When we were playing the game last week, it occured to us all that some of the cards still look alike too much.

One of us turned in a set of livestock, when someone noticed a stone among the livestock. This was by accident and really made a bug on our game at that moment.

Besided that, I'm really a perfectionist
So I'm redoing all the trade cards for my own group.

offcourse, I'm willing to share these.

I appreciate all the work done on the commodities (I believe by busybody), but I still think I can improve.

my goal:

1. I won't change anything to the numbers, names, frames, and decorations. They're perfect I think. I'm only redoing the backgrounds.

2. keep the cards from looking plastic, modern, geometrical, thus going for a more ancient-natural look. Or at least realistic

3. try to create all different background, so that no mistakes are made.

4. try to make the background look like the trade good it states. (thus grain=grain and gemstones=gemstones)



Here is my first attempt. I leave it for now. This took me just a few hours, and I'm allready happy about the results.


Please react as you wish, to get the best results for all cards.

I'm first doing the advances, then the calamities, and this is 3rd place. I only made some overview of how they could look.

Tell me what you like, and what you don't. I won't be changing them for the next month or so, but maybe there are coming some good ideas along the way.


THEY ARE NOT DONE YET! THESE ARE JUST A FIRST ATTEMPT!















HINT: PRINT EM OUT! this way you can see the differences better, and the colours change. Anyway, when you want to use these cards, they will look they way YOU print em.

((snip))

That wasn't my work... the only thing I really did was give feedback and nitpick looking for stuff

Still, I like the direction you are going. When I printed out my last couple of sets of commodity cards, I ended up adding markings to a few commodities to help differeniate them (if I remember correctly, simple lines.)

With the originals, one of the difficulties (not that I'm complaining - the originals look great!) is that the DPI of the originals was a bit high, meaning that when printed, even on high-grade laser printers, lots of the fine detail was wasted, leading to some cards looking more like others than intended.

Though my method of making commodity cards might be a bit different than others. I take a very heavy cardstock (cover) and print one side, then the other. Then, cut the cards apart using the backs of the card as the template to cut.

The next time I do commodity cards, I may end up modifying them into standard playing card size, and use card sleaves (something you see with collectible card game supplies - M:tG for example.) One-sided printing, and cut based on the front image - and less worries about bleed through images.

Flo:
I like your new commodities as well, and will probably use them when you are done. However, I must say that I personally think the calamities are in a bigger need of a overhaul, and I'd like to finalize the advances before starting another big project. Are you sure you are not spreading yourself too thin atm...

Also noticing that some of the cards you have remade is much more "busy" than some of the cards you haven't remade (as much). Just thinking that some of the cards might look out-of-place if placed next to each other.

busybody:
The old commodities was at 300dpi. Most modern laser printers is 600dpi, so no details are lost. There are old 200dpi and 150dpi printers still in service in some places, but to my knowledge everything sold this century is 300dpi or more, so 200dpi printers isn't something we should take into consideration when creating the components.

BTW, I've two sets of trade cards. My older set is printed front and back on separate normal 80g paper and then glued on 1mm cardstock (no bleed through, but a bit to thick). My newer set I is printed only front at 150% size (200dpi) on normal 80g paper and put in M:tG sleeves in front of old worthless M:tG commons. The later generally works better. However, if I can get access to a printer supporting it without too much cost, my next set will be printed directly on 0.5mm cardboard, as the M:tG sleeves is a bit too slippery when stacked, and a bit too large to hold in your hand during trade.

Also, some comments on the individual cards

Quite a few cards should probably use the opposite foreground colour (black v.s. white).

Your Papyri card almost looks as if it where bleached papyri...

Your fish scale looks great, but please cut the artificial reflection. As my card is put in plastic sleeves they reflect quite enough without artificial help, thank you very much.

While I never liked the old "ice-cream-bulbs" Fruit card, your Fruit isn't much better, it's just an orange mess to me...

The Oil card doesn't feel like oil to me, I'd prefer the old "raw olive oil" over your "refined rapeseed oil".

The Wine looks plain ugly, but that might be the jpeg compression combined with the wrong foreground. Please use png, as that won't distort the images...

The Silver background isn't very "silvery", and the artificial reflections just don't cut it.

The red corners in the Jade card looks out of place, not well integrated with the rest of the background.

The Resin background looks more like gold to me that the Gold background...

The Gemstones background looks like oily water to me, and that black shadow is imho not very beautiful.

The Gold background seams a bit too busy.

P.S. I'm holding you to a much higher standard than the current cards here. Partly because a replacement is supposed to be better than what it replaces, and partly because I know you can do better, I've seen your advances...

My two (three)cents are these:

- make sure that either the color of each comodity is sufficiently different or (if there are not sufficient diferent colers) give each card a combination of two colors, the edge one color and the rest another (this might also be a good way to seperate the cards from the east and west stack, thus making it easier to sort the cards). alternatively you could give each a backgrould drawing.

- as mentioned above, if the idea is to seperate these cards in an east and west stack it would greatly help in the sorting if there was a different color border.

- specificaly with regard to tradecards of the same value, namely value 4 sugar and wool, value 6 lead and tin and value 9 pearls and ivory. For these the only difference seems to be the name. (note that all these comodities are present in the same amounts, whereas in advanced civilization there would be one more of one of the two comodities in a stack)

Evertjan van de Kaa

ps i think a special border to seperate east and west would be the best solution. in that case best would be to use a light and dark color as to make it also usable for color blind people

As I stated, I'm first redoing all the advances, then the calamities, and this is third place. Bu since these few new background took me e few hours, I allready set the start of the projet and to see how much work it is. Now people can react and discuss, so that when I start the project, a lot of that has allready been done (not by me)

for the advances: fact is, that they all look different, one with no text, other with a lot. As goes for credit symbols. THis can never be captured in a universal look. I guess we all have to settle for that. Even changing the fonts to a larger one for the lesser words will even increase the difference than decrease. Better accept that, or use the current ones.
Next week or so, i'm looking at all the remarks and fix them, and put another series of previews on the topic used for that, and then see, what else could improve.

Hi Evertjan and welcome to CivProject!
I see you joined a while ago, but didn't post anything until now. Hope you'll continue to contribute.


Well, as there is nowhere near 45 colours that is different from each other and still match each other graphically it's impossible to give each card different colours. That's why we are not using colours but images with different colours, gradients and textures as backgrounds. Flo is not changing this fact, only the images used.

Also, the edge of the cards must all be the same colour, as the colour of the edge of the cards often can bee seen from the back. Currently all cards have a white edge, and as Flo isn't changing the template (at least not yet) but only the images, that won't change (at the moment anyway).


For sorting between east and west we are already successfully using a small "E" or "W" below the first set-value-box. It is in the template, but for some reason (probably laziness) Flo didn't enable it in his sample images. You can download and look at the current commodities to see how it works.


First, you can't look at the commodities one stack at a time, as they'll all mix in your hands. Imho it's no worse if two fours looks a loot like each other that if a 4 and a 5 looks a lot like each other.
Secondly, I think Flo is doing a great job separating the images from each other, and while Sugar and Wool might be somewhat closer to each other in his version than the current version, they are far more different than the old "worst case scenario" of Sugar and Cotton.
Thirdly, the value and amount of the comodities won't change with this graphical change, the autorative source for this is the core rulebook. If there is any discrepancy between the rulebook and the cards (which there is in Flo's current version), it's an error on the cards. But as these sample images are only intended for us to get a feeling of how the end result will look, and not the final components intended for print, this doesn't matter at all.


Well, as explained above the edge must be the same for all cards, a border inside the edge is an alternative to the current E/W marker, if someone would create two nice looking relatively thin (max 2mm thick) border that is distinctively Mediterranean and "middle east" (with the old definition of "middle east", which means old Persia+India, and not the Arab world, which is the "near east", nor China and South-eastern Asia, which is the "far east").

And regarding colour-blind people, our standing "policy" (that I cooked up when redoing the counters and a colour blind person objected) is that all components must be usable by colour blind people, but not necessarily aesthetically pleasing for them. For the purpose of commodity cards, that only means that the contrast between the card name, main digit and E/W marker contra the background image must be sufficient for colour blind people (easily checked with greyscale images and the "Color Deficient Vision" display filter in the GIMP).

Good reminder though, I've got to run the new advancement card template through the filters, to make sure you can read the card name on the new background colours.

Well. AS I stated. this only was a first attempt of how the cards might look. THis only took me a few hours to see if it would work, and to show other people what I had in mind.

Please if you'd prefer another image for background, feel free to search for such photo and place it here, the more people serach, the better result!

I really believe, only half of this set of cards is looking right. for the other half we still have to search for a better option.


EvertJan: I think that different borders for east and west is a great solution. What do you think Jonno?

While my previous comments on the cards was from the top of my head, I've now systematically looked at all the cards, and compared them to the old ones, and this is what I've found:

1) The old Bone card looks much more "bony" to me, and I must say I like the texture of the old one better than your more generic texture.

2) I love your Clay, much better than the current one.

3) The changes in the Hides are subtle, but for the better.

4) The new colour for Ochre reminds me of snot, perhaps not the best choice...

5) I really like your Flax, but it's a bit too "photo realistic", something we decided a long time ago not to go with...

6) Your Furs are great!

7) Your Iron doesn't look like Iron to me, too orange. Overall I prefer the old one better, but you probably can do something even better.

As stated before, your Papyri suggestion looks almost bleached to me, otherwise good. A bit darker should do it.

9) Firstly, white foreground on your Stone background is a no-go, though I think I'd prefer a darker background rather than black foreground.

10) No change to the Wax I can see. So the only card I made myself has survived your first version at any rate

11) Don't like the "orangy" hue of your Ceramics very much, I think the old red/brow was much better. And in fact I think the old texture was better too...

12) The Fish card. What can I say. The old one looked like some sort of abomination from outer space, but the new one is far to "slimy" for my taste. Also a bit too "photo realistic" and I really don't like the artificial light reflection. Sorry, but to be candid, I can't really decide if the current one or your new background is worst. Certainly neither is any good...

13) As stated above, the old fruit is worse than your suggestion, but neither do I like this big blurry orange mess. Neither do I really like the light effect in the middle of the card...

14) Salt. As the old one completely lacked background, I have nothing to compare with. But your suggestion seams good enough to me, certainly better than the current nothing...

15) A bit too light for my taste, but otherwise great.

16) The structure of the Cotton card looks like cotton textiles, not like cotton. And we have another card named "Textiles"...

17) Just like the Flax card, your Grain card looks great, but is a bit top "photo realistic".

18) As stated before, your Oil suggestion is not very oily. In fact it is not very anything, except yellow. Additionally, I've always imagined it to be olive oil, which isn't quite yellow. Basically I prefer the old one...

19) A bit to "photo realistic", though a photo of what I have no clue. Certainly not Sugar. Modern medical pills perhaps...

20) Your Wool is great, except for the somewhat overdone light effect.

21) Your Glass is great.

22) As is your Lacquer.

23) And your Livestock. The greenish white at the bottom left could have another hue, but otherwise perfect.

24) Your Textiles is great, but as we are already overusing the while/yellow/light-orange/light-brown spectrum, it could be another colour. As blue is under-represented one could just as well use it.

25) As stated above, I think your Wine look horrid, basically a mess of black specks in a dark read field. I think that most of this is due to jpeg-artefacts, so I'd like to see an non-jpeg version before saying anything final, but as it's now, I don't approve. I also think that a white foreground colour is preferable.

26) Your Bronze looks like eroded old bronze, rather than brand new polished bronze that one would sell.

27) Your copper looks great

28) As does your lead

29) Not so your silver. Firstly, it's not very silvery, and the UFO-style light effects just distracts...

30) Nothing much different in your Tin, but I think I have a slight preference of the old one.

31) Your Herbs are great.

32) As is your Incense, though I question the choice of white foreground.

33) The specks of read in the Jade looks really out of place. Please remove/remake.

34) Your Resin looks great, except that it't too "photo realistic" and somewhat to "goldy"...

35) No change to Spice I see. That's OK, but personally I think Spice could use a remake. No idea of to what though...

36) Your Dye is a bit screamingly bright, and I think it could use a black foreground, but otherwise it's good.

37) Seams imagevenue has a server down, because I can't see your Gemstones. Will go back and edit this when I can.

38) Your Marble looks a bit too much like ordinary clay and/or stone. (not the cards, the reality). It's also way to dim and boring for such a high value card. Overall I prefer the old card, even though it doesn't look much like Marble, but I'm sure you can come up with something different...

39) Obsidian: Love it.

40) Your Tea is great. A bit dim and boring for a high-value-card, but that's true of the original as well...

41) Your Amber is a bit to bright, and reminds me of melted gold more than amber. Would be a great card, if it was but a bit darker in it's brightest regions, and used for Gold...

42) Your gold is a bit too jumbled, and decidedly out-of-focus. I like your Amber better (as Gold).

43) Your Ivory is good. A bit too gleaming though..

44) This image looks somewhat artificial, but otherwise decent. I think I prefer the old one if compared one-to-one, but the old one doesn't quite fit in with the rest of your new cards, so I'm a bit torn at this card...

45) Your silk looks great.

And I think that was it...

Yea, I know. But I thought I should start out hard, and see what you could come up with.


Well, as stated above, we don't want a "photo realistic" feel. That means, that we don't want it too feel like it is just a photograph of the item in question, we want it to be more abstract, like a feeling of "gold" rather than a gold item. That said, a zoomed in photo might very well be a good image, and the more people having good images to base things of, the better the result will be.


I agree with you there. Hopefully you'll now know what half I don't like, and we can see if it's the same half...


Sounds good, but then it should be a differently drawn border, not just another border colour, and the absolutely edge of the card (last mm or so) should still always be the same (currently plain white).

ok that's a huge list. I'll wait for some more reply on this.
Finally i make a complete list of what to do.

1. First I'll mark done for the images that are right.
2. Then I'll look for images that could easily have another colour than they have. As you mentioned, there are a lot of cards into white, brown, grey tint and some of the cards could easily have any other clour like SPICE for example. (though we have to part the original set, which will have to take a time to get used to) All I can say about this: Kill you darlings.

I agree when it comes to photorealistic ones. It should not be photos of the commodities. Though pix like wool and lacquer and Jade are nothing but unedited photo-close ups and I really like those.
Just a photo of a Flax plant won't do. So maybe it'll hav to be a compromise of cards with photo-closeups and cards with abtract colours.

Maybe just a blue or green tint with some sort of texture will do.

by the way Jonno, for Wax I could not find anything, that's why I didn;t change it. This one looks like carwax, though I think it should be beeswax. (I came by the current image on google by the way)
And yes, Oil is NOT earthoil but Olive oil. I'd really like to use an image that clearly looks like liquid. The same for cards like wine and maybe dye.

All I've done is typing the card into google and see what's provided. Sometimes I used a close up, sometime only the texture with a colour. (when there wasn't a good one)



Bronze and Iron:
I've made the mistake earlier on the calamities to show some erroded item (like parthenon and colloseum, which I've redone) when it really should be nothing but new clear and perfect items. Without actually thinking about it, I used erroded bronze and iron.


For general: I love the highlights on cards like Silver, Pearls, Fish, Jade and Amber. Only as long as it does not irritate. Sometimes it does.

For myself I printed out the cards not sorted on number but on colour (manually sorted). There I saw cards like spice, bone and ivory (which is bone) look so much alike that these hightlights (like pearls) could make the difference.

Sure thing, no hurry, both advances and calamities has higher priority...


No problems with that.


Looks like we agree fully on this point.


Yes, it will, if the texture looks (or at least feels) like "flax".


You are probably right, never thought of that.


How do you think I found it in the first place?


Personally I think the old Oil card looks like a oily liquid in approximately the right colour for olive oil, so if you don't find anything better, the current image is good enough. As for Dye, just dimming and/or darkening your current suggestion should be fine. Whine, however, needs something more...


Sound like a similar procedure like last time...


Actually, rusting Iron is no problem, this was before the time of stainless steel, so a bit rust is fine, as that is how it was traded. The same is not true for bronze though...


Some light effects, such as the ones on Amber, Glass and Salt, is fine, but I really hate artificial reflections. So here we have different opinions.


I suppose a subtle reflection (such as Pearls) is OK if necessary to differentiate cards, but that is as far as I'll go on that issue. Please avoid them if possible...

You are correct - most color lasers are now 300 to 600 dpi. However, that's for a single bit with limited color information. If you've got 32 bit color (16 million colors per bit), and each bit printed on the laser has 16 colors (cyan on or off, yellow on or off, magenta on or off, black on or off.), then the effective DPI is going to be less than 300 dpi when you print.

Even with that, the printer I was using had something called EFI, which was supposed to allow for greater variations of color (it's rated at 600x600x8)... though it's possible I didn't have the settings max'd out when I made those prints.

I must admit I wasn't aware that laser printers still wasn't as good at printing scalar amount of each colour as an inkjet printer, but doing some research it seams to still be the case (unless you want to pay $5999).

However, it's not quite as binary (on/off) as you make it sound like. Even most cheap colour laser printer from HP has "ImageREt", which gives many different hues of each toner at each dot. (I'm only looking at HP, due to everyone else's lack of official Linux drivers, but I assume competitors are competitive in all other aspects.)

"ImageREt 2400", with 4 hues per toner at 600dpi (256 colours at 600dpi or 65,536 colours at 300dpi) was introduced in the expensive models in 1998, and is now available in even the cheapest business models and some home models, priced at $224 and above.

I know that our source images have a potential 16,777,216 colours at 300dpi, but among the 65,536 colours you can print, at least one will be close enough that you won't see any difference with your bare eye.

And if you really want to get the best possible quality, there are better printers available. You can get a printer with "ImageREt 3600" with 16 hues per toner at 600dpi (65,536 colours at 600dpi or 16,777,216 at 300dpi) for $899, which isn't cheap, but still within the realm of possibilities for most people. You can even get a printer with "ImageREt 4800" with 256 hues per toner at 600dpi (4,294,967,296 colours at 600dpi or 1,099,511,627,776 colours at 300dpi), but that will cost you $5999...

So, while you are technically correct that not all printers from this decade have enough colours at 300dpi, I still don't think we should have to worry that 300dpi is "to high a resolution" for our components, as most printers are good enough, and if someone has one that isn't, it'll only cost him $224 to get one that is.

P.S. All my graphical components are printed on the student printer at my school, a HP Color LaserJet 3700 from 2005 that has ImageREt 2400, and I have never had any problems with too few colours or too low dpi.
It's limited memory (64MB) makes it choke if I send it too many graphical pages in a single document, but that is another matter entirely...

P.P.S Just as a fun anecdote: That LaserJet 3700 was introduced as a replacement for an older printer that broke when I printed page 45 out of the 48 pages that made up the mapboard for the first CivProject game ever I hosted (LinCon-05). As my private printer was broken (only printed B/W) I went to my parents place and printed the remaining 4 pages on their old InkJet, which didn't look nearly as good. On the other hand, that meant that for the next year, I had access to a much better printer.

I own a HP 990CXI since 2000 and I payed a lot of money for that. Still it outputs the best photorealistic images I've seen of deskjets.

What I want to try is, send you commodity cards to a photo-service that prints digital photos. Wondering how that looks.