Map Thread IX

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Heck, as far as I know, yours is the only series with simultaneous French, Austrian, and Prussian wanks

I have France and Prussia doing pretty good, but the Austrians have suffered for it.

[Abhakhazia]

Map Thread X should be coming up pretty soon.....

[Clandango]

Originally Posted by Beedok

I have France and Prussia doing pretty good, but the Austrians have suffered for it.

Are you refering to how the Swiss rump seems to retain Habsburg and how there is a surprising lack of purple over the gigantic European empire?

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Clandango

Are you refering to how the Swiss rump seems to retain Habsburg and how there is a surprising lack of purple over the gigantic European empire?

[Clandango]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Sorry, saw Mumby's map and misunderstood what was being referenced.

[Nietzsche]

Originally Posted by Krall

Ah yes, my lowest moment. Rather embarassing in retrospect - I would like to ask people to take note of this shining example of how *not* to critique maps.

...

Does this mean I have to get rid of the Krallsignal? ;_; that thing was expensive, too..

[Krall]

Originally Posted by Nietzsche

...

Does this mean I have to get rid of the Krallsignal? ;_; that thing was expensive, too..

Nah, just repurpose it. Need helpful advice on map-making? Krallsignal. Someone being prejudiced and needs to be taken down a peg in a distinctly logical yet non-combative manner? Krallsignal. Someone just has too much delicious triple chocolate ice cream with fudge? Krallsignal.

[Gryphon]

Originally Posted by Krall

Nah, just repurpose it. Need helpful advice on map-making? Krallsignal. Someone being prejudiced and needs to be taken down a peg in a distinctly logical yet non-combative manner? Krallsignal. Someone just has too much delicious triple chocolate ice cream with fudge? Krallsignal.

........

[Ares96]

Originally Posted by Gryphon

........

Don't forget the crepe pan being flipped.

[Ares96]

This here's an old idea of mine that fell on (mostly) deaf ears, proposed during the darkest days of the Map Thread back on page 149 of Map Thread VIII. I think it's worth bringing up again.

Originally Posted by Ares96

Seriously though, I could not agree more with you and Fenrir_Angerboda. It's time this thread became the glorious thing it was in the past, and not just a place for posting maps that aren't thought out or particularly well-made. I think the only way to do this is to provide some serious help to the people who make maps, because it is for them this thread exists.

So I now propose a great offensive, like the great Landshark Offensive of times long since past (it's just a couple of years ago, but that's eons by Internet standards) which liberated the Alien Space Bats and Magic forum from the spammers, wankers, trolls and all the others who infested it at that time, to liberate the Map Thread (and all other parts of the forums involving maps) from this recent wave of unexplained randomness.

Krall, the founder and Chairman of our most honourable and gentlemanly Honourable Gentlemen's Club has taken an important initiative (although it was completely independent from this appeal). He has namely started an HGC project known as the Grand Unified Illustration Ideal, which aims at providing higher qualities of maps, flags, posters, and all other illustrations on these glorious boards of Ian's. I now appeal to the better side of everyone who has a reputation for cartography or other graphic work. Go out and spread your knowledge to the whole world (or at least the whole of AH.com) in whatever way you find suitable; make tutorials, make true examples of all of your works, tutor someone of lesser skills who asks for it, and above all, make pushes for improvements among our new mapmakers at every turn.

A great way to improve your mapmaking skill is to enter a Map of the Fortnight challenge; another is to make a brief scenario and then try to map it, and a third good way is to study others' work. Last but not least (no, this is more like last but most); try as hard and well as you can. You learn little about mapmaking by sitting about looking at other maps; try to improve your skill actively by trial and error. Don't feel the need to post every try you make; I, for example, have many a map attempt that just sits on my hard drive doing nothing, and I've probably made something like a hundred attempts. Yet I think the number of maps I've actually posted is less than twenty.

So in summary, go out there! Help people make maps! Any good timeline will be severely hampered without maps; they help people see the political changes brought about by the events which the timeline, in everything from glowing narrative sentences to plain historical statements, may tell of. Cartography is a cornerstone of good AH. The Grand Unified Illustration Ideal is a good start, but we need to all take action is real change is to happen. Remember your past victories, AH.com! Remember CF.net and OTL.com! Remember Landshark and his great offensive!

Me, I'll be going to sleep now; it's almost three o'clock in the morning here. Sleep and food are the only things that should be allowed to interfere with our goal! For all you who wish to join in the offensive, join me at the HGC thread or write a PM to me; together we are strong!

[Krall]

Originally Posted by Gryphon

........

A bow tie's not really my style - I'm more of a cravat man - and neither's a top hat, really, though I do own a couple.

Perhaps just a big "K" instead? Although you might accidentally attract a few breakfast cereal salesmen who would like to inform you how hideously ugly, fat, disgusting, and generally unable to fit into those jeans you are until you eat their lightly toasted flakes of rice and wheat, at which point you'll visibly look no different, but will be magically able to fit into those jeans, thereby legitimising the whole endeavour.

Maybe just the historical Fitzmaurice coat of arms instead (Ermine, a Saltire sable)?

[Kaiphranos]

Originally Posted by Ares96

This here's an old idea of mine that fell on (mostly) deaf ears, proposed during the darkest days of the Map Thread back on page 149 of Map Thread VIII. I think it's worth bringing up again.

Those were dark days indeed, when the spectre of the Unholy one stalked the Map Thread, but perhaps Map Thread X will be the dawn of a new era in allohistorical cartography!

(Also, I've been idly thinking lately about initiating some sort of map contest--something to supplement, not replace, MotF. Not entirely sure what form it would take, but perhaps such a thing could be incorporated into the "Map Renaissance.")

[Krall]

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

Those were dark days indeed, when the spectre of the Unholy one stalked the Map Thread, but perhaps Map Thread X will be the dawn of a new era in allohistorical cartography!

Hmm, 'twould be prime time to get the GUII fully underway, wouldn't it?

Also, I'm delighted at the continued persistence of "allohistory" as a term - I'm glad Thande came up with that one.

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

(Also, I've been idly thinking lately about initiating some sort of map contest--something to supplement, not replace, MotF. Not entirely sure what form it would take, but perhaps such a thing could be incorporated into the "Map Renaissance.")

Well, it'd need to fill a niche that the MotF doesn't already cover. Some of the older map contests were longer, multi-round deals, with the winners of each round being put into a final contest to find the Winner of Winners - something like that would be cool. It'd also mean that someone couldn't enter in every round (otherwise they might win multiple rounds, and the final round would have less entrants), so it wouldn't pull away map-makers from the MotF contest permanently.

[Kaiphranos]

Originally Posted by Krall

Hmm, 'twould be prime time to get the GUII fully underway, wouldn't it?

Also, I'm delighted at the continued persistence of "allohistory" as a term - I'm glad Thande came up with that one.

Around here it can be handy to have an adjective meaning "of or concerning history not our own"...

Well, it'd need to fill a niche that the MotF doesn't already cover. Some of the older map contests were longer, multi-round deals, with the winners of each round being put into a final contest to find the Winner of Winners - something like that would be cool. It'd also mean that someone couldn't enter in every round (otherwise they might win multiple rounds, and the final round would have less entrants), so it wouldn't pull away map-makers from the MotF contest permanently.

I was actually thinking of going in the other direction--something shorter and with different mechanisms. Each round would have a "secret ingredient," might be a basemap, or a one-word theme ("Avars"; "railroads") or maybe some other sort of design element that can be expressed succinctly. It would only last for a week, and the winner (selected by vote) would pick the next secret ingredient. (Possibly I'd also set it up so the person who picked the "ingredient" can't enter that round.) The idea would be that you could toss one of these off pretty quickly and still have time to do MotF if you wanted--and it would encourage cartographers new and old to branch out and experiment.

At least, that would be the theory...

(What's the difference between theory and practice? Well, in theory there's no difference.)

[Transparent Blue]

Originally Posted by Future8

The first thing I remembered when I read this was, of course, this post.

That's exactly what I had in mind when I asked what happened to the real Krall.

Originally Posted by Krall

Perhaps just a big "K" instead? Although you might accidentally attract a few breakfast cereal salesmen who would like to inform you how hideously ugly, fat, disgusting, and generally unable to fit into those jeans you are until you eat their lightly toasted flakes of rice and wheat, at which point you'll visibly look no different, but will be magically able to fit into those jeans, thereby legitimising the whole endeavour.

What a coincidence! I made the very same thing after Kaiphranos's amazing responses (here and here). I never got to use it since then.

[imperialaquila]

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

Around here it can be handy to have an adjective meaning "of or concerning history not our own"...



I was actually thinking of going in the other direction--something shorter and with different mechanisms. Each round would have a "secret ingredient," might be a basemap, or a one-word theme ("Avars"; "railroads") or maybe some other sort of design element that can be expressed succinctly. It would only last for a week, and the winner (selected by vote) would pick the next secret ingredient. (Possibly I'd also set it up so the person who picked the "ingredient" can't enter that round.) The idea would be that you could toss one of these off pretty quickly and still have time to do MotF if you wanted--and it would encourage cartographers new and old to branch out and experiment.

At least, that would be the theory...

(What's the difference between theory and practice? Well, in theory there's no difference.)

Perhaps something specifically geared towards newcomers? The current MOTF can be very intimidating to newcomers, what with the high quality of routine submissions. Perhaps a 'minor league', so to speak, might be helpful?

[CaliBoy1990]

Originally Posted by imperialaquila

Perhaps something specifically geared towards newcomers? The current MOTF can be very intimidating to newcomers, what with the high quality of routine submissions. Perhaps a 'minor league', so to speak, might be helpful?

Not a bad idea, IMO.

[Jajax]

A little while ago I put up a map of a (very) successful New Netherlands, and this is another map from the same timeline, although set a while later. The POD is way back in the early 1600s.

[GodRaimundo]

Originally Posted by imperialaquila

Perhaps something specifically geared towards newcomers? The current MOTF can be very intimidating to newcomers, what with the high quality of routine submissions. Perhaps a 'minor league', so to speak, might be helpful?

Yes, the Cartographer's Guild has a 'Lite Mapping Challenge' running simultaneously to their actual challenge, and it seems to encourage a lot of newer users to engage in cartography in a competitive fashion. Admittedly, their contests run on a monthly/bimonthly basis, but I think this is a good idea that could bring some new blood to the MOTF challenge.

[Gryphon]

Originally Posted by Jajax

A little while ago I put up a map of a (very) successful New Netherlands, and this is another map from the same timeline, although set a while later. The POD is way back in the early 1600s.

I know this is rather irrelevant, but gawd Manicouagan is incredibly striking.