Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.

Moderator: Shannon V. OKeets

Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: Froonp
ORIGINAL: composer99

I find the white "Z"s rather hard to read on the clear terrain tiles. Maybe they should be a different colour, or as abj9562 suggests some sort of highlighting scheme be devised for the tutorials.
Steve, maybe you could show them what the "hex highlight" version looked like ?
Alas, I have no hex highlight version.
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: composer99

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: composer99

I find the white "Z"s rather hard to read on the clear terrain tiles. Maybe they should be a different colour, or as abj9562 suggests some sort of highlighting scheme be devised for the tutorials.
How about a smaller font and ZOC instead of Z? Would that help do you think?

Smaller font, "ZOC" instead of "Z" should both help. A colour other than white would also help. That would probably be sufficient. If the unit has ZOCs into adjacent hexes maybe also have arrows pointing into the hexes with the ZOC notifier at the pointy end?
Arrows would be preferrec but then the text should be aligned with the arrow, which is hard to do (even harder is to get it to look nice).

For this situation I think of font colors as basically two: dark and light. There is a lot going on in any screen shot of units on the map, and regardless of which color you select, there will be dark and light backgrounds against which it needs to be visible. So you are doomed whichever you choose.[:(] You point out that white on Clear is hard to read but that will be true for almost any light color (Clear is a composite of light colors). Dark/black against mountain hexes has the same problem.
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
User avatar
Froonp
Posts: 7998
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23 pm
Location: Marseilles, France
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
ORIGINAL: Froonp
ORIGINAL: composer99

I find the white "Z"s rather hard to read on the clear terrain tiles. Maybe they should be a different colour, or as abj9562 suggests some sort of highlighting scheme be devised for the tutorials.
Steve, maybe you could show them what the "hex highlight" version looked like ?
Alas, I have no hex highlight version.
It was this one, that I sent you in the first place.

Image
Attachments
Tutorial81Pat3a.jpg
Tutorial81Pat3a.jpg (116.07 KiB) Viewed 93 times
brian brian
Posts: 3191
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:39 pm

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by brian brian »

I think "ZoC" would be best, rather than shading. The example on the Rumanian front suffers from 'busyness' with so many units and ZoCs being shown at once, but really I think most people could get it all figured out once they made it this far.
User avatar
composer99
Posts: 2931
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:00 am
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by composer99 »

I think black would show up well even on the mountain hexes. I freely admit that I could be mistaken in that regard.
 
And now that I look at the pictures a bit more, I think maybe either arrows or the words are the way to go, but not both. As long as the tutorial says that the units have ZoCs into the hexes/over the hexsides they have arrows pointing into or "ZoC" in, it should be pretty clear.
~ Composer99
User avatar
Anendrue
Posts: 817
Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:26 pm

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Anendrue »

ORIGINAL: Froonp
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
ORIGINAL: Froonp


Steve, maybe you could show them what the "hex highlight" version looked like ?
Alas, I have no hex highlight version.
It was this one, that I sent you in the first place.

Image

I really like the hex highlight for ZOC presented here. For teaching and illustrative purposes it seems pretty clear.
Integrity is what you do when nobody is watching.
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: abj9562

ORIGINAL: Froonp
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Alas, I have no hex highlight version.
It was this one, that I sent you in the first place.

Image

I really like the hex highlight for ZOC presented here. For teaching and illustrative purposes it seems pretty clear.
It makes all the terrain look different.
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
User avatar
Froonp
Posts: 7998
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23 pm
Location: Marseilles, France
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
It makes all the terrain look different.
Yes, this is why I like it the least.
I prefer the white Z markers over the shaded one, and over the ZoC word, as ZoC is too long to stand confortable in all 6 places near the hexsides as I have placed the Z.
Toed
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 10:20 pm
Location: Sweden

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Toed »

I also like the clarity of the single Z. Perhaps you should add the Z showing control the the own hex for the units that also extend zoc to other hexes to avoid even the slightest risk of missunderstandings.
User avatar
JagdFlanker
Posts: 705
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 9:18 pm
Location: Halifax, Canada

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by JagdFlanker »

tried this for fun - looks ok, but doesn't look like it's any improvement.

the only other way i can think of is to have arrows coming the the moving units to a "stop sign" in any hex which is in the enemy ZOC, since that might have less clutter than just detailing every unit's ZOC

Image
Attachments
ZOC.jpg
ZOC.jpg (181.24 KiB) Viewed 95 times
User avatar
Froonp
Posts: 7998
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23 pm
Location: Marseilles, France
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader
tried this for fun - looks ok, but doesn't look like it's any improvement.
Looks good. I like that.
User avatar
composer99
Posts: 2931
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:00 am
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by composer99 »

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

tried this for fun - looks ok, but doesn't look like it's any improvement.

The picture you put in looks pretty good; one could probably do away with the shading in that example since it is no longer necessary information.
~ Composer99
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

tried this for fun - looks ok, but doesn't look like it's any improvement.

the only other way i can think of is to have arrows coming the the moving units to a "stop sign" in any hex which is in the enemy ZOC, since that might have less clutter than just detailing every unit's ZOC

Image
Very nice! Thanks![&o]

I really like:
- the shadowing of the ZOC since that makes it visible against all backgrounds.
- using ZOC instead of simply Z, since the normal abbreviation for zone of control is ZOC.
- the connecting lines, and I do not believe arrows are necessary - they are will not add any information but will increase clutter.
- the placement of ZOC in the center of the hex since the ZOC affects the entire hex.

Suggested improvements:

- I agree with Composer99 that the hex shading is unnecessary now.
- A single shadowed Z in the lower right corner of units that have a ZOC into their own hex (here that is every unit except the supply, air, and naval units).

And that (I think) will look terrific.[:)]

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
User avatar
Froonp
Posts: 7998
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23 pm
Location: Marseilles, France
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Very nice! Thanks![&o]

I really like:
- the shadowing of the ZOC since that makes it visible against all backgrounds.
- using ZOC instead of simply Z, since the normal abbreviation for zone of control is ZOC.
- the connecting lines, and I do not believe arrows are necessary - they are will not add any information but will increase clutter.
- the placement of ZOC in the center of the hex since the ZOC affects the entire hex.

Suggested improvements:

- I agree with Composer99 that the hex shading is unnecessary now.
- A single shadowed Z in the lower right corner of units that have a ZOC into their own hex (here that is every unit except the supply, air, and naval units).

And that (I think) will look terrific.[:)]
I'll try to reproduce that, if Flanker agrees.
User avatar
JagdFlanker
Posts: 705
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 9:18 pm
Location: Halifax, Canada

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by JagdFlanker »

the shading is still there only because i was too lazy to make my own fresh screenshot

also if i had thought of it it might be more straight-forward if the colour of 'ZOC' matched the unit - ie should be brown to match the brown of the russian unit

to demonstrate how ZOC resticts movement it still might be an idea to have a similer depiction of where a unit can move to except swap 'ZOC' with stop signs/red hexagons

reproduce away!
User avatar
Hortlund
Posts: 2162
Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2000 8:00 am

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Hortlund »

Write ZOC over that partisan-counter aswell
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close.
In its place we are entering a period of consequences..
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

Here is our current (final?) pass on tutorial page 8.1.

Image
Attachments
ZOC1162008.jpg
ZOC1162008.jpg (344.83 KiB) Viewed 91 times
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

And the comparable revision for 8.2.

Image
Attachments
ZOC2162008.jpg
ZOC2162008.jpg (319.1 KiB) Viewed 93 times
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

3rd and last in series. A new page for you to critique. Graphics by Patrice.

Image
Attachments
ZOC3162008.jpg
ZOC3162008.jpg (352.05 KiB) Viewed 92 times
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
User avatar
Anendrue
Posts: 817
Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:26 pm

RE: Tutorial #8 Zones of Control Hex Control & Stacking Limits

Post by Anendrue »

OMG This game looks more and more polished every day. Here we look at a tutorial and I salivate over the desire to crush minors under foot.
Integrity is what you do when nobody is watching.
Post Reply

Return to “World in Flames”