Yes but naval warfare has no ram on front

Just for anyone possibly waiting... (it's been a while)

I have some stuff keeping me busy for a while, so I decided to not spend my free time on the tokens right now. First things first. Might take a month or so untill I continue designing again.

I'm playing two games of Civ this month and that's gotta work anyway.

How dare you work on anything other than the art
(yes, I'm joking at being a hypocrite)

There has been some discussion between me and Craig Johnson.

It's about copyright of the artwork for the advances and calamities.
It wasn't clear to him that all the pictures I drew for this project are copyrighted. He thought they were all free to use.



I haven't made a agreement with Jonno yet for allowing my artwork for this project and in what conditions.

I told Craig he can't use my artwork for his webshop. I told him to at least wait for this agreement before selling anything with my work.

He got mad and finally didn't want to be connected to this project anymore.

So he quit making tokens for this project too.


Right now I'm not drawing images for the tokens anymore. It's quit a job and I want to do it as a whole instead of taking it up part by part. I don't have time for it now. (not a lot of time. just little time everynow and then)




I'm thinking about creating tokens without a picture.

What do you think. Anyone?

19 different colors with the name of the nation on it.

It's less time consuming, and you don;thave to deal with copyright issues.

Choosing between new tokens with just color and name
and older tokens with color and a symbol
we (our group) will always take the older ones.
I just can't imagine to play without the symbols.

Best regards
Rico

Ofcourse but when you play more than 9 players you have to get yourself new and more important up to 18 different sets of tokens.

This project introduces new names for nations (like Carthage instead of Africa, Minoa instead of Crete)
Ofcourse you can play your old tokens for crete and saythey're called Minoa now or even use Asian tokens to play Carthage but it is limited. And that's your choice, we also have to think about provide the game to any new user who might not even own the original game.



Besides that you're dealing with copyright.
the current images are copyrighted and newer ones will be copyrighted too.
Unless you find someone that draws 19x3 images and which look great enough to use as well AND sings a contract that says they are free to use and free to sell you have to solve this.

That's why I thought of tokens like these


I made some preview images of what i mean.

Please read this topic: http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=523

If you are interested in new ideas about tokens.

The base for new tokens to me is to define colors.

A change in colors means a change on the mapboard. and a change in the player mats and the AST.


* For anyone that already printed the map, the tokens and the playermats and the AST this might suck, but I'm thinking about any new players.

* Besides: you gotta accept this game is still in progress and I'm trying to change things in effort for a final version.




I was discussing this with my cousin Gerart and we are working on a new mapboard now. As with any change I make, my first goal is to do it for my own game, without affecting anyone else. Still, I'm trying to get the best result, not the easiest. Therefore when a new mapboard is better in my opinion, I'll suggest to add this new mapboard to this project to replace any previous version.


The ideas for a new mapboard is linked to new tokens. As I took up the new design for the advances, teh images on the advances, the tradecards, and other details, this was the last part I didn't take any action to. Now I will.



Our idea for a new color scheme is based on the following:

When you divide the mapboard in two parts: West and East you can play either east or west in a max 9 player game or both in a 18 player game.

The original color schema is great and people are used to them. When you apply this to the westpart these colors most of the time don't interfere with the east part. Therefore an equal color scheme with slight adaptions from these colors would work great as well.

We like to take away the black and white colors as player colors to apply these to barbarians (black on white) and Pirates (white on black). This way they are easily distingissed from the player tokens.

now we are looking for the best color scheme for the tokens.



Please anyone who has any ideas on this, feel free to reply.

As Pirates are Cities and Barbarians token, they could easily have the
same color (but different size or shape). So one color would be free
for civilizations.


On the first glimpse I see 1 advantage and 1 disadvantage:

advantage: If all colors are repeated in the other part of the world
you could use the tokens of same color for the Imperial Variant.

disadvantage: Playing with more than 9 civilizations you have an
interacting of civilizations which are the same color.
-> Treachery, Civil War, ...


I think the main question must be: What are you/we doing this for?
If this is to design a product, you can think about new design and
18 different colors, even some special shaped tokens... whatever.

If it is for an "internet-project" only, with maybe a few groups around
the globe playing it, so I think it is not worth changing it.

Greetings
Rico

First I'm not thinking about 2 times 9 colors

but the first 9 colors for west and the second 9 that are adopted from the first 9.

something like:


dark blue (west) - ligthblue (east)
dark green (west) - light green (east)
dark brown (west) - light brown (east)

Or:

Lightblue tint 1 (West) - Lightblue tint 2 (East)


this way we get 18 different colors. It's not easy to get 18 different colors, but i'd rather make a system in this than randomly pick them.

Nations that are involved as little as possible get the most equal colors and nations invovled every now and then get the most distinguissed colors.

In other words. When you have the light blue assyria and light blue babylon next to eachother, that's not the best option. For west only, you'd better give Iberia light blue and assyria the other light blue.

Me and Gerart like to take up the color scheme as a whole to come to a better solution as we are taking up the map anyway. In the end it will be a better option than the current. For anyone wanting to play the current version, that's cool and up to them.



One example:

these are four different pinks and they are located next to eachother.






It might be a better option to divide these 4 colors over the mapboard.
or maybe to reduce it to 3 pinks and look for 1 other color:

like this:

I've created a quick dividion of the current color scheme.

it might be more optimal.

I agree totally!

Please seperate the three blue civilizations from each other!!

well there we go...

New distribution of colors would be perfect!
But still, please use artwork for tokens.

I just don't know where to get them from,
but maybe I will find the time to find some items
which where specific for each civilization and send
you some pictures. As I see your incredible
artwork for the civilization advances, maybe you
don't mind to draw some of the objects as token
artwork as an initial experiment.

I don't know if thats possible, I don't know how
much work it is, I don't know even if you are
willing to share this artwork with the project.
Anyway, I think artwork is necessary, especially
in night gaming situations sometimes two different
blue colors are just the same...

Well it never is useless to look for images.

But it does take some time and understanding for the right images.

It's easy to pick one, but it is very wrong to put the wrong item on a token.
It should be historically right.

If You are willing to take the time to look for images and a description with a motivation why this certain thing should be placed on the token, that would be great!

This was my original idea:
1. City: What was the most specific typical or famous building ever build by that civ.

2. Token: What was the most famous piece of art for this civ. It's impossible to look for male warrior for all 18 civs, so we'd better go for this option. ofcourse a male figurine could be an important piece of art for a certain civ.

2. Ship: look for a specific ship for that civ. Some civs didn't not have ships, we use neighbour civs for equal ships


For all images counts: Look for a mainly black/white image, but not nescesary. If I do the artwok, I think I'll redraw all images in a stylized version. But it makes it easier to look for a black/white image. (lineart)


I will work on the images when we have all 18x3 options. barbarian tokens and pirate cities are done already.

Until that time, I'd rather spend my time on defining colors and some rulebook corrections.



Nevertheless, I will create blank tokens with only civ names anyway, for the time being or for avoiding copyright issues when needed.