Map Thread/Discussion

[Diethe]

Map updated, now with a few roads.

[Schwerpunkt]

Roads look pretty cool. That said, I'm wondering if they'll look better with small circles instead of squares (I think it'd look a bit more natural to have the big circles connected by smaller circles). But that's a really minor change that may not be worth the hassle.

That said, I don't like the color of the water 'roads.' I don't think there's a sharp enough contrast between the blue and black oceans. What if we tried a bright white or bright red? And on the subject of coloring land roads, the roads sometimes become a little less visible when they're near forests and stuff (like with Caernag).

'Sha'q Sea' should be located a bit further north. I was thinking more like the same latitude as Reaver Sea.

Any idea what we're doing with the broken isle?

[Diethe]

Updated. Solution: Made the trees more greener and a bit brighter.

The sea routes well, not sure how to go about it but for now I guess it works as it acts as mere markers for routes anyway, not a big deal.

The Broken Isles are up to you later in the game. Proposition? MH? Another extra-dimensional apperance by some creature or person from another FF Game? Dunno.

[kablizzy]

I also like the way the roads look, but they are indeed tough to see in places.

[Diethe]

Ah, got a solution. Gonna make the outline of the roads not black but a darker version of the inside.

Anyway, UPDATED.

[Diethe]

UPDATED: Map is 96% Done. All it needs are overall staff feedback and a few names for a few water wilderness points.

[kablizzy]

I think I just creamed my pantaloons.

[Ilium]

I love it! Diethe that is amazing! If I could make one request, perhaps make a super simplified second map with no roads or other artwork, and keep only the names and locations of the cities and locales? I think some of the players might enjoy that option of clicking on a link below the main map and getting just an outline like that.

Also, I was working under the assumption that Ivalice, Ordalia and Romanda were not factions themselves. They only happened to be the three kingdoms that are taking place in this war. The players themselves would not be able to join these kingdoms specifically, only the factions that would be related to these kingdoms. Has that changed?


btw, Sha'q Sea?

[Diethe]

Not really Illium. Those kingdoms have 'subfactions' under them that are either joinable or not. Romanda has its REC, Ordallia has its two hosts and Lesalia has the Touten and the non-joinable Lionsguard. For simplicity's sake really at the same time those subfactions aren't that independent to be doing their own thing like the Touten (Being the king's goons).

Also, blank map finished. If only I knew how to make those interactive maps where you just click something to remove labels and stuff.

[Schwerpunkt]

Shaq is Arabic for 'kraken.' I guess we could change it to al-Ebiyeddah (Lindworm) Sea or something.

Anyway, the plan was always for the Dhalizun and R.E.C. to be joinable factions. That was decided way back. PCs will have less freedom in those factions (primarily because they're military arms) than they would in Ivalice, but I'd rather not simply forbid people from joining them (and, by extension, the relevant kingdom) without good reason.

I don't think there's any risk of them being stupidly popular. The Dhalizun have a significant religious element and the R.E.C. is very military; I doubt they're going to be as popular as, say, the Church, which will probably turn out fairly freeform by comparison.

The Touten, Lionguard, and Ghwarizun Host are not going to be joinable factions.

[Diethe]

Added a few descriptions to the factions.

[chrisnorcras]

Holy crap, sir... That is mind-blowingly awesome! Excellent work!

[Schwerpunkt]

And here's the really crappy fist draft of the eastern end of the continent.

i.imgur.com/yu5n6Xr.png

Basically, because Ordallia is wtfhuge (it's actually kind of compressed here because putting a country bigger than Russia in the middle of a map is kind of problematic), it basically has a bunch of vassal states on its border simply because it's so omnipresent and so overwhelming. Sort of how Cyprus and Rhodes have almost always been owned by whoever happened to occupy Anatolia and/or the Levant. Ordallia gets six vassals plus two more contested (with Jahara), sort of like how Armenia was constantly in contention between Persia and Rome.

Jahara itself was a traditional ally of Ordallia, then Ordallia achieved critical mass by gobbling up Rozarria and Jahara was like "oh hell no" and decided to go do its own thing. They maintain their independence primarily by virtue of the Jahara Canal (which their epic-level Geomancers created), which lets them tax the hell out of shipping and occupy an important economic position -- it's sort of like how Denmark so consistently managed to be a major power in spite of being itself kind of small.

The Zahra Confederacy is roughly equivalent to Rabanastre and Achades well over a thousand years in the future (and after they've been fully converted to Dhalin ad-Din. The Ordallia-Zahra schism broadly represents the Sunni-Shiite schism, I suppose.

The Orient occupies the territory that used to be everything between Eryut Village and Mt. Bur-Omisace. I figure that since the religion's become notably unimportant in our version of Ivalice, there's not much incentive to keep the mountain in its traditional form, so in this canon it's been occupied by the Oriental League (which, like feudal Japan, is primarily a bunch of warlords that hate each other almost as much as they hate foreigners).

The various vassal states (the Ordallian-dominated ones broadly being al-Khwasamiyyah (Khwasamia). The other two, along with Jahara and her dependencies, being broadly Jaharisayyah, should Ordallia ever get its act together long enough to conquer the place.

Who knows? Maybe we'll have a prop where people get to fight over the contested emirates. Or maybe ont.

Anyway, that's what I've hammered out so far.

[Diethe]

I was planning on making a sort of indian nation with a sort of cairn around the area where Jahara was supposed to be. Ever notice how the geomancer class seem to be merely cultural continuations of the Garif race and their tribal stuff? Little things like these, incorporated and merged with existing lores of both FF12 and FFT is a nice blend, dont you think? Heh.

I'll move the orient a bit farther, just a bit to have enough influence from Ordallia so yeah around Mt. Bur. Sort of a jungle-oriental-nation.

[Schwerpunkt]

I was planning on Jahara being vaguely Indian in influences (simply because "let's use a lot of vowels!" is totally a symptom of Indian kingdoms -- see Kharavela, Maratha, Halasi, Durrani, Apraca, and so forth. And that's not even touching Vijayanagara (modern day Karnataka, if that's any easier), which is such a nightmare to spell I had to look it up. So, yeah, Jahara is at least superficially similar to the vowel-loaded polities of India. I simply called it a Sultanate because that was extremely common in India (Delhi Sultanate, all five of the Deccan Sultanates, the Bahmani Sultanate...), which otherwise trended towards kingdoms and empires (empires, of course, also included Islamic ones -- like the Mughals, who pretended they were Persian despite coming from north of Afghanistan).

And "jungle-oriental-nation" works. I mean, that's Vietnam in a nutshell. I just guess we'll slather on more pseudo-Japanese because that's what people want/expect.

I also had an interesting idea about the Geomancer -- namely making him the in-world equivalent of a structural engineer. Ordallia will probably have the Imperial Geomancer Corps (I'll probably run 'Geomancer' through a transliterator six or seven times for something a bit more Arabic) that runs around and builds stuff. Like trenches full of spikes that the player gets to mindlessly throw himself at!