Skirmish map (4pl) - Kefalonia & Ithaka

[AtlasMapper]

Kefalonia & Ithaka are two Mediterranean islands, located on the west coast of the Greece, a bit in the south of the more famous Corfu island. The islands offer some beautiful insularian landscapes like this:

Spoiler

But the topography of the island is also nice to set up some game battles! Here are the islands (Kefalonia is the big one, Ithaka is the smaller one):

And here is my map:

The map is intended to be a skirmish map, with just a CC and a few units at start. Each player is located on the cities indicated on the map, Lixouri, Argostoli, Sami & Vathy. There are some main roads linking each players, situated in natural areas (at the bottom of mountains/valey, etc). Player 4 on Ithaka (Vathy) start on an isolated island, (so he should be left in peace for more time) but will need to move quite fastly in from of the island, because of a lack of space and resources on Ithaka.

The natural landscapes allow some nice games. Here are a few screenshots:

Spoiler

(***, I can't edit the screenshots..)

Edited March 28, 2016 by AtlasMapper
screenshots

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Favorite part of those islands:

[niektb]

You really need to do something with the environmental settings (copy Sporades Islands if you want a good starting point for nice looking Mediterranean islands).Also, if you need some texture painting inspiration make sure to check out Athens Triumphants

Spoiler

and it's download here: https://github.com/0ADMods/map_Athens_Triumphant

 

[AtlasMapper]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone: The pic you did post is actually not on Kefalonia nor Ithaka, but on another Island, Zakynthos.

Spoiler

But it is not far away, just a bit in the south.

@niektb: @niektb

 I already changed the environment settings, and I like them this way (here is the before/after comparison).

Spoiler

I am aware of the environment settings, I already used more cloudy settings on another map, and I plan to use some more different environment settings (night, dawn, etc) on some another projects I started. But I want to play on this island while in a sunny just starting afternoon (so, I selected the dedicated sky settings, and set up in a way I like). I don't want long shadows on it. I know you love to put some fog everywhere on maps, but it has not sense on this island. So no, I don't want to copy the Sporades islands settings on it. I don't find these settings nice. More especially, it is not because you or others decided that fog and sunset are the best environment settings for Sporades, and as this map is a Greek island, then every Greek islands should be foggy and under a sunset. I disagree.

Edited March 28, 2016 by AtlasMapper
fixed tag

[AtlasMapper]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone: the tags don't work anymore, can you tag @niektb if you see this message ?

Edit: Sorry, I finally fixed it.

Edited March 28, 2016 by AtlasMapper

[niektb]

I didn't say that you should exactly copy the Sporades Island settings (I said that you could use it as a good starting point), nor did I say that every Greek Island should be foggy and with a sunset. But the environmental settings are currently one the weaker spots in the aesthetics of the map IMHO and there are a lot of maps that do it better.

You also might want to increase the murkiness of the water a bit to hide the texture repetition on the deep corrals (or something that results in the same fix).

Geography looks nice, the terrain itself is a bit busy to the eye (because you use quite a lot of shrub textures) (but that's not necessarily a dealbreaker)

Edited March 28, 2016 by niektb

[AtlasMapper]

47 minutes ago, niektb said:

Geography looks nice

Thank you my Lord, but my Lord is too good with this humble pixel-mess maker.

48 minutes ago, niektb said:

the terrain itself is a bit busy to the eye

Thank you for this humility lesson, and for underlining the huge gap that separates my Lord's skills and the useless mapping tries from this humble time waster.

[niektb]

Look, if you don't want my feedback (which seems to be the case), say it directly. Then I'll stop giving feedback unless specifically asked. 

Edited March 28, 2016 by niektb

[AtlasMapper]

@niektb: Yes please. I think it is better this way, thank you.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

18 hours ago, AtlasMapper said:

The pic you did post is actually not on Kefalonia nor Ithaka, but on another Island, Zakynthos.

Oh, I forgot this one. Sorry. lol. Still... similar features probably along coasts?

[AtlasMapper]

Yes, islands are really close from each others, so there have lots of similarities. But you can usually get some more beautiful pics from Zakynthos islands, such as the one you posted. I did choose Kefalonia and Ithaka primarily because of the shorelines, landscapes, hills and narrowing that make we want to play battles there. But for some vacations, you're right I would probably like to visit Zakynthos