naah. I'm sorry I really don't like it. too chique.
For me it has nothing to do with "Mining" and "Military".
I really prefer fonts like Verdana.

Well, they are certainly not optimal right now, but as you say, reducing the size of the attributes box isn't good if we are to fit all game rule information there. Don't know what to do about it, so I assume it'll have to do.
On your example card I can only see three of symbols, but I can comment on them:
The multi-colour symbol: It's a bit massive compared to the other ones, should probably somewhat smaller.
The religion symbol is outside the bounds of the box, has to be somewhat smaller. Perhaps one could use spikes wit a somewhat wider base, and thus getting a slightly more massive centre anyway, but that might just look ugly, don't know. Just an idea.
The art symbol is smaller than the other, and has way to much white at it's base, should be somewhat enlarged.


OK, sounds great. But exactly what do you mean with "endless loop"? Do you mean that the right and left edges of the cards will fit together, or do you mean that you'll use a single background for 9 cards?

You see, if possible I'd love if one could take the individual cards and put any 9 next to each other and print. That way one can feasibly reprint just some cards (if the text changed on some in a later revision, or you are doing a variant with variant cards). Thus I'd prefer if they fit left-to-right and top-to-bottom before a single background for all 9 cards.


Very true...


Yes, they are very easily made, I'm just raising the issue, so we don't have to re-layout the cards to get them to match the tokens when we have done them...


I also think one should keep the amount of fonts to the minimum, while still having fonts that is suitable for their role. As there is more than one role for the fonts on the advancement cards the "minimum" might not be just one, I'm counting a total of 6 roles, though some (preferably as many as possible) of them might use the same fonts.

1. Advancement name
2. Advancement cost
3. Attributes text
4. Credits header
5. Specific credits text
6. Colour credits digits

Book Antiqua looks great on the main text, but imho it doesn't quite cut it for standalone digits, as they look out of place without any surrounding letters. Thus I'd use something else for cost and colour-credits.

Book Antiqua works for the specific credit, but I think the digits should look like the rest of the line (the advancement name) and not larger and bolder, as it is now.


You are right. Without the white outline you don't get the necessary contrast, and with it it's far to busy. Personally I think Verdana is to "plain" to be the header of the cards, but as I don't have a feasible alternative at this point, I'll shut up for now.

don;t worry. I'll first work on the cards, then on the printing template.

Ok. I spent some time on the credit symbols.

first problem was the size.

I changed the triangle from a equal triangle to a more flat one. This way the inner size can increase.




for the star, I just did not like fatter spikes. (that form should be banned everywhere, but that's personal)






So I tried a different form than a star. Finally I came to a star with more spikes and that really made me happy.
Now it became some sort of circle that should fit a digit.




I move the base of all so that the center holds the most surface of each symbol. This can only be the most optimal space for digits.



Then on the fact that it'll be put on a white background and the yellow just becomes invisible. At least beneath certains colors of electric light.
The current set of cards I use show almost no star.



That is why I added the stroked outline. And when I apply this to the star, I apply this to all symbols.

This is what you get.



You can click all pix to get a bigger view.

Something you can clearly see on the last two pictures is that the main filling of both the traingle and the star is still a problem.

for the triangle it's more to the bottom. I cannot simply move it upwards to make the bottom fit in the center. I can also not move the digit downwards for just that symbol. SO it will be outside of the top two lines.

For the star you can simply see the surface is still a bit smaller than the other five.

So, using these symbols, we get to the max by this way.

don't we?

I spent some more time on the rest of the card while my friends are judging and maybe editing the text I uploaded today.

I tested some more Fonts.

For both the title and the Cost I just got back to Mianadra GD.
It just isn't so modern, not so classic, not so chique. It's just everything in between and it doesn't irritate me. When looking at the original, wether it's just Arial or so, it's a bit different and that's something good I think.

for the attributes:
Looking at the amount of text that should fit in, I think a font like Times new Roman will be best. It isn't strange that the fonts is reguraly used for body text' It just reads easily. It can hold a lot more text than Book Antiqua.

When the input text is def. I try the some cards again, to see if TNR will do.

The title, cost and credit may be influencable by the way it looks, I believe for the attributes it's most important to easily read. It should not be too artistic.

So for the credits I tried Maianadra again just to keep the amount of different fonts smaller. Ofcourse there are other fotns possible, but as I said, I'd rather use one or two, maybe three different fonts.
I tried, bold, but it makes it more confusing.

Finally,

I made some examples of the cards using the latest font setting, and the latest text versions.

I picked the ones with the most words in the text.
I also tried different font sizes and line distances.

It's hard to all explain why I chose for each option, but the way I normally do this, is just adjusting unitll I'm satisfied.

I came to the conclusion that the best size is 3mm for font and 2,5mm for line distance.

Whenever (a few cards only) it all comes too narrow I adjust them separately to fit best. That'll be minimum 2,7mm for font and 2,2mm for line distance.

I choose not to make the text lager when a card has only one line of text. To get a general look, it should only have slight differences in that. Fact is, that ther is a lot of difference in the first place between number of words per card. That difference can never be reduced by using larger fonts for smaller texts.


Before I get to make all the cards, I'll wait for quick reply. First I'm going to work on the flavor text on the back, then doing the layout for the back (which won't be too difficult)

The best way of judging the cards is still to print em. After all they are not going to be used on a computer screen, but on paper cards.

Next saturday we're playing a 7-8 player game and I'm going to make a testing set to see how people comment on them.

As for a lot to read I edited the Flavor text for the back of the cards for the past few days.

Here I copypaste the results.
http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2562#2562

Whenever you read this and you find any mistakes, both historically and grammatically, please let me know.


For next saturday, I'm gonna put this on a few sets of test cards to play a game with 8 people for an nice testing.

Actually I've finished my testing set today.

I put all the cards on sheets of 9 cards (A4) and made the right documents for front and back. Did a good final check and went to my local Printshop.

There I noticed that they couldn't print straighter than my own deskjet when it comes to double sided printing.

Problem became that some texts were falling off if I did print that, so I decided to print 8 sets of 51 cards with only the front.

tomorrow I'm testing the cards in a 6-player game (2 cancels this week)
let's see what happens.

I allready noticed I should leave more space between the cards to make the cutting easier and to prevent text falling off.

I'll put an review here ofcourse!

OK, your latest examples looks great, with a few exceptions:

1. The text in the attributes box is still a mess at first glance. I really don't like when the letters in two rows overlap, as is the case for the y and f in the Mining text (first and second row) for example. I think there should be some more line height there. I even think proportionally more line height is worth a smaller text size on cards with lots of text.
While full line height probably isn't necessary, I'm thinking that a 10% reduction (rather than the current 16.7% to 18,5%) should suffice.

2. The white outline in the title sometimes overlap, some more letter spacing there wouldn't hurt.

3. I'm not sure we need the "Credits" heading. What do you think about dropping it, and then make the "XX to xxxx" text horizontally centred, and perhaps just a slight bit larger.

4. The more I look at it, the more I feel there is just too many spikes in the new religion symbol. While more than 5 spikes probably are feasible, I don't think 10 is...

5. The numbers on the tokens aren't quite vertically centred, they all seams to be slightly to far to the right.

Oh, and regarding matching front to back, my rule of thumb is that it must work with a 2mm offset in either direction. That means that there must be no frame at the back of the card, and nothing that will look out of place if not quite centred.
Leaving space between the cards won't help, as you don't want a white border on the front, you'll simple need some white padding at the back of the cards (inside the card dimensions).

well
we played em yesterday. We also found some things

I'm gonna put these findings here too, and then work on em

Been away for a few days.

Here's a list of what I should change on the lay-out of the cards. Maybe I forget something, I'll add that here later.

1. Create a larger outline around the cards. this makes the cards a little bigger, rather than decrease the box-sizes. (done)
2. Take a brighter background (done, it's marble now)
3. Make the text in the attributes-box easier to read
4. Create the best option in oultine/ no outline for each seperate colour in the title-box
5. Remove "Credits", move symbols to the left, and enlarge the specific credits.
6. Religion symbol, either switch back to original symbol or keep the current. (done, switched back)
7. Look for a way to avoid the five colour credit symbol
8. Adjust enlignment on each separate credit symbol. (done see below)
9. Remove the boxes form the flavor text
10. Add all new images and change the specific flavor text
11. One final check on all flavortext.

OK

The new lay-out for all advances in on a hold, untill the attributes for all advances are def. But when I was working on the creditlist, I came to the problem of the creditsymbols.

1. I tried out a 10-point star for religion, but we are switching back to a 5-point star.
2. We had some problems with the allignment.

Well let me tell you: there is NO way you can be satisfied on all options.



1. You can allign the symbols on eachother. This way, the numbers will be out of the objects sometimes. (e.g. for arts)



2. You can allign the numbers on eachother. This way, the symbols will be out of place sometimes.



3. So I first alligned all symbols to the bottom, and then nudged the numbers up or down to fit those symbols best.



4. And finally I nudged each symbol together with its number to allign best with all other symbols.




I believe, when working with this variety of symbols containing numbers, this is the best option there is.


The colour of the numbers: Black on colour is best. Except for the red and blue's. There a white number will be easier to read. If you prefer a general look, you should choos for all black on colour and accept that thsoe two colours are a bit harder to read (but not too difficult)

Then on the numbers within the credits. As mentioned above. There are some options for that.

I've made a few options.

Please let me know what you prefer, otherwise I'll choos one myself. For now I prefer option 5 with white outlines on black numbers and black outlines for the symbols.

Why? because this gets the best result for a general look of all five symbols.

option 1:
option 2:
option 3:
option 4:
option 5:

First, I do agree that the placement strategy nr. 4 is the best.

However, personally I prefer outlining option number 3, as it has the same outline colour for the symbols and the digits, and thus digits that do go outside of the symbols doesn't look like they break the border, they only bend it a little.

well, for me option 3 comes close to option 5. They are both a general look. I prefer that above the going for being best readable for each seperate card.

white digits on religion though is harder to read.

Almost even to me.
Let someone else break the tie in this.