Very nice. Guessing by the "zones" is it going to be a block game?

I wonder how useful the "fog of war" feature would be. Every Zulu block would simply represent another buttload of Zulus!

I like the textures. Nicely done. Pleasing to the eye.

I'm less enamoured with the font used for the province names. I'd prefer a more classical font like AUGUSTUS as I consider those more legible and more fitting.

My main beef with the map relates to the province borders being drowned out by the squiggly space connection lines. I think the provinces need to stand out more.

Personally I really like how the Hannibal map is done in this regard. Space connections are straight and province borders curved. A good contrast.

Furthermore, the busy nature of the space connections makes it harder to grasp the strategic situation. Straight or very smooth lines are imo the way to go. Same bothers me with the COM map as well, I have to admit.

This looks wonderful! Any preorder or release date info available?

Thanks, Barry! Working on the website this week... and settling on a printer hopefully by the end of the month. Then we should be able to pin down a release date... thanks for the interest!

Hi
Generally I love your maps, and the WTID board is glorious, albeit with a very big footprint, but I can't play Clash of Monarchs at all. The map has a series of chromatically similar greys, greens and browns on a like coloured background to depict nations, borders and areas, and the roads and tracks also use variants of the same palette. I agree it looks nice and eighteenth century but I'm mildly colour blind and this map throws me completely. In anything less than super bright light I just can't tell the borders/nations/roads apart.I played a session at Gencon Oz in Brisbane last week and gave up after a couple of hours of squinting at indistinguishable boxes.
I don't know if anyone else had had this problem, and I don't usually have any hassles with mapboard colours, so I thought it worth passing on to you.

Howard Posner

Well done indeed! I like the gritty look. Were it only for Alexander and this map, I think you'd be quickly becoming my favourite map artist.

Only changes I'd like to see changed:

- port symbols more visible
- tables more visible/readable (how about a semi-transparent background?)
- those tables etc. ought to have IMO a north-south orientation for consistency's sake and for equal usability for both sides
- yellow numbers box more medieval font & style
- How about a nice map border?
- small point: border of Aleppo entity ought to also be seen under Mosul box just as with the Edessa case
- Muslim and Frankish symbol look to my tastes a little to perfect, 3D-stylish, computery
- Can you bring back the Nile?

Visually nice (as far as any map can go that is merely the background for an abstract black-and-white graph), but having the type of location (mountains, desert) completely covered up when a piece is placed there is a bad idea and makes for endless shuffling during play as players want to make sure. Something should be done with the shading or shape of those boxes.

Latest version online here:

I like the new&improved map even better. Good choice of fonts and who doesn't love those period inset pictures and the Arabic calligraphy?

I think the roads also hit the sweet point. Not distractingly squiggly (as COM's are, to my mind), yet dented enough to give you that organic vibe.

Looks like you found a clever way to denote ports by putting the city name of ports into the surrounding sea and colouring the space border.

It appears that the game was streamlined since I last read the rules, as both desert and mountain spaces look the same. Good to have terrain difference highlighted outside the actual space border.

To use an American expression, I think you've hit a home run.

Looks great! I love the new turn track. How about for those four borders instead of red maybe use a darker yellow (like the crown icons) for the folks that have trouble with red-green color blindness?

Here's a comment thread on the game artwork : http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/134262

Very nice. It this is what the new version is going to look like, I think I'll add it to my P500 order!

Being ingnorant of how may previous printings there were, is the 2nd printing the newest/most up to date printing?

As far as I know, yes.

How about the Mongols? The Persian conguest of the Middle East? The Spanish in the New World? The Assyrians? Tamerlane? The Zulu conguest ot Southern Afirca? Ceasar's conguest of Gaul? The Vandals? The Aztec's consolidation of Central America? The list goes on and on, although I grant you that it is hard to top Alexander with any single individual.

Ha! I of course didn't mean to imply there were no other worthy topics, only that Alexander seems to be starting at the top of the list and all other conquerors to come in the series would be not quite at that level.

I can see where you'd be accused of liking browns too much, but that might serve well, over the course of staring at the map in a Berg-length game. This might be less visually distracting, when pondering your moves.

I wholeheartedly praise this map artwork. Well done. I just hope your other maps will turn out like this. This one does not suffer from drab brown and too great darkness. A balanced map which clearly conveys the game information.

Glad to please the critic! You're in luck, this is the first one already printed, and available from GMT.

I'm afraid the colour scheme and the satellite imagery doesn't work for me (aside from the rivers). I really like some of your other work, but this has IMO a highly anachronistic look.

Having different tastes if of course fine. Nonetheless, I hope your eventual map will still be to my liking.

Updated to latest version...

Thanks! I did the layouts but the illustrations on those are by Niko...

The actual map is much much better than the older pre-publication version I referred to in previous posts. Me likey.

Hm. No thoughts from anyone apparently. Really curious what people think on this particular experiment! Charts and all are done for this, too, you can see them along with a map close-up on my portfolio here: http://www.west2productions.com/Mapology/D1.htm

First, I'll never buy this, because I hate 2oth century wargames. Second, about the maps. I strongly prefer the version at your 'mapology' page over the version above. I think it looks better and will make the counters stand out more. The contrast in the version above is too high for a map that will be filled with tiny counters.
I'm so-so about the slightly different font in the Mapology version. The stain effect is very nice, but in 'Soviet at start', for example, it is very clear that the stains are part of the font file: all 't's have the same smoky stain at the top. That I don't like.

I think that the black writing on "red" is tough to read. The numbers in the CRT are hard to read, especially the "red on black" at the top. Making the background for the writing a cream color might make it easier to read, especially from across a table. You might keep it in theme by making the charts, tables, and explainations look like dispatches laid on a table. I like the "map" part of the map, but I'm not crazy about the font for the larger cities, I'd keep it like the smaller cities.

I liked your original, but honestly they are both fine. The map was what pushed my decision to preorder this over the edge.

I think that I would find the more conventional map easier to use, simply because it adheres to certain conventions from actual maps. The colouring in the alternate map carries no real information about the type of terrain - what type of surface does light green represent? This would require a mental "terrain key lookup" every time I move a piece. Sure, eventually one would get used to it.

The red cities framed in gray are hard to read - too little contrast there. That bit would not go away with greater length of play.

Great work!

I was sold on this due to the artwork.

Now if only all the other geeks would sign up for the pre-order so I can get a copy of it sooner!

-M

Thanks Michael! Preorder indeed!

I want this game even though I will never play it. Ever.

But I'm going to preorder it just to haver that map

Just so you know, a few changes since this pic: turn track in lower left has been replaced with a terrain key. A very subtle score track has been added to the border. The title block has moved from upper left to upper center.

Yet another fantastic map. Keep up the great work!

Thanks! This is still my favorite one, I think. The current draft has modifications for the better around the board edges, but the map part itself is largely unchanged: http://www.west2productions.com/Mapology/_NEW/MapA1.html