carpet hanging in your gaming room ;-)

@The-Plastic-Commando said in Tjoek's A&A 1914 OOB Map file:

@Tjoek Well now that you mention it, Holland looks a bit different with the crest in the roundel. I’m not noticing a second roundel different lol

1.) Holland has a different crest I took from the official royal standard from that time. The blue shield in the middle of it is actually the same as in the original artwork.

2.) Persia has a slightly different roundel as well. The red is less strong and the lion is smaller. According to the internet (wikipedia) this is the right flag from that era. The one HBG has for sale has a larger lion and stronger red, but that flag is from a few decades earlier.

@The-Plastic-Commando said in Tjoek's A&A 1914 OOB Map file:

For some reason my zoom of the map the further I go in somewhat distorts the names on the board, but as long as they are clear and crisp when printing out

If you zoom in to the level you can tell the individual pixels apart it will look a bit distorted. But you will not see this when you print the map as this will nowhere near this level of zoom. Unless you print a map over 86x86 inch or something. And who will ever do that?

@The-Plastic-Commando
You should be fine with a 48 inch print, but don’t print this file yet. There is still a mistake near Rome. The city marker is partly overlapping the Italian roundel, but this overlapping bit of the city marker is still in the old colors before I enhanced them. I forgot to include that layer when I enhanced the colors…

Did you notice the two roundels that are different then the original board design? :-)

As far as I’m aware the map is finished! Finally!

Please review the full size map at this link and give any feedback. I will go over it once more myself in a couple of days before releasing the map as final.

@The-Plastic-Commando said in Tjoek's A&A 1914 OOB Map file:

@Tjoek The brighter map sure does stand out. I suppose too bright could cause glare of overhead lights. I think a Matt finish would tone down some of the brightness.

Brightness of color might also lose details in light areas. As in Spain for example, where the image is over exposed.

The glare has nothing to do with it as this is mostly the result of the material finish. Like you said a Matt finish would prevent this but would not help regaining lost details due to over exposure / to bright image.

I will be doing a few setting tweaks over the next couple of days to settle for the most pleasing one.

I’ve replaced the roundels with the more in center ones and the ones with the coat of arms. So really the only thing left is color correcting and trying a slightly better rendering of the Sahara. So I’m guessing it’s a matter of 1 or 2 weeks max before I can release the finished map file!

@The-Plastic-Commando Thanks for your views. These were the exact same things that got me in doubt. Hence the request for some feedback. I will switch back to the original ones. As I’m from the Netherlands I personally don’t like the flag they use for Holland, but it might otherwise be mistaken for the France flag. Especially with the separate roundels that can be in any orientation.

Besides the roundels I’ve started enhancing the dull scan colors. Just as a first start I took the exact same steps as for my Anniversary map. But because the colors are different to begin with the result is not as pleasing as expected. Just a bit on the bright side. Any suggestions?

I’ve finished repositioning the territory names and roundels. After looking at a few maps I noticed Moscow itself could be moved more centrally and still adhere to real maps. So that was a nice surprise!

As scan always have some scanning noise, I prefer to replace the roundels with new crisp artwork. By going though all of them I noticed three things:

1. Romania, Bulgaria and Holland have their coat of arms in the roundel while that wasn’t present in the flag
   

2. Spain and Portugal have their coat of arms off center in the real flag, but they are placed in the center of the roundel
   

3. Germany doesn’t have the Iron Cross in their national flag, but it happens to be their marine flag. And as it is very iconic I prefer to keep it that way

What are your thoughts on what to do for these 3 observations?

@The-Plastic-Commando Thanks for your input. I will leave Constantinople as is, but will most likely slightly move Vienna to a more central location. For Moscow I guess I have to keep it as is…

@The-Plastic-Commando
Thanks for your feedback! Reading your response I concluded I made a ‘capital’ mistake.
Where I wrote Calcutta it should read Constantinople. You’re absolutely right about Calcutta.

So what do you think of Constantinople only having a large territory name instead of the small capital name?

P.S. I’ve updated my previous post to prevent any more confusion.

I would like to call in your support on this map. While finishing the re centring of names and IPC values I struggle with the capital cities. At the moment Vienna and Moscow are badly centred from a roundel and IPC perspective.

Click here for larger version

At the same time I noticed something concerning the capital cities I didn’t pay attention to before. Most territories with capital cities have NO territory name, only the city itself. Except for USA/Washington and Constantinople:

• USA/Washington: Next to Washington the territory itself has the obvious name
• Constantinople: The city doesn’t have a name in small font. The whole territory is named Constantinople in large font

With Constantinople there isn’t much to do while keeping everything else in balance, but it raises a few questions I would love to hear your views on:

• Vienna: the roundel and IPV value could be moved downward including the capital city. This might not be very accurate (I didn’t check) but would be the easiest solution
• Moscow: moving the city with the roundel and IPV value is a bit too much. But I could do something similar as USA by naming the territory Russia and leave Moscow where it is located.
• Constantinoplee: does anyone have problems with how Constantinople currently is? I think it’s the best with the map as a smaller font city name might not make it apparent that both sides of the straight are the same territory.

What do you guys think?

@Chacmool I will share a version with and without harbors. Concerning the Mobilization zone / any artwork on the Sahara I can do this too. But It won’t have the map fold fixed.

Another option is to add the mobilization zone back to the cleaned Sahara artwork.

I’ve done multiple map files so far for Global 1940, Anniversary and 1914 (this one is WIP) and I’ve already started work on the Zombies map after my first game a few weeks ago.

I’ve scanned the board and stitched the scans together. I’m currently slowly retouching the folds of the board pieces. I will post this first version as soon as it is ready in the Customizations subform.

But for now the main focus is on finalizing the 1914 map first.

I’m in for bronze for the third year in a row! Great site with even greater community. I’ve been absent for nearly a year, but just posted my work in progress on the 1914 OOB map file. So I might be visiting more often again :-)

Congrats! That’s an achievement worthy to be proud of.

I’ve created a separate thread for my work on the OOB 1914 map. Please go here to discuss it in more detail.

Hi All!

After my maps for Global 1940 and Anniversary I started working on a cleaned version of the Axis & Allies 1914 map. I’ve been working on it on and off for about a year now and with some helpful feedback from this community as well as my local gaming group I finally finished it!

A&A WW1 1914 OOB map files

I made 2 basic versions of the map (one without and one with the harbours printed on the map). Both will have a replaced Sahara artwork as the original artwork was near impossible to fix in the fold line of the map running right across the Sahara, Next to that I will give you two small images you can add as an overlay to your own liking:

• Unrestricted Submarine Warfare icon
• Mobilization Zone
  See below for the 2 map files and 2 overlays:

Map files

Please see my scan of the original game board with removed harbours as well as removed Sahara artwork with 1/4 inch white border [400 dpi]:
Download the A&A WW1 1914 with removed harbours and Sahara artwork here

NOTE: this file can be enlarged and can easily print up to 52 inch (250dpi)

Same file as above but with harbours [400 dpi]:
Download the A&A WW1 1914 with removed harbours and Sahara artwork here
NOTE: this file can be enlarged and can easily print up to 52 inch (250dpi)

Extra overlays

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare Icon

Mobilization Zone

Work done

What I’ve done with the map (bold and italic items are either new our revisited):

• Scanned the map in 16 partly overlapping A4 scans in 400 DPI
• Stiched the 16 individual scan together
• Retouched the folds and creases of the map boards
• Retouched scratches and dust particles on the map
• Removed harbors (they are now optional on the map)
• Replaced original Sahara artwork with cleaner version without logo, IPC tracker and Mobilization Zone
• Extracted Mobilization Zone so it can be added back in if you like to
• Repositioned Paris and Moscow to be more correct
• Re-centering roundels, names and IPC values
• Boost colors to be more vibrant as the scans are a bit dull (Colors are slightly warmer)
• Reduced scanning noise
• Replace roundels with high quality artwork
• Replaced Bulgarian and Persian roundels with more correct ones from this period
• Replaced Holland roundel with a bit more of the royal coat of arms
• Reduced dark contrast between some territories and new artwork for the Sahara in Libya, Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
   
   

==================== ORIGINAL FIRST POST BELOW ===================

 
 
After my maps for Global 1940 and Anniversary I started working on a cleaned version of the Axis & Allies 1914 map. I’ve been working on it on and off for about a year now and I’m close to finishing it.

What I aim for with this 1914 OOB map:

• Map is based on high resolution scans of original map (400dpi) so it can be printed larger than normal. More than twice the size is possible.
• The territory roundels, names and IPC values are often badly centered to one another as well as positioned within the territory itself
• The way the Impassable Sahara is used for income tracking and unit costs is not to my liking, so I want to cleanup this area with a ‘cleaner’ artwork in style with the original
• Personally, I prefer playing with my own harbor tokens so I will remove them from the board
• I will replace the roundels with new high quality artwork to prevent any scanning noise from being visible in these details of the map
• Reposition Paris to be more in line with where it should be
• I aim to share on cleaned version of the map (replaces Sahara and removed harbors) as well as a more closer OOB version where these two items are not touched.

Progress:

• Scanned the map in 16 partly overlapping A4 scans
• Stiched the 16 individual scan together
• Retouched the folds and creases of the map boards
• Retouched scratches and dust particles on the map
• Removed harbors
• Replaced original Sahara artwork with cleaner version
• Reposition Paris
• Re-centering roundels, names and IPC values (work in progress)
• Boost colors to be more vibrant as the scans are a bit dull
• Replace roundels with high quality artwork

Sneak preview:

Let me know what you think and how this map could be approved even further while staying close to OOB.

@Chacmool said in Original 1914 A&A map upsized?:

@Tjoek

Great news! If you need a scan of the map, I could help you. It is just a little stretched at one side maybe worth to look at it because I asume youve got the skills to fix it. I always wanted an oob map of A&A 1914.

Thanks for offering your help, but I already scanned the board almost a year ago.

So far I’ve stitched together the different scans and removed the folds and creases in and between the boards. Also I’ve retouched all the scratches and small dust particles in the scans.

I’ve also replaced the Sahara with similar artwork but without all the IPC tracking and unit costs etc. I simply dislike my maps to be too busy. But that will be an optional download, I’ll provide both versions.

At the moment I’m working on re aligning some of the territory names and roundels. After that I will enhance the colours and replace the roundels with high quality versions to prevent any scanning noise to be visible their on the final map.

I should start a new tread…

I’m working on a map file for 1914 based on the original boxed map. Just like my 1940 and Anniversary map files. I just didn’t open create a thread on the forums yet, but I’ve come a long way in stitching together the different individual scans and cleaning up the map folds and creases.

Might take a few more months before it’s finished as time is very limited at the moment.

@CorporalClegg said in National Objective Cards for Anniversary:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/bc69ao2v3rf1bkt/Cpl._Clegg’s_AA50_NO_Cards.zip/file

I like the way you managed to mark the relevant territories on a breakout of the map. Well done.