*** October Challenge VOTING - Trading ***

[Gandwarf]

!!! VOTE FOR 3 (THREE) !!!

view the thumbnails: October Thumbnails

Thank you to all the participants for their efforts and entries. Let the voting begin!


Summary of the rules for this month's challenge:

This is another theme challenge, meaning you can do whatever kind of map you like, as long as there is a strong connection to the trading theme.

Some suggestions for possible maps:

- Map of a trading empire, displaying traderoutes or commodity availability.
- Sailor's map (how do you get from Rome to Constantinople by boat without running aground?)
- The Silk Road
- Supply Chain Map
- Star System Resourcing
- Map of a trade building
- Map of a trade ship
- Map of an underground market
- Map of trade fair
etc


Your map must include:

- Anything goes, as long as there's a strong link with the theme.

Good Voting everyone and don't forget to rep the work you liked!

[Steel General]

Another group of great entries, and a tough time voting again...

My votes ended up going to Immolate, Ravells & Sapiento in no particular order.

[Juggernaut1981]

As much as I reckon you need to back yourself... I think I've been aced once again by others... so wd to Sapiento, Immolate & Nolgroth...

[Gamerprinter]

My vote was almost identical to your, SG, except for Coyotemax instead of Ravs. While I did like Ravs map and his innovation of animating it, I think I would have much rather seen a Point A to Point B to Point C to Point D then back to Point A again as a trade route by ship is most often "circular" - kinda, sorta. Ravs just showed Point A to B, which was not enough. Still a great map however, but CM's just was a hair better for me.

GP

[mearrin69]

It was really hard to just pick three. Sapiento, Immolate, and Coyotemax. Roger was next in line but I was limited to three Those are in order of the the level of which these "grabbed" me - not indicating my assessment of quality or execution. Many of the ones I didn't mention wowed me from a technical perspective just the same.

Nice work, everyone!
M

[Immolate]

I've spent so much time mapping this month that I've barely had a chance to look at the other entries, much less do much constructive criticism. I'm going to study these for a bit before voting. I'll try to get my vote in by tonight. It didn't seem as hard to vote when I didn't know much.

[Coyotemax]

My votes cast from mexico (WOOO SEA TURTLES!) ..
I had to go with the ones that drew me in the most.
not that there was anything wrong with any of the others! Just went with the gut this time
I reviewed them before we left, and there don't appear to be any major changes that would have affected my votes. I'll go around repping everyone when i have a stable fast connection again

[Gidde]

Wow. Another great round of entries, and another hard time voting. What I find amazing is just how incredibly different all of these maps were. Each had such a unique style.

I ended up voting for:

Immolate: This is one of the most beautiful city maps I've ever seen, and the trade theme was executed beautifully in all of the signage for the businesses.

SteelGeneral: I really liked the icons in this one, the effect was awesome. Not to mention that it's also a gorgeous map in its own right.

Ascension: I really love this style. It's almost impressionistic.

All of the entries were really well done, and now I'm off to rep you all for some really great maps (and courage, considering I just chickened out of yet another challenge)

[gilgamec]

Gah! This month was even harder than last month's Challenge! Still, here goes:

1. Coyotemax, Gromet and Friends vs Caravan Raiders: A very nicely hand-drawn map, appropriate insets, amusing comments. Still, the move to actual dialogue through the notes didn't really work for me. Couldn't they just have, you know, talked to each other?

2. Immolate, Siete Torres: It was amazing watching this one come together in the WIP thread. Doing all of those shadows manually is just this side of crazy, I think, but the result is absolutely gorgeous. The biggest problem with it is in the section that's walled, but not in the castle area: part of this was the last stuff added, so perhaps the lack of polish is understandable, but the northern bits also seem to look eye-defyingly strange. The lack of a legend for the icons which lack text is also a bit annoying. Still, easily the most aesthetically attractive map of the Challenge.

3. Roger, Calgary, Post-Apocalypse: Well, I have to give props to my people, which is to say that I live in Calgary and find this one pretty funny. It's strange that the streets would so closely match the pre-apocalypse streets, but it's only been fifteen years, I suppose. Possibly too many in-jokes on this one, and I find it hard to believe that the malls would still be lootable fifteen years later, but still a winner for me.

Other maps I liked:

• There were a lot of maps which showed some large area, along with resources exported (and maybe imported) and trade routes. I have something of a problem with these, since I can't think of many actual "trade routes" in the real world, outside the Silk Road at least, which means that at the scale of these maps (regional or perhaps small continental), the "trade routes" don't make sense. The best of these is Sapiento's, both aesthetically and because it implies the existence of a rigid bureaucracy which might have predefined "trade routes". Ascension's entry is beautiful and doesn't include trade routes, but is pretty hard to read. Takota Basin is clean, but the trade routes can't be mistaken for roads, and are polylines to boot! Ever-Isle is pleasant to look at, but the routes are hard to see. Blacklemon67's entry could possibly be ... what, a smuggler's map? At any rate, it suffers from a mismatch of detail levels: routes have amusing names, there's a lot of countries shown (even inland), but cities have no names.
• There were a few maps showing one merchant's route. Isle of Eagles is an informative enough map, but it would have been nice to show the route of the merchant to go along with the journal fragments. Martian Milk Run is attractive and clever, but not especially informative. (Why take that particular east-west alternation, instead of alternating north-south?) A Merchantman's Tale is an interesting idea, and a really nice map, but unfinished.
• Neither of the space maps really worked for me; the two-dimensional arrangement of the planets in Sector Trade Lanes seemed arbitrary and unnecessary. (And really, would you need a trade summary for a research station with a few hundred people?) We're back to "trade routes" with Risky Business, but at least they fit the sci-fi setting; this map suffers from font mismatches and, worse, no real idea of how it would be used for navigation purposes.
• Finally, the Market Square. Very nice looking, but unlabeled it's not especially obvious that it's even a market square, much less what they sell. Yes, it's a battle map, but it still seems a little lifeless.

A great Challenge this month, though! Can it be pulled to three in a row?

[nolgroth]

My votes went to Immolate, Ascension and Shantedracule.

• I don't think I really need to heap any more praise on Siete Torres. I said enough in the thread itself.
• I really liked the watercolor effect on Ascension's Empire of the Son map. For some reason it drew me right in.
• And I have to admit that, while I think the Risky Business map could have been more refined, we need more science fiction themed maps around here. Shantedracule got my vote for taking that step.

I liked nearly all of the other maps for different reasons, but these stood out as the best to me. Kudos to the others that entered the contest.